I have just completed my first ever pre-season of FM14! To my surprise, the patch 14.1.4 came just in time before I embark on the new season!
Transfer-ins
Transfer-outs
People will perhaps slam me for doing this but I off-loaded
Kagawa to Chelsea for 24 million pounds. I am looking to play 4-4-2 and I find
it hard to fit Kagawa in this system. He is too light weight to play in a
central midfield two and I have lots of wingers whom I was unwilling to offload
(Young and Zaha) as they are English. I also have four quality strikers in
Wazza, RVP, Chicharito and Welbs so I don’t need Kagawa upfront. Unable to play
him anywhere, I decided to offload him to our rivals as they were the only club
interested.
Anderson was off-loaded as I have too many central
midfielders at the club. Fabio was sold to free up space for young Luke Shaw.
Michael Keane was someone I wanted to keep hold of but he fell out with me over
contract issues. No player is bigger than the club and I decided to off-load
him. Other deadweights such as Amos, Macheda and Buttner were all off-loaded.
All in all, I only spent 1.59 million pounds and it was in line with my philosophy
of not splashing too much cash like Chelsea or City.Tactics
Attacking 4-4-2
As mentioned earlier, I am looking to play my team in a 4-4-2
formation which resembles that of the 98/99 treble winning team. The team
instructions were selected for the following reasons:
Pass Into Space and Higher Tempo: I dislike watching
patient, controlled football with playmakers pulling the strings behind a lone
striker. I prefer my team to force the issue, move the ball around quickly and make
through passes into space.
Play Wider: I want my team to play high up the pitch with
direct wingers supporting two out and out strikers. (Beckham/Giggs/Blomqvist/Greening
supporting Cole/Yorke/Solskjaer/Sheringham) The wingers will hug their
respective lines and stretch the play wide.
Roam from Positions: I like to see lots of movement among my
players to confuse the opposition defence but this requires tremendous amount
of understanding among the players to cover every part of the pitch at all
times. Being labelled as title favourites, I would like to think that the United
players have the tactical discipline to do that.
Hassle Opponents and Use Tighter Marking: I want my players
to get into their opponents’ faces and press them high up the pitch to unsettle
them before imposing our own game on them.
Work Ball into Box: This is just to discourage aimless long whacks
at goal from distance and hopefully create better chances through quick
interplays/crosses from wide areas.
Player Roles: The player roles were very much chosen to encourage
interplays as well as to ensure covering of positions all around the pitch. The
typical Stopper and Cover central defence partnership (Vidic and Rio) is favoured
to encourage the stopper to close the strikers down and reduce the time they
have on the ball while the covering defender waits to sweep out any impending
danger. Only one of the full-backs is on attack duty to encourage overlapping
past the winger on support duty.
A BWMs was chosen to ensure that we try and win the ball
high up the pitch. The DLPd offers cover in central midfield when the BWMs goes
tearing about the pitch. The front two is straight forward with the AFa playing higher up the pitch working the channels while the CFs drops deep to link the midfield and attack.
An alternative tactic was created for the tough away games
against bigger teams. In this counter-attacking tactic, the team is encouraged
to keep its shape and counter quickly when we regain ball possession. Stand Off
Opponents, Be More Disciplined and Play Narrower were chosen for shape
retention while Higher Tempo encourages quicker transition from defence to
attack. Work Ball into Box was chosen for similar reasons as mentioned in the
first tactic.
The back four were all given defend duties as their main
role in this tactic is to defend their territory. Both wingers were given
support duties to support the full-backs and double up on opposition’s wide
players. CMs was chosen instead of BWMs to discourage the aimless closing down
of the central midfielder and encourage two banks of four when defending. The
role of the front two remained the same.
Players' Instructions: The players’ instructions were left untouched with the
exception of the Goalkeeper. A sole tweak was made to encourage the goalkeeper
to look out for quick throws when in possession for quicker transition.
I have yet to test out the counter-attacking tactic but I have
used the 4-4-2 treble tactic in all of my pre-season games so far and it was
hugely encouraging.
Looking at the Community Shield game…
Wigan 1 - 3 Man United
It could have been much more comfortable if our strikers
were clinical enough. We created 7 clear cut chances but only managed to put
the ball in the back of the net three times. After an early opener by
Chicharito, Wigan equalized with a Ferdinand own goal after young full-back
Luke Shaw was skinned by Maloney down his flank. Thankfully, Chicharito pounced
again in the box to put us back in the lead and Fellaini put the result beyond any
doubt with a powerful effort from just inside the box. The treble tactic looked
solid enough as Wigan only had 4 shots all game while we had 29 in total. We also
had the majority of ball possession at 62% and remarkably, 18 corners to Wigan’s
none. I will certainly be looking to test out the two tactics further when the
season starts officially.
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With lots of love,
Beckham Plays FM
