Was playing pro clubs earlier and everyone of us had a solid start on weekend league and colllapsed in the second half of games. They're all better players than me and the general opinion was that they've tweaked the weekend league matchmaking this year. In FIFA 17, it was often incredibly easy in the back end of your fixtures, especially on a Sunday more often than not, but we all thought that maybe they changed things.
Also a discussion about formations and tactics led me to try the 352 after the pro clubs session. We've had talk about it in our chat the past couple of weeks, and one guy who was top ten on the those futhead leaderboards in FIFA 15, but has barely played since has started again this year. On the day of release, he was using 352 and raving about it. Had beaten Twitch streamers and Castro backed out against him so far and is possibly top 100 again whilst using it this year.

Since then have also seen rumblings on the forums about 352 and in our discussion, a couple of others have tried it and it works well if done right so chucked together a team from the Premier League using what I had in my club already. Might as well make use of the likes of Matic, Wanyama, Sanchez, Sakho and Matip, all of whom came out of rewards from last weekend.

The team ended up:

Giroud - Lacazette (loan)
Cazorla
Arnautovic - Phillips
Matic - Wanyama
Sanchez - Sakho - Matip
Fabianski

Won my first game 2-0 with both goals from Giroud, and the second game 4-0 with three for Giroud and the other by Lacazette. It felt very solid even though the opponents were playing 433(4) in the first and 41212(1) in the second. Ok, it was division 8, but the opponents both knew what they were doing, and the first one had 88 Ferdinand. There is definitely something in using this formation. It felt excellent in attack. Will stick with using this for a bit and see what happens. Also managed to maul the AI in squad battles on legendary 6-1 so attacking wise it could be very good. The typical crap style of a weekend league opponent will be the test. Wanyama and Matic were like a wall and were always available to receive the ball whilst attacking. Maybe Arnautovic and Phillips aren't ideal but I'm as ever every year, determined to find a way to at least compete with the typical cheap tactics. Last year I didn't even make the weekend league until the end of November, so plenty of time to try and figure stuff out.
The big man, little man combo worked well. Giroud holding it up and burying a few crosses shows promise for my liking of target men. Santi Cazorla also seems very good this year.