I always play with manual strategy. Usually, I have x on counter attack, square on Zone Press, and circle & triangle on formation A & B respectively.
In contrary to semi-auto, manual strategy gives you more control on your team stratgey. For example, I only need to activate counter attack strategy when I am defending a corner. This pushes my front line forward in the pitch waiting for a long ball from my defense or keeper. Later in the attack, I deactivate counter attack and activate zone press to allow my back line and center midfeild to push back behind the attack to defend early and bring the ball into play.
This is just an example. Another valid reason to do so is to switch to formation A or B when needed.