Let me start by saying FM-Britain are the ultimate authority for FM tactics. They have been around for a couple of years and have hundreds of in-depth articles to help you become a better manager. One of my personal favourite FM fansites!

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Tactic Guides & Tips

• How To Set Up A Back Four – This is one of the latest articles from FM-Britain and goes over some tips and techniques for setting up an effective back four in FM11.

• Match Preparation – Fellow blogger Vitaly from TrueFM talks us through match preparation in Football Manager 2011. This is quite a new feature in FM but Vitaly gives us some good tips!

• Intro to Formations and Tactics – An amazing guide over at FM-Base, it contains lots of information to help beginners and experienced players to understand the tactical side of FM.

• FM2011 Training Masterclass – This is the most in-depth guide to training I have seen. It is a great guide filled with tips on effective training and helped me understand training a lot more.

• Chalkboard Analysis – My good friend Thomas Levin from FM Pundit wrote a good guide on chalkboard analysis, a new feature in FM2011. Chalkboard analysis is a great way to improve your tactics!

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Tactic Downloads

• 4-3-2-1 Tactic – Vitaly is a respected FM blogger in the community and he decided to share his tactic with his blog readers. Lots of the comments are positive so it looks like it has good success.

• Tactical Theorems & Frameworks – This is a monster e-book from the guys over at FM-Britain. Although the latest one was written for FM2010, it all still applies to FM2011 so I definitely recommend it.

• Mr Hough Wingers Tactic - Yet again Mr Hough impresses us with his awesome tactics. Last year his tactics were downloaded over 50,000 times so it shows how popular they are!

• Ghost Tactic – Probably the most popular tactic of FM11 so far, this was posted over at the SI Games forums, I tested it myself for a while and had some great success with it.

• Ultimate FM Walkthrough Guide – This is a 132 page e-book for FM2011, although it’s not all about tactics, the tactic sections are awesome and go into lots of detail so check it out.

Let me start by saying without a doubt, FM-Britain are the top authority for Football Manager tactics, and pride themselves on this. They have some interesting articles and guides that will be featured in this post, and continue to write some in-depth tactic articles each week to help expand our knowledge. Definitely suggest you check it out!

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Tactic Guides and Tips

• How to play a Simple 4-4-2 – A good article at FM-Britain explaining to us how to play a 4-4-2 in FM2010, the most frequently played tactic in world football. 4-4-2 can be difficult to get right in Football Manager 2010 so this guide is of a big help.

• Tactical FAQ’s – The Away Stand isnt around anymore, hence why the design is a little messed up, but the tactic information on this is still valuable. It goes through the many problems us managers have, and how to solve them through our tactics. I’ve bookmarked it.

• Using Substitues Effectively –  FMPundit’s latest article focuses on a different aspect of tactics, and puts forward that substitutes are very important and can change your games. This is a good read and he also adds in how it can help develop youth players. Worth the read!

• Building your Defence: The Defensive Line – Another great article from FM-Britain, this time they focus on how you can tweak your tactics to create the ultimate defence and make sure the opposition have a difficult task of scoring.

• How to score from Corners – This is one of my own guides, but was very popular. It is a step by step tutorial showing you how to set up your tactics to have a better chance of scoring from corners.

• Player Preferred Moves – This is a mind-blowing guide by a member over at FM-Base. It covers the PPM’s by position and the pro’s and con’s of each one. It’s one of the most in-depth guides I have seen, Definitely recommend you check it out!

Of course, there is the ultimate guide to squad management, Communication and Psychological Warfare which I reviewed on the blog. It’s over 80 pages long with bonuses audio’s and was created by none other than the home of Football Manager tactics – FM-Britain.

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Tactic Downloads

• Tug’s Training – I think everybody knows what this is, but for those who don’t, its custom schedules created for each position.

• Mr Hough’s 4-3-3 – Downloaded over 40,000 times, this is the fan’s favourite tactic for Football Manager 2010.

• Tactical Theorems and Frameworks – For the last few years, this has been the most downloaded by the community, an amazing in-depth e-book to tactics in FM2010.

• JP Woody 4-3-2-1 – Created by a member at FM-Base, this has been downloaded 23,000 times and has had some great respones by the community.

• Dan’s Youth Schedules - Another member at FM-Base has created a set of training schedules to take your youths to the next level, check them out!

Have you came across any amazing tactic guides or download’s? Let me know and I will add them to the list!

Do you have any quick tactic tips you would like to share? Let us know!

