Special_One Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 I love possession football and almost always try and implement it into my FM saves. I've only started playing FM14 this week and after getting bored already using a relatively direct 451 with Southampton I started experimenting with my favoured possession style. Knowing I'm not going to carry on the save has led to me testing some pretty crazy ideas and formations in the 'final game' just for fun before inevitably going to the main menu and starting a new save. This was no different and I thought I'd try to implement a half back or as I like to call it 'The Busquets Role'. I threw Jack Cork in there and he had a great game so I looked for more information and ideas which I could try. I found a great article here http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/09/20/atletico-madrid-1-2-barcelona-busquets-takes-modern-centre-half-role-a-little-further/ which gives a bit more in depth information about the role. As you can see in the picture above Jack Cork is in the Busquets role and the 2 centre backs are spread wide of him to make a back 3 - It is ideal for ball retention. One of the big questions I had was what formation am I actually playing? We've seen Barcelona, Liverpool and Wigan all adopt a back 3 system before whilst still playing possession football, something not usually associated with the formation due to it's links with catenaccio and some of the more defensive Italian systems and connotations with counter strategies. This led me to wonder if I could utilize the halfback in order to allow my wing backs to push forward which I did and came up with this formation. I put both my centre backs on a cover duty to allow them to cover more space both vertically behind and horizontally wider. Whilst creating possession tactics I have often chose a very high line and used an offside trap in order to press highly and win the ball back but one thing it does is actually limit the space and time the defenders have and force them into long balls or errors, thus having a negative effect on possession. Whilst I still wanted to play a relatively high line I want to be defensively solid and allow my defenders time to think both with and without the ball. The first game against Newcastle was amazing to watch, 67% of the ball and a 1-0 win with a late Danny Fox goal. Whilst we had a lot of possession and controlled the middle third I felt we were lacking in the final third. I used the formation as a base and tinkered to come up with this to test for my next game vs Norwich. The inspiration was from a Barcelona side Pep put out vs Milan where he played with 3 defenders. You can argue that my formation has either 3 centre backs or 2 centre backs but average position wise and with the ball it is certainly a back 3. The result was another 1-0 and despite both sides going down to ten men in the first half we dominated with 75% of the ball. I was forced to remove on of the 2 AMCs who were doing their best impression of a Fabregas and Messi partnership and put my a wide midfielder on after Danny Fox was sent off. I am still in two minds as to what formation I actually would classify it as but I am looking forward to tinkering even more to build on what I think is a unique and impressive tactic base. I aim to have 3 different formations all with the same philosophy of possession football which would give whichever club I choose on my new save a great identity. I would love feedback on improvements I could make to some of the roles and am also unsure if balanced is the correct fluidity to use. I thought I would share the idea as it is a unorthodox formation and one which has proved effective in the 4 games tested in (I also had 64% possession in a win away to Millwall in the cup) and has lots of potential to get better and evolve into something special. It is very premature in it's development and I literally told my team they would be playing it a day before the game so absolutely 0 tactical fluidity. Playing possession football is a good way to boost average ratings as high pass completions boost them. There are also not many possession based threads which adopt unique formations, most I have read have been 433s and 4231s. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 6, 2013 Author Share Posted December 6, 2013 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder88 Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 I used the exact same formation in FM13 with Atletico Madrid,they have two wing backs already in their squad and have plenty of gifted central midfielders so this formation worked perfectly in keeping posession etc. It's a great formation if you have the correct personnel definitely. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 6, 2013 Author Share Posted December 6, 2013 I used the exact same formation in FM13 with Atletico Madrid,they have two wing backs already in their squad and have plenty of gifted central midfielders so this formation worked perfectly in keeping posession etc.It's a great formation if you have the correct personnel definitely. The first or second formation? Do you remember which roles the two furthest forward players were? Really not sure what to set them as Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Britrock Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 Defensive wingers might help out in the second formation, they're surprisingly attacking (they have cross from byline as default) and solid in defence to boot. You could also change the APa to a CMa to get him forward more, maybe swapping the sides with the APs so he runs past the treq (whilst he's messing around with 25 tricks ) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder88 Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 The first or second formation? Do you remember which roles the two furthest forward players were? Really not sure what to set them as Sorry the first one. It depends again what type of player you have,with Atletico i had Diego Costa who worked perfectly as a DLF-S as he had the same characteristics as Luis Suarez where he drops deep and brings others into the game.. The player behind him i had Arda Turan who has all the creativity and flair to go beyond Diego Costa and work his magic in the space that Costa left so i had him on AP-A Hope that helped. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 7, 2013 Author Share Posted December 7, 2013 Sorry the first one.It depends again what type of player you have,with Atletico i had Diego Costa who worked perfectly as a DLF-S as he had the same characteristics as Luis Suarez where he drops deep and brings others into the game.. The player behind him i had Arda Turan who has all the creativity and flair to go beyond Diego Costa and work his magic in the space that Costa left so i had him on AP-A Hope that helped. Cheers I think I'll try that with the mighty Danny Graham Rob Koren.. Just started a Hull save trying to stay up playing beautiful football.. Going to be a challenge! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr U Rosler Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 Steven Davies 198 passes...... Must be some kind of record! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 7, 2013 Author Share Posted December 7, 2013 Steven Davies 198 passes...... Must be some kind of record! Northern Irish Xavi Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xennaz Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 I'm actually going to try this, will let you know! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RTHerringbone Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Those are interesting formations, and similar to some things I tried at Southampton on FM13. However, possession isn't something I aim to dominate as it can take over the more important matter of winning matches. If it racks up as a by-product of my setup, then that's great, but I wouldn't focus on it to the potential detriment of the tactic as a whole. The Norwich result appears to confirm that possession is hindering your team as you attempted over 1,100 passes (!), but they were in fairly neutral areas - look how few passes you made in the final third. If possession or pass count are the aim, then you are clearly doing very well, but I'd be looking to be more incisive - A 2-0 win with less than half the passes attempted would be better for me. In order to be more incisive, I would set your right Wing Back to Attack in formation one. That would balance the Attack Duty on the MCL AP. At the back, I would consider losing one BPD Role, as possession for the sake of possession, is not always a good idea at the back, especially with poor ball players like Wanyama, and especially with a keeper as eccentric as Boruc (incidentally, if you really want to rack up the pass count, try using a Sweeper Keeper). I would change Ward-Prowse's slot to a more dynamic Role - possibly a CM (S) just to give some variety of supply and movement centrally. Up front, I would lose the Trequartista in favour of a Shadow Striker, because that Role behind any striker which is set to Move Into Channels and / or Run Wide With Ball is excellent at capitalising on space made. That first formation has 4 Playmaker Roles, which for me loses any explosive spark in the way your team plays,. That, allied with Retain Possession and Shorter Passing would actually make Southampton quite easy to stop. The second shape echoes many of my sentiments from above. Possession alone does not win matches, and when you have no high reference point to force the AI to defend, they can pretty much just set themselves up to stifle ineffective passing between your DC and MC lines. I don't this to seem overly critical, it is intended to be a constructive range of suggestions to make your team more efficient. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 9, 2013 Author Share Posted December 9, 2013 Those are interesting formations, and similar to some things I tried at Southampton on FM13.However, possession isn't something I aim to dominate as it can take over the more important matter of winning matches. If it racks up as a by-product of my setup, then that's great, but I wouldn't focus on it to the potential detriment of the tactic as a whole. The Norwich result appears to confirm that possession is hindering your team as you attempted over 1,100 passes (!), but they were in fairly neutral areas - look how few passes you made in the final third. If possession or pass count are the aim, then you are clearly doing very well, but I'd be looking to be more incisive - A 2-0 win with less than half the passes attempted would be better for me. In order to be more incisive, I would set your right Wing Back to Attack in formation one. That would balance the Attack Duty on the MCL AP. At the back, I would consider losing one BPD Role, as possession for the sake of possession, is not always a good idea at the back, especially with poor ball players like Wanyama, and especially with a keeper as eccentric as Boruc (incidentally, if you really want to rack up the pass count, try using a Sweeper Keeper). I would change Ward-Prowse's slot to a more dynamic Role - possibly a CM (S) just to give some variety of supply and movement centrally. Up front, I would lose the Trequartista in