1-4-1-4 - Halfback Duo

[Auqakuh]

I'm curious as to thoughts on this:

...attacking and fluid, and

I'm aware that it looks like a 3-3-2-2, but it is in fact a 1-4-1-4.

It's an experiment in using two halfbacks and one centreback because I just sort of wondered what the hell would happen.

Smalling has "hold position" instruction; Shaw is set to "cross more often" and "cross to far post"; Peruzzi is simply set to "pass it shorter"; Jones and Fellaini are both set to "pass it shorter"; Rautio, a youngster, is set to "more direct passes"; Kagawa to "pass it shorter"; Ozil to "cross more often" and "cross aim centre"; Boone and Ibrahimovic are both set to "tackle harder".

The "Be more expressive" team instruction is a toggle thing in the system, turned off against strong teams and on against weak teams to enable a little more fluidity in transition.

[Auqakuh]

Background and Purpose

After winning two Champions Leagues, a couple of my players apparently got bored and wanted a new challenge and sodded off. One of those was Robin van Persie.

This rather ruined some planning; namely, John Boone (a renamed regen, because I like Red Mars...), my future choice for the primary striker role in the team, was not yet ready to step up. At least, I thought he wasn't. He wasn't scoring goals as a striker when rotated there to rest van Persie, but still managed to score 24 in the season from out wide. Irritatingly enough, the outgoing Dutchman only decided to leave after Javier Hernandez departed due to failing to get enough first team action, leaving me a striker short with only a few days to find a replacement.

Step in Zlatan.

The original intention was to rotate him and Boone, as well as Chilean Henriquez, until another forward could come in. He's 33 now, so I got him pretty cheap - and I'd recently joked about bringing him in to scare Boone into scoring more often as a striker in another thread... so... it had to be done, right?

But then I thought about it a little, and decided that it would also be good to have a second tactic, one that allowed me to play both the nippy 5'5" chap and the big, talented but hilarious Swede.

Thus this tactic. I do not have a single player I'd be comfortable playing as a winger, but I have excellent wingbacks. All of my attacking midfielders are pacey and dangerous in the final third, but if I was to play two strikers, none of them would be useful. On the other hand, playing two central midfielders is something I utterly detest - too flat, too lacking in dynamism, and frankly, boring because years ago when I first started playing CM, I pretty much stuck stolidly to 442.

But what I do have is Phil Jones, and further, Fellaini. What if the fury of Jones and Fellaini could be harnessed by a passing wizard? What if Zlatan and Boone could combine up front? What if I could play two strikers and two inside forwards?

Thus, 1-4-1-4, the first formation I've ever used that started with a "1" but didn't involve a sweeper.

So, what is the system?

The purpose is simple. The middle of the pitch is, in theory, wide open. But in practice, that's far from true. The idea is to compress the opposing team in possession into as little of the middle of the pitch as possible, by playing a high defensive line and having lots of very mobile players in pretty little triangles and squares all around them. The passing lanes don't exist. The only options are to play wide, or try through balls or long balls over the top, and Smalling can deal with those... and if he can't, Phil Jones is coming.

The real, secret purpose, however, is to delay winning the ball back until after the other team transitions to attack, but to compress the play enough that they either go forwards, or Zlatan is there, and he's got an instruction to put the boot in if necessary. Not to mention Boone, quick but rubbish at tackling, and, more importantly, great at anticipation. If they pass back towards him, he can pick off the passes and spray it out to Ozil/Kagawa or play Zlatan through or look for a return pass from either in a one-two.

And once they transition to attack, we smother them. Three defensive midfielders and two fullbacks means five bodies in defence, plus Smalling to mop up. Once the ball is won back, it goes to the regista, who can take full advantage of the other team being in transition to defence.

What's more, when we're on the ball, we play quick passes but patient ones; the ball gets crossed regularly to take advantage of Zlatan's height, but if there's no option to cross, it goes back to midfield and the move recycles, just like the best pass-to-death methods.

Effectively, it's a counter-attacking possession tactic. It's our ball, we're keeping it, and if you take it, we'll hurt you for it.

At least, that's the plan...

I'll be posting some results soon.

[Kevunited]

looking forward to it mate

[Auqakuh]

The first test is against Leeds, in the Capital One Cup. Primarily because it doesn't matter. I really don't care if we lose, and after this match, I'm going back to fielding the youth team.

No real shocks here - possession dominated, the scoreline of 5-1 reflecting that - but there's no reason Leeds couldn't have grabbed a result.

Instead, Boone grabbed his fourth hat-trick of the season, after a relatively poor first half. Zlatan didn't do anything instantly headline-grabbing, but had a good game as well; the entire defensive unit, in particular, was excellent.

The single Leeds goal came from a goalkeeping error on a corner. Leeds did get some shots in, but all of them were under pressure, and none of them were threatening.