FIRST ELEVEN

• GK: Radek Cerny
• DR: Peter Ramage
• DL:  Matthew Connolly
• DC: Kaspars Gorkss
• DC: Damion Stewart
• MR: Hogan Ephraim
• ML: Ákos Buzsáky
• MC: Martin Rowlands
• MC: Alejandro Faurlin
• FC: Tamás Priskin (On-loan)
• FC: Marcus Bent (On-loan)

SQUAD BREAKDOWN

You are given two competent keepers in Radek Cerny and on-loan Carl Ikeme, the area is not the squad’s finest, but Radek is certainly good enough to achieve great things with in the Championship. This may be an area some will want to spend on, but baring in mind most acquisitions will be useless in a season’s time if you accomplish promotion this is not completely necessary.

QPR’s defence features Matthew Connolly and Damion Stewart. Although I decided to go for two starting centre backs in my game there were still times I contemplated putting Stewart in my eleven. Peter Ramage can also do a job as right-back, playing on-loan Matt Hill on the left is also another option.

The midfield features the star; Ákos Buzsáky and an AM RLC he can fit in anywhere that needs strengthening across the line (apart from a holding position, perhaps.) After Ákos you have central midfielders Martin Rowlands and Alejandro Faurlin who can play together well – however, I think some strengthening could be done for assurance. There is a lack of quality in wingers at Q.P.R; on-loan Jay Simpson does not cut it and Lee Cook is average at best although it is conceded Hogan Ephraim can put performances in this is an area perhaps that needs work.

Lastly we have the striker force which, for me, was fairly simple aligning free transfer Gastón Fernández alongside on-loan Tamás Priskin. The partnership proved to be the key to my promotion at ease.

RECOMMENDED SIGNINGS

Gastón Fernández – AM / FC – Unattached – With top flight competition he’s a hard capture but managers must go out of their way to sign this player.

Nicolás Otamendi – DC – Vélez – The FM2010 fan favourite, this may seem unbelievable but ship off a few players that are surplus to requirements and he’s yours for £3.2m at the most.

Simon Poulsen – AML – AZ – The transfer-listed Danish international is an interesting option if you should decide to ship Hogan Ephraim off for the extra spending money.

Pichu Atienza – DC – At. Madrid – He is no stranger to players of the previous FM generations for me he was an inspiration at the back and lethal from set pieces. For £700k and the amount of improvement he has shown I’m not looking back.

Marco Verratti – AMC – Pescara – I had to wait till January to sign him for an inflated price however if he does want to come straight away you are getting a world class player for £300k.

And a few rough diamonds to think about:

Marc Muniesa – DC – Barcelona – For around £190k he is a must-buy.

Daniel Opare – D / WB R – Real Madrid – Promising youngster Opare is listed for £300k at the start of the game, he may not look like a starter but he can develop into a Premiership standard player.

*If there are any other good signings you can think of please feel free to make suggestions by commenting.

TACTICS

I’m very simple with my tactics, it just has always worked for me. I used a 4-4-2 system with the wingers pushed up into the respective attacking midfield positions like so:

I hope this guide helps you through promotion and if this is well-recieved I’ll do a follow up on how to stay up when you reach the big time. Good luck and thanks for reading.

NOTE: I have been notified that there are different versions of this tactic and the same one that have already been created. I would just like to say that I had absolutely no idea of any of these and have been working on this tactic for over a week now. I started off with something completely different and think I tried a total of 9 different set-ups until I got to this one. So fair enough, I will take no credit for this (not like I wanted credit anyway) but just to share with my blog readers to improve there results.

So far in my Barcelona save, Xavi has scored 8 goals from corners in just 7 games. You are wondering why Xavi is the one scoring, because most corner tactics have a tall DC heading them in the 6 yard box right? Not this one, this is definatley the ultimate corner tactic and this is how I set it up.

THE TACTIC

First you must Chose your corner taker (the person with the highest attribute for corners), and in advanced team instructions set your corners to penalty area. Now you need to set up the individual player instructions which will make your tactic work, select a players instructions, click advanced and near the bottom it will have two corner settings, we will be editing the attack instruction for all players. So, here is what I did:

Set my two full backs to ‘Stay Back’

Both Centre backs to ‘Challenge Keeper’

My 2 wingers to ‘Stand on Far Post’

My CM with the highest attributes for Long Shots, First Touch and Technique to ‘Lurk Outside Area’ – This player will be the one scoring your goals

Both of my strikers to ‘Near Post Flick-on’

You will notice that there is only 9 players, one of them is the keeper of course, and the other player will be the one taking the corners. It does not matter who you chose to do what, eg instead of having your 2 wingers on stand on far post, you could use your strikers or whatever. Also, the player does not have to be a CM to score goals, pick the player with the highest attributes for the one’s I mentioned above.

