wide tactics

[biro]

has anyone had any success with a tactic using a high width setting and two wingers? most of the successful tactics you see tend towards narrow width. interested to see whats out there. i've been using the amazing possesion domination tactic but fancy a change.

[blurps11]

I'm currently playing like this:

Annan as anchorman, Fellaini is a box2box midfielder, Pienaar and Di Maria are shuttle wingers basically, Cahill is the target man with supply to head and Yakubu/Vaughan poacher to convert through and second balls.

Works pretty well for me, the combination of an anchorman and two quality central defenders is very potent in FM10 and adding Fellaini's strength, work rate and dominance in the air makes the defense extremely difficult to break down. The two wingers pretty much just dribble down the flanks and then smack crosses onto the heads of Cahill and Fellaini.

My save a season in unfortunately got corrupted so I had to restart. I made it through the first leg again and in both saves my wingers topped the player stats for assists. In the first save Cahill was the top scorer with close to 30 goals ( 28 I think.. ), in the new one Fellaini is my best scorer.

A lot of the goals come from direct or indirect set plays and the tactic relies heavily on Cahill and Fellaini in general. My results are proof that a simple wing play based tactic can work though, given the right players.

There are some alternatives for Cahill: Wilfried Niflore, Martin Palermo, Lacina Traore, maybe Lukaku and Jordan Ayew with the right training

And Fellaini: Rodwell at Everton, Sandro, Palacios, Mariga, etc.

It's definitely possible, but maybe somewhat more difficult to achieve success compared to some of the narrow tactics.

[biro]

nice one. i think one of the problems with wide systems is the pitches in the UK don't suit it. might be wrong though. unless you have fast defenders you tend to get caught out.

[Zebedee77]

nice one. i think one of the problems with wide systems is the pitches in the UK don't suit it. might be wrong though. unless you have fast defenders you tend to get caught out.

Main problem with setting up tactics to take regular advantage of width, is that a lot depends on how your team is balanced and that will come down to players available which isn't what people seem to want to hear when they just want plug-and-play tactics.

Two out-and-out wingers aren't a great idea as a 'standard' way to play unless you're playing something which has cover for them - and that tends to mean playing with a lone 'striker'. Otherwise you'll end up with the traditional problem of a 4-2-4 - it's great when you're going forward but you won't hold the ball in midfield, so you're reliant on pinning the opposition back to prevent them exploiting the space in midfield you leave behind and a decent passing side playing on the counter will rip you to shreds.

If it wasn't so aesthetically unappealling, I'd imagine that in the lower leagues you could still have a lot of (relative) success by trying to emulate Watford or Wimbledon of the 1980s with long balls, heavy pressing and a couple of big lumps up front to knock things in.