bababooey

The only PI's I use are: both wingers: cut inside AMC: roam + move into channels That's it

Yeah I think people have to remember that the player traits dont = the player always doing the thing they describe. It's a tendency, right? So, he doesn't always come deep to get the ball. Which is nice, because as you've pointed out, sometimes it would be silly to have him involved in the build up when we already have a double pivot. As for Fati, he's doing fine. 10 league matches this year, he's got 5 G and 5 A with an avg rating of 7.24. I think there are times when he's a bit isolated, but that's normal for a lone striker. Ideally, given his profile, I would move him back to the wings once we've got the budget to bring in a world-class striker who has a more physical profile.

** Update ** I've made some tweaks, and I thought I would share my thoughts with you here, along with some screenshots from a recent match. Okay so, as you can see, we've made a few adjustments. The Libero is now on a support duty. This is because I really want to see him push forward earlier, and more often. Typically on the defend duty, he waits until it's completely safe to move up. I dont need him doing that, so switching to support was a good move. We've changed the attacking winger to play on the right side, instead of the left. This is because I believe the RPM has a better combination with the support winger. Also, it suits the players we have. I switched the team mentality to positive. This has made the biggest difference. I'm usually reluctant to come off of balanced, but this has been something that I think held us back a bit. Positive has changed our play in a lot of good ways. We're just more proactive with the ball, taking more risks, and imposing ourselves on the opposition. Team mentality really does have a major impact on your overall approach. We've removed unnecessary instructions out of possession. Those were: step up more and higher line. We simply don't need them, and sometimes, less is more! Last thing I did, was add in "roam from position" and "moves into channels" for the AM-S. I don't really like the idea of a static #10 who can be easily marked out of a game. So giving him those instructions (combined with his own traits) encourages him to find those little pockets of space to receive a pass. Wingers are both told to cut inside. Here are some screenshots so you can see how this works in practice. This is what the team looks like out of possession at the very start of a match (Atletico had the kick off so they started with the ball) The back 4 looks like a typical back 4. The only interesting thing here is the RPM is aggressively closing down ahead of the midfield, while the AM-S drops in to the RPM's original spot. We don't actively look for counter-attacks (although we could), I prefer to let them happen naturally. The striker and right winger are both positioned well to get on the end of a direct pass after a turnover. When the opposition has kept possession long enough, our press drops back to consolidate in midfield. Here you can see a 4-5-1 shape has developed, with the AM-S dropping in to form a little triangle with the 2 DM's. Again, the back 4 is very traditional here, nothing weird. And you can see there is no real need for us to push up further or step up more. The space between the lines is not an issue. The player on the ball does have a passing option (Felipe to De Paul) but that can easily be dealt with because of our press. Here is an image of the team in the build up phase. Couple of things going on here worth noting... The RPM has dropped deep to form a triple pivot with the DM-S and L-S. This is not something that always happens, but it's because Gavi has the "comes deep to get ball" trait. I think it could also be part of the behavior of the role itself, but I dont know if that's true. Either way! It's kind of cool, especially against a team that uses 2 strikers. It just gives us more options to build play. The AM-S (Pedri) has shifted wide right, in the halfspace between the striker and the right winger. You could argue that he should be more central, but remember this just a screenshot of a moment in time. And his movement is not always the same. I quite like this, because if we can switch play quickly, then the opposition is going to have trouble. In fact, we scored a goal in that match where the ball went quickly from the center, into the feet of the right winger, who drove into the box himself, and scored. We're holding the width nicely here. The left winger is on the touchline, and the right winger is a little bit off his touchline, but still quite wide. The defense has to spread itself out a bit to compensate for this, which should allow us to more easily control possession in the middle of the pitch. Here is an image of the team safely in possession, and now in the chance creation phase of play. In this situation, the ball had been out wide with Kounde (IF-D) who briefly took on the attacking role of a normal fullback because he had space. The other team is playing without wingers in a narrow 5-3-2. But, even with Kounde moving out wide here, you can still see the 3-2 build out shape. Diomande (L-S) is firmly in position with the DM-S to form that double pivot. Gavi, the RPM, is roaming around doing his thing, available for a long pass, or to make a run. I like to let him do whatever he wants. You can also see how Pedri (AM-S) has shifted wide, and Ansu Fati (AF-A) is looking to break off the shoulder of the central defenders. Closing Thoughts And so that's it. There's really not much else to say here. It's a tactic that works for my team, and suits how we want to play. It's not designed to be plug in play, and it's certainly not going to guarantee success. There's nothing exploitative about it that I'm aware of. Something I am thinking about doing, is experimenting using a false 9 combined with a shadow striker. Keeping everything else the same, I wonder what type of attacking patterns that could provide? Or, we could turn one of the wide defenders from a IF-D to a IWB-D (or S), to experiment with more of a 2-3 build out shape, instead of the 3-2. That would probably expose our flanks, but if you've got the right players, you can do pretty much anything. Also, we could easily change to a more traditional 4-2-3-1 for tougher away matches by changing the libero to a standard central defender, and changing the roaming playmaker to a role that doesnt rotate forward. This way, we would have a more traditional 4-2 build up that could withstand heavy pressing, while still having 4 players up front ready to receive a pass. The 4-2-3-1 is super flexible, and small changes can do all sorts of crazy things to your tactics.