NOTE: If you decide to swap some players around, make sure you have the right number of players at each location. 2 players staying back, 2 players on challenge keeper, 2 players on stand on far post, 2 players near post flick on, and one player lurking outside the area.

The idea is that the opposition will be busy marking the players disrupting the keeper in the box, and will leave the player lurking outside the area unmarked. Here is an image of Xavi scoring a goal using this tactic.

As you can see, Xavi is unmarked, and because his long shots, technique and first touch are all good, he will score 9 times out of 10 in this set-up. Also Iniesta is getting a lot of assists of course which bumps up his average ratings.

DISCUSSION

I hope this tactic works for you, I am confident it will, and would love some comments from you telling me how it is going for you if you try it. If you have any questions or queries I will be happy to assist you and clear up any questions you have. So, have you used this tactic and how is it going for you?

Communication and Psychological Warfare ’10 is the ultimate squad management,  team talk & media guide for the Football Manager series. It’s packed with 77 pages of in-depth insight to Football Manager that you won’t find anywhere else, and whilst it was written towards the end of FM2010, I have re-read it and personally believe that all of the tips and advice still apply to Football Manager 2011 tactics.

After reading through the book over the last couple of days, it really has helped me understand the fact that it’s not only tactics that make your team a strong force, but interaction. I never pay attention to things like team talks but after reading through some of the chapter/sections it’s made been think a bit more about them. Of course my team has not won every game 50000-0 since the changes, because I am slowly putting them into effect and it will be long term strategic success.

Anyways, CPW’10 comes into three sections as you could have guessed from the title.

• Communication – Motivating your team through player interaction and team talks.
• Psychology - Man management skills and getting the best out of your players through there personalities.
• Warfare – Focusing on the media to give your team advantages, yep, Football Manager 2010 really is advanced.

I do have some slight criticism of the guide though, 77 pages is one hell of a long read and for people like me it can get difficult and really boring. However, despite this being my only bit of criticism, FM-Britain have worked with that in mind, and along with the guide are a series of audio files (over 2 hours worth). The audio files are ‘spoken’ (if thats the right word?) by two familiar voices Gareth Millward (Mille) and Jordan Cooper, hosts of the FM-Britain podcasts. So if you the prefer to skim the book and listen to the audio’s whilst your playing Football Manager 2010 then this really is for you in my opinion.

One of the best things about the book though is that it has been organised in a way that you can easily find what your looking for, by looking at the contents for a specific section of just using the search tool. This means that if your ever wondering about something or need some tips, you can open it up at any time and find what your looking for.

With 77 pages of in depth strategic FM hints and advice, Communication and Psychological Warfare ’10 really is the ultimate guide to Football Manager squad management.

Download It  Now![/button-red]

The Squad

The Juventus squad is one of the best in the world, and of course a top club in the Serie A. They have talent all across the pitch, however the squad is ageing and this is a big problem. Buffon, Grosso and Del Piero are three of the best players in the squad and all are well into there 30′s.  Some of the world’s best stars play there trade at the Olimpico including brazillian star Diego Ribas.

In my opinion, the star man in the squad is Alesandro Del Piero, a worldwide legend. His set pieces are second to none and the rest of his technical and mental attributes are just as good. He is getting on in life at 35 years of age, and his physical attributes represent this however the sheer quality of his technical stats make up for it. A player in the squad to look out for in the future is 19 year old starlet Fausto Rossi. Rossi is a young AML with bags of potential, and I recommend you set him up with his own training schedule to utilise this potential. Rossi is home bread in Italy, like Del Piero, and I think tutoring will be a good option to explore between these two.

Best XI

GK: Buffon
RB: Zebina
CB: Cannavaro/Legrottaglie
CB: Chiellini
LB: Grosso
MC: Sissoko
MC: Marchisio
MC: Felipe Melo
AMC: Diego
ST: Del Piero
ST: Amauri/Iaquinta

Transfer Dealings

The board gives you 10.5m for title challenge and 11.75m for winner, this does not give you much room for transfers but with a few sales you can build a large enough kitty. I think the best tactic is a 4-3-1-2 without wingers, and you can raise between 10-15m from the sale of Mauro Cameronaisi but it depends on the tactic your playing as he is a great winger. I think the RB position is very weak, so Darijo Srna is worth a shout, he will cost you about 10m and is not as good as he was on Football Manager 2009, but he is still an amazing attack wing back who will bring lots to the team. Rafinha is also a good suggestion but Schalke usually ask for ridiculous prices but if you can get him for reasonably cheap then do.

There isn’t really any other areas that need strengthening in the first season, but if you can I seriously suggest you buy Marek Hamsik, an amazing talented young midfielder who will do wonders for the team. He will cost you alot of money and asks for big wages, but he is seriously worth it. A little tip if to make an offer in installments over 48 months, but this means that your turnover each month will not be as good so you will be relying on competition wins etc so is up to you.

