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Let's Share - Against Truly Superior Sides - How Do You Like To Set Up?


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So I'm really curious to read how you guys get on with facing superior sides. I've seen some people post that they struggle mightily, and others seem to have a good deal of success.

My personal approach is usually to try to defend in a medium block, so we don't get pushed too deep and contained in our own third, while also assigning enough attacking duties so that we're giving the other team something to defend against. This is a very broad way of explaining it, but you probably get my idea.

How do you guys approach those types of matches?

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Simply attacking them with everything you have works just fine in FM 15. If you try to defend, their strikers and wingers find space regardless and you just get battered. If you attack them, you get a high scoring game where you have a decent chance of sneaking a win.

It ties into the problem that defending is still a bit poor in this ME, i.e. attackers find space too easily, even against a team sitting very deep and narrow.

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Simply attacking them with everything you have works just fine in FM 15. If you try to defend, their strikers and wingers find space regardless and you just get battered. If you attack them, you get a high scoring game where you have a decent chance of sneaking a win.

It ties into the problem that defending is still a bit poor in this ME, i.e. attackers find space too easily, even against a team sitting very deep and narrow.

I've had success doing this too. But I'm curious if people have had any success setting up in a less aggressive manor. Not necessarily defending with the ball like Cleon, which is in itself a wonderful strategy, but something more like.. a "pure" counter system where you draw the opponent onto you and spring forward in attack.

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I usually use possession in my own half, direct approach at opposition half. That is for home match

For away matches, it cant be other than a pure counter, structured shape n exploiting their flanks as cruel as possible since a heavy favourite team tends to use marauding fullbacks. Formations can be vary but I prefer preparing tactics to deal with 1 n 2 striker formations, basically tweaking the defend to suit agaisnt my opposition's main style.

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Playing stronger opposition can be a big issue at times – just exactly how do you set up to play against them? Well, you can play a numerous of different types of games against them. You could sit back and be solid defensively and hope you can grab a goal on the counter, or you could just focus on a counter attacking game and look to always hit them on the break when they overcommit players forward. Or you can try and attack the natural space that they leave when attacking you, which is different to counter attacking because you will be focusing on certain areas. It’s this latter method I am going to talk about now as I just played Manchester City in the first season in the FA Cup. Now I might be a decent side in League One but being drawn against City, I am the lot weaker side.

The First Game

I was drawn away against them and managed to pull off a 1-1 draw. I wasn’t outplayed at all like one would suspect. I perfectly held my own and was unlucky not to win the game. These were the match stats;

mstats.jpg?resize=300%2C170

I played the usual 4-4-2 which is outlined in this post http://sisportscentre.com/the-starting-point-part-two/ minus the shouts push higher up, close down more and stay on feet. The rest is the exact same.

And Manchester City also lined up with a flat 4-4-2.

I don’t want to dwell on the first game too much as it led to the extraordinary replay that I’ll be discussing below but I thought I best touch upon the fact it was a replay I was discussing.

The Replay

I approached this game the exact same way I did the one above (we both played the same shape again too 4-4-2 and I used the instructions set out above) but because I’ve not discussed that let me set a bit of background about the way I view the game and set up in general. I should point out as well because I’ve not mentioned it yet, I play with the control mentality.

Pre Game Changes

Some people like to make changes before the game is set up and being played – they like to look at things like form, the match odds and even the scout reports and look at the areas the opposition seem the most dangerous. Then they’ll make changes based on what they think will happen. Myself, though, I take a different approach, I don’t make changes before games ever as I don’t like to try and guess what will happen I’d rather make changes based on what I see happening in the match. One of the main reasons for doing it this way is due to me wanting to enforce my style and club playing philosophy on the opposition. If I’m always changing and trying to adapt to the opposition before a game then I don’t have a playing identity because I’m the one always trying to adapt. That’s not something I want to do, why should I be the one always sacrificing the way I want to play? So for these reasons I’d rather change based on what is actually happening in a game rather than trying to predict what might happen before its even happened.

That’s not to say my way is better though, it just works for me and how I play and view the game in general.

Opposition Instructions

For me these are the devil, they seem useful on paper but they can cause complications that the user doesn’t always realise. They can cause you to lose your shape and for players to do things that don’t seem understandable when viewing the match or highlights as he might behave different to how you instructed his tactically, due to having OI’s that make his behaviour different. For me I never use OI’s, ever! If you do use them just make sure you understand which you are using and try and understand how these will impact how you’ve instructed the player to play.

Things like ‘show onto weaker foot’ sound good in principle, but what happens if you’re forcing that player onto his weaker foot? It could mean you are forcing him to use the side the natural overlaps is on. So while in theory it sounds good in practice, it could mean something else and actually be a strength for the opposition if you are forcing him to do a particular thing, you could find the opposition actually has the advantage in some cases. That’s not to say this will always be the case but you need to understand the impact they can have on you and your side.

The First 15 Minutes

The first 15 minutes of any game are the most vital in my opinion, I can’t state just how important these opening minutes are. I always and I really mean always watch the first 15 minutes of the game in full to get an understanding of what is happening in the game. If I was just watching highlights I wouldn’t get a true feeling of what my players are doing and if they are doing the jobs I’ve instructed them to do. For most parts the majority of changes I’ll ever make will come in this time period. After these 15 minutes you can switch to highlight mode again if you feel comfortable with how your side is playing, which is something I often do.

I’ll pause the game, rewind clips, look at the stats and even change camera angles to view incidents from different angles, as you can learn a lot by doing this. Don’t panic and think you haven’t got time, always pause the game if you are unsure before making a decision. I also pause the game at random times when attacking and defending, this allows me to see how the players are playing positionally and sometimes can show things that are wrong in your own set up. For me its probably the easiest way of identifying an issue.

Let’s take a look at what I noticed in these opening minutes.

ana1.jpg?resize=300%2C150

That screenshot is taken from the first 20 seconds of the match and already I can see that attacking I look really good and have men committed forward when attacking, which is good. It can also be an issue should I lose possession as I’d be hit on the counter. But again I’ll worry about that if and when it happens – if it’s not happened yet I’m not going to worry about it as I look good going forward and I’d hate to hamper that. As a rule of thumb I follow something along the lines of;

  • Stick to my own game plan as much as possible
  • Never panic or rush making a decision when it comes to changing stuff
  • Make small changes. Small changes are what 90% of the time wins games.

That way I never lose sight of my own style.

ana2.jpg?resize=300%2C145

Remember above when I said there is no need to worry until something happens? Well it’s happened so now I’ve seen enough for me to decide my first change. While I’m happy with how I attack I can’t help but think City’s pace in their squad could hurt me over 90 minutes and I really think I have a chance of winning this game. So with that in mind;

  • Change 1 – Switch from control to a counter attacking mentality

The reason for this change is simple, I don’t need to leave myself exposed like the screenshot highlights. I mean, I have five players behind the ball so that shows I’m far too aggressive in my approach.

My defensive minded central defender has had to leave his position and move across to the ball which is problematic. He’s identified the danger and is dealing with it like you would expect but this in turn means he’s abandoned his position, leaving the full midfield exposed. He really should be hanging back more but this is due to me using a control mentality, it’s just too attacking for what I’m wanting at the minute and because City are a top side they’ll exploit this time and time again.

Everyone viewing that screenshot should be able to see the issue. Now I might like being risky against sides who are equal to me, but taking a big risk like this against good opposition could result in me taking a hammering.

It’s not all bad, though, when being attacked by the opposition, as the next screenshot will show;

ana3.jpg?resize=300%2C145

This is City actually attacking me – this is my goal. But can you see all the space circled that they leave behind to be exploited should I win the ball back? This is the biggest advantage against the bigger sides as they naturally leave space for you to exploit due to their attacking behaviour. Against the lesser sides they are normally more compact and don’t attack with such numbers so this takes away the space that I’ve highlighted. That’s why we see people mention they beat a big team one week then lose to the club at the bottom of the league the week after. It’s all about space and how you use it against those sides. Against the big clubs they do half the job for you as they leave space compared to the lesser sides when the emphasis is on you creating that space somehow.

