(My 4-4-2 tactic at the bottom has been updated as of 21/11/14)

Let's be honest from the very get-go here, unless you have a limitless transerfund you're going to have to make do with what you've got for the first season. Unless of course you manage to do a good bit of business and really chop the existing squad to pieces, which seeing how this is a guide for new players I do not recommend.

So the first thing you'll want to do when familiarizing yourself with a new squad is to figure out who the stars are. This can be done by using your squad view and select Contract status.
Those who are Key/First Team/Rotation, are players you're either going to have to use or get rid of. If you let them rot on the bench/u21, you're very likely to end up with a player revolt on your hands.
These players aren't necessarily the best, or the ones you feel suit your style the best, but ignoring their status is quite likely to cause you some grief.


Now that we've done that, you need to find out what type of players you've got.
If you have an abundance of Wide players (Defender L/R, Mid/Attack Mid L/R, or Wing Back L/R) chances are you will want to play a wide tactic and exploit the flanks.
Take Chelsea as an example. There you'd have Hazard, Willian, Schurrle, Salah and Oscar, all whom are winger material. With such an attacking squad, you're going to want to play wide.
However, if you remove Salah and Schurrle, you're left with Hazard, Willian and Oscar, whom are very good at going through the center of the park, and you can choose to play more narrow.

You'd also have Matic, Mikel, Fabregas and Ramires at your disposial, meaning you'd have some very solid defensive midfielders.
Already it's becomming clear that this squad would fit seamlessly into a 4-2CM/DM-3AM-1ST formation.


You have one world class striker, one aging veteran, and one who's not the greatest but a fair backup.
Without buying another very expensive striker, you're going to want to play with just one or you'd really start having problems half way through the season.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE SQUAD DEPTH TO SUPPORT YOUR TACTIC.

If we move on towards Arsenal and look at their squad, you'll see that they are in much shorter supply than Chelsea, when it comes to defensive talent on the midfield.
This means that focusing on playing wide shouldn't be done to as big an extent as with Chelsea.

Why is this?
Because with a more frail midfield, you'll want to have more people there to compensate and not out wide. The lack of quality Defensive Midfielders, or Ballwinning Midfielders in Arsenal's squad means that if you spend too much of your manpower out wide, you'll probably be run ragged through the center of the park. Remember how Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit ruled the center of the park for Arsenal a decade ago? Well they've never truly been replaced and Arsenal has been suffering ever since.

It is my firm belief that in FM15, if you have a squad like Arsenal's, you'll want to play a narrow 4-3CM-3ST or 4-3CM-2AMC-1ST.


It is a very "gung-ho" squad with no real room for a Plan B, and a methodical quick attacking formation, moving the ball through the center of the park, is what's going to get you results.

Alternatively, you could play 4-3CM-2AM L/R, 1ST


Though in truth, you're probably better off crowding the center of the pitch and defend yourself by keeping possession of the ball, due to a lack of defensive talent.


I know that these are just two very specific examples, but it shows quite plainly how you have to evaluate the talent at your disposial.
For the first season you're going to want to tailor your tactic to fit your squad, not the other way around.
Once you have a season or two under your belt, it becomes much easier to adapt the squad to how you want to play.

Setting up your tactic can be done in 5 seconds flat, or you could spend hours perfecting it.
There's really no reason why a bog standard tactic can't work for you as long as you've got a squad that fits into it, but chances are sooner or later you're going to want to start tinkering with it.

I'm not going to make an endless wall of text explaining what every Team and Player instruction does, but I'm going to give you a quick insight on what the biggest concequenses can be.


Full Backs.
In most tactics Full Backs will be set to either Automatic or Support by default.
What Automatic means, is that the FB will play with the mindset that you set for the team. (Attacking/Defending).
This has a massive, MASSIVE, influence on the FB and can alone ruin a tactic entirely.

With an Attacking approach to your team, your FB is going to support every attack and advance, no matter how stupid a decision it may be. - If he is set to Automatic. Even with Support, he is going to run far, far, up the field.

If you're playing with an Attack/Control team setting, I very much advice you to set your FB to Defend.
Even then, he will support the midfield but you'll be much more prepared for counter attacks.

For some reason FM15 has the idea that you really want a double set of attacking wingers, when you choose an Attack/Controll team setting, and holds no regards for the fact that you will have a million crosses from the byline against you.

This could very well be the most important defensive setting you have.

Defensive Midfielders.
We all love them, the unsung heros, the watercarriers, the rock that let's your creative players run wild.
But wait a minute, there are settings for these guys that can make or break them.