Tactics

As I stated earlier, I think the best tactic to play is a 4-3-1-2, and that’s 3 CM’s with an AMC. I think this tactic will do well as Juventus have a team of great passers, with 3 world class centre mids so the narrow tactic will suit them well. Against harder opposition, I would suggest bringing Sissoko back to the defensive midfielder to give your defence some support. Another option to consider is a flat 4-5-1 as you have Cameronasi and Giovinco who could do the job on the wings.

Hope this mini guide helped you, and if any of you decide to start managing Juventus or already are then comment on this post and let me know how your getting on

The Squad

The current Arsenal squad has a wealth of talent, and as you should know from real life, most of the players are still very young. In my opinion, having a young squad is great, but there are some dangers when it comes to their performances, they are still learning and maturing as players so be careful. The Arsenal squad does come with a couple of oldies in William Gallas, Manuel Almunia, and Silvestre. Sometimes keeping one or two oldies in the squad can be good for experience and to nurture the youngsters through player linking etc. There are many top players in the Arsenal squad good enough to play for any premiership side, these include Cesc Fabregas, Andrey Arshavin and Robin Van Persie.

In my opinion, the star of the squad is Cesc Fabregas, Im sure you know, but just in case you don’t he is a 22 CM, i highly recommend you hold onto him for ever and ever because he is irreplaceable(that’s what I think anyway). The youngster to watch out for is Jack Wilshere, home grown in England, the 17 year old centre mid has a great future ahead of him. Same position as Fabregas, and what I normally do when managing Arsenal is to get Fabregas to tutor young Jack. This will be great for Wilshere because Fabregas is very experienced and one of the best in the world in his position.

Best XI

GK: Manuel Almunia

DR: Bacary Sagna

DL: Gael Clichy

DC: William Gallas

DC: Thomas Vermaleen

MR: Andrey Arshavin

ML: Samir Nasri

MC: Cesc Fabregas

MC: Denilson

ST: Robin Van Persie

ST: Eduardo/Bendtner

Transfer Dealings

The board give you 29m for title challenge, and 31.5m for winner on patch 10.2, I would suggest picking one of these, I usually go for Title Challenge wherever I go. Although picking winner gets you slightly more money, you may regret it if you fail to win the league at the end of the season and the board lose confidence. Anyways, the Arsenal squad could do with some strengthening.

Defence: Manuel Almunia is a decent keeper, but nothing more. He will do for the first season as money is better spent elsewhere, but once you have finished season one i highly suggest bringing in an excellent young keeper such as Hugo Lloris or Rene Adler. I think the wing backs are fine in Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna however I would say a new centre back is needed to partner Gallas. Gallas is 32 when the game starts but his experience can be vital in the first season, I suggest selling him after the first season whilst you still can. My suggestion for a partner for William is Nicolas Otamendi, the young argie wonderkid. You can pick up Otamendi at the start of the game for around 4m, but be quick because lots of top clubs will be lusting after him.

The midfield is perfect in my opinion, you have a host of great players for every position, the weakness is Denilson in DM, but he will do for the first season as other areas are more of a priority. You have great cover for all positions especially on the wings with Nasri, Walcott, Arshavin, Rosicky and Van Persie(depending on where you want to play him).

The best striker at Arsenal is without a doubt Robin Van Persie(or RVP as I will commonly refer to him as). I see RVP as more of a support striker than a 30+ goal a season guy, but that is just my opinion. You have two other great strikers in Bendtner and Eduardo, however I usually buy a top class target man such as Edin Dzeko to partner RVP. This way I have two great strikers who play different roles and can combine together to speed me into success. Edin Dzeko can be purchased for around 20m which is cheap for such a powerful striker.

Tactics

The Arsenal squad is so versatile with players having the ability to play in a number of positions, you have a big choice of tactics to play. I usually play a 4-4-2 with Arsenal, and change the wingers from AMR and AML to MR and ML depending on who I am playing.  If it’s a big team then I will set my wingers to make more runs on the counter attack and help out when we are in possesion.

Other tactics that I have used and have worked well with Arsenal are 4-1-1-2-2(DM and CM, AMR, AML, 2 ST’s) and a 4-4-2 diamond.

Ok, I said it would be brief but went into a bit more detail once I got writing. I apologise for that but hope this guide helped you incase you fancied a go at Arsenal. Feel free to comment on this post with your experiences with Arsenal or if you have any questions I will be happy to answer them  My next post will be my pre season friendlies and transfer round up as I eagerly anticipate the first season.