Stepping from my comfort zone: Creating a sensible attacking 424.

[sporadicsmiles]

Well, it is August again, which in France means I have a month off. This is the only real time I get to spend a decent amount of time consecutively on playing with new tactical ideas these days. Last year around this time I decided to try something new and step away from the way I know how to play to try something new. That time I tried a 4312 with AC Milan, and I taught myself a lot about how to build a tactic. It is time to reprise this and step away from my usually way of playing again. This time, I want to try something where possession is not at all important, and where attacking is everything. 

The 4-2-4

I have settled on trying to make a 4-2-4 formation this time around. It is a naturally very top heavy formation, but one that has caused me problems many times I have faced it in FM. It is also fundamentally different in the setup compared to how I normally play. I usually like to have a good midfield screen and keep the ball in a midfield triangle plus supporting wide players (be they full backs or wide midfielders). A 4-2-4 is unlikely to create the same level of midfield stability that is found in, for example, the 4123. Creating that stability is not going to be my aim. I want to create something where the ball goes forward quickly, where we use pace and numbers to overwhelm defences, and where for once I do not build success around having the best defence in the league. This is the grand goal, so lets look at the formation in more detail. (Just a note, I am using the transfer update DB, if at any point you wonder why I have certain players, or why certain teams are in a certain league).

This is the first approximation of how I envisage the formation working, and we sill shortly see how I plan to implement this into FM. Briefly, though, there are 3 key aspects to this.

1. I want to always have 3 players who are getting into advanced positions, and the more the better. To that end, two strikers, and one attacking winger is a must. 

2. I need to have a relatively static midfield here, which are going to act mainly to recycle the ball, create chances for the forwards and to hopefully be able to provide some kind of midfield screen. 

3. There is going to be a lot of space to exploit in the AMC strata, at least within my own team. I want to exploit this space as best I can. It is going to be vital that I can drag the defence around with so many attacking players up front, otherwise it is going to be easy to defence against. I therefore want one of the strikers able to drop into the hole, and one of the wide players to more laterally as well. To compensate the lateral movement, I will have an attacking full back to provide width.

I am to create chances, hence, in 4 distinct ways.

1. Crosses from the wide players to the strikers. 

2. Through balls from the players drifting into the AMC space.

3. Through balls from the midfield, often long range to take advantage of the possible numerical advantage on the break.

4. Counter attacking goals instigated from corners, or from forcing the other side to over commit. 

Here is how I plan to translate this into FM, as a first iteration. As you can see, I have a couple of other ideas for this, but I will try them out a different time, and perhaps discuss them as well. They are variations on the same theme.

Let's break this down and discuss why I have chosen what I have chosen.

G(D). He needs to stop shots and get the ball forward. Nothing special required, although he may need to have a special season if we concede a lot of chances.

CB(D). Again, I have not yet tried anything with these guys. They need to be solid defenders with good anticipation. The left CB has to be the better of the two, because he will have the space at LB to cover. 

WB(A). This role goes in tandem with the AP(S) on the same flank. I need to provide width and alternative options when attacking .The WB(A) is to act as my fourth forward when we attack. He needs to cross well, and have a good work rate because he is going to have to get up and down that flank no end.

WB(D). At the moment, I want to have some semblance of a back 3 when are in attack (I actually want a 3-4-4 shape in attack, if possible). So I have selected a defend duty. Wing back because I hope this encourages him to get a little further forward and act as a support midfielder if required. I am not sure this will work, however.

BWM(D). I cannot have a passive midfield entirely here. If we let teams come on to us we are likely to be overwhelmed. I need a player who can do and try to win the ball back quickly in midfield. He is the only real screen in my team, and I expect him to break up attacks and be able to launch counter attacks. The role is BWM, but we need an all-round player here.

DLP(S). This is subject to change, but initially the idea is to have a central outlet for recycling the ball and someone who is willing to make long passes to forwards. Again, he needs to be an all-round player; he cannot be weak and poor at tackling, he needs to be able to cause some disruption.

W(A). This is obvious. I have 2 strikers, and I want to have some width to provide crosses for them, alongside the WB(A). I toyed with an IF or RMD here, but I already have 2 central strikers, I really do not want to crowd the box too much.

F9(S). He needs to drop deeper into space at times, help in the link up play, drag defenders out of position and make runs into space created by others. A lot to expect from a single player. I guess a DLF(S) can also do the job here, and I will be looking at both roles.

AF(A). He needs to score goals, take advantage of space and make intelligent runs when we counter. Preferably also have a lot of pace. His job is, mainly, to get goals.

AP(S). And we get to what I want to be the main part of this tactic. This player has freedom to roam all across the central area of the pitch, since there is no-one to get in his way. He should be a defensive nightmare to pick up since it is not clear which player should mark him. If the right back follows him inside, my left back gets space. If a CB follows him, a striker is free. A midfielder frees a midfield player. This guy is going to create chances and draw people out of position. In theory!

Mentalty: Standard. 

I have no compelling reason to select any mentality yet, since I want to see how I play before I change things. So I have left this, for now.

Shape: structured.

This is an interesting one for me. I could have gone fluid to make the team more compact, but when I thought about it, I actually want to make gaps between my players. I plan to play vertical football, and to do that I need players separated. Additionally, if I want by AP to be cutting inside and exploiting space, I may as well try to make as much space for him as possible. I hope this increases the chances he will find a pocket of space to exploit.

Shouts:

More direct passing. I want to be direct with my passing. I am not going to easily be able to play from defence so lets try to get the ball forward quickly and outnumber the opposition.

Drop Deeper. I am worried that if I have too high a block, my strikers will all run up against the defensive line and so have little movement and not be as creative as I would like. Besides, if I can draw a team onto me a little, I can try to create counter attacking opportunities.

Be more expressive: I have selected structured to create space between players. I do not want players to rigidly adhere to my instructions necessarily. I have a lot of create players, so lets give them the scope to express that a little bit. 

The Club. Atletico Madrid.