Henriquez had a good cameo - an assist and a goal, deployed as an AF. Not bad, considering it's his first first team start of the season, and the chipped through ball for Boone's third goal was simply exquisite.

What's more, we won the possession battle simply everywhere.

And held pretty much the exact desired shape:

And forced Leeds into a rather compressed, weird shape, as desired:

That doesn't look much like the 4-2-3-1 they were supposedly playing!

But this was encouraging enough that I'm going to give it a real test in a couple of game-weeks time - away to CSKA Moscow.

[Ifail]

this is not bad I might try it soon after more tweaks

[Auqakuh]

this is not bad I might try it soon after more tweaks

If you do try it and want to retain the "core" principles, retain the passing instructions on the players in the same positions or be sure to tweak carefully. The structure means that a straight short passing or direct passing game won't work (players in the attacking phase are frequently too isolated for that, and in defence, too much directness will just relinquish possession, especially if your defenders lack composure) - I'm 99% sure it has to be mixed, either through creative expression or designation.

[Ifail]

well my plan ( im a liverpool fan so) was to use

-----------SAS

coutinho---------tello--

---lucas-gerrard-hendo--

enrigues--agger---johnson

[Auqakuh]

Hey, that's a potentially great solution to Gerrard ageing, too.

[jimbobBRFC]

Love this idea. Ive considered something similar since the half back role was announced but never actually got around to it. Only thing I would be worried about is where the goals will come from. You have a complete lack of attack duties, all support and defends which will probably be pretty solid defensively but maybe a little blunt in attack?

Thats not a criticism by any means, just interested to find out more about how it actually plays out.

How does it fare against the bigger sides?

[kazm]

The idea behind the HB is to have him drop deep so the wingbacks can go forward.

I would at least set them to FB-s to support the midfield.

[Auqakuh]

Love this idea. Ive considered something similar since the half back role was announced but never actually got around to it. Only thing I would be worried about is where the goals will come from. You have a complete lack of attack duties, all support and defends which will probably be pretty solid defensively but maybe a little blunt in attack?

Thats not a criticism by any means, just interested to find out more about how it actually plays out.

How does it fare against the bigger sides?

Thus far, it's actually a pretty attacking formation, although typically only three players get into the opposing penalty area at any one time (an inside forward and the two strikers), but frequently until late in the move it's only two (an inside forward and Zlatan).

In the latest use (v Wigan), we hit the post 3 times, forced 15 saves, and won 3-0 with 65% of the possession (around five hundred completed passing and some of the most pretty football I've seen so far). Probably should have been a lot more goals in that one.

As to bigger sides... unfortunately nearly two months away before the next big match (which for me, are only Arsenal, City, Chelsea, in the league), unless you count Moyes' Tottenham in a few games time, and... I don't, really, since they've already lost 4. CSKA Moscow should put up a good fight, though, and I'm going to use the tactic against them.

The idea behind the HB is to have him drop deep so the wingbacks can go forward.

I would at least set them to FB-s to support the midfield.

They actually do support the midfield, and, indeed, the attack. The purpose of the wingbacks (and defensive wingbacks aren't that defensive, to be honest - less so than supporting fullbacks; Peruzzi scored against Wigan) getting forward here is less to whip the ball into the box and more about supporting the inside forwards and laying passes off to the halfbacks. It's not entirely in keeping with the intention of either role, I suppose, but it appears to work so far.

[Auqakuh]

Here's how it went against Tottenham:

As you can see, Tottenham had a man sent off. I will note, though, that this was at least in part due to the quick passing interchanges that were happening halfway into their half, pulling players out of position and leading to Boone getting a ball to feet and turning his man quickly... who then hacked him down shamelessly and got sent off for it.

Fairly good stats for most players, particularly, as usual, the fullbacks. I'll also note that Chris Smalling, the centreback, completed 83 passes. And again more than three hundred passes from the central midfield trio. On a better day, Boone would likely have grabbed at least two more goals, possibly more, considering he hit the crossbar and the post and had 8 shots on target. Lloris made 14 saves, but suffered from the high pressing, failing to distribute well at all, which demonstrates how hard it is to play out from the back against this system (particularly with a man sent off, admittedly!).

I'll try it against (markedly stronger than Tottenham) PSG next.

Also, I accidentally hit "start match" before I could apply team talk wizardry for the first half. So... probably not as good as it could've been.

And finally, the passes.

Only one change was made, for about 10 minutes - upping the tempo.

[Auqakuh]

After playing a few games with this system, I have some thoughts on its requirements and weaknesses.

Firstly, the glaring weakness is to counter-attacks. Because the trio of DMs actually operate quite high up the pitch in attack, and the defensive... err, one person... is extremely high, often in the opponents half, it is potentially extremely vulnerable.

