HELP! Trying to play like Barcelona 4-3-3

Hey everyone, I am currently in charge of AS Roma in my 3rd season.

I am trying to play like Barcelona (who isn't?) but I can't seem to play the silky football Barca play. In some games the team scores some beautiful goals but to hit high numbers consistently is what I have failed to do. So firstly how if Barcelona's tactics were to be implemented into FM would it look like?

I picked the 4-5-1 formation because the main difference between Football manager's defined 4-3-3 and 4-5-1 is the wide players in a 4-5-1 are literally on the wing whereas with the 4-3-3 the two wingers act as centre forwards.

Barcelona in real life:

Team Instructions: :

Mentality: Control

Passing Style: Shorter

Defensive Line: Push Up

Pressing Style: Press More

Crossing: Default

Tackling: Default

Time Wasting: Rarely

Counter Attack: Yes

Tight Marking: No

Player Instructions

Barcelona players on the left, Roma on the right

RB: Wing Back - Attack (Dani Alves) / (Marco Motta)

CB: Limited Defender - Cover (Puyol) /(Breno)

CB: Ball Playing Defender - Stopper (Pique)/ (Mexes)

LB: Full Back - Support (Maxwell)

DMC: Anchor Man - Defend (Toure) / (De Rossi)

CM: Deep Lying Playmaker - Support (Xavi) / (Moutinho)

CM: Advanced Playmaker - Attack (Iniesta) / (Gourcuff)

AMR: Inside Forward - Attack (Henry) / (Vucinic)

AML: Advanced Playmaker - Attack (Messi) / (Jovetic)

ST: Complete Striker - Attack (Ibrahimovic) / (Chamakh)

Up for debate however this is how I interpret Barca's system, as you can see it is very attacking, with only 4 players in the team with real defensive duties. Xavi and Iniesta are poor tacklers as is Alves and the rest of the attacking players Barca have.

When I attempt to implement the system, even though I am top of Serie A I find the two wide players Vucinic and Jovetic do not contribute enough goals or assists or generally contribute enough to the play. (Messi and Henry scored over 20 goals each last season!) They stay out wide and do not make forward runs inwards.

I tell them to cut in from wide areas but they will only do this when they have the ball, and subsequently only cut in in front of the defence and will not exchange passes with the central striker and make forward runs into the box.

Part of Barca's success is the interplay between the front 3. Messi and Eto had great link up play as did Henry and Eto and now Ibra and Messi.

Another problem is Gourcuff refuses to learn the PPM "Gets forward wherever possible" and only a select group of players have "Gets into opposition area" which you cannot teach! This would allow my players to overload into the box. Alexandre Song knows getting into the opposition area is helpful. Why is it not instinctive for attacking players?

Anyone have any ideas as to how to solve this problem?

Try in the tactics forum : http://community.sigames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18

You can usually get some helpfull good advice in there.

Yes people in the tactics fourm have better mknowledege of tactics ask them

perhaps Gourcuff wants to playmake deeper, as opposed to making breaking runs

Gourcuff's natural position is AMC, so he would be ineffective as a deep lying playmaker