I chose AM for three reasons, really. 1) I have never played as them before. 2) they have Griezmann, who I saw as the ideal player to put as AP(S). and 3) they have a pair of excellent central midfielders who I hope can be good enough to not be overwhelmed. 

However, I did not think that Diego Costa would have his suspension in the updated database I am using. He does (I guess it is hard coded), so for the moment I will use Griezmann up front. You can see my expected starting lineup above. As it is an updated database  I start the game with Lemar. I have added Dolberg as probably by only signing of the summer, as the team did not have a very good depth on the right, and Dolberg can play pretty much anywhere in front 4.

Development

I am also setting myself an additional challenge here, since I start as a top team. I want to try to develop youth as much as I can. I actually aim to make sure every player who comes through my youth academy leaves the best player they can be. Be that a superstar at my club, or going to the Segunda B. I want to train them as best I can. I actually was going to do an entire thread with a youth development theme, but there is currently O-zil's thread detailing this somehow for Benfica, so I did not want to step on toes and create something already being discussed so excellently. Nevertheless, I intend to focus on young players in the transfer market and their development also. I am also going to detail all the things I do when I start a game before clicking continue, in the next post hopefully at some point today. So lets hopefully enjoy a good thread!

[HansJoachimM]

You have Lemar playing as a W(A) on the right where he is supposed to stay wide and deliver crosses. But he is left-footed so that's a problem.

[westy8chimp]

Agree with above about lemar... And i wouldnt use a wb behind a winger... Id consider two dms instead of cms... But these are just my preference... 

I like what you are doing and the methodical way of going about it 

[sporadicsmiles]

18 minutes ago, HansJoachimM said:

You have Lemar playing as a W(A) on the right where he is supposed to stay wide and deliver crosses. But he is left-footed so that's a problem.

A good point that I did not initially notice. I will see how this plays out, which will probably be badly. In that case, I can play Vitolo on the right (who is right footed) or Dolberg, and switch Lemar to the left as the play maker. Thus far, I have only played a couple of pre-season friendlies, and just to check roles are doing what I want them to be doing. Valuable feedback, that!

9 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

Agree with above about lemar... And i wouldnt use a wb behind a winger... Id consider two dms instead of cms... But these are just my preference... 

I like what you are doing and the methodical way of going about it 

The WB on the right is a role I am not fully settled on yet, I have to see what happens in a match against a big team, the first of which will be Real Madrid in the Supercup. I admit thus far to being not quite satisfied, because he simply is not that involved in the play in general. I will experiment with these roles. 

One of the alternative tactics I have for this is to with two DMCs. It is not a combination I have tried out yet, but it will, I imagine, bring additional defensive stability. Of course, I will then have to think carefully about the large gap between by offensive and defensive units, which would probably mean moving away from structured since I do not need to engineer extra space. I fully expect to try this against bigger sides if I am being overwhelmed with this initial setup. Incidentally, the third formation I have toyed with and will test is to drop both the CMs and AMRL back a notch, and give them more aggressive roles than currently. This is pushing the limits of what I initially wanted to try here, which is to be successful without resorting to being defence first, but tactically there may be games where this is worthwhile.

[sporadicsmiles]

Day One.

I thought I would get this discussed before I get too much further into the game, and it is harder to show exactly what I do when I take over a club. This is my general process, and it would be interesting to compare and contrast with others to see if there is something to learn from each other in what we do. 

So what is the order of things when I take over a new club, after meeting with the board and assistant manager? I can basically break it down into 5 steps, which I will discuss in more detail: Individual training, staff changes, tactical decisions, tutoring, and transfer target identification. Let's go through them one by one.

1. Individual training.

The first thing I will do when I get to a new club is to give my players individual training regimes. Not only is this vital to get them developing as players, but it also gives me a proper overview of the squad, since I will see their attributes one by one, and be able to get a better idea of what my strengths and weaknesses are. It can also let me identify talented young players I need to keep my eye on.

Typically, I am quite generic when assigning the training assignments, but it does depend a little on what I am working with to start with. Typically, I will always put goalkeepers on the standard goalkeeper training regime, and defenders on the central defender regime. I tend not to do anything else with these positions in my tactics, so I just want them to train the most important attributes. Elsewhere, it can be more complex, as it depends a lot on the players you have and the ultimate goal. I will go through positions one by one. I will note I am being quite specific to this save. If I am playing as a small side, I focus much more on specific roles for players that I use within my squad, and to try to cover some weaknesses if possible.

Full backs.

Normally, I will set my fullbacks to train as complete wingbacks. This gives them training focus across the board. For this save, where I need by full backs to be good going forward and defending, it is a no brainer. Of course, I am blessed with talent in the Atletico squad, which means I do not need to worry about specific attributes. For the youth team, I am more discerning. If I think a player has a chance to get to my first team, he too goes onto the complete wingback training. If I think they will not break into the first team, I will give them the training I think will best progress them as a footballer, based on their current attributes. This may be to train on weaknesses, or it may be to enhance strengths. It is a judgement call.

DMC/CM.

I am a man who likes to have versatility to my squad. I want players to be able to play in a couple of positions, and DMC and CM are two examples of this. Now, as I mentioned in replying to a comment above, I also have a version of this tactic where I have two DMCs instead of two CMs. So the first thing I am checking is that a DMC can play CM, and vice versa. If not, then they are trained to the new position. In this save, I am using central midfielder and defensive midfielder as my training regimes, because I need good allround midfielders to make this tactic work. Again, for youngsters, I will make the decision regarding their potential and train them accordingly. If a youngster looks like a decent playmaker for a lower side, I will train him as such. This all meshes with my desire to make every player at my club better, whether or not I will use them.

AMC.

I do not plan to use AMC in this save, so any natural player here has to be retrained. Often I will retrain an AMC to CM, but I am reluctant to do so here, since I need defensive solidity as well as creativity in this midfield. There is no space for a lightweight creative player in the central part of this side. Hence, for this I have decided whether I think they would make a better STC, AMR or AML based on their attributes and preferred foot. Again, I have an eye on versatility, so I will try to train someone in an unfamiliar position if they have more than AMC as natural. See below for the training for those roles. For the youth team, I will continue to train as an AMC if I think they do not have the ability to make my team, but can be effective there. I will, in general, still try to increase the number of positions they can play, since AMC is not as general as some of the other roles around it.

