First things first I must confess, I have lost some game-play 😦 The joys of messing around with Windows 8 before it’s really ready for use has meant that the inevitable has happened and I have had a crash… Not to worry though, sadly all I lost was an extra-time, second leg win away to QPR in the FA Cup (I coincidentally uploaded a goal from that match – see below or click through for a full HD upload) so hopefully the team will be able to pull off the same heroics again when I load up the game next.

Okay so maybe the title is a little premature but the first half of the season has gone surprisingly well!

It’s only January but we’re sitting comfortable enough in 3rd place with a decent shot at getting automatic promotion and at the worst we should be in with a run at the play-off drama come May.

We’ve had a great run of results with some pretty surprising ones on the way too… In fact if we were able to get results against the biggest teams we would have had a great chance at leading the league.

As you can see key losses against Derby and Brighton have cost us pretty dearly in the run for the title and a few late goals conceded have given away too many draws.

So how did we do it? We were only forecast for a mid-table finish this year and without making any major signings or squad overhaul we are sitting much higher than expected.

Well there were a couple of extra ‘In’s and ‘Out’s since the last blog post, most notably Edelino Camara and Alex Manninger. Manninger was bought in to replace Lee Camp who has been performing okay but he was definitely a weak link in the starting team (with a lowest rating of 2.5 stars according to my Assistant). Camara I’m hoping will be a star of the future. I spent a massive chunk of my budget on him and he has a potential of 4.5 stars (and to become a leading Premiership left-back according to my chief scout).

My squad was aging before I took over and all but 4 of my Transfers In were over the age of 30 so I certainly haven’t improved the average age of the squad yet. Hopefully next summer I will have gained promotion and there will be a decent budget for me to invest in some younger players to rejuvenate the squad a bit.

Now as you can see there haven’t really been any really big signings to change the clubs fortune (in fact Manninger and Camara only arrived at the start of this transfer window) so, apart from being a bit underrated at the start of the year, there must be something going right with the tactics.

Next week will include a full run down of all 3 tactics but beneath is a brief rundown of my most used defensive tactic, a flat 4-1-4-1.

I use this one mainly away from home and against the tougher opposition with somewhat mixed results. To be honest I think this is largely to do with my squad that I am trying to fit into this formation. My strength is in the middle of the park and this formation only uses 2 CMs but more importantly this formation needs a target-man and this is something I am severely lacking. My 2 main strikers (Sharp and Cox) are small weak and technical, the exact opposite of what’s needed this formation. I had tried to sign Yaya Sanogo at the start of the year (screenshot below) as his height, strength and heading ability make him the perfect candidate for this role.

A key to this formation is pressing whilst still holding some sort of defensive shape and then using the target-man as an outlet for the counter. In order to maintain this shape whilst still pressing it is essential to only press from the certain areas. In my formation I use the midfield line of 4 to press heavily with the DM and target man lightly pressing. The back 4 have low pressing and this makes sure there aren’t too many unnecessary gaps left at the back.

I have found this formation to be a pretty successful one over the years with FM and I just don’t think my squad is quite suited for it at the moment. The wide midfielders need to have enough pace to join the attack on the break and this is certainly not something I have in my squad at the moment (I have already aired my frustrations with Andy Reid’s lack of pace and overall talent in general really).

Below is a shot of my squads selection stats just in case you’re interested.

Okay so I think I better wrap it up here (I’d be stunned if anyone made it this far this week), next week I’ll give some further season updates (depending on how much time I get to play) and a more detailed look into my other 2 tactics.

If there’s anything anyone would like me to include on the next tactics blogs or if there’s any more info anyone wants on the league feel free to leave me a comment on here, send me a direct mail on Twitter ( @BashfocsFMStory ) or boards/reddit/facebook or wherever you saw this posted.

Oh and as a parting gift check out this screamer/fluke from Greg Halford, a near carbon-copy of the preseason goal he scored from around the same area too.