Summoning Tactical Gurus: Got 0 shots on target!

So I've been through pre-season, after being English Premier League champions with Crewe. Had a good break, improved the squad quite a bit, plus the young guns matured but the first game of the season, the community shield against United, got me pummeled with barely any shot on target.

I'm trying to settle for a new system which I'll explain below but what is getting to my nerves is that I can't understand what's wrong with my tactics. I'm not seeing and understanding why my players can't strike a pass from 3 meters, and why they can't dribble past any player. So I'd appreciate if anyone could shed some light on what could be wrong here.

I don't usually do this, especially on this Crewe save, but I had it saved after pre-season ended and decided to give this match a tryout in order to attain a decent solid foundation for the remaining season. But after 0 shots on target? something must be really wrong.

counter - balanced. Shouters : short passing, retain possession, play out of defence.

United play with a 4231. Di Maria and Van Ginkel on MCs lol.

My gameplan is to make smart short passing combinations on the first stage of attack. Once that WB-DM-WM combination is done, we should advance through their first couple lines of defence, doing so patiently and cautiously.

Bowden, the wonderkid striker, sits between both CBs and moves into channels waiting for a through ball or a fast deep cross from the WBs, who are set to aim to near post. Roberts and Wellington cut inside making use of the space their MCs are giving. Same as Malcom, a very creative player who should feed the striker well. The Right wide man is a runner, as well as the WBs.

7mins on we are 2-0 down. And we can't strike a pass together.

ps: Di Maria is the new Essien. The boy tackles 3 of my players in a row lol.

You played with counter, then add short passing and retain possession. This makes your buildup play very slow. Are you playing Man Utd home or away? If away, it's likely they will push up and close you down early.

A few things to note:

You're playing on the "counter" mentality, which will see your attackers / supporting players play shorter passes by default. By selecting "shorter passing" and "Retain poss" you're making them pass MUCH MUCH shorter. This could be a real problem for breaking teams down. You're being incredibly cautious.

Play out of defense is fine, assuming you want your defend duty players to pass it instead of hoofing it, but like I said above, you're probably going overboard with the shorter passing for the other players.

You have a lot of creators, but you really lack any runners in the side. The WM-A is going to be relied on heavily in this set up because he's one of the goal threats. But your poacher could be easily nullified if the AMC is covered. Think of this... you're telling everyone to play extremely short passes. So if the AMC gets marked, who is passing to your striker? The WP and WB's will all be too far away (in most cases). So this doesn't make any sense.

Also curious why you're using a stopper/cover set up with 2 DM's in front of the CB's? What's the idea there?

I think your flanks are set up in a perfectly reasonable manner. But the middle is really where your problems arise.

Try to come up with a better allocation of roles where you have someone running into the box besides the WM-A. This is going to be the key. The Poacher basically just sits on the shoulder of the defense, so you need to support him in a big way. The Treq is okay, but I don't know if he's a great option because he's going to roam around all over the place and his first priority isn't to get into the box to supplement your attack.

It would be very easily to nullify your attack because as I said above, you have all these creators but really just one player who provides a threat (the WM-A). The poacher can be easily marked out of the game by a team that presses well (like Man Utd). There is no set number of playmakers that is "good" or "bad" but in your case, you have too many because you need runners to help out with your attack.

I understand your point about the wingbacks, but you have to realize how they play in your system.. You're on the counter. They're going to be quite cautious moving forward, even on attack. And also, they're not really the type of runner you need. You probably don't want them to be your main scoring threat, you need them to provide the width, crossing, and defensive cover. But scoring goals and linking play? Eh. I'd say that's where a good runner from central midfield should come into play. You're going to struggle without one.

I hope this helps!

I'm not seeing and understanding why my players can't strike a pass from 3 meters, and why they can't dribble past any player.

Do they actually have passing options? Your 3 playmakers (sometimes even the 4th in the Treq) will all hover around the ball, in the same space. That drastically cuts down on options.

Are they instructed to run with the ball? Only the Poacher runs with the ball often.

There's a few contributing things:

1. Lots of playmakers who want the ball to feet and few players with forward runs or run with the ball often for them to play risky passes to.

2. Counter is a slightly negative mentality, dribbling past a player is a more risky move. Retain Possession just adds to this.

3. Consider how your Team Shape affects your offensive structure, especially with a TQ who doesn't follow the Team Shape and does what they want. When you have a Regista and TQ they should be the exceptional players of the team who you want to have the ball and let them do there thing with runners, supporting players and cover enabling them.

I don't want to just win this game. I could just overload United's area and outscore them like I did the previous season. I want to win with less bodies on the box, the clean way.

I'm trying to replicate Guardiola's Bayern gamestyle ingame. It's a 4141 and if you check his attributes with the editor it should tell a lot about his tactic. Like press very high, play flexible and standard mentality. High tempo and large width as well as no playmakers.

However, I can't make it work and tbh I'm out of patience to post screens and all. All i can say is that It's like the 10th time i play it and full highlights and I can't see any gaps in their tactic. Falcao is alone between my two CBs and keeps being unmarked. Any lose ball creates havoc. Aboubakar plays as Right IF for them. He calmly dribbles past 2 defenders of mine and scores. Their MCs have less than 10 tackling and easily dispose my 17 dribbling players. All the while their FBs are probably on defend duty as they never concede an inch of space and are the most defensive players according to the zone map.

