my 4-5-1 - help me get me that final extra edge on it

Hi, for the past 4 seasons or so I've been progressively trying to refine a system that started as a 4-3-3 vaguely based on Cleon's Art Of Possession, and over time morphed into several different things. Lately I thought I had finaly cracked it. Just very recently my league table looked like this:

Notice I am not making things very easy for myself by playing in the Slovakian Second Division. This is a dauntingly difficult league to get out of, as out of 2 groups of 12 teams, only one gets promoted. This means we need to not just do well to get out of here, we need to dominate. However, over the seasons I've now built a squad that I believe has the talent to do this. You can follow my career in further detail here.

This season was going great, but in Slovakia the league splits at the end of a double round robin, and you're lumped together with the best teams of the other group into the "Promotion Stage". As soon as this happened, we completely fell apart. These are our results since, as we've dropped to 18 points behind (!!):

I am totally baffled as I've not really been doing anything different, sticking to the same plan. It's not as if the teams have suddenly started rating us as the season went on and started packing the bus against us neither, if anything they've been MORE aggressive against us.

This is our game plan:

This formation for me started as a reaction to my earlier 4-3-3 with inside forwards not giving me enough cover to the wings, so I pulled them back to WMs. To further help out the wings I pulled my DM up to the MC line, which has other attacking benefits sometimes. As things developed I also dropped "close down more", "push higher up" shouts which made us remarkably more solid defensively at the time; and I removed all shorter passing instructions except for "lower tempo" as I feel the formation in itself gives us already a solid base of possession and I felt shorter passing range also limited our crossing game (more on this later).

Player instructions:

GK - Distribute To Full Backs

Don't want him to punt the ball up when we only have a lone ST

DL and DR - Cross More Often

This is to diminish the number of occasions I saw them dallying on the ball when they had clear opportunities to cross the ball

MCL (BBM) - Get Further Forward, Shoot Less Often

With no other runner from midfield I want him to go upfield and operate a little more like a CM/A in possession, without the overly aggressive mentality of a CM/A. However he shot from long too often so I added Shoot Less Often

MR - Dribble More

I want my wide midfielders to almost operate as wingers (without being so declaredly wide all game) and when I tried to add this I felt we improved dramatically going forward

ML - Dribble More and Sit Narrower

Dribble More is same reasoning as the MR, I added Sit Narrower in hopes this will open up space for the wingback bombing from deep. HOWEVER only today it dawned on me that this might be causing some of my issues with the space I'm giving away to the opposition fullbacks when defending (which has been giving me immense frustration and which I've posted about all over the place). Woops. I'll try getting rid of it and see what happens.

Other tweaks I regularly do is:

- I'll drop the DLP/D to the DM position when I feel the opposition are finding it too easy to play within my defence, or when I want a little more possession and the opposition doesn't field a AMC

- When I'm winning and the opposition decides to up their defensive line to try to get an equaliser, I add "pass into space" which often works great

My regular starting 11:

GK - Rapisarda

DL - Pedro Amaral

DC - Kelly

DC - Jorge Silva

DR - Godoy

ML - Tzoumakis / Jorginho

BBM - Lozano / Bijimine / Moutesidis

DLP - Drewniak (or Bijimine)

AP - Oravec

MR - Rybak

ST - Durkot

Now the game plan is, keep defense in check first above all else, and try to control the game. We conceded very few goals in the first half of the season, thanks to our formation which is deep, but (at least wasn't) not too deep that we get cornered in our area. With the control mentality the players tend to bomb forward quite a bit from their deep positions; and the structured team shape gives us a very nice overall dynamics with the ball, as the runner's movements and roles get a little more pronounced.

I do understand we have a problem in lack of goal diversity, as almost all of them seem to come from the striker and the right-winger. A lot of our game is crossing which is perhaps a little illogical given we have a single man in the area, but I found this works better than my earlier 4-3-3s that tried to make it all about passing down the floor and hoping the midfielders join the area to score. It's not as if we don't pass the ball now anyway, not at all, we still do that a lot. And up until recently we scored often enough for my liking.

