You are correct with the assessment in this post: the traditional method for creating your own formations and individually moving players around, or reassigning them to a new position, has been removed from the game. Personally, the move by the EA organization to redesign the formations, tactics, and player instructions, is a backwards step in development, and am unaware of anyone who prefers this method over the one that has existed for the past twenty years. When conducting a Manager Career mode save with a lower or second/third/fourth tier club with limited squad players, and ostensibly no transfer budget after acquiring assistant coaches and youth scouts, creating a tactic with formations that conform to your squad players is overly difficult this year. While there is no alternative for the next ten months, hopefully, EA developers will realize what a mistake they have made, and reincorporate those longstanding functionalities in EA FC 26.