Creating focal point - How i got my striker scoring in a 4141

[beverage1982]

Hello forum. 

So every year on FM I start with my beloved Villa and try to recreate our current tactic. Over recent years this has been a horrible task with depressing recreations of Bruce's 4141 and Martin O'Neil's old skool styles. To be honest I'm not really sure why I do it, I see it as a bit of a puzzle to solve before eventually morphing into my own tactic. 

This year however things have been far more enjoyable at the Villa. In Dean Smith we have not only appointed a likeable character and lifelong Villa fan, we've also appointed an innovative thinker and one of the most exciting figures in the Championship. As a result the opportunity to recreate his style offers a rare chance at an exciting sav, especially with the Winter Update now in place. 

This year's tactical recreation also offered me a chance to tackle a common problem I and many people have had on FM, which is getting a lone striker scoring. 

Real Life

That striker is Tammy Abraham, the Chelsea loanee who has been banging in goals all season for Villa. He's the first striker since probably Juan Pablo Angel to score 20 in a season and has been a joy to watch. He's not the only part of this team that I can say that about however. Smith has created a 433 / 451 full of attacking intent. Built on high pressing and possession football it is very much in the tactical mode du jour, however interestingly Smith has mixed in some very 'Championship' aspects most notably Villa's prevalence for crossing and goals from set pieces. 

I'm fascinated by this marriage of new and old and wanted to bring it into play with my tactic. 

The beginning

I started my tactical recreation with a bit of real-life reading, in an effort to fully understand what I was watching on the pitch from Villa. The blow two articles helped a lot, as didm a thorough reading of Whoscored.

https://eflanalysis.com/analysis/championship/aston-villa/dean-smith-aston-villa-tactical-analysis-statistics 

https://totalfootballanalysis.com/head-coach-analysis/dean-smith-aston-villa-tactical-analysis-statistics 

As I said the Whoscored analysis also helped with positions and determining my style. 

Using this information I decided on a few key things my tactic needed:

- A focal point up top who can hold up the ball and finish chances. 

- Emphasise two creative central midfield runners in Grealish and McGinn 

- Crossing

- Overlapping full backs

- Positive, possesion orientated play. 

Translating that into FM

My next challenge was to recreate that in the current match engine. The base set up wasn't all that difficult to stumble upon, but the nuances would be where the challenges lie. 

I opted for the below set up. 

Ignore the players for the moment - what's important here is the roles and PIs. 

In terms of roles it's all built around the midfield duo of Grealish and McGinn. I wanted them to be creators who would also get forward and score. As a result a RPM and Mezzala seemed like the perfect fit but it was vital that they had room to operate in to get the most out of them. That's where the wide players come in.

Now I'm writing this I actually just realised that I changed the roles to both be wingers, whereas intiially I had one winger and one IF (with PI to stay wider). This is for two reassons. One: I want to recreate the crossing that Villa have been characterised with this year, and two: I want to open up space for the midfield two to thrive. However despite the fact that they're wingers I actually cheat a little and have players who naturally cut inside or play on the opposite flank (A lefty on the right or righty on the left). This creates variety, and also I find leads to easier overlaps from the full backs. 

As the title suggests the whole tactic is about getting Abraham to score the majority of goals which is why I have focussed on getting as many avenues to getting assists for him as possible. Just look at the tactic. The wingers can cross to him or cut inside and open up space for a FB to cross to him. Grealish can play a through ball, or McGinn can play a through ball or get into the area to free up space for Abraham. Set pieces have also been designed to use his height and heading prowess. 

I could go into more detail here, and may well do in a subsequent post. But hopefully you get the idea. 

The results

So how did it ll work out? Well I won the championship, with only one defeat (so so close to an invincibles season). Tammy scored a boatload, the midfield two were excellent and all around it was one of the best FM experiences I've had in a long time. 

Clearly a successful season. But also a satisfying one as my plans worked out on the pitch. 

What's next

So after promotion to the Premier League I'll be interested to see how well I fare. A lot of teams in the Championship just parked the bus against me in the second half of the season, leading to a string of dull games. The Premier League should pose new challenges however with teams leaving space in behind and pressing me more. The good news is that Tammy is staying after Chelsea agreed ot extend his loan, and after a couple of minor additions I'm ready to see if I can recreate this success in the big league. 

 

 

[CJ_Randell]

Can you add your PI’s or a link to the tactic? Also any OI’s you use? 

[beverage1982]

11 minutes ago, CJ_Randell said:

Can you add your PI’s or a link to the tactic? Also any OI’s you use? 

Not that kind of thread am afraid. It's more of a conversation starter than a how to.

