thizaum

Hey @Mabarak, I hope all is well in the personal side. Some comments about your new tactic: - I don't think you need both left back and DM with Defend duty under Balanced. For sure it could be just one (whichever), or even none. But if you decide on DM-s, make sure you add the "hold position" PI. - As for the AM, now you could try tweaking with PIs (not just for him, but wingers and SV as well). Roam from position, hold the ball, more creative passes are all good options. Also, you could try using a different role (like AP-s or AP-a). - I'd also try the right winger as IW-s or IW-a instead of IF. - Finally, you could also fine tune width and short-long passes. I don't think it's bad how you have your TIs, just run some tests and see what happens vs what you want to happen.

But what if you are not creating the chances, but you actually should (because your team is much stronger than the opponent)? Regardless of how the teams match, if the match ends 0-0, but my team created 2.0xG and the opponent 0.21xG, I'd say my job was well done and we were unlucky or the players failed converting the chances. But if my team is much stronger and yet I cannot get past like 0.3xG or 0.4xG, especially because the opponent is playing a defensive 3-4-2-1 (with 4 players in the DM stratum), happily allowing for my team to have the ball and blatantly wasting time, then I think I'm doing a bad job for this match (not for the whole season). In summary: I think cautious or defensive football can work in FM and the team can learn how to do it and be successful. However, while this is likely effective against stronger teams and possibly works against similar teams, I personally don't think it works against weaker teams playing defensive football. 9 times out of 10 these matches will end 0-0. I'm not saying you need to play attacking football in this case, I just think it needs to be "less defensive" (or more neutral or balanced). By the way, I think the same can be said about real life football. Example: Italy in 2006 beat Ghana (2-0), Czech R (2-0), Australia (1-0), Ukraine (3-0), but tied with US (1-1). It was a rather "easy" path until semifinals (Germany) and if they tied (or lost) any of those "easier" matches, maybe they wouldn't have reached the semifinal. They conceded 2 goals in the whole tournament (including the Zidane penalty in the final), but if they didn't score against the likes of Australia and Ukraine, it isn't that useful.

No no, what do you do in a match against a much weaker team that would be happy not to attack you. If your team is too passive in this case, the match will end 0-0. Or they may even score from a lucky set piece.

OP, what did you do if you were playing as Sampdoria against Latina or Rimini, at home, you get to half-time 0-0 with 60% possession, 3 shots on goal against 0? Just curious about the approach.

Hey dude, I'm currently in the 3rd season of my save and using the same formation with some overachieving. Granted, I'm playing a lower league team, so take that into consideration. I agree with what @Poison said, but let me share some things that I would check (that worked for me), especially considering the analysis (0 positive, several negatives) 1. Check how many crosses you have per match in comparison with the rest of the league and the completion%. That can be mentioned in the monthly analysis, but you can also check it in the League Stats, apart from watching that closely during the matches. In my case, I had by far the highest number of crosses and an average % (so, bad idea). I did 2 things to improve this: change both WBs to FBs (same duties as yours) and I moved the slider 1 step to narrower in team width (this one is arguable depending on how you want to play). In any case, the high number of crosses was because the team was always seeing the best option to play wide and the only play after that was to cross. I started to score more goals and concede fewer (better coverage) after the change. 2. Check how many passes your AM has in a match in comparison with the wingers and whether he is underachieving. If he has much fewer, it's a problem. Ideally he should has as many or even more. The usual cause for this is playing a too high tempo, so lowering tempo/mentality would improve it. 3. I can't see Jackson's role, but what's the plan for having both AM(a) and AF(a)? These are both scorers and no-one is creating. First of all, you need to think which of two should be creating and which should be scoring (I'm guessing Lukaku). In this case, you should change the AM to AM(s), EG, AP(s or a) or Treq. All these are "more creators" than AM(a). 4. Why do you have Play out of Defense? If I'm not mistaken, POOD affects the high tempo you want to play and moves everyone deeper. Try removing it while keeping distribute to centre backs (I actually prefer distributing it to full backs) and see if what you wanted still happens. I think it will. 5. Why are you Working Ball into Box? I think it's because of 1, 2 and 3. Try removing it (while doing the rest) to see what happens. 6. I think there's a second step of this discussion: mentality + tempo + passing. I think you could change to Standard and change Caicedo's role and duty. But maybe this could be later on after 1-5 as I'm not fully sure it's needed due to the team's strength (although I wonder how you'd play against L'pool or City).

Answering your question: I'd say left. But I think it's a bad idea as others have pointed out.

I think the discussion is (or should be) much deeper than this. What's the xG in comparison with conceded goals looking like? You should aim to have a low or very low xG against you, but sometimes you concede in a corner, for example. Then, and I'm not saying this will solve your problem, I think the way you play may leave your defense exposed. Not a lot of help from FBs or DMs. Frankly, in a 4-defender formation, I always aim to have one extra helper (FB or DM). Usually this means having this guy a defend duty, but depending on mentality or PIs, it can work with support as well.

