Where am i going wrong with my 442?

i really have to play 442 with the players at my disposal, and i cant clear out the wingers because IRL we've just signed one.

i'm in preseason, having started a new save but have yet to score from open play. i dont really want to be unrealistic and bring in tooooo many marquee signings and wonder anyway if that will halt the malaise.

i have two similar tactics. the first is v.rigid philosophy which in the past has anyway bagged me goals, using a cover/stopper. again in previous saves they've cut out most threats.

the second is balanced philosophy using a libero/attack. i only use the libero in balanced because in v.rigid he wont venture forward, and my libero has good creativity and long shot ability so can be an additional attacking threat. although despite the description of libero/attack in the tactics screen he doesnt really get up to join the midfield which i dont understand.

in both systems i've got two wingers set on attack but with cross ball sometimes, i find through balls from the cm to be far more effective, and usually have one striker who can play a bit deeper and dribble past defenders.

my cm is a standard advanced playmaker and a ballwinner set to defend. he cant pass, he cant shoot but he can defend fo sho.

the advanced playmaker isnt making any decent killer balls despite good creativity/passing and tries killer balls often as a ppm. on top of this despite setting cut inside for both my strikers they seem to like going wide and arent in the position to receive killer balls into the box.

my two strikers are one poacher, and he has the attributes for it. good shot, anticipation, but poor dribbling. the other is complete forward and i'm trying out both attack and support duties.

i've never had this trouble attacking/scoring before and wonder where i might be going wrong??

What team are you? and What league are you in?

furthermore on balanced philospohy, where i've read duties dictate positioning, the opposition are getting in behind my back 4, despoite them all being set to defend. bizarre.

What team are you? and What league are you in?

aston villa, premirship. i've played 2 friendlies against lower rep teams and havent really come out on top. currently 2 down against defensor sporting who although, i've checked, have a squad rating similar to mine shouldnt be giving me the run around.

ok, my signings arent in because i'm not sure whether to play a cover which i'd go for joris mathijsen, or a libero which would be jan vertonghen.

i'm also going to bring in a new advanced playmaker on the cheap who has runs with ball through centre and tries killer balls often as ppms which should get him in positions for through balls to the forwards

i really dont want my strikers hanging out wide, they're no use to anyone there especially the one who cant dribble and whose sole move is to play the ball off the defender for a corner. not what i want

Well, the thing is that starting philosophy and duties only move sliders, so there's really no way for me to tell if your setup would work at all. I don't know what you mean with libero/attack. Is that an attacking midfielder? I thought liberos were positioned between the defense and the midfield, or even in the sweeper position.

If the opponents abuse the space behind your defenders, it is because you lose posession in areas which allows them to do so. This is most dangerous in the area between the defense and the midfield. If your defenders are set to defending duties and your midfield to attacking duties, there will be space in that area.

Post a screenshot of the tactic. That might be helpful.

libero/attack is a sweeper who's MEANT to help out in the midfield and attack duty means he is meant to roam further forward and take pot shots from range. at least that's SI's description, but my libero doesnt seem to get forward at all even on balanced philosophy.

i'm also playing very narrow now because i want the midfield to be able to easier get the ball to the advanced playmaker in the hope he can create something.

it's strange, i've used similar tactics in the past and won games. this time around everything seems so disjointed.

not all my midfield are set to attacking duties, i have a destroyer set to ballwinner/defend so he's meant to nullify the threat.

i'm not sure how to post a screenshot so that will have to wait until i've read more about how to do it:)

just sign up on Imageshack and use Paint.

Having a libero in a 4-4-2 sounds more than a little odd.

And I know loads of 'tactically enlightened' people will probably say 'oh loads of non British teams use liberos'. Yes I am well aware of this fact, however I don't believe many use them in a 4-4-2 system, which relies on simplicity and having 2 banks of 4.

well the libero is not a lot different that a cover DC he hangs slightly further back to sweep up thru balls but wld also get forward and help out the midfield. it may be a little unconventional but it does work, i've used it to great effect in the past.

however for this game i've gone for a standard stopper/cover as the cover defender i can buy has much greater anticipation and positioning to sweep up thru balls

my major problem for now is that i have a primary playmaker, an advanced playmaker playing in the CM position but he's not getting balls through to the front 2. and his creativity/passing is good enough. ok, he's playing in CM and cant dribble but he should still be getting into positions to play these thru balls and he isnt

Whats his 'Off the ball' rating? that signifies how good he is at getting into attacking positions.

Have a look at the match analysis and look at his passes, are they going astray? are they going short? long?

Is he often ahead of the play or behind the play?

his off the ball rating is 17!! and anticipation 16. i think he'd be more dangerous as an amc but it's hard to fit my team into a 4411 or 4231.

at the mo, possibly because of his poor dribbling, he isnt getting balls through to the front 2

To be honest with you, sweeper and cover Central defenders will not work properly in FM since they don't actually sweep or cover. I stopped using a cover/stopper setup because if the stopper missed an interception so that their forward was through on goal, the cover ran all the way to the 20 meter mark before trying to intercept and by then it was too late. This happened many times and cost me points, so I gave up on the whole idea of "sweeping". What happens when you play with a sweeper (I assume, never tried it) is that there will be lots of space on both sides of the sweeper, between and behind the single central defender and the two full backs/left and right central defenders - and the sweeper will not do much about it. Perhaps setting him to close down max and with a high attacking mentality would make him actually sweep more, but I wouldn't know for sure.