[Rashidi]

1 hour ago, beverage1982 said:

As the title suggests the whole tactic is about getting Abraham to score the majority of goals which is why I have focussed on getting as many avenues to getting assists for him as possible. Just look at the tactic. The wingers can cross to him or cut inside and open up space for a FB to cross to him. Grealish can play a through ball, or McGinn can play a through ball or get into the area to free up space for Abraham. Set pieces have also been designed to use his height and heading prowess. 

Extremely well thought out system. You have looked at your players studied their roles and gone on to design a system around them. Just don't forget to incorporate their traits.

[beverage1982]

5 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

Extremely well thought out system. You have looked at your players studied their roles and gone on to design a system around them. Just don't forget to incorporate their traits.

That's actually been one of the challenges, particularly with McGinn as he has 'comes deep to get the ball'

[Rashidi]

1 minute ago, beverage1982 said:

That's actually been one of the challenges, particularly with McGinn as he has 'comes deep to get the ball'

Not sure where his playing but there are ways around that.

[beverage1982]

4 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

Not sure where his playing but there are ways around that.

He's my mezzala. It's not awful. Actually helps with buildup at times.

[Rashidi]

Actually it is awful, think about it. Mezzala will go wide with the ball, now he starts from a deeper position to receive the ball. Then think about all the attributes he needs, now add players around him to carry the ball. Final step think of the traits that may help him. If you want him to score goals which my Mezzala does almost every week, then you need another set of traits.  In the long run you could have two players with different traits to give you a different dynamic. Not awful when you want to keep the ball, but awful in that he doesn't bang the net as much

[Cleon]

9 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Actually it is awful, think about it. Mezzala will go wide with the ball, now he starts from a deeper position to receive the ball. Then think about all the attributes he needs, now add players around him to carry the ball. Final step think of the traits that may help him. If you want him to score goals which my Mezzala does almost every week, then you need another set of traits.  In the long run you could have two players with different traits to give you a different dynamic. Not awful when you want to keep the ball, but awful in that he doesn't bang the net as much

I think this is a bit of a sweeping statement and doesn't really have any validity to it. My Mez has comes deep to get the ball and it's not a hindrance at all. So to tell the poster its awful and he needs another set of traits for him to be a regular scorer is just plain wrong. I mean, these are my Mez who have the traits. In your current save your Mez only has 3 goals after 17 games. He didn't score a lot the season before either, only scoring 9 in 35 games according to your video.

As you can see, they score plenty of goals and have the traits you deemed awful. If you check my Create a Tactic thread, you'll see that the players without the trait still score as many goals as these guys and that it's not been a hindrance at all. The average goals per season are around 16 for whoever plays the Mez and none of them take freekicks. 

@beverage1982 A really good post, I like how you're really breaking stuff down and know exactly what you need from the players. Just even the little change to the wingers you mentioned, you made the change to get a very specific behaviour from them. I like this kind of thinking and you've simplified things. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do in the next post..............

[Cleon]

The above isn't an attack on Rashidi btw. It's just I was pointing out how stuff can be misleading and something that someone might find is a hindrance isn't for the next person and so on. I use my Mez different to Rashidi and they're one of the main threats in my side. I'm sure if @herne79 was to use a Mez too, he'd set the roles up around it differently to both me and Rashidi. Something might be bad in Rashidi's set up but that doesn't mean it is in everyone else's. 

@beverage1982 Is Jack dictating the play as much as you hoped he would in the first season? Have you managed to get him to make those great dribbles he does irl?

[herne79]

1 hour ago, Cleon said:

I'm sure if @herne79 was to use a Mez too, he'd set the roles up around it differently to both me and Rashidi.

If we all did the same thing it would be terribly boring .

As the old boy said above: "In the long run you could have two players with different traits to give you a different dynamic", which is spot on.

[herne79]

@beverage1982 Great write up.

What sticks out for me is the variety of attacking play I imagine you get.  Too often we see people being quite one dimensional with that sort of formation - 2 x IFs or 2 x Wingers with attacking wingbacks and whatnot.  And having a support duty striker.  Your "fullbacks" are different; your wide men are different, variety in central midfield and someone up top capable of being both a direct goal threat and bringing others into play.

It'll be interesting to see how you improve your squad going into the EPL .

[Puluzu]

There are some similarities with the approach I took with ManU when it comes to tactics and role. Tactics are very similiar except I have much lower tempo and higher pressing intensity. I use De Ligt and Lindelöf as 2x BPD, Grimaldo as CWB(s) and Eder Militao FB(s) in defense, midfield 3 is Ndombele, Milinkovic-Savic, Pogba, usually DPM(s), B2B and AP(s or a), wingers are Richarlison and Chiesa as IF(a) and W(s) and Lukaku is TM(s).