Hey, Yes, I think PIs and Traits need to be tweaked. But I also said TI, which I'd guess might be the biggest problem. First of all: your tempo cannot be too high. I'm not saying it needs to be very slow, but it cannot be super high in order to allow time for the movement. Secondly, there's a setting that increases the mentality of the wide players. You need to check your IF(a)'s mentality in comparison with the rest (it needs to be very attacking). And thirdly, your PF needs to (s), not (a). This depends on your overall mentality, but I think it's a must.

Okay... Is this too far from what you are looking for? Surely it depends on TIs and mentality, but mainly I think that in order to achieve exactly what you are looking for, you'd need to tweak the PIs and be careful with the preferred moves.

I think CM(a) is not an option. AM(a), SS, Treq and IF(a) should all be good options. Are you familiar with the "partnerships" article from Guide to FM? There's the concept of "creator" and "scorer", and there are different ways of achieving this. One of them is the number 9, the number 10, the false 9 and the false 10. I get the impression that you are insisting on having a number 9 and a false 10 (so a 10 that acts as a 9) at the same time. What you are looking for is having a false 9 and a false 10. So, as others said, your CF needs to be more of a creator (most likely, a support duty) and less of a scorer. The treqs are kinda of an exception in this case, because they are both creators and scorers. So in theory, you could have both player (a CF and an AM, center or wide) as Treqs.

I agree with this. And I'd add that you have 2 DMCs doing nothing. Something like a 4-3CM-1-2 or 4-4-2 will keep the numbers more balanced. On the other hand, I've always thought that the discussion about number of strikers vs number of centre backs to be fascinating. I like having 3 CBs and that usually works better against 2 CFs instead of 1 CF. In the end I think it depends on what your AM stratum is doing. Whether the wingers are wingers (thus using the space behind the WBs) or IFs (thus clashing with the WCBs). In this specific case, what I think would work best would be to have 2 wingers (AM or CM strata), regardless of the number of CFs. Then you need "penetrating" CMs or AMs, and you don't really need a holding DM (a more free DM or a holding CM should work). Having said that, I'd go with an old school 4-4-2 for this one.

That makes sense. I was paying attention to the number of passes throughout the matches and he would have fewer passes then all the 4 players (or 5, depending on the formation) around him. Lowering the tempo/mentality solved that. Or at least improved that.

Sure, no problem. Thanks. It's curious because you do what people usually say we shouldn't do: change mentality too often and change TIs and duties alongside the team mentality. So, for example, when you go from Balanced to Cautious, your AMC's mentality already changes. When you change from (a) to (s), it changes even further. I understand that mentality is like a broad tuning and TIs, PIs, roles and duties the fine tuning. In any case, this discussion made me re-think my mentality last night while playing. Considering what I'm aiming for (and I forgot to mention that it's a lower league team), what's the difference between Positive + lots of support duties and Cautious + more attack duties? Let's say that the "average player mentality" would be the same in both cases. If I want movement (runs), I need more attack duties. If I need more attack duties and I cannot afford to be so exposed or careless, I need to reduce the team mentality. So I tried the same formation (and a 4-2-3-1 wide that I was working on) with the same roles, but with more attack duties (3 and 4, respectively) and 1 fewer defend duty (the holding DMC). I don't have enough data yet, but the results seem promising. Against a weaker team, I generated perhaps a lower xG (but still high-ish), but scored a good amount of goals (so improved accuracy). The opposition generated the same low xG, but didn't score. Before they would score like 2 goals with 0.4 xG. Against a similar team, similar xG for both sides, but I won the match. I still have to try it against a much stronger team, but with Positive I would loose by like 6-2, 7-2... If I loose by 3-0, I think it's already better (obviously). And, going back to the OP, the AMC performed "normally" with the new mentality and duties. So above average rating for an above average player. =) I'll post more date when I have it today or tomorrow.

Your explanation is pretty clear. And there are things I can try to apply. But the important question is: which mentality do you play? Balanced? I'm wondering how these extra attack duties you have would affect what I have. I'm rethinking about the AP (either s or a). I think it's worth the shot. I'll try it tonight when I play and post the results.

Thanks. Okay, so I see 2 different suggestions here. First, I'm not sure that the player(s) I'm using in this role are fit for an SS, especially because I think high finishing and off the ball would be needed. I see this guy as more of an creator. But let's say I try it. Wouldn't he "clash" with the PF(a)? And secondly, I like and I agree with the option of customizing this role and probably AM(s) is the best option for that. If so, what would you add apart from "roam" and "take more risks"? Maybe "hold the ball" or "shoot less often" (I don't remember the exact name of the one the AP has). The strikers are already moving into channel. I actually thought about the Enganche. But isn't it that all 3 of them (Tq, Eg and AP) have the magnet effect? One thing that I thought could be happening is lack of space. This guy has 4 players around him boxing him in. Maybe if I moved him to the CM stratum and use a "less defensive minded" role like RPM, AP(a), CM(a) or BBM. I still want the 4-1-2-1-2 shape in the end.