It’s normally during those sort of games that you’ll get a real understanding of how your roles all link together to give you the end product. So it’s not too unfamiliar if a lot of people get caught out here, and their tactic shows a flaw in which it creates and uses space. I’ll be touching upon that and showing examples from attacking sides and the more defensive ones in another article.

Back to the above screenshot though, I’m hoping the change to counter attacking mentality will make me concentrate on these areas more when we win the ball back and have a counter on. My complete wingback should make the most of it and I expect the roaming playmaker to take advantage of it too due to what the role is about – A creative box to box player.

After a few minutes I already see my side are doing better in the space I highlighted above;

ana4.jpg?resize=300%2C145

My left back plays the ball into the channel where my raumdeuter is already making a run between the centre back and fullback, he’s in clear space. The three City players highlighted have issues here, the one nearest the touchline is already running towards my left back so he’s totally unaware of my player next to him. The second highlighted player is running across to cut the ball out but realistically he isn’t going to even get close to it. And the third one is even more interesting – you’ll see me mention from time to time if you’ve followed my stuff before about making the opposition make a choice – well this is a good example of that, the defender has two options here;

  • 1 – He can try and cut out the ball and move across towards the raumdeuter
  • 2 – He can track the runner at the side of him who is looking to get beyond him

Now it doesn’t matter which option he really chooses as it will be the wrong option. Whichever player he tries to track, it will leave the other one in acres of space. Play like this wins you games, there is no two ways about it. Forcing the opposition to make a decision whilst you have the advantage regardless of what that decision is, is hard to do, but this is why role allocation and being able to understand how all the roles and duties you’ve chosen all link together is important. I know I bang on about that quite a lot but I can’t stress how important it is.

The deep lying forward has dropped off so he plays in front of the defender, and the raumdeuter is roaming around, looking to be aggressive and utilising any kind of space he sees. He’s quite tricky to mark and these are the types of areas you should see him attacking frequently. The DLF is the support, and this support can be in the form of a passing option or creating the space/occupying the defender.

The next screenshot shows the next stage of the move.

ana5.jpg?resize=300%2C145

He’s decided he’ll go wide with the ball rather than drive inside. By doing this he’s split City wide open and now it is down to the player to choose the correct option. He can either drive forward towards the byline or he can pass to the player who will be in acres of space in the next second, who then also has a passing option next to him too. Sadly on this occasion he goes towards the byline which is the wrong option, but not to worry too much as the player isn’t the best player going (despite what I’ll have you all thinking!) and seeing that my side can open up teams like this is a major positive and this is still all happening within the opening first two minutes of the game.

What comes next is a really well worked goal.

The goal shows me being calm and using the full length of the pitch and also using the areas I highlighted at the start that I thought I should be attacking more. If I was still using control mentality then this goal might not have happened as I’d have been higher up the pitch to begin with and play would have been more rushed compared to the slow build up play of a less aggressive mentality.

Jose Baxter is my roaming playmaker and you can see he is the calm head in the centre who then makes the move. He looks to get the ball forward and is making himself available as an option too. When he initially receives the ball from my centre back (Butler) at the start of the move, you can see him drop deeper to give himself space to be available for the pass. Then once he received the ball he instantly looks to make something happen and uses the width of the pitch. Not only that but he plays the ball to wide playmaker who is drifting inside into acres of free space (the space I highlighted further up the thread).

Then a little later on in the move Baxter is once again the player looking to make something happen and plays a fantastic through ball between Manchester City’s left winger and left fullback. It really is a quality ball. On a side note, I’ve seen people say these type of balls don’t happen in recent days, but this is clear evidence it does with the right set up.

It’s a great goal and I’m more than pleased with that. It came about due to the space they leave open when attacking – they seem to have a total disregard for being compact as they are concentrating more on their attacking play as they are the stronger side. This is why it can be easier to score against the bigger sides because they all do it (if they think you’re much weaker).

Not long after the first goal I get my second from the penalty spot when the wide playmaker is brought down.

All of this has all happened within the first 14 minutes and 50 seconds.

The other 75 Minutes

Now I had a dilemma, do I carry on watching in full mode or do I switch to highlights? If I go highlights it’ll pass by quickly but if I watch the game I’ll know exactly how I am playing and be in a better position to react to any changes that City do. In any other game I’d have more than likely reverted to highlights as I know my team is playing well and looking dangerous on the attack, however, I expect City to really go for it now and make some changes at some point so I stick to watching the full game.

Being 2-0 up is hard against the bigger sides because you are sat waiting for them as you know changes are coming and they’ll look to make something happen. This can also be a good thing, too, because as they chase the game they’ll take even more risks, and I normally score a few more goals when this happens due to the amount of space they leave and players who are caught out of position.

The rest of the first half passes without much else happening. At the end of the half the shot count looked like this;

  • Sheffield United 8 shots 5 on target
  • Manchester City 5 shots 2 on target

I don’t think those stats are that bad in all honesty and I seem to be playing well. I’m actually surprised at how poor Manchester City seem to be playing. The side they’ve put out isn’t that weak – they are playing names like Lampard, Milner, Kolarov, Jovetic, Zabaleta and Fernando, so it really is quite a strong line up. I’ll not lie, though, I was expecting a bit more from them.

Three minutes into the second half and City grabbed one back. My players’ positioning was awful in the build up to it;

ana6.jpg?resize=300%2C147

I’m hit on the counter-attack and my left back is caught way out of position due to the role he has. As he is a complete wingback he gets in very high positions, which can be great when attacking, but makes it harder to get back into position should you lose the ball and the opposition break quickly.

To make things worse one of my central defenders were out of position too. So add this to the fact my full back is out of position too, then I have one central defender who is being run ragged here as highlighted in the next screenshot.

ana7.jpg?resize=300%2C145

Just look at that space undefended and Manchester City are really punishing me here. This is what happens when attacking players who are aggressive in their play going forward get caught out of position. This is terrible defending and I’m not happy about this one bit. So I make change number two here;

  • Change number two – I make both full backs become wing backs on support duties rather than the complete ones they currently are.

Even though I was playing well and look a threat myself going forward, the game has now changed compared to when it was 2-0. City are back in this and if I don’t take precautions then I’ll lose the game, its as simple as that. I needed to do something before it was too late. I have some friends (no I really do, I can’t believe it either) who wait until the final twenty minutes to make any changes regardless of what is happening. Why would someone do that? I’d much rather react earlier while I still have a chance of winning the game, if I waited another twenty minutes I could be losing the game at that point. I’m more proactive and prefer to try and prevent things before they happen if I know something they are going to be an issue.

You can actually see the difference immediately after the change takes effect in the next attack;

ana8.jpg?resize=300%2C163

Normally they’d be slightly higher when I lose possession and City attack me quickly, now I’m much more solid and my back four are all playing as a unit for the first time in the match. It should mean I’m much better placed in the wide areas to deal with City’s wingers and full backs.

Around the 60th minute mark I score my third goal of the game from a freekick to make it 3-1.

It’s at this point that Manchester City switch to a 4-2-4 formation pushing the ML/MR up to AML/R. I love it when teams do this to me as I normally grab a couple more goals myself. As soon as I see they’ve made the change I counter this by making changes myself.

  • Changes number three – I take off the shouts retain possession, shorter passing and play out of defence.
  • Changes number four – I then add more direct passing.

The reason for the changes I said I made in number three is simple: I was playing a possession game of some kind and trying to retain it as much as possible, but now City are using AML/R’s and are being a lot more attack-minded – It’s like they are on overload now, and I don’t want to risk giving the ball away in dangerous areas. My players are tiring and aren’t that strong mentally to begin with, so now that City will close me down more aggressive from the front as the AML/R’s allow this more due to the natural positions they take up, and it could force my players into some kind of mistake.

The change I did in number four is so I get the ball from A to B quickly. This is because City now have a huge gap between their fullback and the players in the AML/R positions, so there is lots of space here and my defenders and midfielders should hopefully make the most of this by being more direct.