But the real big problem I've been facing in my recent defeats, is we're getting abnormally cornered in our own area, and really struggling to get the transition from defence to attack working. Typically if we face a team that doesn't press us much we can just pass around the MCs, and progressively move forward as they do so. Or the wide midfielders dribble past the pressing and find the space. Recently I've been facing a lot of aggressive teams, usually playing 4-3-3 (though I've had an even worse time vs a Christmas Tree, that 4-0 defeat), and they just don't let us breathe, eventually scoring through just camping in our half for too long. Here's what I tried without success:

- closing down more, higher defensive line. THE solution sometimes, but in other matches it's suicidal as they've got quick forwards too.

- adding "retain possession", "shorter passing" shouts. Doesn't seem help the possession in this case.

- doing it the other way around and adding "pass into space", and/or more direct passing. Maybe slightly improves our attack but we keep cornered anyway.

- pushing the WMs back into IFs. We struggle to get the ball into them and continue getting smothered in our area, aggravated by getting murdered down the wings then with the further lack of cover.

- tight marking the dangerous opposition fullbacks, with my WMs. Not a good solution, opens far too much space down the middle. Pushing the DLP/D back to DM doesn't help enough.

- "get stuck in" to help us win more balls. A noticeable improvement sometimes, other times I get a couple of cards immediately and it's clear it's not worth it.

- "stand off more", trying to embrace the situation to let them come at us, but without the slight pressing game of the Control mentality by default. But they pass their way into our area anyway. I might try adding it only to my fullbacks though, as I feel they're a bit too eager to press the same man as the WM is pressing, and leave someone free on the wings.

Help? Any more ideas? I'm thinking maybe changing my midfield formation, pushing Oravec up to AMC to get us another quick outlet for a ball up the pitch? Perhaps compensated by moving the other 2 to DMs? Anything else that might improve us?

The obvious thing to do to clear your lines is to kick the ball long when you have reclaimed it via the goalkeeper - so after a save, or a goal kick. The advantage there is your players will move up the pitch and you will be able to get out. The obvious downside is how well you can get the ball from such a long kick. Clearly you do not wish to play like this, but this is something I will do (after pushing higher up) if I cannot get out. If you have a striker who is good in the air that will help, and perhaps a central midfielder on attack duty to get up and win the subsequent ball.

Anyway, that is my two cents. Good luck!

Interesting idea, I'll give a try in one of those matches I'm getting cornered in my half.

Meanwhile I finished the season and whilst I'm open to a few other standard tweaks, I think I'm going to start reverting back to my old 4-3-3 in these matches. All it differs from my plan presented in the opening post, is that it uses Close Down More + Higher Defensive Line, and it pushes the WMs up to IFs, too. Though it also means I swap the players around (ML goes to AMR (IF/S), MR goes to AML (IF/A)) as they're no longer expected to cross, but to cut inside. This is all very risky, the idea is that if the opponents are playing aggressive enough to corner me, then they're leaving enough space at their own back that I can exploit with inside forwards better than with wide midfielders hugging the line.

This plan worked brilliantly in my final match of the season - we started the match cornered and playing badly, but the switch made us win 3-0(!!) -, however the damage was already done with my previous bad run and I finished 4th in the league.

For me the tactic looks slow and pedestrian. You need an absolute quality team to build slowly from the back and keep the ball up and down the pitch. I'm just look at the formation and struggling to see who the outlet is? Who is making runs to open the defence and who is holding the ball up to bring in support players?

Playmakers have longer passing ranges, who are they picking out?

My first move would be to change formation and get out of those flat lines unless you are attempting to play some sort of counter attack tactic.

I honestly don't think I have a problem with a lack of attacking outlet. Both wide midfielders get into the area (specially the one on attack role), the box-to-box does as well (I tell him to "get further forward", remember), and the striker scores a lot as well despite being on support role (he's the one who holds the ball up for others). There is perhaps an overreliance on crosses at times, and there's the odd time only the striker is there in the area to finish them, but I rarely struggle breaking teams down, when I do I actually drop down the mentality to lure them out.

You are correct that sometimes I find it hard to build slow from the back, and that's the main concern from my opening post. When good teams press us hard and high we struggle to make the transition from defence to attack.

Anyway I'm pretty excited that lately I've built a system of tiny little tweaks to react to matches, that has stopped the bad run. Since the new season started I've got 9 wins, 1 draw, 3 conceded goals in 10 matches. I'll post a bit further in depth later on what I'm doing now.

