Let me introduce you to the little brother of xG, Expected Assists (xG). Whereas xG tells you the likelihood of a goal being scored from a certain position Expected Assists tells you the likelihood of a goal being scored after receiving a pass. The two go hand in hand in real world football metrics, and there’s no reason why you can’t use them in FM20. We also add another metric to look at. There’s something to be learnt about where…
I pick up where I left off last time. Searching for the central striker role to complete my 3-4-3 Diamond formation. For this I will take a step back and look at the original inspiration for Louis van Gaal’s 3-4-3 formation. That is, Johan Cruyff and the Barcelona team of late 1980s and early 1990s. Also I will take a somewhat unorthodox approach to constructing my 3-4-3 Diamond Tactic. We will deconstruct the attacking formation by looking at defensive positioning….
Part 2 of Building a Total Football Club in FM20 It is not about how long you have the ball, it is what you do with it. When playing possession football, you should always have this mantra in mind. Although I am not one to obsess over getting high possession numbers. Of course it is always nice to see your team getting the higher possession %. I see it as proof that my players are imposing themselves on the opposition…
FM20 has a huge range of player traits to change, improve or occasionally disrupt your players behaviour on the pitch. In our last article we ran an experiment to see what impact ability had on certain striker traits like lobbing or rounding the keeper, and placing or powering in shots. It was a bit of a bust as we found that ability alone didn’t seem to have an effect. It was useful for partly busting myths about certain player traits…
Player Traits (or Player Preferred Moves – PPM’s as they used to be) can have a huge impact on your Football Manager experience. Just like in the real world, from the Premier League to non-league, in FM20 what a player prefers to do can change the way your tactics actually work. You might be telling your player to do one things, and they might be trying something completely different. Perhaps more importantly though the right moves or traits can change…
Martin Braithewaite was transferred to FC Barcelona last month. And his transfer sparked many a debate in world Football. Despite the La Liga having very particular rules about transfers, Barcelona were given the right to sign a replacement striker after Ousmane Dembele picked up a long-term injury. Overall, his sporadic transfer after Barcelona triggered the Leganes striker’s release clause sparked many a footballing fan up in debates on whether he would make the cut at the Blaugrana, and whether it…
After two seasons playing variations on the Allardyce 4-5-1 (4-3-3) system, I decided it was time for a change. Considering we had grossly overachieved with Red Star Wrexham and gotten into the Championship ahead of schedule, I am faced with the daunting prospect of avoiding relegation. Given that we’ve already mastered the dark arts of defensive, pragmatic, resultism football, where else could we go? How does a team of shithousers get even shithousier? After a few days of reflection, the…
As mentioned in my previous articles in this series, I wanted to achieve success playing pragmatic football. Considering we’ve taken Red Star Wrexham from the VNL to the Championship in just three seasons, pragmatism doesn’t quite cut it as a good description. To use a term attributed to our lord and saviour Big Sam, we can only call it one thing: Resultism. If pragmatism is the acceptance of who you are and making the best of what you’ve got, resultism…
This instalment of the Red Star Alliance series continues my current obsession with all things Sam Allardyce and outlines my FM Interpretation of a “greatest hits” (pun intended) album from his time at Bolton. These tactics were developed in conjunction with Big Sam’s Fantastic Four data metrics for my Red Star Wrexham save. Recreating IRL tactics is my preferred approach to FM. I watched Bolton matches from their most successful period (2003-2007) where they competed in Europe and made Cup Finals….
This article continues the Red Star Alliance experiment, an affiliation of community-owned clubs featuring Red Star Wrexham.