I guess a lot of people would also add exploit the flanks here but I haven’t for a very good reason. Exploit the flanks makes fullbacks/wingbacks more attacking, which is not what I want. I need them to hold their position better by being deeper – now that City have pushed their wingers up, it is even more important they do so. So anything that changes them from support to attacking will have a big consequence to the way they act. By being on a support duty it should mean that when defending they’ll be in front of their marker rather than behind him, and if they got caught out of position and ended up behind their marker, then that player would be free to run wild and one of my centre backs would have to cover. It’s a bit like the scenario I discussed earlier in the article when I talked about making the AI make a choice.

Not long after these changes I score my fourth goal. It all started with a throw-in.

ana9.jpg?resize=300%2C133

The throw-in goes to the most defensive midfielder who then passes it back to my left back who took the throw in.

ana10.jpg?resize=300%2C126

He then puts a ball into the complete striker who dwells on it for a few seconds while the deep lying forward times his run, and he then passes into his patch and the DLF taps it in to make it 4-1.

Not long after this, it’s 5-1.

ana11.jpg?resize=300%2C122

The right back gets the ball and puts a simple cross into the back post where Diego, my complete forward, is making a run to tap it home to make it 5-1.

Then three minutes before full time, a simple little dink just inside the box from the DLF to the striker, results in another goal to make it 6-1.

mstats1.jpg?resize=300%2C165

As you can see I more than held my own and totally deserved the win in the end. In the second half I played exceptional.

I won this game due to what I did at the very start in the opening few minutes, and changing strategy from control to counter attacking paid dividends. The changes I made when the opposition changed shape can’t go understated either. No matter how you view the game you always need to be aware of what the opposition is doing, and keeping an eye out for them changing shape or changing their playing style is crucial as this is what really catches people out!

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I've had success doing this too. But I'm curious if people have had any success setting up in a less aggressive manor. Not necessarily defending with the ball like Cleon, which is in itself a wonderful strategy, but something more like.. a "pure" counter system where you draw the opponent onto you and spring forward in attack.

I've not done a system where I defend with the ball so not sure where you got that idea from? In fact I did a system doing exactly what you are talking about here;

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/421921-The-School-Of-Defensive-Arts-2015-The-3-4-3

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I've not done a system where I defend with the ball so not sure where you got that idea from? In fact I did a system doing exactly what you are talking about here;

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/421921-The-School-Of-Defensive-Arts-2015-The-3-4-3

Clean that thread has you retaining possession and with pretty much everything turned on to allow you to not give the ball away. I think that is what he is referring to.

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Clean that thread has you retaining possession and with pretty much everything turned on to allow you to not give the ball away. I think that is what he is referring to.

But it's pure counter attacking and isn't about retaining possession. Just because someone uses that TI doesn't mean they don't give the ball away. If people have read that thread and think it's about not giving the ball away then they've not read/understood the thread properly. It's pure counter attacking football focused on the team keeping it's shape without the ball and not in the slightest about keeping the ball. It's about using the ball in the correct way to launch devastating counters. It's about not getting the ball ahead of the support that allows the counters faster than the players can keep up with play.

There's a huge difference between that and focusing on not giving the ball away.....

He's still wrong though in what he said as it is pure counter attacking, which is what he was asking for.

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But it's pure counter attacking and isn't about retaining possession. Just because someone uses that TI doesn't mean they don't give the ball away. If people have read that thread and think it's about not giving the ball away then they've not read/understood the thread properly. It's pure counter attacking football focused on the team keeping it's shape without the ball and not in the slightest about keeping the ball. It's about using the ball in the correct way to launch devastating counters. It's about not getting the ball ahead of the support that allows the counters faster than the players can keep up with play.

There's a huge difference between that and focusing on not giving the ball away.....

He's still wrong though in what he said as it is pure counter attacking, which is what he was asking for.

What was the reasoning behind all those retain possession PIs and TIs? If say you had incredibly fast players to support the outward pass would you consider going more direct?

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What was the reasoning behind all those retain possession PIs and TIs? If say you had incredibly fast players to support the outward pass would you consider going more direct?

I had fast players. It's simple really, to do counter attacks and be good at them you need the ball behind the players to begin with, not in front of them. Or you have no-one to counter with or anyone who can keep up with the ball. Player positioning is everything. Hence play out from defence and slow play down. The players still go direct and play faster tempo when a counter attack is initiated.

I'm not sure what you mean by all the retain possession PI's and TI's too. I used PI's for 1 player. And the TI's were;

Shorter passing - Not directly linked to being focused with keeping possession. Remember it just shortens the passing length based on what the original passing is set to for that player based on his role, duty and the mentality you use.

Works ball into the box - When playing counter you don't want to be wasteful do you and shoot from distance, as I was using a defensive mentality and didn't want long range efforts.

Play narrower - Nothing to do with possession and is about player positioning.

Be more disciplined - I had designated playmakers and didn't want certain players to have more creative freedom than is needed.

I fail to see why you think it was focused on retain possession and think those TI's relate to keeping the ball?

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I tend to attack or at the very least control, but attacking seems the only way to at least score to give yourself a chance. I find defending very difficult in FM15 although I did as a real manager anyway so I am just probably gung ho by nature!! The hardest part of defending for me is against players like Cuarado and Hazard, fast wingers who have the ball super glued to their feet and Balotelli always batters me. For a lazy sod he doesn't half move about in FM!!

It's a bit of a lottery though even attacking. 5 and a half seasons in my record against the top sides is : Ahead against Man City Just ahead against Man Utd, Level against Spurs and Arsenal and behind against Chelsea and Liverpool. Liverpool away especially is a problem but West Ham haven't won there for 50 odd years so it's not just me!!

There is a massive difference in home and away as well. Prime example was in the Europa League Quarter Final I got stuffed 4-1 away at Man United and beat them 3-0 at home a couple of weeks later.

My biggest problem is what to do when you are ahead and the last 20 minutes hits. If I drop my wing backs to support I invite pressure, if I drop down mentality I invite pressure. Just closing off the penalty area and seeing a game out defensively is very tough so I just tend to stay attacking. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

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I had fast players. It's simple really, to do counter attacks and be good at them you need the ball behind the players to begin with, not in front of them. Or you have no-one to counter with or anyone who can keep up with the ball. Player positioning is everything. Hence play out from defence and slow play down. The players still go direct and play faster tempo when a counter attack is initiated.

I'm not sure what you mean by all the retain possession PI's and TI's too. I used PI's for 1 player. And the TI's were;

Shorter passing - Not directly linked to being focused with keeping possession. Remember it just shortens the passing length based on what the original passing is set to for that player based on his role, duty and the mentality you use.

Works ball into the box - When playing counter you don't want to be wasteful do you and shoot from distance, as I was using a defensive mentality and didn't want long range efforts.

Play narrower - Nothing to do with possession and is about player positioning.

Be more disciplined - I had designated playmakers and didn't want certain players to have more creative freedom than is needed.

I fail to see why you think it was focused on retain possession and think those TI's relate to keeping the ball?

I was talking about the thread you just linked to btw. (http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/421921-The-School-Of-Defensive-Arts-2015-The-3-4-3) In that you state as one of your aims to keep possession.

And then you select every shorter passing retain possession TI. Also you play a ball playing defender and ask your goal keeper to pass it only to the centre backs.

Youd understand why I'd assume it was a possession tactic.

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I was talking about the thread you just linked to btw. (http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/421921-The-School-Of-Defensive-Arts-2015-The-3-4-3) In that you state as one of your aims to keep possession.

And then you select every shorter passing retain possession TI. Also you play a ball playing defender and ask your goal keeper to pass it only to the centre backs.

Youd understand why I'd assume it was a possession tactic.

The keep possession thing relates to keeping the team shape and working the ball forward for counters when you have the numbers advantage. If you just lob the ball forward constantly you'll never be able to counter as it's rare you'll ever have the numbers advantage. I covered this in the thread by saying;

~It’s important I don’t give possession away needlessly as we will be quite deep so I want to build from the back, this is why I use the possession shouts I’ve chosen.