AMRL.

Ideally, I want wingers to be able to play on both sides, as this gives me a lot more flexibility when selecting a tactic. In particular, I can change the roles or mirror the tactic if I want to change players around to the other flank (if there are injuries, for example), and it helps to have natural players on both sides. In this save, I will train the weaker side for each player. The training regime depends on what they are weakest at. If a player is a great winger but needs work as a playmaker, he is trained as a playmaker. If he is a good inside forward but less so a winger, trained as a winger. I want to have versatile forwards as much as possible. For the youth, I do as I described above.

STC.

In my main saves, I almost exclusively play with a lone striker who is a DLF, and hence will train accordingly. Here, I want to have strikers who are equally able to be an advanced forward of a false 9. I do not really want to have the situation where a striker will only excel in one of those roles. As such, I have selected complete forward training regimes, as this gives the best coverage of attributes relevant to both roles. Younger players depend on their ability and attributes, as before. 

2. Staff changes.

This is the one thing I guess everyone does at the start of a save, and I do not need to discuss it in too much detail. The first thing I do is check the coaches. Any who I know I can replace with a better coach I offer mutual termination. I will then look at the training screen and see which area or areas I am weakest in. I look to sign coaches to improve those areas of training. A simple staff search is used to identify the staff I want to bring in. I will do the same for scouting and medical teams, but here you only need to look at their attributes. Physios with poor physio attribute and scouts with poor judgement are out, and I bring in better staff. I want to have the best setup I can, and it is best to do this day one.

For the youth team, I will check how good the coaches are at working with youngsters. Poor attributes here and you are gone. I then use a mixture of staff search and job adverts to find replacements. It is vital I have coaching as good as possible, since it will help my young players under 18 develop much more than game time. I also look for high determination, since I believe this helps a coach be more successful at coaching (I could be wrong).

3. Tactical decisions.

In this case, it was easy. I chose the club knowing that I should be able to play exactly how I want. This is not always the case though. After doing individual training, you should have a pretty good idea of the rough strength and weaknesses of the squad, and an idea of how to set up tactically. If the squad can fit to your preferred tactic, just use it. If they cannot, you have to make a choice. If you are a rich team, you can buy the players you need to play the system you prefer, and so setup like that from the start. If there is not a large transfer budget, or you have a couple of excellent players in positions you do not normally use, you have to decide how to play. I cannot be more specific here, because this save is not a good example of how I choose a tactical framework. Typically, I will try to keep a broad concept of playing the same (for example, I like to be defensively solid and use central runners). Then I can try to setup something from the players I have.

At this stage I also will decide which players do not fit my playing style and hence I will try to move on. I also will now know the areas where I want to strengthen so I can head to the final phase knowing exactly what I am looking for.

4. Tutoring

It is usually at this stage (although everyone was on holiday when I took over Atletico so this step happened later this time) that I set up tutoring. In principal, everyone who can tutor will be a tutor; my ethos is to improve all players, not just the best. The best, however, get preferential treatment and will have their tutor selected first, and more carefully. I will not go into too much detail about this, because I am not an expect. Basically, I select players with good personalities, high determination and useful traits to tutor the players I see a future for. The rest, I typically will just go through the first team and select a tutee for each based on their personality match. I am not looking to fashion a gem here, I just want to try to make a better player. I admit this is a little haphazard, but I do not really want to sit and do this carefully for every single player. I also like to imagine that having as many players tutoring others as possible brings the whole team closer. I have no idea if this is actually true, but in my head, I like the idea.

One thing to avoid here is using a player you want to sell as a tutor. There is no point setting this up if you sell him a week later. This is why I make tactical decisions and decide on the future of players before I do this. You can also wait to set up tutoring until you have signed the players you want to sign. Particularly if you think one will be a great tutor.

5. Transfer targets.

So, after the tactical decisions you should know what parts of the squad need to improve. This may be a specific role you need filled, a specific backup player you need to sign, or a weak first team player you need to improve. As a general rule, you should always try to improve on the weakest player in your squad, if possible, at a transfer window. If someone better is available and affordable, take them. 

For player searching, I make sure I am respecting the attributes I value in a player. For example, I usually look for players with higher than 13 for determination, team work and work rate. If those stats are lower, then you have to be an exceptional player for me to sign you. It is then a matter of trawling through the search results and looking at each and every player. You do not even need to scout all of them, use your own judgement, and I use scouting most to find asking prices and wages. If you are looking to fill a specific role, then filter by the key aspects of that role (e.g. pace and crossing for a winger, off the ball and finishing for a striker, etc). For a replacement, I tend to search for players who have slightly better key attributes than the player I look to replace. I then end up comparing players a whole bunch to make sure he is actually better. 

In this specific example, I needed a player who could play as a right winger but was also versatile enough to play across the front 4. He should be younger than 23, which is part of my ethos for this game, and available for less than 25 million. I can convert this into a search, and look at the players I find. In the end, I shortlisted 5 players from this search to scout more. One of them was demanding too much wages, so I discarded him. Another was very talented, young and Spanish, but his pace was 12 and I wanted a faster player, so he also was discarded. For the remaining 3, one was not available for sale, so I also discarded him. Of the remaining two, I put in a bid for Dolberg and reached a pretty decent deal for 22 million (12 million over 2 years) and a sell on clause. 

The searching took about 15 minutes, I waited for scout reports of the shortlisted players for a couple of days game time to get asking price and wages. Then I made my decision and bid. I had my player very quickly and now can focus on preseason essentially my full squad.

 

Anyway, that is a quite long summary of my first day of playing a game in FM. I hope it is either useful for people who do not really know how to start a save or to set themselves up well for the long term, or for people to suggest ways I can improve!

[herne79]

36 minutes ago, sporadicsmiles said:

In this save, I am using central midfielder and defensive midfielder as my training regimes, because I need good allround midfielders to make this tactic work.

