Difficulty with tactics on new FM14?

Hi All

I have spent many hours trying to amend my tactics to get some results with Hull in the premier league. My ambition is to play a style between Brendan rogers Swansea days and AVBs current robust spurs team that hardly lets in goals.

I am Hull and have bought in a lot of good free/cheap players including Keisuke Honda, Zucculini and Radoslav Kovac. I have tried and tinkered with my tactics many times but seem to consonantly get battered. I tried to play 4-5-1 (with a DM and two CMs) in following roles: GK normal - 2 ball playing CBs - Wing backs support - regista - b2b midfielder - DLP/AP - inside forwards - poacher. This worked a charm on the last version and I found it to be a decent formula. I have tried to use wondertac 4-1-2-2-1 which got good reviews in the tactic section. However, it again does not work.

Despite having players ho suit the individual roles perfectly, and trying to change the individual player roles and touchline instructions to be more defensive, I have conceded 35 goals in 19 games and am lying in 18th.

Is it the case that I just have to compromise my philosophy because I am a relegation battling team? I would hate to revert to classic Stoke pump the ball long tactics. Or is it just that FM 14 is more difficult the master in terms of tactics? My friend has been having the same problems and has tried similar tactics with 3 different teams (Arsenal, Southampton, Swansea) who all play similar football.

Any advice would be good. I hope it is not the fact that this style of football is redundant in FM14!

I sympathise with you. I have been also having difficulty finding a decent tactic playing West Ham. By 'decent' I don't mean some trick tactic that fools the engine and lets you regularly beat top teams 4-0, I just mean something that is stable and usually produces something close to an expected result.

In my experiences so far 4-5-1 or 4-1-2-2-1 just don't work any more. In FM12 (I didn't play FM13) they were viable but DMC seems useless in FM14. Also none of the narrow tactics I have tried really work that well either ; narrow 4-1-2-1-2 and 4-2-3-1 control and slow possession bore you to death.

The closest I have come to finding something that works ok for a team that isn't one of the top 6 are these two......

Attacking/Fluid 4-2-4 FullBacks/Support, DC/Defend, BBM/S, DLP/D, AMLWinger/Attack, AMRWinger/Attack, Advanced Forward/Attack or any of TM, DLF, DefForward that suit your striker.
Team - play wider, higher tempo, exploit flanks, hassle opponents, more direct passing, get stuck in
Players - GK distribute to defender, Wingers cross from byline, play wider

It's fun to watch and you usually score more than you concede. It can beat top teams on a good day at home. But you will concede goals and sometimes you get slaughtered even by lesser teams if you don't play well.

Control/Rigid 4-2-3-1 WingBacks/Auto, DC/Defend, BBM/S, DLP/S, AMLDefensiveWinger/Support, AMRDefensiveWinger/Support, Enganche/Attack, DefensiveForward/Support
Team - more disciplined, stick to position, get stuck in, hassle, retain possession, play out of defence
Players - GK distribute to defender

I found this somewhere on the net as a Juventus tactic and it works good especially if you have an Enganche who has good finishing and a big strong striker. It seems to cut out a lot of the threat from the wings as your wingers track back more to help the defence. I played a whole season with it and came 7th as West Ham in 1st season which is pretty good as the team is really only a bottom mid-table quality. I usually won the games I was expected to win (or at least drew) and I only got totally slaughtered once.

Oh, finally, always use 'get stuck in' on FM14 for teams outside the top 6. It doesn't seem to make much difference to the cards you get and without it your team are pushovers.