It doesn't mean we keep possession it just means we build the correct way and not be wasteful initially with the ball which is vital for counter attacking. If the ball is in front of the players then you can't counter, it needs to be behind the majority of your players to be able to break correctly.

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The keep possession thing relates to keeping the team shape and working the ball forward for counters when you have the numbers advantage. If you just lob the ball forward constantly you'll never be able to counter as it's rare you'll ever have the numbers advantage. I covered this in the thread by saying;

~It’s important I don’t give possession away needlessly as we will be quite deep so I want to build from the back, this is why I use the possession shouts I’ve chosen.

It doesn't mean we keep possession it just means we build the correct way and not be wasteful initially with the ball which is vital for counter attacking. If the ball is in front of the players then you can't counter, it needs to be behind the majority of your players to be able to break correctly.

Ok but in the game you posted you had 72 percent possession. How is that not pure possession with the occasional counter attack.

That's fine if that is the way you want to play. But there are other teams out there in real life who maintain their shape and concede possession to the opposition whilst hitting them on the counter.

In my pulis thread I've been attempting to create something like this, having very little success. I don't want to have to create a defensive tactic which is based around keeping the ball the entire time. I would really appreciate your input there in fact if you had time.

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Ok but in the game you posted you had 72 percent possession. How is that not pure possession with the occasional counter attack.

Because that's one game and not the normal? You've seen 1 screenshot and made an assumption every game is like that when it's not. I concede possession it's not important but I still need possession to be controlled so it allows counters.

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Playing stronger opposition can be a big issue at times – just exactly how do you set up to play against them? Well, you can play a numerous of different types of games against them. You could sit back and be solid defensively and hope you can grab a goal on the counter, or you could just focus on a counter attacking game and look to always hit them on the break when they overcommit players forward. Or you can try and attack the natural space that they leave when attacking you, which is different to counter attacking because you will be focusing on certain areas. It’s this latter method I am going to talk about now as I just played Manchester City in the first season in the FA Cup. Now I might be a decent side in League One but being drawn against City, I am the lot weaker side.

The First Game

I was drawn away against them and managed to pull off a 1-1 draw. I wasn’t outplayed at all like one would suspect. I perfectly held my own and was unlucky not to win the game. These were the match stats;

mstats.jpg?resize=300%2C170

I played the usual 4-4-2 which is outlined in this post http://sisportscentre.com/the-starting-point-part-two/ minus the shouts push higher up, close down more and stay on feet. The rest is the exact same.

And Manchester City also lined up with a flat 4-4-2.

I don’t want to dwell on the first game too much as it led to the extraordinary replay that I’ll be discussing below but I thought I best touch upon the fact it was a replay I was discussing.

The Replay

I approached this game the exact same way I did the one above (we both played the same shape again too 4-4-2 and I used the instructions set out above) but because I’ve not discussed that let me set a bit of background about the way I view the game and set up in general. I should point out as well because I’ve not mentioned it yet, I play with the control mentality.

Pre Game Changes

Some people like to make changes before the game is set up and being played – they like to look at things like form, the match odds and even the scout reports and look at the areas the opposition seem the most dangerous. Then they’ll make changes based on what they think will happen. Myself, though, I take a different approach, I don’t make changes before games ever as I don’t like to try and guess what will happen I’d rather make changes based on what I see happening in the match. One of the main reasons for doing it this way is due to me wanting to enforce my style and club playing philosophy on the opposition. If I’m always changing and trying to adapt to the opposition before a game then I don’t have a playing identity because I’m the one always trying to adapt. That’s not something I want to do, why should I be the one always sacrificing the way I want to play? So for these reasons I’d rather change based on what is actually happening in a game rather than trying to predict what might happen before its even happened.

That’s not to say my way is better though, it just works for me and how I play and view the game in general.

Opposition Instructions

For me these are the devil, they seem useful on paper but they can cause complications that the user doesn’t always realise. They can cause you to lose your shape and for players to do things that don’t seem understandable when viewing the match or highlights as he might behave different to how you instructed his tactically, due to having OI’s that make his behaviour different. For me I never use OI’s, ever! If you do use them just make sure you understand which you are using and try and understand how these will impact how you’ve instructed the player to play.

Things like ‘show onto weaker foot’ sound good in principle, but what happens if you’re forcing that player onto his weaker foot? It could mean you are forcing him to use the side the natural overlaps is on. So while in theory it sounds good in practice, it could mean something else and actually be a strength for the opposition if you are forcing him to do a particular thing, you could find the opposition actually has the advantage in some cases. That’s not to say this will always be the case but you need to understand the impact they can have on you and your side.

The First 15 Minutes

The first 15 minutes of any game are the most vital in my opinion, I can’t state just how important these opening minutes are. I always and I really mean always watch the first 15 minutes of the game in full to get an understanding of what is happening in the game. If I was just watching highlights I wouldn’t get a true feeling of what my players are doing and if they are doing the jobs I’ve instructed them to do. For most parts the majority of changes I’ll ever make will come in this time period. After these 15 minutes you can switch to highlight mode again if you feel comfortable with how your side is playing, which is something I often do.

I’ll pause the game, rewind clips, look at the stats and even change camera angles to view incidents from different angles, as you can learn a lot by doing this. Don’t panic and think you haven’t got time, always pause the game if you are unsure before making a decision. I also pause the game at random times when attacking and defending, this allows me to see how the players are playing positionally and sometimes can show things that are wrong in your own set up. For me its probably the easiest way of identifying an issue.

Let’s take a look at what I noticed in these opening minutes.

ana1.jpg?resize=300%2C150

That screenshot is taken from the first 20 seconds of the match and already I can see that attacking I look really good and have men committed forward when attacking, which is good. It can also be an issue should I lose possession as I’d be hit on the counter. But again I’ll worry about that if and when it happens – if it’s not happened yet I’m not going to worry about it as I look good going forward and I’d hate to hamper that. As a rule of thumb I follow something along the lines of;

  • Stick to my own game plan as much as possible
  • Never panic or rush making a decision when it comes to changing stuff
  • Make small changes. Small changes are what 90% of the time wins games.

That way I never lose sight of my own style.

ana2.jpg?resize=300%2C145

Remember above when I said there is no need to worry until something happens? Well it’s happened so now I’ve seen enough for me to decide my first change. While I’m happy with how I attack I can’t help but think City’s pace in their squad could hurt me over 90 minutes and I really think I have a chance of winning this game. So with that in mind;

  • Change 1 – Switch from control to a counter attacking mentality

The reason for this change is simple, I don’t need to leave myself exposed like the screenshot highlights. I mean, I have five players behind the ball so that shows I’m far too aggressive in my approach.

My defensive minded central defender has had to leave his position and move across to the ball which is problematic. He’s identified the danger and is dealing with it like you would expect but this in turn means he’s abandoned his position, leaving the full midfield exposed. He really should be hanging back more but this is due to me using a control mentality, it’s just too attacking for what I’m wanting at the minute and because City are a top side they’ll exploit this time and time again.

Everyone viewing that screenshot should be able to see the issue. Now I might like being risky against sides who are equal to me, but taking a big risk like this against good opposition could result in me taking a hammering.

It’s not all bad, though, when being attacked by the opposition, as the next screenshot will show;

ana3.jpg?resize=300%2C145

This is City actually attacking me – this is my goal. But can you see all the space circled that they leave behind to be exploited should I win the ball back? This is the biggest advantage against the bigger sides as they naturally leave space for you to exploit due to their attacking behaviour. Against the lesser sides they are normally more compact and don’t attack with such numbers so this takes away the space that I’ve highlighted. That’s why we see people mention they beat a big team one week then lose to the club at the bottom of the league the week after. It’s all about space and how you use it against those sides. Against the big clubs they do half the job for you as they leave space compared to the lesser sides when the emphasis is on you creating that space somehow.

