A change is as good as a rest by all accounts. After finally getting over my own stupidity of playing a third of a season whilst under the influence and therefore cocking up majorly I had a decision to make. Would I carry on at Hansa and look to rectify my mistakes or was it time to move on? I knew deep down that I couldn’t leave Hansa without further success as it would be a bit crappy to leave on a low after everything that has been achieved.
After knuckling down and deciding to stay I then decided that a change was needed. We were still playing (the albeit adapted version of) 4-1-4-1 that was set up in the third tier seven seasons ago. The tactic was developed to give a steady base with the protection in front of the back four and also a busy midfield relying on players getting forward. Since then the stature of the club and the quality of the players available has increased hugely yet we were still playing a fairly conservative formation. I decided to move out of my comfort zone and try something totally different.
Following a conversation with @Acidphire21 on twitter I decided to try a more attacking formation and change the style of play to be more expansive. Throughout most of my saves on all the FM incarnations I have leaned toward more conservative football and any success tends to be based on 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 wins rather than any thrashing. Obviously there have been the occasional big wins, but they are the exception rather than the norm. In five seasons in the Bundesliga we averaged 55 goals a season and conceded an average of 38 a season over the course of 34 games; 1.6 per game scored and 1.1 per game conceded. Whilst this was solid enough, I felt that a change was needed as teams were starting to defend tighter as our rep increased.
Last season we used this back up tactic as a means of getting more players up the field, but it wasn’t thought out and still has the hallmark of my conservatism with two DMs. It worked well but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the gap in midfield was too much.
Following the twitter conversation mentioned earlier I decided to mimic Acidphire21’s 4-2-3-1 which effectively meant pushing up the two DMs in to CM.
This kept some of the facets of our 4-1-4-1; namely the shorter passing, passing in to space, playing out of defence and hassling opponents. New to my approach was a lower tempo and playing higher up. Confession time now; I had never really changed the tempo option and before this didn’t understand the difference it would have. I will offer a comparison to the difference it has had for me in due course.
We also had a busy time in the transfer market with some tough calls made when it came to selling players. I am often over sentimental when it comes to retaining players longer than I should, and decided that a couple of offers that came in for some of our players were too good to turn down. The two standout departures were Mats Daelhi and Matty Cuff for £17.25m and £13m respectively. Daelhi was signed for a record fee of £2.5 prior to our first Bundesliga campaign five years ago although he was also with us during our 3.Liga years many moons ago. Daelhi was now 28 and whilst he had produced consistently he was also rather injury prone featuring in on 65% of the league games during his time at the club.
The second departure was that of Matty Cuff, the English defensive midfielder signed on a Bosman free from Chelsea two seasons ago. Whilst his stats were excellent he never really settled and the change in formation meant that whilst he could have been a useful squad player, £13m from Spurs was too much to turn down for a player signed on a free 24 months earlier.
The final major departure was a sad one as Ze Lucas left on a free after failing to agree terms. At 28 his agent was desperate to get him a final big pay day, but we aren’t in the business of giving 28 year old Brazilian’s five year deals on double wages here in East Germany.
The change in tactic meant that a decent deep lying playmaker to play in centre midfield was needed. Daelhi would have been the man but with £17.5m in the bank I managed to snap up Youri Tielemans on a free following the expiry of his contract at Benfica. Alas he proved to be a replacement for Daelhi on the treatment table more than he and I would have liked in his first season.
With Ze Lucas having left I also decided to bring in another striker, and once again it was a freebie in the form of the pompously named Brewster Spencer joining following his release from Manchester City. I was undecided but put it to the good folk of twitter and was convinced that he was worth a pop for nothing.
As usual, the day after the transfer window shut players started dropping like flies, with my main concern being the loss of Lamine Diallo, the fulcrum of the new formation at AMC. I decided to be clever and sign a 33 year old Lewis Holtby on a free, only to realise just after offering him a two year deal on more money than was sensible that he would be ineligible for league games as the registration window had closed. Oops.
So far it was a case of £30m banked and nothing spent on three replacements. It was either very shrewd or would turn out to be a disaster. Moving on to some actual (virtual) football, it was time to see how the new tactic worked out in preseason and what tweaks were needed. To coin an understatement, the results were pleasing.
We switched to the new tactic after the Zenit game and proceded to bang in 29 goals in seven games against some reasonable opposition. Happy with how things were panning out I decided to launch straight in to the league campaign. I was happy that the depth in the squad would allow me to rotate heavily for the Europa League and German Cup and still have a chance of progressing in them.
A very pleasing first half of the season saw us progress from the Europa League and left us in contention in the title race as well.
