Mostly musings

I'm getting a bit fed up with how my team has been doing lately, and thought I'd go on here for some feedback. I've tried different versions for some time now, but it just doesn't seem like I'm going to get it done. I see that some of the most successful teams on my server seem to be playing a tight diamond in a pretty regular 4-4-2 which I think is dull as h*ll frankly and I don't think I'll try it.

I'm going with a tactic that I feel should be able to do well, but I can't really say it does. Not so far at least.

I'm playing a 3-2-2-3 or 3-2-3-2 with a tight back 3, two wide defensive midfielders a central pairing or trio depending on if I think I need to counter an opponent's centre.
I have (quite comfortably) the best squad at my level (3) but can't seem to get the results I need this season.

What should I do about general settings? I've gone for a defensive mentality, mixed focus of passing, pressuring on my own half, normal tackles, short passing, zonal marking and hitting teams on the break.

With my mostly superior squad, should I be looking to gain more possession and attacking by putting my mentality to attacking and no counterattacking unless I come across someone 'better' than me?

From what I've read, there is no "catch all" formation. However, there are well balanced formations like 4-4-2. I nearly always play 4-5-1V style, as it is both defensive and attacking. The AMs are good against anyone playing offside trap or have no wingers/wing backs, and the DMC is good against counter attacks and protects against AMCs (Most teams in my league play 4-4-2 narrow diamond, like in yours). Having 4 at the back means that you are capable of defending attacks from the wings and can handle 2-3 strikers. Most of the time I'm using just 1 ST, but I put 2 on if they have strong defence and weaker attack.

No, that's probably a good thing as it'd make the game a lot duller if there was something to win all. I'm just a bit frustrated that I'm not doing better. I'm a bit hung up on the tactic not working as I'm expecting it to. I'm having trouble referencing this game against anything though, if you've played FM you could usually work out a tactic that played to your team's strengths but I've been going at this for some time now trying to get a team together that work the way I expect.

I've shifted it slightly but I was expecting the 3 central defenders to be able to deal with any opponents top 2 or 3 in strikers.
I also expect the two wingbacks to be able to counter opponent's attacking wide players.
When playing a stronger opponent I usually try and flood the centre with a central 3 in midfield and 2 lone strikers that are 5-6 stars.

I can understand how a defensive mindset would isolate the two strikers, but when playing 3 central strikers against 2-3 defenders I can't see how they'll be held for 90 mins. Maybe I should've gone for long balls to get the counter attack started faster but I'm not sure how sensible the game mechanics are. From experience in older CMs you usually just lost possession that way.

In your experience, would you say wingbacks have trouble defending AMLs and AMRs? Does it matter much if the mentality is set to defensive or offensive when face with AML/Rs or ML/Rs?