favour of a Shadow Striker, because that Role behind any striker which is set to Move Into Channels and / or Run Wide With Ball is excellent at capitalising on space made. That first formation has 4 Playmaker Roles, which for me loses any explosive spark in the way your team plays,. That, allied with Retain Possession and Shorter Passing would actually make Southampton quite easy to stop. The second shape echoes many of my sentiments from above. Possession alone does not win matches, and when you have no high reference point to force the AI to defend, they can pretty much just set themselves up to stifle ineffective passing between your DC and MC lines. I don't this to seem overly critical, it is intended to be a constructive range of suggestions to make your team more efficient. I appreciate the feedback.. I'm tinkering around and trying to find a balance.. I still want to have 55% of the ball MINIMUM but the results just haven't been good despite high levels of possession and being a poor team makes possession even worse because of the way teams play against you.. I have found that the strikerless formation wasn't the way to go as teams can push up their defensive line and press even more.. Possession tactics can often find it hard against teams pressing highly.. I am stubborn on FM just always been that way I come up with a system and want players to play my way.. Hopefully find a successful way of playing possession football whilst getting solid results whilst at first seeing plenty of the ball was fun there's only so many times I can sit back after a game and say 'well we won the possession battle' Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 9, 2013 Author Share Posted December 9, 2013 Oh and Boruc is first out the door.. He's done some of the most ridiculous things I've seen from a GK in FM.. It's not every blue moon it's every other game too so frustrating Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 Ok so taking some advice on board I changed a few things round.. Have a save with Chelsea where I try new ideas out and test things as they have a very versatile squad capable of filling many roles.. So focus on the system that I most likely will develop then start and use in a new save with Southampton as they have young talents to build a team around. As you can see I have gone with two strikers in order to add more firepower to the system, we've seen Liverpool play two strikers this season with SAS whilst playing great football in the Rodgers style so I thought why not.. I've added a BWM on S duty too but was tempted to have the role as CM S or even B2B S.. I'm open to suggestions. Added a few player instructions such as gave the AP more direct passes in the hope of more CCCs from a pinpoint pass and also gave him roam from position to try and bridge the gap between midfield and strikers. This is what happened in my two games played with the new system (Team not fluid with tactic so not a full test) but see what you think. I'd still like to have more CCCs and goals because I think subconsciously I was still concerned about having a large amount of the ball. I've tried to move the area of our possession into the oppositions half and I think I've improved on this. Feedback would be much appreciated.. I want to perfect my system! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 Possession in the Galatasaray game was 65% so still very high - exceptional for a tough away CL game but willing to sacrifice a bit of that to make a more efficient and successful tactic Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
poobington Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Change your cml to a CM a. They will burst forward and exploit the space. At the moment your activity in the final third is a bit static. Whilst your CFs is dropping deep into space, it's asking a lot of them to drop deep and then turn to pass the killer ball to your AF. Whilst the AP might exploit the space ahead, it won't be in as penetrative a way as the CMa. Either that or move the AP to the AMCL position Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleon Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 Post deleted. Please don't post utter drivel darius and spoil a really good thread. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 Change your cml to a CM a. They will burst forward and exploit the space. At the moment your activity in the final third is a bit static. Whilst your CFs is dropping deep into space, it's asking a lot of them to drop deep and then turn to pass the killer ball to your AF. Whilst the AP might exploit the space ahead, it won't be in as penetrative a way as the CMa. Either that or move the AP to the AMCL position Thanks I'll definitely try that.. the MCL hasn't been playing the way I'd liked and on average positions is almost level with the DLP! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
D0bi Posted December 10, 2013 Share Posted December 10, 2013 In your first picture at the top of #13, would Luiz not perform better as a BPD as opposed to Terry (I have no idea what they look like in-game, that's just an initial impression). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special_One Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 In your first picture at the top of #13, would Luiz not perform better as a BPD as opposed to Terry (I have no idea what they look like in-game, that's just an initial impression). You would think so but Luiz actually has poor composure, concentration, decisions, creativity and even worse passing than Terry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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