If you use the position instruction for them to be just a Defensive Midfielder, with support or defend duty, you're going to be alright. But in most cases, what you want is either a Half-back or a Ballwinning Midfielder.
The pure DM setting will make the player too static, and he won't really go that far to either give cover to your FB or chase their playmaker.
The Half-back and BWM though, is often a much more lively player and will harrass them to a much greater extent.
You want him to break down their attacks and intercept loose balls, not just fill up a space they can play around.

Lastly, I do not advice anyone to use Anchor-man setting. This is only usefull if your Central Defenders are really bad and need the support. In most cases though, it's much better for the DM to close down and disrupt long before the ball reaches your line of defenders, especially if you are susceptible to longshots.

Midfielders
There's not much to say about these guys, other than that if you do not play with a DM, you will want at least one CM with a Ballwinning Midfielder (Defend) duty.
They are absolute beasts for giving you stability and recycle possession, playing without one just isn't very likely to give you desirable results.

Other then that, my favorite setting is to have one be a Deeplaying Playermaker (Support).
Gerrard/Lampard kind of player.
You can argue all you want, that this type of player has become redundant over the years, but I still find a great benefit to have a creative mind lurking between the halfway line and their box to support the attack, recieve backpasses and redistribute out wide etc.

This type of player is especially effective if you have a Deeplaying Forward who can connect with him, or a Trequartista who dances around their defensive line waiting to pass on a through ball or just pull a defender out of position and let the through ball slip through the gap made and to another striker.

Keep in mind that with only 1 striker, you're probably better off with an Advanced Playmaker to surge into the box. But if you, like me, prefer 2 strikers then a DLP will come in handy.

Wingers
There are two main styles to wingers, the Inside Forwards and the Wingers Support/Attack.
How you setup this depends entirely on how many Strikers you play with.

If you play with only one striker, you probably want Inside Forwards.
These guys cut inside near the penalty box and attack the goal from a 45 degree angle.
It's very usefull for filling up the box, but without support from your FB's, you're going to be playing quite narrow.

If you play with 2 strikers, you can leave them on Winger (Support) and the result is you have two players storming down to the byline, to supply crosses and support to your strikers.
With this setting, you don't really need an overlapping FB and you are much more solid in defense.
A Winger Support also contributes a lot more to the build up to the attack and in defence, than an Inside Forward does.

But if you already have strong DM's or BWM's taking care of the center of the park, there's no reason two IF's can't work for you, I just prefer to use Wingers.

Strikers
These guys are quite easy to manage. Have a well functioning system behind them, and just about any setting will work one way or another.

However, if you play with only 1 striker you probably want him to be an Advanced Forward (Diego Costa) or Target Man (Didier Drogba).
These guys can take care of business on their own and take great advantage of Inside Forwards blitzing into the box.

If you play with 2 strikers, you will want two different types. One Deeplaying Forward (Support) to connect with the midfielders and feed through balls, and one Advanced/Complete Forward to spearhead the attack, bag those goals and pull defenders out of position.
Example #1.
Deeplaying Forward: Raul.
Advanced Forward: Fernando Morientes.
Together they bagged 224 goals in 5 seasons for Real Madrid.

Example #2.
Deeplaying Forward/Trequartista: Alessandro Del Piero
Advanced Forward/Poacher: Filippo Inzaghi
Together they made Juventus nigh unstoppable.

Final words
These are things you want to keep in mind when buying players and setting up a tactic.
The most important thing is to not have similar players support one another, or you just get two players with the same weaknesses and strengths, giving you double of both instead of getting a more complete team.
Example: The English National team has for the last decade had two of the best Central Midfielders in the world, Gerrard and Lampard. They're both great at reading the game, great in attack, both are good at longshots, long passes and being at the right place at the right time.
But they're also slow, poor in defence, not very aggressive, not the best at recycling possession, etc etc. You get the idea. They just can not play well together.

Remember Mascherano + Gerrard? Makele/Essien + Lampard? Roy Keane + Paul Scholes? This is what you need to create a balanced team.
You can be as good as you want going forwards, but if you don't have the opposite type of player when the ball is comming towards your box, you're in trouble.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344825971

Updated as of 21/11/14. Link changed to new workshop item.

If you just want a plain old 4-4-2, or you don't know what's best for your squad, you can use this 4-4-2 I've made for my own savegame.

It's a well balanced tactic that will get you 5 attacking players, 9 defending, and 9 of them contribute to the transitional phase (everyone but the strikers)