I often do the same, especially with younger players.  The Half Back can also be handy to set as individual training for your DMs as it offers good all round attribute development.

[westy8chimp]

47 minutes ago, herne79 said:

I often do the same, especially with younger players.  The Half Back can also be handy to set as individual training for your DMs as it offers good all round attribute development.

Interesting i have a young dm with 5 star potential at Leverkusen. I've gone the other way, i find it quite easy to find players in the market with a broad spread of good attributes i.e. 15s in the key attributes for the position but also 15s in physical and mental. But its really hard to find players that have 17-20 in the key attributes with little care for the full package. 

So im starting to train my prospects in roles that focus on fewer attributes.... In this case Carilero as it looks at just 5-6 areas tackling, stamina, work rate and a couple others i forget. 

E: the theory being i can buy all rounders and pair them with developed specialists

[sporadicsmiles]

Meaningless preseason friendlies against a weak side? Not if you look for the right things.

I will talk in this post about a preseason friendly against a much weaker team. This is not going to be about the result, we won heavily and I expected to. Indeed, the very point of setting up friendlies against teams we should destroy is to see if we can destroy them. It is not just about getting moral high and strikers having confidence. This helps, but for me this is not the point of such games. When I have a new tactic to explore, I want to see if my players are capable of doing what I expect them to do. Are we creating the chances I expect? Are the players doing what I outlined in the first post? Are we creating the assists that I outlined I wanted to create? This is what I will look for here. 

Indeed, for me, the point of games like this is entirely to see what kind of chances I create (and hopefully score, since it is easier to keep track of the chances that way). If my players are not creating the type of chances I want to see against much weaker opposition, they are not going to do so against better opposition either. Conversely, I should not take this single game in isolation. That my team creates good and varied chances against this team, with their style of play does not guarantee they will do so against all teams with different styles of play. This is not to say "the tactic is fine, nothing ever has to change", since there are going to be times where I need to focus on creating on specific type of chance to exploit a weakness. Nevertheless, I should be able to do all the things I want to do against much weaker teams. So lets have a look at what happened. 

As you can see from this graphic, we totally dominated Vallecas, and scored a shed load of goals. The result is not actually important, however, the nature of the goals is much more so. Lets go through them one-by-one (I will not show pictures for everything, since there are a lot, I will try to highlight things I like a lot, however).

Goal 1.

This was a cross from the WB(A), which was headed down by the W(A) and finished by the F9. This ticks one of my boxes, which is that the WB(A) be able to provide crosses and assists. The one thing I want to highlight from this goal is the general shape I see when attacking.

I said I wanted something like a 3-3-4 when attacking, and that is more or less what we see here. The WB (D) is more advanced than the back 4, but is supporting the midfield nicely. The BWM is very deep and acting as a shield for the defence, which should help against counter attacks. The WB(A) is almost on the same line as the 3 forwards, which is great. However, look where the AP(S) (Correa) is. He is basically in the position an AP(S) in the AMC position would be. Look also at the space between the midfield and strikers I have created for him to explore as well, which was one of the reasons I chose structured. The ball did not go directly to the WB here, Correa actually fed the F9 (central of the 3 attackers) first. However, I really like the way this looks. It is going to be very difficult for any team to deal with. There is, however, acres of space on my left flank that I have to be careful with against teams who can counter me.

Goal 2.

Here, the goal comes from a goalkick from Vallecas, which ended up with my F9, who fed Correa. Look at the initial placement of the players here. The F9 has dropped super deep and is playing like a midfielder. Correa is again inside and has a lot of space in front of him. I like this a lot too.

What happened next was Correa running into the space in front of him, and no midfield player could get there in time. Because the F9 was also running forward, this fixed one of the CMs from closing down Correa. The W(A) was on the shoulder of his marker and received a through ball, and scored. This ticks another of my boxes; central short range through balls from my AP, and the F9 dropping deeper and helping create space. 

Goal 3.

This goal came from a throw in, which was cycled around the midfield, found its way to the AP, who this time was situated on the wing. 

He crosses towards the two men at the back post, and F9 gets on the end of it and drills into the corner. This was nice to see, the AP has two different types of assist in this game now.

Goal 4.

This one was a nicely worked team goal where the ball was recycled once via the WB(D) when there was nothing on earlier. It once again features the AP dropping deep and inside to pick up the ball in space. After some passing, he delivers a through ball to the W(A) in a manner quite similar to the second goal.

Goal 5. 

This one was more great work by the AF than anything else. The AP has the ball centrally again, and feeds the ball to the AF. He controls excellently, turns his defender and belts it into the top corner from the edge of the area. This is one of those goals where the assist should go to the player who scored it, because he created the chance himself. However, the AP is once again linking nicely with the forwards from his pocket of space.

Goal 6. 

This one came from a set piece. It was cleared to the BWM, who I have sat on the edge of the area precisely to take advantage of such half cleared balls. He got the ball, ran to the right flank, got a short cross to the W(A) who skinned his man and scored. I am happy to see this mainly because it means that my set pieces are set up in a way that I can regain the ball if it is not well cleared. This not only creates second chances to score, but hopefully can limit the ability of other teams to counter attack.

Goal 7.

This is another goal from a cross, but via the W(A) this time. However, the notable thing about this is how well the AP and DLP linked up with the ball, being patient until a good pass was on. The AP again made the pass to the winger, who was on the shoulder of his defender again. He skinned him, crossed low and the F9 scored. Interestingly, look at what we are doing to their midfield with the AP having the ability to roam.

That is both CMs and the RM of Vallecas clustered around the AP. This is giving my WB(A) huge amounts of space which can be exploited. Again, look where Correa is. Right where an AP(S) from the AMC slot should be. He has supporting midfielders around him. The downside here is that the attack is a bit compressed against the back line of Vallecas. However, if players time their runs, as they did here, it does not matter.

Goal 8.

This was direct football at its best. There were 4 passes, and a goal. The move started with a goalkick, which was cleaned up by the WB(A), passed to the AP, who gave it to the DLP, who took a couple of steps and launched a long through ball over the top to the W(A), who finished nicely. This ticks another box for me. Long balls over the top of the defence. If you look more closely at how this came about, we see another thing I hoped to be able to do.

