Development of a Strikerless 5-2-3

[spaced33]

I have been an avid reader on this forum on and off for many years. My tactics have generally been based on replicating (succesfully and unsuccessfully) the work of others. I have finally decided to take the plunge and develop my own tactic from scratch. I have decided to choose a formation with a defensively solid base and, because I like unconventional formations, a strikerless one.

The club I have decided to 'bless' with my tactical nous is Manchester United. I will be looking to play a high tempo short passing game that emphasises attacking possesion-based football (Put forward as the club philosophies by the owner).

In my experience, playing strikerless is always tricky when doing it from the start because you may have some high profile casualties right from the off. In my case it came in the form of a Colombian loan player who is available for an astronomical fee in a loan to buy agreement. I very quickly terminated his loan as I don't think he will be suited to this formation (in previous saves I have tried retraining him for strikerless completely unsuccessfully). Good bye Falcao, you are a monster.

The formation I chose to start with is designated as a 5-2-3-0WB. It is a choice I made based on past successes with a five man defence and a desire to use one of the new roles that I have always quite fancied the sound of but never used due to my love of narrow formations - referred to as the roaming daughter or the rum drinker on these forums.

I see this formation needing to have effective off the ball movement and creative deadly passing for it to work. In addition I will need central defenders who are comfortable with the ball at their feet as they will be more involved in attacking play often offering the outball when we arrive at a dead end.

I have a midfield duo who I will need to link play as well as be defensively solid to screen the defence and create chances for the forward players looking for space. Manchester United don't have anyone who dominates in the air so I will be de-emphasizing crossing. Ball retention will be important as well as patience in the sense that I don't want to waste possession on long shots as these rarely pay off and I generally see it as an indication of a lack of options. With this in mind I have set out my formation as follows:

Mentality will be Control (hoping for attacking football without leaving massive holes in defence) with a flexible team shape (tbh wasn't sure which way to go here and so took the middle ground)

Sweeper Keeper - Support (PI:Distribute to CB's): we're playing a relatively high line along with the fact that De Gea has fairly good stats for this role. I also don't want him hoofing it upfield as we're fairly poor in the air (Jumping reach 12th in the league in attack and 11th in defence) as such a low percentage of these are converted.

For the back three I have opted for a bog standard central defender flanked by two ball playing defenders all on defend duty and all with a pi of pass it shorter. Nothing too innovative but I don't want them to be either. Here I signed Varane (A good bpd but cost the earth!!!) and Balanta (looks like he will grow into a good bpd) I also opted for a flat back three as I feel this is the best combination for a back three.

Both of the wing backs have been set to wing back support with the PI's pass it shorter, cross less often, shoot less often and close down more. I'm concerned about the higher closing down immediately and should probably remove it for this reason but they do have cover with the 3 central defenders - I will have to look at how it translates to the games. These guys are here to offer wide options and stretch the defence if its too crowded in the middle. On defence they're there to try and win the ball back from the opposition wide men and get it to the more creative fellas sharpish.

I had to have a bit of a think about the centre pairing - I knew I needed a sitter and believed that a deep lying playmaker would be best suited for this - a creative presence that would also contribute defensively. For his partner I considered the options and the best candidates I felt would be either a suporting central midfielder, a box to box midfielder or a roaming playmaker. Looking at my squad I decided I would go try out both the roaming playmaker and the box to box options and see how they performed. I have signed Lucas Romero who looks to be a good roaming playmaker option while Ander Herrera makes a better box to box option as does Fellaini. The only PI's are for the B2B/RP who was told to pass shorter and shoot less often

For the forward line I opted for a front man trio of two roaming rum drinking daughters and a trequartista. The reasoning being that all three of these players will look for space to exploit and offer passing options to the midfield duo. Their roaming nature also makes them difficult to mark and will (hopefully) create space for each other. For these roles you need players with good mental skills and I felt that Mata, Rooney, Van Persie and Di Maria fitted these roles well.

Team Instructions: Retain Possesion, Higher Tempo, Pass Into Space, Work Ball into the Box, Low Crosses, Stay on Feet, Prevent Short GK Distribution

Retain Possesion, Higher Tempo: These were implemented to emphasise possesion football without dropping the tempo

Pass into space: This feeds into my forward trio and their hunting of that space

Low Crosses: We're poor in the air so its pointless looking for headers

Stay on Feet: don't want players over committing and leaving massive gaps

Control - Flexible

So in short:

Swk-S: De Gea

BPD-D: Varane

CD-D: Evans

BPD-D: Rojo/Balanta

WBR-S: Rafael

WBL-S: Shaw

DLP-D: Carrick

B2B/RP-S: Romero/Herrera

RD-A: Di Maria

Treq-A: Rooney

RD-A: Mata

The front three are fairly interchangeable with Januzaj and Wilson providing backup here.

And so I ask for any suggestions, criticisms or other feedback.

I'm not optimistic as I feel a bit like David Moyes did regarding the scheduling of my first four games in charge and that does not bode well:

Chelsea(A)

Sunderland(H)

Liverpool(A)

Arsenal(H)

I will give some feedback as to performance once I have a couple of matches under my belt.