It’s normally during those sort of games that you’ll get a real understanding of how your roles all link together to give you the end product. So it’s not too unfamiliar if a lot of people get caught out here, and their tactic shows a flaw in which it creates and uses space. I’ll be touching upon that and showing examples from attacking sides and the more defensive ones in another article.

Back to the above screenshot though, I’m hoping the change to counter attacking mentality will make me concentrate on these areas more when we win the ball back and have a counter on. My complete wingback should make the most of it and I expect the roaming playmaker to take advantage of it too due to what the role is about – A creative box to box player.

After a few minutes I already see my side are doing better in the space I highlighted above;

ana4.jpg?resize=300%2C145

My left back plays the ball into the channel where my raumdeuter is already making a run between the centre back and fullback, he’s in clear space. The three City players highlighted have issues here, the one nearest the touchline is already running towards my left back so he’s totally unaware of my player next to him. The second highlighted player is running across to cut the ball out but realistically he isn’t going to even get close to it. And the third one is even more interesting – you’ll see me mention from time to time if you’ve followed my stuff before about making the opposition make a choice – well this is a good example of that, the defender has two options here;

  • 1 – He can try and cut out the ball and move across towards the raumdeuter
  • 2 – He can track the runner at the side of him who is looking to get beyond him

Now it doesn’t matter which option he really chooses as it will be the wrong option. Whichever player he tries to track, it will leave the other one in acres of space. Play like this wins you games, there is no two ways about it. Forcing the opposition to make a decision whilst you have the advantage regardless of what that decision is, is hard to do, but this is why role allocation and being able to understand how all the roles and duties you’ve chosen all link together is important. I know I bang on about that quite a lot but I can’t stress how important it is.

The deep lying forward has dropped off so he plays in front of the defender, and the raumdeuter is roaming around, looking to be aggressive and utilising any kind of space he sees. He’s quite tricky to mark and these are the types of areas you should see him attacking frequently. The DLF is the support, and this support can be in the form of a passing option or creating the space/occupying the defender.

The next screenshot shows the next stage of the move.

ana5.jpg?resize=300%2C145

He’s decided he’ll go wide with the ball rather than drive inside. By doing this he’s split City wide open and now it is down to the player to choose the correct option. He can either drive forward towards the byline or he can pass to the player who will be in acres of space in the next second, who then also has a passing option next to him too. Sadly on this occasion he goes towards the byline which is the wrong option, but not to worry too much as the player isn’t the best player going (despite what I’ll have you all thinking!) and seeing that my side can open up teams like this is a major positive and this is still all happening within the opening first two minutes of the game.

What comes next is a really well worked goal.

The goal shows me being calm and using the full length of the pitch and also using the areas I highlighted at the start that I thought I should be attacking more. If I was still using control mentality then this goal might not have happened as I’d have been higher up the pitch to begin with and play would have been more rushed compared to the slow build up play of a less aggressive mentality.

Jose Baxter is my roaming playmaker and you can see he is the calm head in the centre who then makes the move. He looks to get the ball forward and is making himself available as an option too. When he initially receives the ball from my centre back (Butler) at the start of the move, you can see him drop deeper to give himself space to be available for the pass. Then once he received the ball he instantly looks to make something happen and uses the width of the pitch. Not only that but he plays the ball to wide playmaker who is drifting inside into acres of free space (the space I highlighted further up the thread).

Then a little later on in the move Baxter is once again the player looking to make something happen and plays a fantastic through ball between Manchester City’s left winger and left fullback. It really is a quality ball. On a side note, I’ve seen people say these type of balls don’t happen in recent days, but this is clear evidence it does with the right set up.

It’s a great goal and I’m more than pleased with that. It came about due to the space they leave open when attacking – they seem to have a total disregard for being compact as they are concentrating more on their attacking play as they are the stronger side. This is why it can be easier to score against the bigger sides because they all do it (if they think you’re much weaker).

Not long after the first goal I get my second from the penalty spot when the wide playmaker is brought down.

All of this has all happened within the first 14 minutes and 50 seconds.

The other 75 Minutes

Now I had a dilemma, do I carry on watching in full mode or do I switch to highlights? If I go highlights it’ll pass by quickly but if I watch the game I’ll know exactly how I am playing and be in a better position to react to any changes that City do. In any other game I’d have more than likely reverted to highlights as I know my team is playing well and looking dangerous on the attack, however, I expect City to really go for it now and make some changes at some point so I stick to watching the full game.

Being 2-0 up is hard against the bigger sides because you are sat waiting for them as you know changes are coming and they’ll look to make something happen. This can also be a good thing, too, because as they chase the game they’ll take even more risks, and I normally score a few more goals when this happens due to the amount of space they leave and players who are caught out of position.

The rest of the first half passes without much else happening. At the end of the half the shot count looked like this;

  • Sheffield United 8 shots 5 on target
  • Manchester City 5 shots 2 on target

I don’t think those stats are that bad in all honesty and I seem to be playing well. I’m actually surprised at how poor Manchester City seem to be playing. The side they’ve put out isn’t that weak – they are playing names like Lampard, Milner, Kolarov, Jovetic, Zabaleta and Fernando, so it really is quite a strong line up. I’ll not lie, though, I was expecting a bit more from them.

Three minutes into the second half and City grabbed one back. My players’ positioning was awful in the build up to it;

ana6.jpg?resize=300%2C147

I’m hit on the counter-attack and my left back is caught way out of position due to the role he has. As he is a complete wingback he gets in very high positions, which can be great when attacking, but makes it harder to get back into position should you lose the ball and the opposition break quickly.

To make things worse one of my central defenders were out of position too. So add this to the fact my full back is out of position too, then I have one central defender who is being run ragged here as highlighted in the next screenshot.

ana7.jpg?resize=300%2C145

Just look at that space undefended and Manchester City are really punishing me here. This is what happens when attacking players who are aggressive in their play going forward get caught out of position. This is terrible defending and I’m not happy about this one bit. So I make change number two here;

  • Change number two – I make both full backs become wing backs on support duties rather than the complete ones they currently are.

Even though I was playing well and look a threat myself going forward, the game has now changed compared to when it was 2-0. City are back in this and if I don’t take precautions then I’ll lose the game, its as simple as that. I needed to do something before it was too late. I have some friends (no I really do, I can’t believe it either) who wait until the final twenty minutes to make any changes regardless of what is happening. Why would someone do that? I’d much rather react earlier while I still have a chance of winning the game, if I waited another twenty minutes I could be losing the game at that point. I’m more proactive and prefer to try and prevent things before they happen if I know something they are going to be an issue.

You can actually see the difference immediately after the change takes effect in the next attack;

ana8.jpg?resize=300%2C163

Normally they’d be slightly higher when I lose possession and City attack me quickly, now I’m much more solid and my back four are all playing as a unit for the first time in the match. It should mean I’m much better placed in the wide areas to deal with City’s wingers and full backs.

Around the 60th minute mark I score my third goal of the game from a freekick to make it 3-1.

It’s at this point that Manchester City switch to a 4-2-4 formation pushing the ML/MR up to AML/R. I love it when teams do this to me as I normally grab a couple more goals myself. As soon as I see they’ve made the change I counter this by making changes myself.

  • Changes number three – I take off the shouts retain possession, shorter passing and play out of defence.
  • Changes number four – I then add more direct passing.

The reason for the changes I said I made in number three is simple: I was playing a possession game of some kind and trying to retain it as much as possible, but now City are using AML/R’s and are being a lot more attack-minded – It’s like they are on overload now, and I don’t want to risk giving the ball away in dangerous areas. My players are tiring and aren’t that strong mentally to begin with, so now that City will close me down more aggressive from the front as the AML/R’s allow this more due to the natural positions they take up, and it could force my players into some kind of mistake.

The change I did in number four is so I get the ball from A to B quickly. This is because City now have a huge gap between their fullback and the players in the AML/R positions, so there is lots of space here and my defenders and midfielders should hopefully make the most of this by being more direct.