Ok this is what I'm doing now. I'm training two tactics.

My plan A is pretty much the same as the OP, I've only dropped the "sit narrower" PI for my left midfielder. This is the tactic I start every single match with, and I still feel it is the best default plan.

Plan B adds "close down more", "push higher up", "get stuck in", and the wide midfielders become inside forwards. The ML becomes the AMR (IF/S) and the MR becomes the AML (IF/A). So they play wrong-footed instead of tending to run down the line and cross with their better foot. This is basically the tactic I had 2 or 3 seasons ago.

Often if a game is going wrong, switching from plan A to plan B will be enough. However that's far from the whole picture. I'm building a swiss armor knife set of tweaks to react to problems. Different matches play out immensely different, and need different solutions.

This is the full list of *possible* problems/scenarios, that I've identified throughout the many matches I've played with variations of plan A and plan B over the last few seasons

• 1. difficulty making the first transition with the ball from defence to attack, as we slowly pass our way out of our own half, but end up losing the ball. Usually vs aggressive high pressing midfields. Easily identified by when we're losing the possession battle. (this is the problem I complain the most about in the OP)
  
• 2. we're pushed back in our own area for too long, and the opposition fields seemingly unmarkable attacking fullbacks that are able to find lots of space (and usually punish us with crosses, though not always).
  
• 3. the opposition is able to split our defence by playing the ball into quick forwards running behind it.
  
• 4. the opposition is able to pass their way into our own area through the middle, or find too much space to play in between our defence and midfield.
  
• 5. over-reliance on crosses in our own attacking game. We spend most of the game crossing the ball and it doesn't seem to be finding any targets.
  
• 6. when we have possession, we struggle to make the final transition from midfield into the area, as my attacking players run forward too quickly and stiffle movement. Usually identified by a very low shot count on our part, or lots of blocked shots and few on target.
  
• 7. the opposition pushes high or presses high so much that they leave a large amount of space behind their defence. (this is not really a problem but rather a scenario we sometimes face when the opposition is desperate for a goal)
  
• 8. we commit too many fouls or pick up too many cards.
  

Obviously this doesn't happen all at once, if it did I'd have the worst tactic ever. Sometimes plan A clicks without any problems and that's that. When it doesn't, we need to react. Here's the list of solutions:

• a) "close down more" and "push higher up" is the best answer to problem #2. The higher you push the less space the opposition fullbacks have to run into, from deep. Whilst it's a bit less clear cut, I also believe this helps a little with problem #1. Reason is by starting a little higher up, you have less ground to cover to pass your way into the opposition half.
  However increasing your lines and pressing higher, has the massive downside that it sparks problem #3 (sometimes combined with a bit of #4). The opposition might not carve you open many times, but when they do, it'll be a clear cut chance. Particularly if they have a quick striker or winger. Yet, this might be a good tradeoff of problems depending on how the game is going, or I simply need to take more risks. This is the reason why plan A is my starting plan, and why I don't start with plan B by default - I don't need to spark problem #3 on me if I'm not seeing any issues with #1 or #2. I'll just be adding unnecessary problems.
  
• b) using wide midfielders in the flank that corresponds to their strongest foot, leads to them behaving a bit like wingers. On top of that, my fullbacks are told to cross more often (and do so, a lot). Sometimes, particularly when we only have our striker advanced, this very obviously leads to problem #5. This is why we simply tend to attack much better when we use inside forwards instead. So I switch my ML to AMR and my MR to AML. This offers us more choices beyond crossing, AND also gives us more targets to cross into when my fullbacks go forward. It's win-win.
  Except it's a defensive disaster that really sparks up problem #2 of the free unchecked opposition fullbacks - that's the big drawback. In fact this is the single whole reason why I use wide midfielders by default. However, when I'm already pressing higher with a higher defensive line, problem #2 has pretty much already been solved. So when I press higher I use inside forwards, and when I don't I use wide midfielders. This is what distinguishes plan A from plan B.
  
