Pre-season done!

Hi readers,

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

 

I would like to first touch on the transfer-ins I made. United has a really huge squad with at least two players for every position except the right full-back position. Thus, Kyle Walker was bought from Spurs at 15 million pounds and considering that he’s currently one of the top two right-backs in the country, it was money well-spent. I was willing to fork out 25 million pounds Luke Shaw as I really want an English left-back to take over Evra when his stats start to deteriorate. Furthermore, this is exactly the kind of signing that I want to make on this save - young and English.  I now have 2 future English first-choice full-backs at the club and that pleases me a lot.

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. 

Counter-attacking 4-4-2

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.
 

Do follow me on twitter: beckham_fm
Like my facebook page: David Beckham FM

Subscribe to my youtube channel: David Beckham

 

And help share my blog around! I will be back with updates on my game/views on football real soon!

With lots of love,

Beckham Plays FM