So after this latest season, these are the numbers for our players.
Special note to some of our most important players, for instance in terms of goals Daniel Powell was once again our top scorer with 18 goals this season. Followed by Rafa Jorda (16), Daniel Larsson (9), Dean Bowditch (9), Gary MacKenzie (4).
Passing wise, Luke Chadwick had 84% pass completion, followed by Daniel Larsson (83%), Michael Woods (83%), Jay Spearing (82%)
Tactics
So I finally decided to post my current tactic as it seemed to have started to work. After having a fairly slow start in the fall 2012, I ended up tweaking my previous tactic quite a bit to achieve a more effective strategy... Not only that, but I also learned last season that you need at least a couple of tactics in order to succeed. Using the same one all the time seems to cause the opposition to learn how your team plays. So basically I have this tactic trained up as well as another similar one, which I tend to use during easier games, as I don't feel it is quite as polished as this one.
First, let's look at the team instructions
My 4123 "carbon" strategy involves a Balanced philosophy, with an attacking strategy. Passing is set to shorter and creative freedom set to More disciplined. At this point, I just don't feel my team is quite as talented as I would like, therefore giving them too much freedom would probably be a bad idea. I may change that once I aquire a stronger side.
Closing down and Tackling are set to Default, but Marking is set to Zonal for the team. Despite that, I actually have individual instructions for a lot of my defensive players to Man Mark, and that's useful since my defense is not top tier, and they are also a bit on the slow side.
Crossing and Roaming are also set to default here. Aside from all that, you can see I have a few manual changes as well (by a few I mean a lot). My defensive line is set quite low, despite showing as normal. I do think this strategy works best using a deep defensive line. Width in this strategy is also important, and it needs to be set wide. If you observed the formation I use, I have quite a narrow midfield and setting them to wide, allows some more space for our midfielders to create with our full backs. We have our tempo set to slow, which has worked so far, however this may also be something I change over time. I often debate on increasing this setting because our team does seem a little too relaxed more of the time, but having players that don't have high score %passes does make me want to keep this setting for another season. Time wasting is set to the default low value, but as I mentioned, the team does seem to play a slow moving game, and often I feel that they waste a lot more time than they should.
The Focus of our passing is down both flanks, again this is so that midfielders and full backs are using the outter open areas to create chances, while leaving the middle relatively covered during counter attacks. This idea came from reading about other people's strategies, in this case especifically the grid system, where the OP did a similar thing with the midfield.
Finally, Counter attack is set to yes and Offside to No. Much like some of the stuff above, I may change offside to yes in time, once I feel my team can handle strategies like that.
Below are my individual settings for goalies and my defence. The goalie is pretty much set on defend with the only change being Closing down. Full backs are set on a more defensive stance, which may not seem intuitive since I have so few wide players, but it seems to be working so far, and this is obviously affected by my "attacking" mentality applied to the team.
My central defenders are slightly different from each other. Having the DCL play a Cover duty while the DCR plays a defensive duty. I tend to keep a strong CB on the left position just to make sure our defense stays strong throughout the game, including counter attacks.
My midfield is layed out below. Having my Defensive Midfielder on "defend" duty, man marking his area. Central midfielders have essentially the same assignment, but I just try to balance things by having always a more defensive player paired with at least one attack minded midfielder like de Falco or Mutzel.
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The Carbon tactice relies on having 3 strikers with slightly different instructions. Most teams play with 2 CBs and having the extra striker really helps put pressure on the opposition and tends to create more space for goals. Looking at the three, you see I have the poacher in the center, who will end up being the one with the most chances to score, paired with a Complete Forward (attack) which tends to be set for a good overall striker like Powell or MacDonald. This player is set to have a lot of creative freedom and will be almost playing a bit like a playmaker at the front. On the other side I have a Deep Lying forward set to attack as well, however this player will be set a bit more negatively and the main idea here is to have a far player on this side, such as Daniel Larsson who has 17 pace and was a great addition to the team this season. I may even change this position later, having a better and faster striker and setting up the Run From Deep setting to high so that this player acts a bit like a winger at the front, helping bring the ball up from midfield, and using speed to create crosses and other opportunities.
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