Episode 58 – The First Proper Tactics One

This week George is sunning himself in Spain, so Ed is joined by FM Analysis and Shrewnaldo to try something ever so slightly different – a podcast about tactics.

The question of the week is all about the roles you’d use for your central midfielders in a 4-3-2-1 formation. Do you keep your formation defensive with a couple of conservative picks or go bold and throw in an attacking playmaker?

Lee talks about how the rest of the team can also alter the choices you make. And how actually a threesome is the most interesting strategy. Shrewnaldo suggests picturing what you want overall from the tactic and keeping up with the double pivot.

Ed wonders if inverted fullbacks get forward enough, and suggests that there might be a better way to implement something similar in a 4-4-2 system.

Then there’s all of this as well –

  • We talk about the benefits of a wrong-footed full back. Ed has some wingers and thinks that you don’t need them if you play that way.
  • Ed talks about falling onto a strategy in FM14 that has a huge gap but still manages to work remarkably well. He didn’t score very many goals though, unfortunately.
  • Shrewnaldo talks about symmetric or asymmetric formations and we have a good old chin wag about how the 4-3-2-1 can manage to be both at the same time. Which sounds a bit weird.
  • Ed then starts a discussion about how comprehensive highlights are pretty important if you want to get a handle on what’s going wrong. You need to play the game you’ve got, not the one you want.
  • Shrewnaldo talks about fine-tuning his target men with the analysis tab. And how much time it can take to pick things apart and figure out what’s going on.

There’s loads more as well, and you can listen to it all in the SoundCloud player below. Or, if you’d rather, head over to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast there.