The number 2 for Vallecas is their right back. He initially closed down the Correa, and has continued to try to pressure the DLP. This has destroyed their defensive cohesion, made a huge space on the left which the AP is running into, and left them 3v3 at the back. Now much of this is down to poor decisions from a lower league player, but all it takes is one poor decisions to create a hugely threatening situation like this.

Goal 9 and 11.

These were goals from a corner and a free kick respectively. The corner was knocked down and finished, the free kick was a header. There is not really anything to analyse here, so we can skip these.

Goal 10.

This is another goal from directness that I want to see. It comes about from a poor goal kick that is right to my WB(A). He plays a ball instantly to the AP, who takes a step and launches the ball over the top to the AF who scores. 

This is just after the WB has recovered the ball. We have what is essentially a 5v4 at this point, and punished them because of this. Also, note how the F9 being slightly towards the wing has opened a hole between the CBs which can be exploited. This is not something I expect to happen all that often against better teams, but what I am pleased with is that we directly punished them for this mistakes. Two touches, two passes, and a goal. This is how I want to play in this game. No short passing or possession. If there is a chance for a goal, we have to go for it.

Goal 12. 

This is another super direct goal, which this time comes from my own throw-in around the half way line. The throw-in is taken to the DLP, who holds the ball a second and then sends a raking ball across the top to the AF, who has the beating of his man. This ticks another box for me; assist from my own half by the DLP, and even better this is from a situation I can hope to see happen multiple times during the season. I think I have now ticked off all the types of goals I wanted to see, except counter attacking, which was unlikely to happen in a match I dominated like this. Incidentally, the AF did not score this one, he hit it right at the GK, but the F9 was following up and nailed the rebound.

Goal 13.

This was another well worked goal, showing excellent link up play between the two strikers.

 

The ball found its way to the F9, who has dropped deeper and taken his marker with him. He has totally disrupted the defensive line with this movement. Further, look at the AF. He is moving into the left channel and has space. The F9 passes the ball to the AF, and then sets off into the space he has created. 

The AF draws in defenders to deal with him, and leaves a huge hole for the F9 to run into and get the ball (there is one Vallecas DC who I have no idea what he is trying to do..). The pass is made, the goal is scored. This is nice intelligent movement from the attackers leading to a goal. Very pleasant to see.

Conclusions.

So, let's be clear again that I do not expect to beat every team 13-0, and to carve every team open with ease. That is not the point of such a friendly, and it should never cause you to be complacent for real matches. What I have, hopefully, shown you is that you can use a friendly like this as a test for how you create chances, and whether you create the chances you initially set out to create. Now I have shown a single friendly here, but I look carefully at all the ones I have played (6 of them in total). Each team plays differently, and I can learn about how my team plays against different sides. This team played 442, and we cut them open in a number of ways. This means I can hope to create such chances in a real match against a 442 (although remember it will not be easy). I played a 442 narrow diamond where by winger supplied 4 assists, which may indicate against a packed midfield my AP is not as effective and the space to exploit is out wide. 

As a general rule of thumb, if you are not destroying teams you expect to destroy and creating the chances you expect to see in a pre-season friendly like this, then you need to take a look at what is not quite working tactically. The great thing about a match like this is there is no pressure to win, and less emotion to cloud judgement. Look at the goals, make notes, observe who is not doing what you want them to. Make changes for the next friendly (and keep the same changes the whole match). Observe again. You will never know for sure how things will work when playing a game in anger, but you can judge a lot about your tactic from this.

And what about my defensive aspects? I have not even touched on those yet, you may shout. Well, I decided not to do any specifically difficult friendly matches here yet. Partially because I wanted to focus on getting the attacking side of things sorted (it turns out the only changes I had to make thus far was to switch Lemar to the left as per the useful comments noting he would be a poor right winger with a strong left foot). Mainly, however, because I have a super cup final against Real Madrid. So I am going to test my defence in anger, against my sides biggest rivals, in the final of a european competition, against one of the best sides in the world at that. This will be a super strong test of the defensive shape, and I thought there was little point in trying to manufacture an earlier one in a friendly. This is my next match, so hopefully I can post about that match shortly. It could go well, or it could be a massacre. Either way, I hope to learn a huge number of things about defending with this formation. 

[jc577]

Loved your narrow system's thread last year, and this one seems to be following on in the same fashion  keep it up mate, really educational and enjoyable. 

[sporadicsmiles]

8 minutes ago, jc577 said:

Loved your narrow system's thread last year, and this one seems to be following on in the same fashion  keep it up mate, really educational and enjoyable. 

Cheers mate. It is becoming something of a summer tradition for me now. I never get the chance to properly sit down and explore FM these days. FM is not something that always comes naturally to me, so I developed a process, and I figure it is probably nice to share that process. If people can learn from it, that is great, because I learnt from reading threads like this too. 

[Robson 07]

Nice OP @sporadicsmiles, liking your work, keep it up and good luck.

[sporadicsmiles]

European Super Cup Final, vs Real Madrid.

So the first big challenge has come! Real Madrid in the super cup final. How will things turn out? Can we defend, or will we be cut open like a Christmas turkey? The only way to find out was to play the game. I admit to some nerves, since I had no idea how this would turn out. Theory and practise are not the same. Here were the lineups for the two sides.

Not too much to note here. There is no AMC to take advantage of any space between midfield and defence, but there is a DMC who could get in the way of Lemar's roaming (as you can see I took the advice above of shifting him from the right wing to the playmaker role). Now, for the result, and we can break down what happened.

As you can see, a lovely victory without conceding a single goal! Now a disclaimer first. I was going to use videos to show the highlights of this match, because they are worth more than pictures for showing the dynamics of the game. However all the highlights that are uploaded are the logo followed by a black screen for however long the highlight was. If anyone knows what on earth is going on there, please let me know! I will have a look to the bug forum later on. In the absence of highlights, I will give a download link to the pkm. That way anyone interested can watch the whole highlights and see everything that happened for themselves. Download the pkm here.

