When good teams sit back

[Argente]

Ok. After various seasons bouncing around clubs I took on the Oldham job in League 1. Back to back promotions left me with a weak team in the Premiership. My first season in the Premiership I survived on the last day of the season, mainly by playing counter attacking football. I wouldn't say it was pretty but it got enough points to survive and worked mainly, I think, because teams just didn't rate me and went very attacking against me.

Now, season 2 in the Prem and everyone is sitting back against me. I don't have good enough players to break them down, their defences are just far too good. They still have enough top class players that they can create havoc amongst my defence with minimal players going forward. If I play attacking and try and take the game to them I get shredded at the back. If I play defensive I just don't create anything at all.

How in theory would I combat this? Essentially my players just aren't a good enough standard to cope with such quality oppositions when they sit back.

I'll look at posting my tactics up later but it's

GK (D)

CD(D)

CD ©

CD (D)

WB (A)

WB (S)

CM (D)

RPM (S)

DLP (D)

F9 (S)

TM (A)

Playing counter attacking, TM is my best player, a handful in the air but he's getting marked out of the game by being surrounded.

[Bongo-Bongo the 2nd]

What stands out to me is just how little support your midfield is giving to your strikers. There is no movement in there so it will be easy for opposition defences to mark your strikers out of the game as they have no one else to worry about. The first change I would recommend making would be to change one of the roles to a CM (A) so that you have a player getting forward from midfield. Secondly, I'm not really a fan of having two playmaker roles in the same position so I would consider changing one of the two playmakers to either a BBM or CM (S). Finally, I would have the third (and central) of the midfield three as either a DLP (D) or a CM (D). This should give you the required movement from midfield to cause teams more of a problem on the counter.