When I was “creating content” a little more regularly, there was a real sniffiness about using downloaded tactics. I was thinking about that earlier today as I finally reached my boredom threshold with Stafford Town and how we were playing.
Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t playing badly as such – not great, football in this division is much harder – but I had seen the moves 1000 times. I had seen us concede from a far post cross and header 1000 times. I had watched the same game over and over and over again.
Change was needed or I’d be starting a new save for sure.
As I have said before, I am no FM tactical genius. My finer moments in the game often start with taking someone else’s tactical approach and then tweaking it a bit as we go until we get to a point it doesn’t feel like a complete lie to call it my own.
And that’s what happens in professional football – there really are very few original ideas.
Chris Wilder starts doing overlapping central defenders – suddenly, everyone is doing it (and he didn’t do it first, I suspect, it’s just the one we know).
Pep does an inverted full-back – I kid you not, I had a manager about 30 years ago who asked me to go inside from right-back to mark their “one in the hole” when we had the ball.
Two up front, three at the back, 4-3-3, the Makelele position – football is full of copycatting and following the trends.
So, what would a manager who is struggling to be inspired do in the real world? He’d watch other teams play. He’d study their tactics and see what he can take from them. He’d talk to people. He’d get creative. He’d keep what he liked and remove what he didn’t.
And that’s what I have been doing (and it’s a bit bold shouting it out considering we’ve played one first-team match with this approach and one U21 game, both of which were victories).
Inspiration will evolve (hopefully) but right now I like the cut of the following jibs and I think by employing all three approaches I might be able to start playing the game in a way I’ve not played it since around FM15.
Approach #1 – Zapbulon’s Valencia
In an alternative reality, a manager known only as Zapbulon led Valencia to the La Liga title at the first time of asking. Naturally, this is of interest given their underdog status. Digging deeper, I like the fact it has three players in the DM position – shades of my Argentine Strikerless approach from years gone by. For me, this feels ideal for away games and tricky home matches.
Approach #2 – The Divine Ponytail
I’ve always got time for a Roberto Baggio nod, but this tactical philosophy seems to have taken Gateshead to the Premier League in record quick time.
It moves a DM into an AM position and the other two DMs into CM positions. Given the make-up of my midfield, I think we’d be able to flip to this during the game without too much having to change. But, generally, this feels like a more dominant putting your balls on the line approach and we’ll probably use it in all home games where I’d expect to win and if we need to try and chase from behind if we started the other way in games.
Approach #3 – The underdog
This has been sold as the ultimate underdog tactic by the excellent Josh Daly, and I’ll take it at face value.
I’ve used this twice in the last 10-15 of the games with a view to shutting the opposition out towards the end and we’ve not conceded and scored twice. That interests me – it’s probably not even that defensive but puts another CB into the mix.
The last FM week has taken me from “this is fizzling out, boo” to “hello, it’s fun playing with a striker and some wide players!”. And, because of my weird-ass way of training player positions, we actually have several players capable of playing in various positions.
One of my earliest “wow, that’s cool” coaching things was watching Terry Venables’ England and Louis Van Gaal’s Ajax and they way they would move between three or four at the back so easily. Shapes would change all the time and, being honest, on FM I have always been a “does that tactic work? Yes? Stick with that no matter what and just do it better” type.
This might be fun. It might also die fast.
So, where are we actually at?
We have 14 games to go and, somehow, we are clinging on to a playoff spot.
As expected, Stafford Rangers (up next) are right in the promotion mix and Bradford Park Avenue (knocked us out of the Trophy) are very, very good as well.
As you can see, annoyingly inconsistent. I’m amazed we are where we are.
The run-in will be interesting now.
Getting into the playoffs would be one hell of an achievement to be honest – especially given the last few days.
What else is going on in Staffs?
Chasetown look good to get promoted from the Midlands Prem.
Leek Town are back on track, in a playoff spot in the North West Counties.
Hednesford and Hanley are relatively meh in the Northern Premier D1W.
Tamworth are mediocre in National League North – 15th.
Port Vale have dropped to 4th in League Two.
Burton are 9th in League One.
Stoke, as you’d guess, are mid-table in the Champ.
Jobs-wise, everything seems stable – so the aim now is to finish the season strong at Evans Park!
