Help with Away tactic

Hey folks,

Got an FMC save on the go with Sheffield Wednesday at the moment. Things were going ok, but I have totally hit the skids away from home. My home form and tactic are great, so no problems there, but I just can't seem to win on the road. See the latest results here for evidence...

This has seen me drop out of the top 2, and I'm now dangerously close to slipping out of the playoff places, and with our finances, that would be a disaster.

I went back to the drawing board for the last away game v Huddersfield (0-0, so stopped the rot), and this is the current away tactic. My vision is for us to soak up the home team's pressure, and hit them on the counter. I have pacy wingers, hence why I have run at defence switched on. The idea is for them to tear down the wing on the counter and feed in the advanced forward to score. There were signs of improvement in the last game, but is there anything glaringly wrong with this set up? I'm no tactical genius by any stretch, and this game is testing me after the much more forgiving FM15 Anyway, I'd appreciate some feedback.

I only ever play a BPD at the back when Petersson is in the team, as he's a natural at it. Not sure if this is going to play havoc with the rhythm of the team or not. Here's the instructions.

Any feedback would be most welcome. Tearing my hair out here.

EDIT - Here's the heatmap v Huddersfield if that helps

The first thing that pops up is the fact that your four more advanced men all have attacking roles. Basically they are all making forward runs in the hope that a teammate (who) supplies them. This can create a big gap in your team.

Plus, the "retain possession" TI is very contradictory. If you're looking to soak up pressure and try to play on the counter why would you want to retain possession?

I'm using retain possession as my players are terrible for giving the ball away. When I have the ball I want to keep possession and push forward. I can see why you think it's contradictory. I won my last away game with this tactic, but we were generally awful, so further tweaking may be required. I see what you're saying about the number of players on attack duty. As I'm not playing with an attacking mentality, it's not as suicidal as it could be, but I might rein in a couple of them.

Given your countering approach and the way you want to score on the break, would you try CM(a) and/or BBM(s) roles in central midfield? I would want someone sprinting up the middle to join your lone forward to get on the end of your winger crosses. I feel like the AP is not really that type of player.

but the whole idea of counter is to bomb forward when you have the ball, looking for an outnumbered goal

and then you're telling them to instead pass it around negating attacking threat, as well as taking their time getting it into the box anyway

can you not see the contrast here?

personally, that setup looks alright for a control mentality (expected to dominate possession, so play keep-ball and working it around for an opportunity)

but I'd look more for early crosses (the ST will already be pushed up anyway) as well as more direct passing, particularly with your front 4 moving up quickly when you get the ball

also, I'll point out that you played 7 games in 3 weeks between the Hull and Charlton games, so I'd guess that your players were a bit tired (and therefore making sloppy errors) toward the end of it

Given your countering approach and the way you want to score on the break, would you try CM(a) and/or BBM(s) roles in central midfield? I would want someone sprinting up the middle to join your lone forward to get on the end of your winger crosses. I feel like the AP is not really that type of player.

That's a decent shout actually, I might give that a go, thanks.