I guess a lot of people would also add exploit the flanks here but I haven’t for a very good reason. Exploit the flanks makes fullbacks/wingbacks more attacking, which is not what I want. I need them to hold their position better by being deeper – now that City have pushed their wingers up, it is even more important they do so. So anything that changes them from support to attacking will have a big consequence to the way they act. By being on a support duty it should mean that when defending they’ll be in front of their marker rather than behind him, and if they got caught out of position and ended up behind their marker, then that player would be free to run wild and one of my centre backs would have to cover. It’s a bit like the scenario I discussed earlier in the article when I talked about making the AI make a choice.

Not long after these changes I score my fourth goal. It all started with a throw-in.

ana9.jpg?resize=300%2C133

The throw-in goes to the most defensive midfielder who then passes it back to my left back who took the throw in.

ana10.jpg?resize=300%2C126

He then puts a ball into the complete striker who dwells on it for a few seconds while the deep lying forward times his run, and he then passes into his patch and the DLF taps it in to make it 4-1.

Not long after this, it’s 5-1.

ana11.jpg?resize=300%2C122

The right back gets the ball and puts a simple cross into the back post where Diego, my complete forward, is making a run to tap it home to make it 5-1.

Then three minutes before full time, a simple little dink just inside the box from the DLF to the striker, results in another goal to make it 6-1.

mstats1.jpg?resize=300%2C165

As you can see I more than held my own and totally deserved the win in the end. In the second half I played exceptional.

I won this game due to what I did at the very start in the opening few minutes, and changing strategy from control to counter attacking paid dividends. The changes I made when the opposition changed shape can’t go understated either. No matter how you view the game you always need to be aware of what the opposition is doing, and keeping an eye out for them changing shape or changing their playing style is crucial as this is what really catches people out!

This is brilliant stuff, thank you for including it.

What I meant about the defending with the ball is that typically when playing on a defensive mentality it can be described as defending with the ball. Or, in other words, keeping possession helps to work as a defensive aspect of play.

It is clear that you set up to play with plenty of dangerous counters into space though, I don't doubt that.

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This is brilliant stuff, thank you for including it.

What I meant about the defending with the ball is that typically when playing on a defensive mentality it can be described as defending with the ball. Or, in other words, keeping possession helps to work as a defensive aspect of play.

It is clear that you set up to play with plenty of dangerous counters into space though, I don't doubt that.

Not always, that's just 1 way of playing defensive football. There are many more ways just like attacking football, there are many ways to play attacking and so on.

The point to remember though is defensive mentality has more direct passing at the back and the attack has shorter. On more attacking mentalities this is the reverse. So in a defensive system which you want to focus on counter attacks then it makes sense to play out from the back to begin with because if not, the defenders could possible hit the ball longer than you'd like. Now depending on the shape (like the 343 I linked) this can be a bad idea at times because the ball can be ahead of the support players. So if the ball was hit forward quickly and quite long, then you might find your support players or the players you expect to join in attacks can already be too far behind play.

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Cleon what if you didn't want to play like that and weren't so interested in keeping the ball, but rather keeping shape while without the ball.

To keep shape without the ball? Then you'd need players all close to each other and low closing down. If they have high pressing then they'll naturally lose shape. The shape and roles you use will have the biggest impact on keeping your shape though.

In the set up I posted above my possession ranges from 75% to 32% depending on who I am playing and against what shape but the end product and style is still the exact same. What it focuses on is the use of possession in all the right areas rather than getting hung up on the % like people do.

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But there are other teams out there in real life who maintain their shape and concede possession to the opposition whilst hitting them on the counter.

In my pulis thread I've been attempting to create something like this, having very little success. I don't want to have to create a defensive tactic which is based around keeping the ball the entire time. I would really appreciate your input there in fact if you had time.

There are teams that try to do that. Not many that actually succeed. The common misconception (which you may or may not share) is that smaller teams are likely to achieve success by defending deep and executing lightning quick counters as if it's something that is easily done. I would argue that this particular style of play requires top level skill almost more than any other. A quick counter starting deep in your half requires:

a) a lot of composure under pressure immediately after winning possession;

b) great technical ability to execute the outlet pass;

c) great control by the receiver to keep momentum going in the right direction;

d) smart player movement along with lots of pace and determination to be able to eat up the ground between two goals;

e) decision making and execution of perfectly timed passes.

by a great counter attacking team. Tony Pulis' Stoke were not a counter attacking team. They were a bunch of tall, strong aggressive players who pressed in the right areas, got under the skin of their opponents, defended well with great organization and then used their size to gain an advantage through set pieces. If you want to counter quickly with a team of their quality without the involvement of deeper build up it would IMO be more beneficial to win the ball further up the pitch so the ground your players need to cover is as little as possible and the move involves fewer passes, which makes the execution much easier.
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  • 4 weeks later...

I've just played a season with something very, very like that defensive 3-4-3 of Cleon's (practically nothing different about it other than the distribution of roles in the front 3) and I can report that in no way whatsoever is it based on sharp counterattacking. The buildup was very slow and all my goals came from pretty little combinations around the edge of the box after I'd passed it around the D for a couple of minutes. There are even highlights in the thread demonstrating the amount of patient passing in the final third going on.

However it is you make patient defending and quick, sharp counterattacking happen, it sure as hell isn't like that.

Meanwhile, I'm actually trying to make it happen. So far, following the advice in these two threads, I've set up a tactic with a slow tempo (to make sure runners get ahead of the ball), tweaked mentalities higher and higher starting on defensive because the damn players weren't running forwards quickly enough, and by the time I'd actually managed to persuade my wingbacks to do so, I was on a control mentality. That necessitated slowing the passing down even more, so what began as an attempt to use this advice to counterattack has resulted in quite a positive 4-3-3 with endless periods of possession. This pretty much always happens with me on FM I find - whatever I do, in order to make something like decent football happen and not simply hoof the ball upfield I usually end up having to play very slowly. I've never, ever made a tactic that features these instructions and makes them work:

- Close down less / much less

- Deeper defensive line / much deeper

Both of those just invite the opposition into my box or into dangerous crossing positions, defensive midfielders or no.

- Much higher tempo

- More direct passing

Those result in rushed, low percentage passes and a rapid turnover in possession as my unsupported attackers are swamped. I did make a successful tactic with 'Go route one' once in the lower leagues but it played awful football. I don't really want to go route one tbh.

- Attacking mentality

This is partly because I'm usually a crap team, but I'm told it's the way to get your players to make more forward runs. It also makes them defend horribly so I can't really use it. At the same time if I want to push up and keep the ball I need 'defensive' or 'counter' to prevent risky passing. So my FM career consists of a choice between those two mentalities, pretty much however I want to play. Or so it feels like.

Something ain't right here. I just want to win the ball somewhere around or behind the halfway line, have some runners (ideally wingbacks) set off on their merry way and then hit support players in advanced positions to play them in. How effing hard can it be

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I actually do sort of the opposite of Cleon and go from Counter -> Control when facing bigger teams. It'll often relieve the burden on my defence and actually compress the opposition as well as opening up space for when they inevitably surge forward from a long ball. Though, I do believe it was Cleon who advised me to do this in another thread. But yeah, basically it depends on what is happening as such, for most the part I examine the highlights to see where we might be struggling and where we might be winning. Fortunately, I've not been pressed too much into a situation where I need to adjust much other than the mentality itself, but sometimes, in a reasonable formation with reasonable roles, that's all that really needs to be changed.

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I think it says a lot about the mentality structure of FM still being rather opaque and illogical, at least inasmuch as they relate to their descriptions. A literal description of the kind of style I want would involve the words 'defensive' or 'counter', '(much) higher tempo', 'direct passing' but if you actually select those instructions, nothing of the sort occurs. It's all pretty counterintuitive.

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I think it says a lot about the mentality structure of FM still being rather opaque and illogical, at least inasmuch as they relate to their descriptions. A literal description of the kind of style I want would involve the words 'defensive' or 'counter', '(much) higher tempo', 'direct passing' but if you actually select those instructions, nothing of the sort occurs. It's all pretty counterintuitive.