So what went right in this match? There are two things to look at; how did we stop RM scoring, and how did we score ourselves. If you have the pkm, I would suggest watching the passage of play from around 50 minutes to see how we nullify RM here. It is a long series of broken play where RM try and fail to get through my midfield, and we launch a couple of dangerous counter attacks after regathering the ball.

This picture shows a typical situation where RM would launch an attack. As you can see, we have ceded them space in their own half of the pitch. The positioning of one of the midfielders here is a little weird, but that is not typical, so ignore it. What we can see is that we are defending with two banks of 4, roughly. The BWM is deeper than the rest of the midfield and looks like a DMC in this image. This is true of his play in general. For me, what is important is that we have 8 men behind the ball, and there is nothing terribly dangerous on right now for RM. Either they can recycle the ball in midfield, or they play a long ball their right flank, which is not assured to succeed in reaching its target. Or the player can run into the centre of the park and meet Koke. Koke, the BWM, broke up so much play during this match.

Here is another example, where RM are trying to build from deep (I added the prevent short distribution at some point during the early match). Here our front 4 are pressing the defence, which is exactly what a front 4 has to do. I want to rush them into making a poor pass. In this case, Ramos makes a rushed clearance but he is clever enough to do so in the direction of the unmarked left winger. Look at the defensive shape we have. As I said I kinda wanted, we have a pseudo back 3 here. There is no space for Benzema and we have a spare CB to cover him anyway. The two midfielders are looking after their RM counterparts, and the LB is pushed up to deal with the RW (partly this is because he is on his way back to defence I suspect. The only forward player with space is the LW, and my RB has him covered should he get the ball. This was again quite typical of what I saw.

I will also note here that you do not see this often watching comprehensive highlights. There you normally see your defence not working perfectly, because it leads to a chance. I went back to the match after it was finished and looked at some of the empty parts with no highlights. Since I did not dominate possession, I assumed this would show what RM did with the ball, and how we stopped it. It is important to check not just highlights, if you want a full picture of what your team is doing.

RM did manage to carve me open one time in this match, which I would expect. We can have a look at it (sadly, in pictures). 

So Asensio has the ball on the right. Normally this looks pretty okay in terms of the defending, most of the RM team are behind him. However, Benzema has dropped off into space, which is available since Koke has closed down Asensio somewhat.

The ball reaches Benzema. What can you immediately see here? My players have all started to close him down. Way way too much, actually. Particularly, Godin has made an error in closing down here. There is no need for him to step out there, as there are more than enough players to deal with Benzema. This has totally disrupted by defensive shape, indeed, I do not have a defensive shape at this point. 

Benzema gets the ball to Vasquez, who has a load of space in front of him and only one defender, the RB who held his position. Now, we have to scramble in defence. You can see the lack of organisation here, because we have been disrupted by Benzema in the previous picture. Everyone rushes across to deal with this new (and quite serious) threat. They forget Benzema, and this time Savic is guilty of moving too far away from his position. My LB has tried to stick with Benzema, but the giant gaping hole in my defence is all too clear to see.

The ball gets to Benzema, who shoots but thankfully the angle is quite narrow the the GK manages to make the save. This, however, shows that once you have made a mistake and lost shape, it is not easy to recover the shape because you are scrambling. This is when you are most vulnerable, and this is why I was so keen to talk about dragging players around when discussing the attack. In this match, the only other really good chances RM had came from set pieces. I will not discuss them, because have the time it is a lottery. One was a bouncing ball which deflected to Ramos. The other was Ramos just being good in the air. I cannot, tactically, account for those. If they go in, they go in.

Finally, I want to talk about my first goal, because this is exactly what I aimed to create with this tactic, especially against bigger teams. The second goal, incidentally, was a monster header from Godin from a corner, so there is not much to discuss tactically about it. So lets look at the first goal, because I found it quite beautiful.

RM had been playing the ball about in front of my box without much success (they did this a bit, and had a few long shots as a result. The ball comes to Asensio, who is under heavy pressure. He attempts to pass the ball back to the trio of midfielders, but you can see that Koke (number 6) has anticipated this.

Koke intercepts the ball and suddenly we are in a very dangerous positions. We have 2v2 up front, both RW and LW are in positions to get forward quickly to exploit the space RM are exposing by pushing their fullbacks up so high.

Koke plays a long ball out wide to Gameiro. This single pass has completely exposed RM. They are having to scramble back, and Gameiro is facing two defenders with two players on his right. This is perfect counter attacking, and in this 3v2 situation there is no way for RM to cover everyone. 

Gameiro played the ball inside to Griezmann. Now RM have actually managed to get back pretty well here, but both CBs have come across to deal with the threat of Griezmann, and have ignored Gameiro who is still moving goalward on the left flank. 

Griezmann finds Gameiro, who slots the ball home from close range. This, incidentally, is the goal I did not see in my preseason friendly, but one I hoped I could score. We actually have several counter attacks, none as dangerous as this, which led to chances. Also, this entire passage of play took only 11 seconds and had 3 passes in it. It was perfect vertical football. This is one thing I want to see. I have often relied on a bit of possession and patience to score goals. I want to do the opposite here, when I can.

One final thing. I won this match with 39 % possession. This is because my players were willing to put the ball forward when we had it to try to create chances. You can see from the stats that we had more shots on goal, and actually by far produced the better chances in this match. Possession really is not everything, it is entirely down to how you use the ball. If you have a plan for not having possession, you are going to be fine. 

[zlatanera]

@sporadicsmiles are you using a Mac? I have the same issue with YouTube uploads and some preliminary google searching before I was a member of these forums suggested that Mac users haven't actually been able to successfully upload since at least FM17 (possibly FM16 didn't work either)

[sporadicsmiles]

22 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

@sporadicsmiles are you using a Mac? I have the same issue with YouTube uploads and some preliminary google searching before I was a member of these forums suggested that Mac users haven't actually been able to successfully upload since at least FM17 (possibly FM16 didn't work either)

Nope, Windows 10. I admit I did not look into this yet actually, I will go have a look on the bugs forum at some point to see if this is reported, or report it myself. I was using a custom skin which did not have the upload button initially, so I reverted to the standard skin. It could have been related to this so I will try to create the highlights in the regular skin next time and try that. 