[Sir_Liam]

I'm currently playing strikerless systems as manager of Partizan Belgrade.

I started out with a 4-3-3-0. The front 3 was an enganche (Partizan legend Sasa Ilic), and 2 inside forwards attack. It didn't work. Ilic was too isolated, and the wide men didn't provide close enough support to compensate for Ilic's lack of mobility, despite instructions such as sit narrower being applied to the IF's.

I then changed to a 5-2-3-0/3-4-3-0 system like your own, except I had 3 central AMC's. Attacking wise it was fairly successful. I had the wing backs on support, as like yourself I wasn't aerially strong, and too many attacks were breaking down due to the CWB role not fitting in the tactic imo. The support role ensured we kept possession much better, and created more.

The AMC's were SS/Eng/SS. Ilic in the middle again, and 2 younger players either side who would run beyond.

With the ball it was pretty good. We hammered some teams, and ran Roma very close in the Europa League, only losing on away goals. I felt it wasn't good when the opposition had the ball and forced us back though. I felt we were lacking an extra man in either CM or DM, and that there was too many CD's.

I'm changing again now and have drawn up a 4-1-3-2-0 as I'm trying to move away from 37 year old Ilic, and feel that the enganche role won't get the most out of some of my young players.

I'll be interested to see if your different roles in the front 3 works better than in my 4-3-3-0. Having the more mobile Rooney centrally should help I think.

[MANUMAD]

For strikerless to succeed you need effective pressing starting from your attack minded players. To achieve this you need the obvious TIs but you also need the correct PIs.

Have a gander at http://strikerless.com/

[spaced33]

I've had a look there before and got their 4-3-3 working quite nicely. The keys are seem to be to have runners coupled with quick passing in attack and an effective pressing strategy.I especially like how he got the central winger working,

[spaced33]

First game in charge and we got stuffed 3-0 by Chelsea away. I watched the entire game and saw a lot of things I didn't like. First a quick run down of the goals:

1-0: (2nd minute) early cross from Willian finds Diego Costa unmarked on the penalty spot and he buries it. Came down to poor marking, Varane and Balanta guilty as there no other players forward to mark.

2-0: (8th minute) Diego Costa buries a near post corner

3-0 (53rd minute) Great passing move from Chelsea. Azpilicueta comes forward (he stayed back most of the match), Valencia goes across to cover him and leaves Hazard unmarked, he plays it inside to Hazard on the edge of the area. He was unmarked as he lost his marker by dropping back onto the edge of the area and his marker stayed on the edge of the six yard area. He played a first time pass into diego costa, shot blocked, falls to Willian, back to Costa who buries it.

This wasn't even a contest. Strangely I felt we looked good defensively but gave the ball away too easily. This then put our defence under a lot of pressure. Chelsea didn't really commit men forward and often Diego Costa was isolated. He could have (and should have) scored two more though from near post corners. Going forward we looked toothless. Rooney(treq) seemed to come too deep and I think this may have inhibited Romero (RP). This may be his ppm coming in to play or his role. Will try mata in at treq for the next game. Blind (DLP) also dropped too deep and once again this could have been his ppm(comes deep to get the ball) or the role. Will have to try somebody else here.

In the second half we looked better as I brought Fellaini on for Romero and played him as a BBM and changed Rooney to a roaming shadow striker to try and get some penetration. Fellaini seemed more involved and offered more on attack. Watching reminded of something I read on here (forget who said it) 'the bbm looks for space while a playmaker will make himself available for a pass'. I will probably switch to BBm for the next game for this reason. Brought Herrera on for Blind and he looked a lot better. I also dropped the retain possession as our passing was poor and Chelsea were suffocating us with a high press. This change was to both lengthen our passing and increase our tempo. We often struggled to get past their midfield line and had a lack of options and men going forward.

I feel like I need to make wholesale changes and that my system is fundamentally flawed. I will persist and see what happens in the next game

Here is the pkm if anybody is interested:Dropbox

[Lilah]

Having two Raumdeuters is a bad idea. Since they don't really contribute to defense and the Trequartista definitely does not contribute to defense, the rest of your team is seriously out-manned. Essentially you have seven players defending against ten. One of the above is enough of a luxury player.

Secondly, your formation has too much symmetry and therefore it's too predictable and there won't be good movement between lines. Have one side be more attacking and the other side more supporting/defending in different strata. For instance, in a 4-3-3, you might have a supporting inside forward paired with an attacking full back or wing back on one flank with an attacking winger and supporting full back or wing back on the other flank.

[spaced33]

Thanks for the tips Lilah. After some thought I've made some changes as shown below:

[3@theback]

Imagine the ball gets played to your DLF-S, what will he do with it? You only really have the RMD-A who will be looking to get into the box for him to find. I would suggest a CM-A in there somewhere who will look to run part the DLF-S and be another body in the box for him to look for.

[spaced33]

Thats a good point. My concern then would be the lack of screening for the defence. The CMA doesn't do a lot defensively and this leaves us very exposed in the middle of the park. Giving it further consideration I'm probably going to abandon the wings and play two up with a CMA and B2B in the MC area and a either a DLPD or Regista in the DM area.