It's a very good point that. Must confess I have tried out a few "mentalities" and even watching on comprehensive highlights my attacks are 99% of the time camped outside the oppositions penalty area probing away until I either score or someone fires a shot from 30 yards out into row z or somewhere near the corner flag, and this is the same for counter, control, defensive, attack and overload!!

I did have a lovely counter attack once, played to the wing back who ran the full length of the pitch and crossed for a head home but that was whilst playing attacking and was a one off, I could never replicate it so no idea how it was done!!

With regard to strategy against superior teams I find most are pretty useless especially away as an Aguero, Dzeko, Balotelli, Hazard or Mata will always find a way to score but I generally find that attacking is the only way you stand a chance. Defensive or counter is just inviting pressure so you may as well have a go.

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Right, I'm going to scour the Steam workshop for the keywords 'direct', 'deeper', 'higher tempo' etc and see what's out there. Will report back as soon as I find someone who's made their team play on the break properly

Good luck, I doubt most the stuff on Steam workshop is anything other than top heavy/front loaded/exploited formations.

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I've found 2 interesting ones so far that defend quite deep - a diamond and a 3-5-2. The thing they have in common though is a wildly unrealistic level of closing down - both MC's in the 3-5-2 close down to the max, get forward and mark tight, and the amount of ground they have to cover is insane. The TI is 'more closing down' and both DC's are instructed to close down even more than that. Both tactics defend reasonably well despite the diamond having the deepest possible defensive line, but it's hardly anything to do with standing off and keeping your shape. Also, when the 3-5-2 does win the ball back, despite having a high tempo, it's more of the same passing around the edge of the box. I'm yet to see any examples of a low-medium block that stands off and is hard to get through, and even fewer of a tactic that regularly constructs effective counterattacks from deep.

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I've found 2 interesting ones so far that defend quite deep - a diamond and a 3-5-2. The thing they have in common though is a wildly unrealistic level of closing down - both MC's in the 3-5-2 close down to the max, get forward and mark tight, and the amount of ground they have to cover is insane. The TI is 'more closing down' and both DC's are instructed to close down even more than that. Both tactics defend reasonably well despite the diamond having the deepest possible defensive line, but it's hardly anything to do with standing off and keeping your shape. Also, when the 3-5-2 does win the ball back, despite having a high tempo, it's more of the same passing around the edge of the box. I'm yet to see any examples of a low-medium block that stands off and is hard to get through, and even fewer of a tactic that regularly constructs effective counterattacks from deep.

You didn't have to go far to find what you're looking for;

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/421921-The-School-Of-Defensive-Arts-2015-The-3-4-3

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As I posted above, I tried a tactic almost identical to that one and found that what it actually does is keep the ball quite effectively before scoring a lot of goals that involve intricate 1-2's around the edge of the box. It's not remotely what I'm trying to do - in fact I'm specifically trying to get away from that tactic, having just used it for a season. I mean look at the team instructions - short passing, possession, defensive mentality, very slow tempo. It passes and passes and passes, defends with the ball and waits patiently for a breakthrough. And it doesn't drop off particularly deep. What I'm trying to do is:

- Drop into my half quickly when I lose the ball and give the opposition my entire midfield and defence to play through.

- Stop crossing opportunities.

- When I win the ball, look to shuttle it forward to a playmaker as quickly as possible, with the hope of an ultra-fast transition that'll catch the defence napping, with forwards sprinting into the channels. The AI does this to me even when I'm telling my defensive line to drop off, so I know it can be done.

- Even if there's no chance of the immediate break, I want a snappy, methodical buildup. Wingbacks quite advanced, a few passes and we're ready to put in a cross before their defence is set. The wingbacks and the ball should basically arrive at the final third at the same time, otherwise there's no space to cross from and even less to cross into. I'm playing a diamond so there are five players who can remain behind the ball, cover the wingbacks while they get forward and work it to the front five. It shouldn't be a problem to send the WBs and the ball forwards quickly enough.

What I don't want is to decide there's no break on and put together 25 passes before trying to tiki-taka one in from somewhere around the D. Pretty much every successful tactic I've made in this game ends up doing that!

I did a bit of pratting around last night and got the best results I've had so far by starting with a control or attack mentality and a deep line, then adding closing down and shortening or lengthening passing on a player by player basis, with the direct passing concentrated in the midfield

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As a rule of thumb I follow something along the lines of;

  • Stick to my own game plan as much as possible
  • Never panic or rush making a decision when it comes to changing stuff
  • Make small changes. Small changes are what 90% of the time wins games.

That way I never lose sight of my own style.

  • Change 1 – Switch from control to a counter attacking mentality

Hey Cleon, this is a great post. Very useful.

I have a question - you mention making small changes are the way to go, which I entirely agree with. The first change is then changing team mentality. Do you see this as a small change or is this a special circumstance?

To me, mentality is the largest instruction based change you can make as it effects each player's mentality, passing, tempo, width and defensive line.

Mentality is something I am struggling to get to grips with due to all of the knock on effects. I am currently finding most success playing Standard and adding Team Instructions based on how the game is going.

Thanks in advance..

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In current match engine, if you played with a normal defensive setup tactic, especially away game, you are simply begging your opponent to win the game. Those TI that related to invite pressure and counter without trying to keep possession just simply don't work(deep line, close down less, direct pass/route one). Especially when you played against big team like ManUtd, Bayern with a much weaker team, you literally stand no chance, player's attribute and consistency rating difference are already huge enough that player like Mata can destroy your side by himself all alone. If you chose not to close down and parking a bus, they will have something like 30~50 shots and eventually some of those will turn into a goal, while you still cry and hope for your miracle counter attack to happen.

So how do you win? Push higher, win back possession before they go into your final third, then trying to play tiki taka and hope for the best, perhaps setup setpiece-abuse which might add up like 10~20 shots a game(depends on opposite team), that's the reason why every single successful tactics you see in here or those abusive tactics you see in other sites have some sort of similarity despite some of those tactics analysis seem legit. So now you know why all those tactics always have push higher up, shorter passing, play out of defense and sometimes work ball into box, yup match engine's flaw, nothing you can do about it unless you enjoy 50/50 or lower win rate if you insisted to play with a normal defensive tactics.

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In current match engine, if you played with a normal defensive setup tactic, especially away game, you are simply begging your opponent to win the game. Those TI that related to invite pressure and counter without trying to keep possession just simply don't work(deep line, close down less, direct pass/route one). Especially when you played against big team like ManUtd, Bayern with a much weaker team, you literally stand no chance, player's attribute and consistency rating difference are already huge enough that player like Mata can destroy your side by himself all alone. If you chose not to close down and parking a bus, they will have something like 30~50 shots and eventually some of those will turn into a goal, while you still cry and hope for your miracle counter attack to happen.

So how do you win? Push higher, win back possession before they go into your final third, then trying to play tiki taka and hope for the best, perhaps setup setpiece-abuse which might add up like 10~20 shots a game(depends on opposite team), that's the reason why every single successful tactics you see in here or those abusive tactics you see in other sites have some sort of similarity despite some of those tactics analysis seem legit. So now you know why all those tactics always have push higher up, shorter passing, play out of defense and sometimes work ball into box, yup match engine's flaw, nothing you can do about it unless you enjoy 50/50 or lower win rate if you insisted to play with a normal defensive tactics.

What complete tosh... even Cleon's example earlier scores 3 to Nil precisely not doing this!

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In current match engine, if you played with a normal defensive setup tactic, especially away game, you are simply begging your opponent to win the game. Those TI that related to invite pressure and counter without trying to keep possession just simply don't work(deep line, close down less, direct pass/route one). Especially when you played against big team like ManUtd, Bayern with a much weaker team, you literally stand no chance, player's attribute and consistency rating difference are already huge enough that player like Mata can destroy your side by himself all alone. If you chose not to close down and parking a bus, they will have something like 30~50 shots and eventually some of those will turn into a goal, while you still cry and hope for your miracle counter attack to happen.