 

Lukaku has scored roughly a goal per 90 minutes but Rashford as an AF "only" has about a goal per 130 minutes if I remember correctly (despite on average playing easier matches) and Schick as a CF(s) struggles to score even more, although he does get a decent amount of assists. The AF based on what I've read seems to be a very popular option for a striker role in almost all formations, but in this formation I think it leaves him pretty isolated. I'm thinking of trying Milinkovic-Savic as something else than a B2B because he has the lowest average rating from my starting XI with only about 7,25 and surprisingly few goals or assists. I'd like him to be more involved with things in the final third and provide support when I'm using Rashford up top. Maybe a CM(A) with moves into channels, haven't figured that part out yet.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Puluzu

[Rashidi]

5 hours ago, Cleon said:

I think this is a bit of a sweeping statement and doesn't really have any validity to it. My Mez has comes deep to get the ball and it's not a hindrance at all. So to tell the poster its awful and he needs another set of traits for him to be a regular scorer is just plain wrong. I mean, these are my Mez who have the traits. In your current save your Mez only has 3 goals after 17 games. He didn't score a lot the season before either, only scoring 9 in 35 games according to your video.

As you can see, they score plenty of goals and have the traits you deemed awful. If you check my Create a Tactic thread, you'll see that the players without the trait still score as many goals as these guys and that it's not been a hindrance at all. The average goals per season are around 16 for whoever plays the Mez and none of them take freekicks. 

@beverage1982 A really good post, I like how you're really breaking stuff down and know exactly what you need from the players. Just even the little change to the wingers you mentioned, you made the change to get a very specific behaviour from them. I like this kind of thinking and you've simplified things. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do in the next post..............

Awful is a personal evaluation based on how i see mine playing. In my system which is very similar to the op's I expect my mezzala on attack duty to be an important link in the final phase of attack. In fact, I would expect him to draw players away or even arrive late to score goals. If you are camping then the comes deep trait is irrelevant, but because my style of play is usually attacking and very attacking, I don't want my Mezzala to come deep as there will be other players to do that. In a 4123 one would have a DM and a RPM much like mine, so there are enough players to link the defence to midfield. Having the Mezzala drop back does affect his natural ability to stretch a team has he is hardcoded to go wide. Now if he comes deep then we need to lay the ball off, he then needs to get up the pitch in a hurry. Here the attack duty is helping him. Personally speaking, i have had mezzala's with the comes deep and i have always preferred those without, in fact, i prefer the "arrives late in opposition area" trait, so that after building up play he gets into the box.

The mezzala by virtue of his role will do that since he moves into channels, but having the comes deep usually means that I need more attributes like work rate determination, acceleration and stamina. So yeah, its a personal choice here which is why i think its awful. So far I've been very happy with how the Mezzala plays and its good to see many different ways of playing roles in the game. And there shouldn't be a cookie cutter approach to playing this game where we are forced into picking specific kinds of players for roles. Ultimately the vision of the creator is important. Mezzala's can be potent goal scoring threats, and they are also probably one of the most effective roles to use in systems where you need central midfielders going wide to help you stretch defences, draw players onto them before using their natural flair to unlock them, or even go in to score goals.

[Rashidi]

To explain further, this is my mezzala's positioning during the consolidation phase..the start at least, you can see how he is slightly further away. The ball works its way back to the middle and I DO NOT WANT HIM TO DROP DEEP here because it will just mean that the play may go around the left...

.

The ball goes back to the central defender, if my mezza had comes deep then he will drop deeper to receive the ball, instead he moves further away, the ball then works its way back to the right which is what i want to see.

It ends up on the right wing, the mezzala now joins the attack.

And ends up arriving in the opposition box to score. This is why in my system which is very similar to the OP's it will depend entirely on how he wants to create goal scoring chances. In my system if he had comes deep to get the ball, we would be arriving in most cases to a packed defence. 

[Cleon]

I’ll reply to you on Twitter when I’m home as I don’t want to derail the thread but my Mez does everything yours does. You’re not showing me a single thing mine doesn’t do. Even the positioning, it’s all the same.

In face my system attacks the exact same way as yours as it’s the same shape.

And your original point wasn’t on about it being awful in your system. You made a blanket statement. And you stated yours scores most weeks, yet in all your videos he isn’t much of a goal threat at all. 12 goals in 52 games is poor. I just don’t want the opening poster to be mislead with generalisations and assumptions that have no merit to them.

[beverage1982]

Hey all thanks for the kind messages and the lively debate - I joked to Cleon in Twitter that seeing him and Rashidi disagree is like watching your parents argue  Some excellent advice here though so I'm looking forward to implementing it. 

I'm actually ploughing ahead with the save and just reached half way point in Premier League. I'll try to do an update later as it's been interesting, mainly because I've made a few mistakes which show how you can screw up a good tactic by being blind to your own bias. 

[Pattric_b]

I’m also very curious about Grealish’s role in this tactic. Were you able to get him to replicate his form irl? Did he dribble as much as he does? 