PS: this last time I ended up winning on the penalties after being 2-0 down but they had more than twice the CCCs I had and despite playing "push very high" on "standard" mentality" my players were never close to their defence with the whole block and passing around.

Something like this, except the HB went to anchorman instead.

I just want to play a dominating style and build the system around my striker. I know Bayern style and "building around a player" is contraditory, but I would even settle for one lol... Bowden scored 46 goals in like 41 official games in his debut season in the PL at the age of 17. He has "knocks ball past opponent" ppm. But he can obviously do better, and I would like a new style, instead of a bunch of randomized instructions that abuse the ME.

Cheers and thanks everyone. I'll give a better try when I'm not pissed with FM lol.

I did this thread in 2014 about Pep and his 4-1-4-1 you might find it useful and to give you some ideas. I know it's evolved since I wrote it but the basics and principles are still the same.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/377489-Creating-A-Tactic-Design-Create-and-Maintain

Also a top tip, don't focus on what the opposition is doing but instead focus on your own players, the movement they make and positions they take up etc. Ignore the opposition, to see their true gaps you look at your own system not the opposition.

I did this thread in 2014 about Pep and his 4-1-4-1 you might find it useful and to give you some ideas. I know it's evolved since I wrote it but the basics and principles are still the same.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/377489-Creating-A-Tactic-Design-Create-and-Maintain

Also a top tip, don't focus on what the opposition is doing but instead focus on your own players, the movement they make and positions they take up etc. Ignore the opposition, to see their true gaps you look at your own system not the opposition.

You're probably my fav contributor here but that system is a bit contraditory to what I've read here since then. Attacking with much higher tempo? where's the "defend with the ball and possession" that Bayern do so much? They use a patient build up with some key elements employing direct vertical passes that break through the opposition lines.

I know you said to take the basic principles but which? the 4141 and high press? That tactic worked very well for me in FM14, but now I'm being murdered by United, 2-0 down and several of my players with under par ratings. 5CCCs and 8 Half chances conceded. I barely get any players in the box except the left winger and the forward. And when they do it is through dribbling and still have a mountain of players ahead of them. Besides 48% possession and 79% pass ratio is very low for any team trying to play like Bayern even though the stats don't mean much.

I don't know what's wrong really. Attacking mentality on a 4141 gives actually decent counter transitions but my players always seem to give one more touch than they should and end up losing the ball or missing 5meter passes. Just very annoying and terrible football in display.

I promise I'll calm down and analyze what my players are doing, in a bit, and will provive screenshots.

You should have read all the thread properly rather than skim reading, you'd have seen mentality changes all the time and isn't attacking that's just the base I work from. Also you'll see much higher possession that 48% all you have done is look at one screenshot and drawn a conclusion from the entire thread without reading it.

Rather than moaning though just analyse and provide the required info if you genuinely want help, you know what you need to do or the thread will be closed. There is only you who can provide the info needed in order for anyone to help you.

You should have read all the thread properly rather than skim reading, you'd have seen mentality changes all the time and isn't attacking that's just the base I work from. Also you'll see much higher possession that 48% all you have done is look at one screenshot and drawn a conclusion from the entire thread without reading it.

Rather than moaning though just analyse and provide the required info if you genuinely want help, you know what you need to do or the thread will be closed. There is only you who can provide the info needed in order for anyone to help you.

I've read that thread many times since you wrote it and the 48% was referring to my game using that system. My apologies for the confusing thread and for not being very clear.

Anyways, I think I'm finally into something. I was noticing my wide mids were not doing anything against their very defensive fullbacks, and since they didn't push forward very much, i thought i could use that along the space behind their midfielders. So 2 into 1 the formation morphed into a 4312.

I could finally see some interesting passes and we managed to beat United 3-1 and creating numerous 1n1s against their keeper.

Mentality: Control\Normal - I need to press high but I'm fine with letting their defenders build up and then try to win the ball in the midfield, so there's enough for from my creative players to do short combinations and also enough time for runners to arrive. Will play around between normal and control in the next games.

Philosophy: Structured - To my limited knowledge, balanced would make attacking duty players stretch a bit too much of what I want them to do. And also not fluid philosophies because the roles and Pis give me better control of their movement for this particular style.

CM-D: This guy has control tempo ppm and should link up and stay back. On control he sometimes gets a bit forward too much for my liking.

CM-A and CM-S: These are the center wings, they press the flanks and have move into channels + run wide with ball to stretch play. Also close down much more which sees them press the opposition FBs, which is not sometimes desirable and will leave my own fbs 1n1 with their wingers. I don't need them to go into the box, they will be fine recycling possession I think.

AP-A: Link up with the front 2. Want him to roam around and provide combinations with the DLF which has move vertical movements. The CF-S also comes into play with more horizontal movement and stretching their defence.

Overall I feel i'm on a better path, but needs more improvement. I also realize I was maybe being a bit too harsh with my young squad in the first official game of the season. Even so the English supercup against a strong United. Anyways, will appreciate further tips for tweaking.