I'm no tactics guru, but I have done my research in terms of tactics in FM and FML. After doing a lot of reading I was under the impression that success in FML is very much a matter of creating good tactics and knowing how to adapt your tactics to your opponent's. After trying that for a little while with some level of success I continued reading more about tactics around the web. After quite a bit of manipulation I finally found something that works for me. From my first two seasons in FML I feel like I have improved tremendously and much of that improvement is certainly due to tactics.
What I found out, at least for me, is that my team performs the best with a particular tactic, regardless of my oponent, their tactics/formation or the location of the match. It's not as simple as "submit team" and go watch TV but I definately don't find myself switching formations drastically or even other sliders during my matches.
I am of the opinion that you must build your team with a strategy in mind. I didn't think like that in my first season, mostly because I was looking for flexibility. I felt that since I was new to the game I would have to experiment a lot to start. It's a bit of a catch 22 really, I was new so I didn't have a preferred strategy, so I needed flexibility, however with flexibility comes inefficiency. Very bad but common scenario for starting managers, I think this is even something that would turn off a lot of new FML players.
Back from my tangent, I now believe the best way to get good results is to have an idea of what tactics you will use before you pick players. The formation I decided to use now is the 4321 or the Christmas tree formation as I like to call it, as well as the infamous 460 formation. The truth is 460 and 4321 are essentially the exact same formation, the only difference is that instead of using the lone striker from 4321, I use an attacking AMCC. This has a few implications, with the lone FC you should try to use a target man type player, ideally a tall, strong and with good control of the ball. On the other hand the 460 formation requires a strong offensive AMC, who will likely have to carry the ball a lot and will also have to work with the AMCR and AMCL quite a bit. The best players for that position would be players with good agility, dribbling, work rate and offensive attributes. I think work rate is more important in the 460 AMCC than the FC, since the FC will likely receive the ball further in the field, you don't need to have him go back to pick it up. It would work even better if your AMCL and AMCR have high team work attributes.
With all that in mind now you can understand why my 460 and 4321 formations are essentially the same with that exception. I do have another difference between the two, but it is irrelevant to my point though. My point being that I have a very consistent tactic I use for basically every game I play, and in my case it makes no sense for me to keep 3 strikers in my squad since I will likely never need more than one. This saves me money as I need less players and makes my tactic stronger as I can focus on getting players that will work inside my framework.
Finally, during matches I do sometimes make changes to my formation and tactics, but usually these are a result of what I believe to be an area I can exploit from my opponent or an area where my team is weak at the time. In summary, I would like to advise new managers to research and find out what formation you want to play. It's not a bad idea to pick something relatively flexible at first and start from there. One good first option would be the flat 451 which can actually be quite a good formation, or a 433, which is great but not as flexible in terms of what you need. I'm not going to lie, choosing one can be frustrating but I believe that achievement good results require you to pick your style of game and stick with it.
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