[53bast1an]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb beverage1982:

Seeing Cleon and Rashidi disagree is like watching your parents argue  

Well, this could be the greatest saying ever about FM 

 

vor 10 Stunden schrieb herne79:

If we all did the same thing it would be terribly boring .

That's the point for me. There is no "right" or "wrong" in FM - there's just "different". I like to read and watch stuff from @herne79, @Cleon and @Rashidi and learn a lot from it (Btw: Thanks to those three lads for helping me to understand the FM better!) but sometimes I disagree with their stuff because I've made different experiences. That doesn't mean they're wrong or that I'm right - it just means that we have a different approach.

@beverage1982 I really like your approach to build a tactic,  how you explained it and I'm eager to read more of it. My approach would have been a little different - but as I've said before this doesn't mean anything about "wrong" or "right".

[Rasmus]

I’m interested to see what the build up play looks like. Is it a direct pass to Abraham who can either hold up the ball, pass it back or turn around? Or is Grealish the main man who will pass it to the flanks? Something else perhaps?

[yipster1986]

4 hours ago, beverage1982 said:

I joked to Cleon in Twitter that seeing him and Rashidi disagree is like watching your parents argue  

Hahaha, yeah. I was thinking the same thing :D

I'm really interested in how your opening season in the PL went! 

[optimusprimal82]

Cracking thread OP and very interesting to me particularly as the 4141 has been the focal point of my current save! Very interesting this year seeing how many people are having success with the Mezzala too - I myself only started using it late in 18's life, dismissing it previously through 'fear of the unknown' but now find I pretty much use it in every tactical creation I can, often in 'attack' mode for the lovely (lovely!) goal threat they carry! Even more interesting seeing how you compliment him with his MC/DM accomplices (love seeing the differences/trying to see how they could help/hurt my own side!)!  

Very interested (that seems to be my buzz word for this post, sorry!) to see how you go with it/adapt to the premier league as I've now got several iterations I switch between/iterate on depending on my teams relative strength compared to the league/level of the opposition and my biggest observation has been that as the opposition quality has increased, we've (unsurprisingly) had a huge drop off in goals, especially from the Mezzala/my STC although there are some pretty fundamental reasons for that I believe besides the obvious (my players are relatively weaker);

• I'm doing an academy challenge so have to work with the players we produce and we've just never had a really good quality striker come through - any promotions (we're in league one now having started in the Vanarama North) we've had have effectively neutered any good STC prospects as their potential is obviously not as high in the higher divisions (awful facilities no doubt giving me a low PA ceiling!).
• The strikers we do have/have had are not 'built' for getting on the end of crosses/banging in 20 goals a season - they're all pretty small, not especially quick nor having much of a physical presence - so not only are they not good enough ability wise, they're also not built to withstand the rigours of the English lower leagues!

By writing all this I'm definitely not trying to hijack (please tell me to jog on if that's how it seems - I take no offence!) - as I say I'm super interested to see how you adapt, but some of the bigger changes I've made/had to make are;

Changing the crossing focus - I noticed in my first season that my (appalling quality) wingers often overhit crosses to the back post area and the opposite winger would frequently be in a position to pick up the ball/exploit the space afforded to them so I made this a component, with cross aim being at the back post and encouraging my wide lads to get into the box when appropriate - output from the wide positions increased enormously as a result and took a lot of the goalscoring pressure off our MC (we ended up with five players scoring 10+ goals/having 10+ assists in the first season as a result - which was amazing!)

I pushed the AML/AMR back to MR/ML (I have issues with how the AMR/AML behave with a high mentality for a number of roles in the ME so I often don't need much convincing to make this change), but the main reason for this is as my team is often the underdog I want their starting position to be behind the ball (I often use regroup in my TI's to help with this too) to make us more compact - this has seen us migrate from this;

to this (not a huge change at first glance I grant you!);

It's kept the central aspect of my tactic (my midfield three) intact and more importantly let's them have the most impact on the match - as the guys playing in those positions are my three best players it makes sense (at least to me) to focus on their strengths - if these guys play well, the team plays well; hopefully as our facilities improve and the overall ability of our squad improves I'll be able to move the wingers back further forward and maybe iterate a little on my backline - I've already played with IWB's a little bit but feel dirty using them lower down the football pyramid (my own internal weirdness - it's just not something I'd expect to see in a League One game!) but at the very least I'd like to have one oy my DC's as more of a ball player to support the DLP/provide a safe option for my midfield if they're squeezed - the guys there are just a liability passing/decision wise at the moment though! We also concede way too many goals (and are particularly susceptible to long through balls!)which is something I'm trying/I'd like to eradicate but I believe the overall buck for that stops with me and comes largely down to our style of play - our defenders are even worse than our attackers and shoring that up sufficiently caused our own goals to dry up to an unacceptable level - we have to score to win games and against the attacks we're facing we're unlikely to shut most teams out for 90 minutes so we'll find greater balance as our relative ability improves I'm sure, but for now attack is very much our best form of defence (especially as my board just forced me to sell our best DC prospect!)