I have never managed to pull off playmaker roles in FM11 either, but I have seen others do it, as well as the AI. The important bit is that the passing style slider does not indicate the style of passing, as would be a logical conclusion, but rather the range of passing options! Imagine there is a circle around each player within which he looks for passes; the shorter the passing style, the smaller it is, and the longer the passing style the bigger the circle. Since longer passes require more creativity and passing skill to pull off, your poor passers should have a short passing style and your playmaker should have a longer passing style.

Also, I think a playmaker should have the "comes deep to get the ball", "tries killer balls often", "dictates tempo" PPM's. Just good creativity and passing and off the ball isn't enough. Another thing to think about is that the AI automatically ticks off all the OI's on your playmaker, so when he is a Central Midfielder, there's exactly 0,001 seconds from he receives the ball to they have three-four burly men stomping all over him. He would likely have more space and time to do his magic if he were placed in an attacking midfielder position or other position where there is more space (like wingers). You can also create more space for him with your tactical setup.

my major problem for now is that i have a primary playmaker, an advanced playmaker playing in the CM position but he's not getting balls through to the front 2. and his creativity/passing is good enough. ok, he's playing in CM and cant dribble but he should still be getting into positions to play these thru balls and he isnt

Is your advanced playmaker on attack or support duty? Have you considered making him a deep-lying playmaker on support duty? That role doesn't require dribbling skills, if I recall correctly.

You said in an earlier post, that both of your strikers are set to cut inside? Why on earth would you do that? It just means, that they will both run into the same area and take away space from each other. It might also be the reason, your playmaker is not making killer passes: both of his targets are running into the middle and a through-ball there is easily picked up by the opposition CBs. I suggest that you set the other striker to run into channels. Your wingers should already be hugging the touchline (if on attack duty that is) thus spreading the game. If a LB or RB marks the winger, there will a wealth of space between the CB and LB/RB for nice through-ball from your playmaker.

i've found that a striker on moves into channels, though i dont exactly know what this means, will go wide and be in no position to pick up a thru ball.

my primary playmaker, the chap i bought on the cheap, has tries killer balls often AND runs with ball through centre so he's usually fgetting himself into positions to pick out that killer pass. i've set him to attack so he will run often, his dribbling is 16 so that's not an issue

BiggusD: i've had no real problem with cover/stopper. my stopper naturally has aggression and will get stuck in. my cover has very high anticipation and positioning and i usually find he sweeps up balls coming through. i'm giving up on the idea of the sweeper because despite the description offered by SI he doesnt actually roam forward and support the midfield

you can play a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 with wingers or inside forwards, i use walcott on the right wing of my 4-3-3 as an inside forward and he's getting a goal a game at the moment, his crosses always go out for corners tho!!

Thanks, my only problem is that i want two out and out goalscorers and my inside forwards didnt really have that effect, they're simply not good enough.

My question, from a previous post, is what does "move into channels" actually mean? To me it says go wide, but the goal is in the centre so what use are forwards out wide?

My question, from a previous post, is what does "move into channels" actually mean? To me it says go wide, but the goal is in the centre so what use are forwards out wide?

Lmao, so typically british. Forwards can go wide very effectively to exploit space either for themselves, ie, gaining space to receive the ball THEN move to the centre to shoot; or for the other players in the team, through having defenders chase them, opening up space in the defenders' original positions. I don't really see the point of two static guys stuck in the middle of the pitch upfront, and have had some success having 2 "advanced forwards" who basically move into channels all the time to combine with each other, and with the other players in the team.

For a real life example watch Villarreal's matches from last season, the 2 forwards Nilmar and Rossi constantly drifting towards the wings in a very fluid team.

i guess where i differ is that i have one of my forwards creative, and feeds through balls to the other, hence the need for them to be vaguely central.

i find when my poacher is out wide he just plays the ball off of a defender for a corner because he hasn't the guile to dribble, and his crossing is awful. is why i'd rather he stayed central!

i guess where i differ is that i have one of my forwards creative, and feeds through balls to the other, hence the need for them to be vaguely central.

i find when my poacher is out wide he just plays the ball off of a defender for a corner because he hasn't the guile to dribble, and his crossing is awful. is why i'd rather he stayed central!

The only way you can do this, I think, is to move the creative striker back a slot (if he can) and play with your poacher as the single striker. I wouldn't set him to anything else than Move into Channels, though. Rather, reduce his creative freedom (if he has a lot) so that he follows your tactical instructions more closely.

Also note that the old days of FM where you could instruct your players to do the same thing over and over again to exploit ME shortcomings are mostly gone. In order to manipulate the ME so that you get through balls all the time with strikers one-on-one with the keeper several times per match, you'll need to think outside the box and do counter-intuitive stuff with your tactic.

Check out the 4-1-2-3 tactics in the tactical download centre to see what I mean.

Agree with the above!

Also...you are playing with a fairly strong club, so your opponents expect you to be good with the ball, creative and fast, and would logically apply a tactic where they sit deep and try to limit the amount of space and time that your creative players will have with the ball. Your tactic is playing right into how your opponents want the game to develop since you move into the middle, with a primary playmaker high up on the pitch, which puts three of your players in a very limited area on the pitch surrounded by six of your opponents defenders. You will just end up running into the same cluster over and over again. Your libero/sweeper isn´t moving forward because there aren´t any really good options for forward positions, he makes the (correct) decision to sit back rather than abandon his defensive position because the area up the middle is clustered with opponents and there is already two midfielders there (since both the advanced playmaker and the ball winning midfielder typically take up central positions when you have the ball). Remember that the intelligence of your players combine with the instructions and positions they are given, you would need to have your central midfielders instructed to move out wide in order to make up space for a position for an advancing libero uo the middle. Just as a forward will not move out wide, even if instructed to, if there is already a winger there, a libero will not move up the middle if there is already midfielders there.