[sporadicsmiles]

Adapt and Overcome. Countering specific threats in a match.

Instead of focusing on the course of an entire match here, I want to show one specific thing I did which was instrumental in obtaining a victory in my first league match. It is one of the things that, whilst not overlooked by those who make excellent threads, perhaps is by others who want to plug and play a tactic. It can highlight just how you can change the course of a game with one simple observation.

So the match in question is against Valencia. As you can see from the summary, it was quite a comfortable win in the end. 

Actually, the game should have ended perhaps 5-1, if the referee had been close to competent. It was one of those games where the ref got a couple of decisions shockingly wrong. There were two clear as day penalties not given before the one I was given. One of those was a bloody trip in the box of a striker running onto a ball and resulting in a goal kick!! Clearly no contact with the ball, and the player. Maybe it was a dive! We also had a goal disallowed for a foul, which I also cannot see (I could be biased). So it should have been more comfortable, but was not. The ref also seemed to prefer whistling my team for fouls too, although we probably deserve some of that, not 2 to 1!

Anyway, that is my own personal grievance out of the way, let me show you how I made this match simple, in the end. At the start of the match Valencia were playing very well, and causing me a lot of issues. Mainly, they were keeping the ball very well, and my midfield was overmatched. I wanted to work out why that was the case, so I paid careful attention to what Valencia were doing that I could not handle very well. Here is a typical start to an attack by Valencia. 

What do we notice? Well, firstly Valencia have two players deep in the MC zone who have absolutely nobody near them. This is their MCR and their LB. Clearly the LB is an IWB here, and I suspect that the MCR was a DLP or a BWM with defend duty (I do not know which, but it does not matter). This is why there was havoc in my side. My midfield two have 3 players to cover. With their ML also cutting in off his flank, and one of the strikers often dropping back, we were being hopelessly outnumbered. I was 1-0 up at this point, but I am fairly certain if I left things like this I would lose.

Now this is something I expected to come across sooner rather than later in this game. RM were a rather accommodating team in midfield. They had two midfielders pushed close to mine, but not trying to get beyond. This made it quite easy to deal with without making any changes. Here, however, I clearly cannot have the situation where it may be 4 or 5 v 2 in the midfield. That is going to force players out of position, and losing defensive shape will lead to chances. Simple as that. 

You will notice that I have also highlighted my right winger (Dolberg) on this picture. He is all alone in an acre of space. Depending on how you look at this, it is a strength or a weakness. It is actually both. The strength is that if we can get the ball back quickly and play it to him, he should have space to cause all kinds of issues for their defence. The negative is that he is completely inactive in a defensive phase. He has nobody to mark, and an attack duty so he does not track back. The other down side here is that we are unlikely to win the ball back in a transition set up like in the picture above.

So what did I do to counter this? Here is the picture of after I make my changes. Clearly, you can see that I have used man marking. Here is what I did and why.

So, we have 3 players who are always forward and never defend deep for me. This is a problem when I lack numbers to defend properly in midfield. However, they have Valencia players who are close to them, and who have too much space. Getting my RW to mark the LB and follow him inside makes all the sense in the world. I lose the chance for a counter into space, but I immediately have a body in an area of the pitch I did not before. To mark the CM, I did not choose a CM, but rather by F9. I would quite like him to start a little deeper anyway on occasion. Before he was sticking close to a CB, which is pointless once the ball has gotten out of defence. This takes two key players for Valencia in the centre of the park out of the game, and I did not even use a midfielder to do it. You can see I have also marked the other CM with my DLP. This was basically because I thought I may as well try to take out their entire midfield supply, or at least make it much harder to have a midfield supply. I still have the BWM who sits in front of the back 4 waiting for someone to close down.

This actually worked sensationally. Valencia were pretty much completely nullified by doing this. Their midfield was a non-factor, and almost every single attack they had started from the ML cutting inside with the ball. At this point, I am usually defending with 5 v 3 or 5 v 4, and I trust my defence to do its job in that situation. It did, really well. In the second half, Valencia did alter the way they played a little (I think) to exploit both flanks a little bit, but they still did not trouble me. I was defending with my attackers, so it was not changing my deep defensive shape. The created very little ultimately. 

So there you have it. One simple thing I noticed, and one simple change to give some support to the midfield, and voilà. I win a game that would otherwise have gone badly. I think this is going to be a trend for me with this tactic. Using one or two of the attackers as defenders to take out specific deeper players. They are still high up the pitch for counters, but they are defensively useful. I also feel like this is something Simeone would approve of!

[sporadicsmiles]

Weaknesses.

I want to talk about the weaknesses in the system I am using, rather than focusing entirely on the good things I am doing. Identifying weaknesses in a game, and in general, can be the difference between winning and losing a match. Sometimes, as I pointed out in the last post, some of the weaknesses are match specific and can be countered just for that match. The last post is a great example of a DMC pairing forming when Valencia had the ball which I was not dealing with and had potential to cause me huge amounts of problems. However, in this post I want to look at more systematic weaknesses in my system as a whole, and try to identify broader ways to remove them, and also thing about how that changes how I play in general.

I will use my match against Leganes, which I just finished, to highlight this. Now for this match I tried for the first time playing two DMCs instead of two MCs in the squad, so it is a little different. I had a DLP(S) and a Vol(S) on the left and right hand side of the team respectively. Also, for this match, I changed the right winger to an IF(S) since Leganes were playing a 541 and there was absolutely no space in the centre of the park for an AP to operate. Leganes defended with 10 men for the entirety of the match, and this was a specific change I made to counter this. I also used retain possession to try to draw them out a little - there is little traction in being direct when the opposition regularly keep 6 or 7 players behind the ball. I also played much wider with exploit the flanks shouts in order to spread play as much as possible and try to force them to come out a little. We won the match 2-0 in the end, and it was very comfortable and could easily have been 4-0 (one missed penalty and one CCC that should have been a goal but for excellent goalkeeping). Really, the formation change is the most relevant for this discussion, but the same things apply equally to the original formation. I will detail the new formation I am trying when I have a better handle on it.