The January transfer window was a busy one, and one where I took advantage of one of the new features available in FM14. Two of my long term targets moved in to the final six months of their contracts and therefore became available on pre-contract agreements. Both of them were happy to sign for Rostock so were lined up to join in the summer at the end of their contracts. However, the new feature in question borrows something from eBay and has a “buy it now” option.
Thanks to this nifty option I picked up Wayne Edwards from Man City for £1.9m and Carlos Van Duijn from Olympiakos for £1.4m. Needless to say, when they both joined in January their prospective values had increased somewhat.
They were joined by someone who I may or may not have bought (for £700k) purely on the basis of his name…
What does warrant a mention is the vast increase in the spread of goals that the change in formation brought. Prior to this season our most prolific season in front of goal was the 2020/21 title winning season. Ze Lucas bagged 26 goals but was the only player to get in to double figures. With the new 4-2-3-1 both the AMR, AMC and AMR were weighing in with plenty of goals as well as Gentner up top. All four would end up in double figures for the season.
The reason for this was quite obvious; they were all much higher up the pitch than they were in the 4-1-4-1. Using the home league game against Bayern as a benchmark, the shots screen tells the story.
The left hand diagram shows shots from outside the box and also from angles were as the diagram on the right from this season shows a much more balanced approach with four goals coming from the six yard box.
The 4-1-4-1 lead to a large area of the pitch being empty even when going forward, and the fact that everyone apart from the CF had to make runs to support allowed the opposition time to get organised at the back, thus leaving us with the option of a long shot or losing possession as there is little support.
Following the switch to 4-2-3-1 we almost had an embarrassment of options as illustrated here. We had seven against seven including two front post options, and on this instance Kouame highlighted in red slotted home at the front post.
The second half of the season was an equally fruitful time for us, and as the business end of the season approached things were looking like this.
With three games to go things were very much in our hands, but it wasn’t certain as we were due to face Leverkusen, Dortmund and Frankfurt. This first two of these had potential to be tricky with Leverkusen in second place and Dortmund strong despite their league position.
We had the added bonus of being in both cups, although the Europa League looked a stretch too far as we lost 2-3 at home to Liverpool in the semi-final first leg following an 8th minute red card for my DLP (his third of the season the radgie!). The second leg gave us a shout as we were 2-1 up. In the 91st minute Kouame went and scored to make it 1-3 on the night and 4-5 on aggregate, sending us to the final.
In my excitement I just let the game play out and was spitting feathers when Liverpool scored in the 93rd minute to take the game to extra time. It wasn’t to be and we bowed out on penalties having never recovered from the late late equaliser.
Back to the league and happier times as we beat Leverkusen 1-0 to win the league as Bayern contrived to lose their game in hand.
Our previous league title campaign saw us finish with ten more points but this time round we bagged a mighty 84 goals as opposed to 68 in 2020/21. We did concede a hefty 49 this time round, 15 more than anyone else in the top four, but it was fun. For the first time in FM14 I had a side that was winning 6-1, 4-2, 3-0, 3-0 as opposed to narrow wins. It goes back to being a Newcastle fan under Keegan I think, happy to watch bonkers football (but with the bonus of actually winning stuff before anyone says it!).
The comparison between the goals scored in the two title winning campaigns tells a clear picture and makes for pleasant reading.
Whilst the new players performed well, that stars of the show were the wide men. Nioradze was signed on a free three seasons ago but never really suited the old formation whilst Kouame was signed from Poland as a cover option for Diallo who was playing on the right flank. He was given his chance in the new formation and repaid me with 23 goals and 13 assists and was complemented by Nioradze who weighed in with 16 goals and 21 assists.
Both featured in the best stats at the end of the year and Nioradze would have been even better if he hadn’t missed the last two months of the season through injury.
The final thing to look at is the German Cup which was my first trophy at the club five seasons ago. As mentioned earlier I had used it to give games to squad players, but things progressed well and we soon found ourselves in the semi finals against Bayern. 0-3 down at home after 34 minutes and things weren’t looking great, but the one thing we do have in us is goals…
I was pleasantly surprised to see second tier Paderborn would be our opponents in the final and things went to the form book as we secured a league and cup double.
After the drunken disaster of the previous campaign I am delighted to have got things back on track and regained the league title. Some tough choices lie ahead as some of our star players have some big money suitors and they are approaching the age where selling becomes an option. Kouame and Niorade are both 28 and both are being tracked by Bayern and Real. Those decision are for another day though, I aint done basking yet.
A final thanks has to go to Acidphire21 for sharing his 4-2-3-1 and feeding back to me during testing. He aint too bad for a mackem…
EDIT: As soon as I loaded up to continue the save after publishing this piece the bids started coming in for our players. £10.5m for CB Carlos Jansen from Spurs and £17.5m for Nhlakanipho Monareng from Porto.