So how do you win? Push higher, win back possession before they go into your final third, then trying to play tiki taka and hope for the best, perhaps setup setpiece-abuse which might add up like 10~20 shots a game(depends on opposite team), that's the reason why every single successful tactics you see in here or those abusive tactics you see in other sites have some sort of similarity despite some of those tactics analysis seem legit. So now you know why all those tactics always have push higher up, shorter passing, play out of defense and sometimes work ball into box, yup match engine's flaw, nothing you can do about it unless you enjoy 50/50 or lower win rate if you insisted to play with a normal defensive tactics.

This simply is not true. None of it.

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In current match engine, if you played with a normal defensive setup tactic, especially away game, you are simply begging your opponent to win the game. Those TI that related to invite pressure and counter without trying to keep possession just simply don't work(deep line, close down less, direct pass/route one). Especially when you played against big team like ManUtd, Bayern with a much weaker team, you literally stand no chance, player's attribute and consistency rating difference are already huge enough that player like Mata can destroy your side by himself all alone. If you chose not to close down and parking a bus, they will have something like 30~50 shots and eventually some of those will turn into a goal, while you still cry and hope for your miracle counter attack to happen.

So how do you win? Push higher, win back possession before they go into your final third, then trying to play tiki taka and hope for the best, perhaps setup setpiece-abuse which might add up like 10~20 shots a game(depends on opposite team), that's the reason why every single successful tactics you see in here or those abusive tactics you see in other sites have some sort of similarity despite some of those tactics analysis seem legit. So now you know why all those tactics always have push higher up, shorter passing, play out of defense and sometimes work ball into box, yup match engine's flaw, nothing you can do about it unless you enjoy 50/50 or lower win rate if you insisted to play with a normal defensive tactics.

Not strictly true.

You can camp out defensively and soak up pressure. In fact, I experiment with this type of tactical style by playing as San Marino, who as you might know are dire. I can pull off 0-0 draws away to Holland and other European teams and sometimes I replicate the "FM'd" thing where the opposition hit 40+ shots and I win 1-0 with 1 shot on target! Usually I'll set up by packing the middle with a 4-1-4-1 set to be very defensive, standing off and keeping shape. There's a lot of hairy moments, especially if the opposition have excellent technical players or mazy dribblers who can unlock the defence and set pieces are horrendous because San Marino's players are effectively non-league players with no composure to speak of.

It took me a LONG time to figure out how to refine that approach to get closer to results, and that (for me) how deep the defensive line dropped. If the players were too far back, then rebounds and blocks would end up in the box and the whole team would panic and get pulled apart trying to do damage control and a shot would usually squirm in somehow. Instead, going defensive and using the team instructions to try and push the defensive line to be just outside of the 18 yard box ensures that, usually, the opponent will only be pulling off long shots. It also doesn't give them too much space to run into, gives the defence a chance to run back, and the keeper a chance to run out. The key for me, was the balance, too far forward and they'd be one on one too easily, too far back and it was too much pressure for my eggshell boys!

So basically, it is entirely possible for weak teams to go out with a defensive mentality and pull of a draw or sneak a 0-1 win, especially without using possession (San Marino with possession football? Hah!) so long as you identify early on how the defensive line is shaped up, where it is positioned and how the defenders are coping with the pressure. Also, how good are the opposition chances. If you fail to assess these areas, you're going to lose more often than not.

If you can snatch a draw or win when clearly inferior, you should more than be able to win on the counter when you have a team that is just below parity. :) The reason 'attacking' works more often than not is you're denying the opposition forward space and compressing them, usually forcing them to play a counter-attacking game that they aren't set up to take advantage of. Though you need to be aware of when the opposition manager switches his play around.

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Not strictly true.

You can camp out defensively and soak up pressure. In fact, I experiment with this type of tactical style by playing as San Marino, who as you might know are dire. I can pull off 0-0 draws away to Holland and other European teams and sometimes I replicate the "FM'd" thing where the opposition hit 40+ shots and I win 1-0 with 1 shot on target! Usually I'll set up by packing the middle with a 4-1-4-1 set to be very defensive, standing off and keeping shape. There's a lot of hairy moments, especially if the opposition have excellent technical players or mazy dribblers who can unlock the defence and set pieces are horrendous because San Marino's players are effectively non-league players with no composure to speak of.

It took me a LONG time to figure out how to refine that approach to get closer to results, and that (for me) how deep the defensive line dropped. If the players were too far back, then rebounds and blocks would end up in the box and the whole team would panic and get pulled apart trying to do damage control and a shot would usually squirm in somehow. Instead, going defensive and using the team instructions to try and push the defensive line to be just outside of the 18 yard box ensures that, usually, the opponent will only be pulling off long shots. It also doesn't give them too much space to run into, gives the defence a chance to run back, and the keeper a chance to run out. The key for me, was the balance, too far forward and they'd be one on one too easily, too far back and it was too much pressure for my eggshell boys!

So basically, it is entirely possible for weak teams to go out with a defensive mentality and pull of a draw or sneak a 0-1 win, especially without using possession (San Marino with possession football? Hah!) so long as you identify early on how the defensive line is shaped up, where it is positioned and how the defenders are coping with the pressure. Also, how good are the opposition chances. If you fail to assess these areas, you're going to lose more often than not.

If you can snatch a draw or win when clearly inferior, you should more than be able to win on the counter when you have a team that is just below parity. :) The reason 'attacking' works more often than not is you're denying the opposition forward space and compressing them, usually forcing them to play a counter-attacking game that they aren't set up to take advantage of. Though you need to be aware of when the opposition manager switches his play around.

This is all very interesting to read. How far have you managed to go with your San Marino side? Have you been qualified to European Championships?

Since you spent a lot of time studying this style of play with a real outsider, I'd be very interested to know more about how you ended up with your main tactic. From what I've read you've chosen defensive mentality which sounds logical. How about your team shape? Highly Structured, Structured or Flexible? As for your starting team instructions, did you go for Close Down Less, Stay On Feet, Play Narrower and Push Higher Up to achieve the kind of play you described in your post? Anything else that's relevant to add? How about special instructions for defensive set pieces? I can imagine how nerve-racking these were.

Thanks again for such an inspirational and insightful post! :thup:

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I think it all depends on personnel, and team shape to an extent, you can't just say defensive or attacking is better against bigger sides, plus of course luck plays a big part.

I tried my 4312 against Man United away with some of Cleon's settings from his Defensive Arts thread. I scored from a corner early and was 4-0 up on shot count and was pleasantly surprised on how well defensively I was doing. Then United changed things and it was like the Alamo and I lost 4-1 and it could have been 6 or 7. Little through balls were being played through my defence despite being quite deep and I also conceded from a cross, which is an Achilles heel of a 4312 anyway. Shot count was similar at the end but in truth it looked like I had been battered,.

Re-loaded and played the same game but this time using my usual attacking 4312,. Ended up losing 2-0 but had 7 on target to United's 4 (CCC's 2-0 to me) and their goals were a mistake from my keeper (he could have thrown his hat on it) and Falcao heading against the bar and then netting the rebound. If my strikers could finish and De Gea didn't play like a god then I would have probably won, or at least got a draw.

Certainly attacking I felt I had a chance whereas defending I felt that it was only a matter of time before I collapsed, but as I say it's down to variables, I don't think you can say attacking is better than defending or vice versa,.

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Yeah I think its more a matter of HOW and WHERE you defend rather than simply being defensive or attacking. I these days tend to think of it in terms of defending the flanks or the centre and swap my roles around depending on the opposition. Just playing as a 442 I might lock down my wingers as WM-S and my fullbacks on defend if I see their team has amazing wingers. Or I might put 2 defensive duties on my central mids and support duties on strikers if I see their centre is strong. Even better I'd play a 451.

Then balancing out the defensive line is important as well. Too deep and you create gaps between defence and mid, too high and pacey strikers or direct balls will catch you out.

There are so many variables to think of that it can take forever to really consider a lot of these changes. I tend to play with smaller teams and its totally possible to win a lot of games like this, but I think its often too much effort.

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