Let's have a look at the three main weaknesses I think my team currently has.

1. Loads of space for the central midfield.

This is something I  have noticed time and again, and it is exacerbated when using DMCs. Both the central midfielders have absolutely loads of space when they have recycled the ball from the goalkeeper. Now, in this instance I actually have an excellent defensive shape and there is not much they can do to hurt me directly. The DMCs are deep and screening the defence, and there is no AMC so they can just wait for Leganes to advance. However, I feel it quite unwise to give such space to midfielders, and against better, more creative players, or against a side with 2 strikers or an AMC, I could struggle a little more to make sure everything is covered. 

This is not really something I will be able to solve, playing as I am. I cannot really push my midfield up that high, because it will just mean the space is closer to my goal, which is worse. I'd rather have a solid screen than a huge gaping hole before my defence. However, I will come back to this a little bit for point 3. Obviously, whilst this is a weakness, the way I have my team set up defensively is alleviating most of the potential problems. That does not mean I cannot be vigilant for possible times this is causing me difficulties in a match. I always have to be aware what is going on in this region of the pitch.

2. The space between full back and winger.

This problem is way more pronounced on the right side of my team. There is so, so much space between my two side players that it is an easy ball almost always for Leganes in this match (and in other matches too). Playing a ML, Leganes also are able to get the player to run at my full back, who is really isolated. This is one of the main ways I am attacked in the first few games I have played. To compound this problrem, Vrsaljko has been playing dog awfully here. He is continually beat by his man, and his tackle completion rate is really, really bad (lower than 30% in this game). This is alarming, because I need him to be defensively solid, and in this tactic in general both full backs need to be strong.

There are several things I plan to try to stop this. One is to make sure midfielder on this side is willing and able to close down to give him some support. The knock-on effect of this is that I need to have the other midfielder hold his position and almost never close down, so he can be a body in the centre. Or rather, he needs to close down only players who are in his immediate area. I will try this in an upcoming match.

Alternatively, I can switch from a W(A) to a W(S). This will take away from of the attacking threat, but we should have a picture closer to the situation on my left flank, where Lemar is in a position to support his full back. I can always add a few of the PIs back to the W(S) to give him some more flavour of a W(A), but I think it is quite vital that he tracks back. Mutual support is important, and I am not supporting my players properly here. It is also worth noting that although I am playing 424, which is commonly used by the AI when they are being gung-ho looking for an equaliser, I do not have to play in a similar way. I want to take advantage of direct football, but I do not need to have all my players attacking at all times to do this. Balance is more important when looking at a main tactic.

3. The passivity of my attackers.

Now this is one of my bugbears with FM in general. My strikers are absolutely static in the defensive phase of play, almost always. The only exception is when they are closing down as the ball is in defence. As soon as it hits midfield, they do not close down backwards. Even if the player is quite close to them. Take the picture I show. I have both forwards to close down much more, and yet they will never close down the deeper midfielder on their own. I think this needs to be changed in future releases actually, because it makes playing any kind of pressing game extremely hard. If you look at the way Griezmann plays for Atletico or France, you will see him tracking back and harrying midfielders in this situation. You do not see him hanging on the defensive line all the time. This is behaviour I expect from the AF(A), and from a P(A), for instance. Their job is to stay forward and wait for the team to win the ball back. For me, a supporting attacker should close down the ball when it is close to him. I do not expect him to run back and defend every time the AI attacks, but I do not think the current behaviour makes any sense. There is no difference in the behaviour of an attacking and supporting duty this context.

Anyway, since this is how it is, what can I do to try and make them close down more? Well, this is something I am willing to take advice on as well. So far, I used the same trick I did against Valencia. I set both strikers to man mark the midfielder on their respective side of the pitch. This produced some interesting results where they would close down the defenders when they had the ball, and then also rush to close down the midfielder when the ball was played to them. This is exactly what I want to see, incidentally, when the ball is close to the opposition goal. The downside, of course, is that after the ball leaves this area they have to man mark the midfielder, and follow him around wherever he goes. This really is not ideal for me, although it does mean I no longer have 2 freeloaders when I am defending (just to moan a bit more, the game specifically tells us that a treq is a passenger in the game, but I really do not see how most of the other attacking roles are any different). 

In the context of this game, I did not mind this so much. Since Leganes regularly had 5 or 6 people defending even when they attacked, it was good to get the strikers to drop deeper and allow us to build up attacking football easier, and hopefully try to draw them from their defensive shape. This probably will hold against all defensive sides, actually. If I cannot counter or be direct (and when we could be direct, such as after set pieces, we consistently were in this match, creating a chance of almost every counter), then I want to build a decent attack and probe the defences of this stubborn side. Against teams who are more attacking, I may want to have these players not tracking back into midfield due to man marking so we can play direct. However, I do still want them to close down both defenders and midfielders when the AI is recycling the ball near their goal. It is a quandary, and not one I have any easy answer to in the current game. Well, I know I can drop a player back to AMC, but then I am playing 4231, and that defeats the point of trying something new. So I will take suggestions. 

And there you have it. This list probably is not exhaustive in finding all my flaws, but it illustrates the main things I have noticed. Actually, they were quite obvious from the start from how I set up, but it is always worthwhile watching matches anyway to see how much of a problem they are. For me, number 2 is much worse than number 1 at the moment, and as such I will deal with it first. I saw a couple of posts recently about how to convert what you see in the ME to changes you should make to a tactic, so I hope this is helpful to some. 

[john1]

Love the depth of insight of the game  Looking forward to more  

[sporadicsmiles]

6 hours ago, john1 said:

Love the depth of insight of the game  Looking forward to more  

Cheers. I do not even pretend to have huge insights into the game, I just report pretty much what I see, and what I do, and hope that it is useful for others. I built my ability to do threads like this on reading threads on this forum, so I just am trying to put something back.

If you have any suggestions for what you would like to see me talk about, feel free to suggest (that goes to any of the readers!).