• c) a completely independent tweak is what I do to solve #6. So we just sit around uninspired on the edge of the area until someone frustrated shoots from long; or my runners from deep, on the aggressive Control mentality, run so quickly that they get marked early and there's no space for a pass. This is usually what happens vs parked buses, but puzzlingly, not always - it's rare but I've came across this issue simultaneously with problem #1, vs aggressive teams! The answer is simply to drop the mentality from Control to Standard. This means the runners don't run so quickly, AND our midfield supporters like the AP/S play a little deeper having more space to play in. However Standard is a lower tempo mentality than Control by default and we already have "lower tempo" ticked so I drop that. Otherwise we'd just be too slow.
  
• d) when scenario #7 comes up the answer is pretty obvious. I love when that happens, it's time to turn on "Pass into space". This works amazingly well when we have the inside forwards on the pitch. All we need is one counter-attack to come off well and the game is killed.
  
• e) something that clearly helps in conjuction with "close down more" and "push higher up", to help us win the battle of possession and yards on the pitch, is to add "get stuck in". However on the wrong day this sparks up problem #8. When I see it's going wrong and I'm conceding too many freekicks or seeing too many cards, I take it off again.
  
• f) something I haven't touched upon much is problem #4. This is because it's a rare one, and usually accompanied by #1, #2 or #3. I find that dropping my deep-lying playmaker from MC to DM position helps a little.
  
• g) ... and related to the above, here's one I tried recently that sounds a little counter-intuitive but I like. When we have a goal kick, the deep-lying playmaker drops down in line with the centre-backs. However, if this is a game vs a really aggressive team where problem #1 is happening, this isn't good because it's yet another player that's even deeper, and we struggle so much to get our players moving up the field. If I've done the tweak above and dropped him to DM it's even more pronounced. So I just switch roles from DLP/D to DM/D... weirdly improving our build-up play.
  

All of this is great but it does force me to watch the game in more detail. I'm now watching every match in Comprehensive, and I've switched to 2D Classic view where you have a much clearer view of where the space is on the field. It's a shame I don't see the guys in 3D (I do turn it on for goal replays), and I can't play the seasons as quickly as I want to. However, the sense of achievement you get when you completely turn a game around tactically is something else. I've literally done that 3 or 4 times this season - I've had matches we struggled to get even a single shot in the first 25 minutes, then end up with over 20 shots, 5 CCCs and a clear win. It's quite the ego boost!

I'm sure I've just jinxed the rest of the season.

It sounds like your players are to spaced out, or you team is split. Have you thought of changing to flexible. A minor tweak can make a huge difference.

It sounds like your players are to spaced out, or you team is split. Have you thought of changing to flexible. A minor tweak can make a huge difference.

I've gone from flexible to structured a few seasons ago and it made a huge difference. It doesn't really play out like you'd expect, with the lines too far apart. For me it seems to exaggerate the overlapping of the runners! (which is pretty much the opposite effect, at least in possession)

Just posting to happily report that my system of tweaks, as detailed in post #6, has given me a very dominant title and promotion.

Well done on resolving the issues, too often people would just give up and blame the me ow something else.

Well done on resolving the issues, too often people would just give up and blame the me ow something else.

Funnily enough despite the fact I'm winning, I'm still convinced the ME isn't quite right - some of the things I'm doing to win don't quite make sense. Why is it seemingly impossible to deal with the opposition's attacking fullbacks without playing a higher line and/or pressing game? Why is my plan A sometimes very successful on a game purely of crosses, when the only targets for my crosses are the striker and the wide midfielder rushing from deep?

I fully expect to have to revise all of this once the patch is out, assuming these issues are dealt with...

Funnily enough despite the fact I'm winning, I'm still convinced the ME isn't quite right - some of the things I'm doing to win don't quite make sense. Why is it seemingly impossible to deal with the opposition's attacking fullbacks without playing a higher line and/or pressing game? Why is my plan A sometimes very successful on a game purely of crosses, when the only targets for my crosses are the striker and the wide midfielder rushing from deep?

I fully expect to have to revise all of this once the patch is out, assuming these issues are dealt with...

We are on the same page here.

I am currently trying 3 variations of the 4-5-1, one like the one you are using, the other a 4-1-4-1 and a 4-4-1-1.

I have the same issues you are describing more or less, watching the games in full, trying to make sense of the ME.

You re right, somethings just dont add up.