Changing the passing type of the MC's -  like most people (I expect?) I would love to see nice short passing triangles up and down the pitch but swallowing the reality pill in the first few games I immediately dropped that notion - as we've moved up the leagues and we've had to play a bit more conservatively, I've found success by letting my MC's pass a little more direct (find this works especially well with counter ticked on), especially my Mezzala who has formed a good link with one of my young STC's who can actually run (first STC I've had with >14 for acceleration/pace so through balls are actually slightly viable now!)

Another experiment I tried (but initially abandoned) was changing up to 442 in a bid to get my strikers/team scoring more goals - I moved my DLP to STC and made him a DLF (a role which suits my best player) - now whilst there was some great link up play and my AF came alive, overall the team was weaker as a unit and we struggled to control games so ultimately I reverted back. Not one to give in easily though  (I'm a stubborn git basically) I've since tried something else which seems to be working pretty well (with us on our best run of the season, moving into the playoff places & unbeaten in 12) - I'm trying 2 up top again but have  moved one of the MC's instead of the DMC and modified the roles slightly (and this is still a WIP I'm watching whilst playing) giving us this;

Whilst it looks a little bit car crash-y and my brain feels that there should be more 'attack' duties it's working well and most importantly, my guys are finding each other and linking up well, specifically on the left (my next iteration is actually to see how we play with the ML moved forward to AML or perhaps the MR moved to AMR and changed to an IF so he gets into the box to get on the end of the good approach play down the left? We miss a little of the goal threat now that the Mezzala provided but having a sole MC with that role just wasn't working so had to be sacrificed!

Comparing the 12 games I've been using this new style we scored 29 and conceded 14 as opposed to 21 For AND against in the preceding 12 games - obviously allowances have to be made for quality of opposition but the results bear out what I see in-game that not only are we currently carrying more of a goal threat, overall we're controlling games much better as a whole, reducing the oppositions attempts - still don't feel that we're the final article but both of my strikers are now scoring again/assisting (STCR got 9 of the 29, the STCL got 7 with the majority of the rest coming from the MC/ML - my favourite part being that the assists we re nicely spread around the whole team as opposed to one particular player - although my main DLF has had a recent surge in that department which is very nice!);

Only other thing I'll add is that I'll regularly use the Ass Man's 'pick without restriction' on my team to see how he changes the roles based on our best players etc and whilst he largely leaves my side alone, he nearly always changes my midfield three which I find very interesting (post here goes into more detail) - part of me thinks I should maybe listen to him a bit more, but the other part of me doesn't care too much for the role 'colour ratings' preferring instead to focus on attributes to ascertain if i think a player can do a job or not!

I'll leave it there as this is turning into a novel (a horrible trait of mine which my coaches are trying to help me unlearn!), hopefully you're flying high in the Prem with relegation fighting a distant memory and Tammy is still smashing them in, if not perhaps some of my waffling may give you some ideas of possible (depends on your guys of course) directions to go if you get stuck - I find this years game gets the balance much better between 'tactics vs player ability' overall (not saying it's perfect - I still think it's a bit too easy to overachieve!) so promotion is especially exciting tactically as what worked well suddenly stops as your guys come up against much better opposition (my wingers ability to dribble past the full back has evaporated now for example which was a staple of our first season success!). Good luck with the rest of the save and naturally let us know how you get on! 

Edited April 12, 2019 by optimusprimal82

[beverage1982]

So it's probably about time I updated this thread...

I've actually finished the first season in the Premier League - I'm writing a little behind where I'm at in my career and it's been a learning curve. We'd basically walked the Championship and so the Prem has been a rude awakening. 

Here's what's happened at the halfway point. 

Transfers

The Villa squad is actually pretty decent after the winter update but clearly, it would need strengthening to take on the Prem, which is exactly what I didn't do. Transfers are one of my Achilles heels on FM, I always get way to excited about hipster players who are available at bargain prices and end up with an unbalanced squad of hopefuls who can be amazing one day and horrible the next. I've kind of planned to try and promote youth this save to avoid this problem, but until some of the current crop are ready I'd need to add some bodies. 

So who did I buy? 

Well Tammy came back on another season-long loan (god knows what I'll do if Chelsea don't drop their 70 million asking price) , I also made the loans of Mings and Hause permanent. Villa also had James Bree and Frederic Guilbert coming back from loans so the basis of a good squad was there. 