But it isn't as vulnerable as it looks. The high positioning of the defensive midfielders - naturally with good teamwork, positioning, and tackling - means that the opposition has to go very direct in order to transition to attack, or has to play very quick, short passes - a lot of them. In the first instance, they have a fair chance of launching an attack, but in the second, the transition to defence will also have occurred, and the wingbacks will probably be back to make a back 3, with both halfbacks and the regista likely also in position defensively, and you can't counter against six men.

If they do go very direct, then there is a great reliance on the centreback being quick and agile (for a centreback), as well as strong and good in the air (compared to opponents). The latter is less important than the former, since a big man up front will find himself quite isolated and with likely no-one to head the ball off to, but in those cases where there's a pacey player running through for him to play in, it could be dangerous and this is why a quick, decisions-strong sweeper keeper is absolutely a must.

This points to the other weaknesses: firstly and primarily stamina. Players must be fit. This cannot therefore be a first choice unless you have exceptionally fit players, or a big squad to rotate through.

The other weakness is the requirement for two defensive players with acceleration and agility. They do not need huge amounts of pace (maybe 14 or so), but the agility is definitely required to be able to turn and chase down balls effectively. Smalling and Jones are ideal for this, but when I played Carrick in Jones position as an experiment, it resulted in more counter-attacking success for the other team - so you need two quick players, one in defence, and one halfback, as a minimum. Three - both halfbacks and the centreback - would probably be even better.

The regista often pushes quite high up, so he also needs good stamina and agility to be able to do the running required.

And possibly the hardest part: one of the inside forwards must not run with the ball too much. The IF on the right especially cannot cut inside because of the positioning of the CF, so a creative player is demanded there. The other one, on the F9 side of the attack, can cut inside but only in a limited fashion, and mostly to run onto through-balls, not when he has the ball at his feet. And preferably, nobody should have the "shoots from distance" PPM, else all that hard work goes to waste too often.

Three other extremely important things are a high teamwork average across the side (my team has the best in the league), as well as pretty good decisions and composure in the DMs, and perhaps even more importantly, good squad spirit and togetherness. Currently my side is at "extremely strong understanding", but team cohesion and teamwork match prep is the focus for me for the entire first half of every season.

[jimbobBRFC]

Thus far, it's actually a pretty attacking formation, although typically only three players get into the opposing penalty area at any one time (an inside forward and the two strikers), but frequently until late in the move it's only two (an inside forward and Zlatan).

In the latest use (v Wigan), we hit the post 3 times, forced 15 saves, and won 3-0 with 65% of the possession (around five hundred completed passing and some of the most pretty football I've seen so far). Probably should have been a lot more goals in that one.

As to bigger sides... unfortunately nearly two months away before the next big match (which for me, are only Arsenal, City, Chelsea, in the league), unless you count Moyes' Tottenham in a few games time, and... I don't, really, since they've already lost 4. CSKA Moscow should put up a good fight, though, and I'm going to use the tactic against them.

Fair enough then, being quite close minded with the lack of attack duties but just thought it was quite an interesting setup.

Id be interested to see how it copes against the bigger clubs.

[Auqakuh]

Fair enough then, being quite close minded with the lack of attack duties but just thought it was quite an interesting setup.

Id be interested to see how it copes against the bigger clubs.

I was a little concerned at the duties too, but then duties work differently with Fluid than they do with Balanced or the Rigid settings.

And me too! The system is primarily designed for big games where my first choice tactic (a variant on Barcelona's 4-3-3) does not allow me to dominate possession, so hopefully it actually works for what it's meant to do.

[jimbobBRFC]

I was a little concerned at the duties too, but then duties work differently with Fluid than they do with Balanced or the Rigid settings.

And me too! The system is primarily designed for big games where my first choice tactic (a variant on Barcelona's 4-3-3) does not allow me to dominate possession, so hopefully it actually works for what it's meant to do.

Interesting how you designed it for the bigger games as I would view it as a tactic more for use against the smaller sides due to the slightly obscure defensive setup. If you could post some screens of a bigger game when you play one Id appreciate it

[Auqakuh]

Interesting how you designed it for the bigger games as I would view it as a tactic more for use against the smaller sides due to the slightly obscure defensive setup. If you could post some screens of a bigger game when you play one Id appreciate it

I've ended up using it as more of a starting tactic, with a transition to something else later in the game. It really does sap fitness like nothing else - the pressing is pretty absurd. I did use it against Dortmund in the second round of the CL, in the away tie. We won 0-2, and went to 4-3-3 at around 64 minutes to hold the scoreline and give everyone a rest - then won the home tie 5-0, again with 4-3-3.

Because I already play with two other systems and made a number of transfers this season (so, lots of teamwork training), it's taken a while to get it to full fluidity.

I might also start a second save with a smaller side and see how it goes with them, since less fixture congestion might well help a lot in terms of how tiring it is. The last half of the season is such an absurd slog...