I'm going to post an update in a few minutes. It will have everything you need.

This isnt true. FM24 is by far the best version of the game so far, and you can have success playing with any style you want. You dont have to high press.

Well done!

The idea with the winger roles and duties was that we need width. The wide defenders are both inverted fullbacks, and there isn't a role in central midfield that naturally pulls wide. So where is our width going to come from? We have to use wingers or else this will be way too narrowly focused. I instruct them to cut inside because I want to encourage them to take on their man and be a threat in that way, too. I play on extended highlights once I've got a good handle on how the particular tactic works. But when I need to investigate something further, I will absolutely go to comprehensive, and sometimes even the full match.

I think people totally underestimate the impact of roles and duties, and overestimate the impact of team instructions. There is simply no reason to start throwing a million different instructions at the team, unless you're trying to do some really weird stuff that requires ultra-specific instructions.

Sure thing. It's basically my version of a "control possession" tactic. Mentality: Balanced (I rarely ever change this) In Possession: Shorter passing, play out of defense, fairly narrow In Transition: Distribute to center backs (depends on if my opponent uses 2 strikers, then I will switch this to fullbacks), counter-press Out of Possession: High Press, Higher line, press more often, step up more The only PI's I've used in this approach are telling both of my wingers to cut inside. That's it.

I really can't say enough good things about positional play and how it's been implemented into FM24. It's fantastic. Look at this build up shape, below. It's *perfect*. We occupy all of the important zones on the pitch, and force the other team to either A.) let us have the ball continuously or B.) come close us down, lose their shape, and allow us to penetrate space. How did we end up with this shape? Here's the tactic. It's quite basic and simple. The team instructions are mostly irrelevant here (and this isn't intended to be a comprehensive post explaining how this works). It looks like such a defensive-minded tactic on paper. 4 players on defend duties across the back line, 2 DM's, and only 2 attack duties throughout. And yet, I've never created more scoring chances than with this shape, as it morphs into a 3-2-5 in possession. It was weird going away from my tried and true 4-3-3, but I wanted to make use of having 3 elite attackers behind a striker. And, I wanted to experiment with the roaming playmaker role, which is one I've basically never used to any extent. It's amazing what happens when you give roles the right complementary roles around them. It was also tricky to get the right rest defense shape from our standard 4-3-3. I was using Balde as an attacking fullback, which meant I only had 4 players left to form our rest defense (typically in a 3-1). A 3-2 is significantly more stable, for obvious reasons. As I see it, the 3 most important roles in this shape are the Libero, the RPM, and the AM-S. They form a spine for the team, and if we didnt get that right, the whole thing would fall apart. The CD-D is also really important because he's typically the deepest defender and could get into some 1v1's against long balls.

The 4-2-3-1 is extremely common in real life, so this makes perfect sense. Just like 4-4-2 used to be the most common shape 20 years ago.

Davies actually plays for Liverpool in my save. I sold him for 90 million euros. Our left back in the screenshot have Goncalo Inacio, retrained as an inverted full back. He's a beast of a player.

I'm managing Bayern Munich. We have the best defenders in the world. Their mental stats are insane. I can't do anything if things like this happen:

This is entirely fair and reasonable. If I get the time, I will try to go back and see how many times this has been an issue. But in the interim, I know what I've seen previously. And it's something I'm acutely aware of in future matches. For now, I've adjusted my set piece defending, manually, to ensure we have things locked down a bit tighter on the initial phase of play. The problem is, the resulting second phase, or scramble, where defending becomes much more difficult.

This feels like it's getting off topic. The issue is, fundamentally, how does the defense reorganize after the initial restart of play? Regardless of this being a corner, a throw in, or a free kick. It seems like defenses are "switched off" for a time during the restart of play, particularly during the ensuing scramble for possession if the set piece's initial throw/kick does not result in a goal directly. That's the core issue here. I have no issues regarding the frequency of penalties, or anything like that. And my team can score plenty of goals from set pieces, which is besides the point.