The problem was that I needed depth which is exactly what I didn't add. Neal Maupay came in upfront as he was relatively cheap and Villa have been linked with him in real life, the problem is he's completely the wrong kind of striker to backup Tammy in my system - he's a solid player, but he's short and hardworking, not the focal point I need. Sosa was cheap leftback depth but I didn't really need strengthening there instead I needed wide men as Adomah wasn't Prem standard and I'd let El ghazi go. So I added Jack Clarke from Leeds (one for the future) then I picked up Wonderkid Sebastian Szymanski who I somehow convinced myself was going to be a tricky winger for me - newsflash, he's not. Instead he's a great alternative to Grealish in the midfield but that would take me a frustrating number of games to work out. 

What I'm saying is that I'd basically hamstrung myself before the season started. I was pretty happy with my starting eleven (minus the gaping hole on the right wing) but beyond that I'd be screwed if players got tired, lost form or got injured, something that would come back to haunt me as the season went on. 

Tactics

Tactically things didn't change all that much. I changed the DM to an Anchorman, mainly because I wanted a little more security. I also took off 'Counterpress' and 'Counter'. Why? Well partly because we're not as good in the Prem as we were in the Championship, but also because I wanted to give my players the chance to think for themselves and make their own decisions. 

Beyond where I'll update you here I'm actually considering some major tactical work which I'll tackle in another post, but to start the season I was pretty happy to stay put. 

The results

Things started well, very well in fact. 

There have been some great results in there, including a brilliant comeback from behind win against City (we were 2-0 and romped back, I literally jumped up in the air screaming at my desk at home). There have been some losses too. Liverpool frankly schooled me away from home, while I was out-tacticed by Sarri at Chelsea who played a 4312 I couldn't get my head around (didn;t help that I couldn't play Tammy either). Elsewhere the West Brom result came about through my own stupidity. Salomon Rondo kept escaping the offside trap, much to my surprise as he's a lump in real life. But instead of doing anything about it I made the arch error of believing real life is the same as FM and did nothing thinking Mings and Chester would not let him do it again. He did, several times, and I was duly punished. The Watford game too was my fault. I rested too many players and realised how thin my squad was. 

So this is what the table looks like on January 1. Overall I'm delighted, mainly because if this was real life and Dean Smith had got this Villa team to this level I'd be getting his face tattooed on my buttocks with a rusty needle in celebration. The system has overall been working well too, much to my delight, Tammy has come out of the blocks firing on all cylinders (spoiler he doesn't sustain it) and in Jack Clarke I've uncovered a gem, purely by accident mind you. 

Tammy - 

The boy Clarke 

The problems 

Clearly things are going great guns and I should be pleased, but here's the thing, I'm not. Partly it's because I'm a bit further on as I'm writing this and I know what's coming. Also it's because I've been watching us play and it's not been as good as last year. The play has been stodgy with us slow to move the ball, it's also been very congested in the middle and we've been guilty of sterile possession which is something I absolutely don't want. There have been several games where I've had a tonne of the ball and done nothing with it. I've also been hit on the counter too often and suffered against teams that press me high. 

I've also not been happy with how some of the players are doing. Grealish has been amazing for me, but it's not quite the same as real life as he roams all over the pitch instead of sticking to the left. McGinn too hasn't been anywhere near as dynamic as I'd want. 

Obviously, a large part of this is due to the upgrade in division. I'm not playing the likes of Rotherham every week anymore (sorry Rotherham fans), and it shows.  As a result, a tactic I loved watching last season isn't pleasing me as much this time around. The question is though, is it the tactic's fault, the game's fault, or is it my fault for failing to adjust? We all know the answer right? It's 100% my fault. Mainly because of my expectations. After all this is a fantastic place to be in the table and I should be utterly delighted no matter how the tactic is playing. Also who am I to go up to the Prem and not adjust my tactical philosophy. I'm hardly Pep, and I certainly don't have his resources so I should really be tweaking things to make this work with the big boys, not expecting them to play by my rules. 

Possible changes

As I say I've already played on a bit, but right about now in the career I was considering some changes to my tactic that I couldn't decide between. The problems I was coming up against was width and penetration, or more accurately a lack of both, I also wasn;t seeing my midfielders get beyond my striker enough and the front three were getting a bit isolated. The way I saw it I had three options.

1 - Change roles. This is perhaps the most obvious as I could create more cut and thrust by doling out another attacking duty in the front 3 perhaps, however given the success of the shape before, I was reluctant to do this. 

2 - Change mentality. This is a big step, but I'd noticed that when I'd gone Attacking in desperation after going a goal or two down, we suddenly played a lot better. The midfielders were getting beyond the striker, my mezzala was scoring and the low ratings that had started to creep into my wide players disappeared. Of course this would come with a whole new can of worms in terms of TIs and also would go against the habit of a lifetime (I'd not played above 'Counter until this year's version). But was it the right move? 

3 - TI tweaks. My final option was to maintain the Status Quo (tactically, not musically) but make a few tweaks. If I needed more width, why wouldn't I notch it up? If I needed more penetration, what about playing more through balls? Hell I'm even open to taking short passing off, as right now I'm wondering if with a combination of Work Ball Into Box and Play Out of Defence it's all too much tiki taka. 

What next?

This was the dilemma I found myself in on January 1st 2020 (game time) as I once again began to fail to strengthen my squad (more on that later). Those were the options I had in mind. But what would you do? Does 1, 2 or 3 take your fancy and if not, is there a 4th option I should've thought of? 

As always I'd love to hear your feedback, your thoughts and basically to read your comments. I never really post on here, and drifted away from the game for a while, but I've really really enjoyed this community aspect of it! 

 

[Deisler26]

Sounds like Fulham (only you’re doing better 😂)

[TheresOnlyTwoFilipSebos]

@beverage1982 great OP, love all the thought processes that get you to your final tactical system. Very similar to the way I approach the game. The update as well is a good read. I always relate more to the mistakes, and learning from them, than the immediate success stories.

Anyway, regarding your dilemma. I don't know if you are an advocate of a one tactic fits all, or multiple versions of the same, or completely different tactics for different situations? I generally have a base tactic with one or two variations of that depending on opposition; their weaknesses vs my strengths, favourites or underdog, injuries etc.

My latest save was a holiday til December and save the bottom club from a relegation dog fight type challenge. The club (surprisingly) bottom of the Prem was Wolves.

I got to work and realised that there was an abundance of wide players all with different traits and preferred roles. 

My default 

My secondary

The secondary is a very slight variation on the primary tactic, very few TI/PI differences, but using a different base shape and different types of wide players makes it perform very differently. Both variations effective in their own right. I personally think using non specific roles helps this as well. Rotating between Ruben Neves and young Gibbs-White in the CM(a) varies the attacking play due to differences in traits. Same applies to bog standard wingers and IFs. 

Similarly to you, I noticed that moving up the mentality spectrum when chasing a goal made for more varied (and better to watch) attacks. But this was the last 5/10 minute desperation attempts, I'm also far too reserved to play whole games above balanced/positive!

But back to your original question, I do a bit of 1, 2, 3 and 4! In short, for me personally (depending on both pre-game, and in-game circumstances); shape changes to suit, roles change only occasionally, TIs change to suit, PIs generally remain the same, and mentality very rarely strays from balanced for me (purely because I don't fully understand all the implications of doing so ). 

But having such a basic set up allows me a bit of tinkering depending on circumstances. Generally having few TI/PI means it's easier for me to see what needs to be changed during a game. 

Really enjoyed the read and hopefully you enjoy some prolonged success in the Prem, good luck going forward!

[scratchmonkey]

Great thread and nice update -- certainly given the table, you should be ecstatic, especially since you could argue with GD that you're actually slightly underperforming.

With the foreshadowing that you're providing, my guess is that is that the downturn in form is largely down to injuries exposing a lack in depth in certain critical roles that are required for your tactic to work. It's a tough situation to be in, transitioning to a tougher level of competition and not having the funds to be able to find like-for-likes in the same realm of performance.

[Experienced Defender]

17 hours ago, optimusprimal82 said:



I used exactly this 4132 wide formation with Sunderland in FM18 (though my setup of roles/duties was different) .

[beverage1982]

Time for a belated update on this I feel. This post will actually encompass the second half of my first season in the Prem and the entirety of the following season. So here goes... 

How we fared

As you may remember from my previous post things were going great at the halfway mark, there were however some concerns about a lack of depth. I tried and failed to address that in January bringing in only Patrick Roberts from Man City to add to my wide options. All of which meant that when players inevitably started to lose form I had no viable options to bring in their place, a case of squad management trumping my tactics in terms of results. 

We inevitably dropped off, Tammy stopped scoring and we went a bit stale. Still, we were able to grind out results and finish the season in seventh, qualifying for Europe as the highest place finisher which would mean an early start to the next season.

 

Tammy ended the season with 13 goals, equaled by John McGinn who ended the campaign on a high in front of the net. All in all, it was a very successful return to the top flight, but I was far from happy with how the second half went. 

Tactical issues 

One of the biggest issues I started to find with the tactic was that Tammy was getting isolated up front. This meant that he was all too easily marked out of the game, it also led to my wide players picking up the ball on the halfway line and running into cul de sacs due to the lack of options ahead of them. Sometimes it led to some worldies, but all too often it wasn't the pass and move football I wanted to recreate. 

The other issue was that it was leading to some very poor ratings. My W(s), DLF (A) and Mezz (A0 would all get 6.5's in the first half of every game, even while the rest of the team was performing okay. Clearly, something was wrong and I decided it was largely due to the change in division. 

In the Championship we spent a lot of time camped in the opponents half so our team could get up in support of each other and knock the ball around. In the Premier League however, teams would press us high and we'd spend more time defending due to the increase in quality. This meant that when we got the ball we were transitioning quickly, almost counterattacking the opponent which in turn meant the support couldn't get up to the front man in time to actually pass it around. 

Clearly something had to change in order to improve, but what? 

Finding a solution

To decide what to change it took it back to the beginning and looked at the real life Villa team on Whoscored. 

A key thing I noticed here was width. I'd been playing on narrow, yet Villa attack down the flanks. So I bumped the width up a notch and ticked the exploit flanks option. What was far more interesting however was the team's average positioning in real life. Below is the position map from our recent win against Bristol. 

There are a couple of things here that instantly jumped out at me. The most notable of which was number 18 Tammy Abraham. Look how deep he is! He is actually deeper than 14 (Hourihane our most attacking midfielder) and level with McGinn (who was deputizing for Grealish in this game). The other thing I noticed was how far forwards number 22 was.

Based on this, I needed to change something in my tactic. And after a pre-season of messing around - and some early game tinkering - I ended up with this. 

You'll notice there are a couple of major changes, but also a few more subtle ones so I'll go through them in order. 

DLF (A) becomes F9 - Well actually he became a DLF (s) then an F9. Why? because as the position map from Whoscored showed, Tammy needs to get deeper and these are the best roles to do that. On an attack duty, he was moving into the channels too much and getting further away from the play than I needed him to be (He's meant to be a focal point after all). Now I've never really used the F9, especially with a striker like Tammy, but I really liked how it opened up the pitch for the midfielders to go beyond him and score (another facet of Villa's play I'm looking to replicate). Look at the screenshots below from our home win against Liverpool where Tammy held up the ball before playing in the onrushing midfielders, a game where McGinn got two.

. 

His positioning is far closer to the Whoscored heatmap and as a bonus I also got more goals from my midfield. 

W (s) became IF (A) - This one took me a while to implement due to my natural caution, but in the end I settled on it purely to get the positioning from the Whoscored map and also add a little more goalscoring thrust to my team. 

Mezz (A) became CM (A) - This one is a little more subtle but actually came about as I started to leak a lot of goal on the counter. All too often we'd be in a great position, then misplace a pass and get scored on all too easily. I realised that with a RPM and Mezz I had two players who would roam. Great when it worked, but when it didn't it left a gaping hole through the center of my team for the opposition to run at. Now if you're say Man City, and you have Fernandinho, there that's all well and good. But I'm not, and I had Connor Hourihane there. As a result I decided to switch to CM (A) as it's still an attacking role, but much more stable structurally. 

TI changes - As mentioned earlier I also made some TI changes. Exploit the flanks got ticked to try and get the crosses  /attacking down the flanks, the width went up a notch, and interestingly our line of engagement also went down a notch. This came about thanks to a Twitter chat with Cleon who suggested it as a way of getting my midfielders to go beyond my striker more often. It makes perfect sense. After all, previously he was on an attack duty and he was closing down high up the pitch due to the High line of engagement. No wonder he was getting isolated. 

The results

So the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. So how did I do? Well I made the quarterfinals of the Carabao cup and got knocked out of the FA cup in the 3rd round. Not great, but not too shabby. In the league however things were a different story. 

A cracking season with third place secured on the final day of action. That's not bad at all for a team that was two years removed from the championship, especially one that had barely been strengthened. Tammy (who played almost exclusively in the league and rested in the cups, ended the season with 21. But the scoring was also spread around the team better than previously too. 

 

One other thing you may notice from that squad screenshot is how few new faces there are in the team. Piatek was an upgrade on Maupey as a backup striker. Szymanski was also in there as was Jack Clarke who'd had a breakout year the previous season. Apart from that though it was roughly the same team that won me the Championship.

It was also a team that it turned out was good enough to rub shoulders with some of Europe's best as we made it from the first round of qualifying in July all the way to the UEFA League final where we'd play Pep Guardiola's rampant Arsenal side. It was an achievement just getting there and unfortunately that was the only achievement we'd enjoy as we lost 2-0 after having our skipper sent off in the 32nd minute. The one real positive I can take away from it though was my starting eleven, which you'll see below. Aside from Szymanski and Sosa (who were bought for a combined 2.9 million) the rest of the team were there when I started my save, a Championship squad now playing in a EURO League final. 

 

So there we have it. I'm not exactly sure where I'll go with this next, the team definitely needs strengthening and I'd like to actually win something. But hopefully this update shows you what some logical tactical thinking can do to improve your current crop of players. It's taught me a lot about the game and about adjusting what I'm doing rather than just raging against the AI when what I think should be happening isn't happening on the pitch. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by beverage1982

[Experienced Defender]

Great job mate, you should be proud of yourself, since this is a clear overachievement  

[Pattric_b]

Great results! Are you going to be able to bring in Tammy full time? If not how do you plan on replacing him?

[beverage1982]

1 hour ago, Pattric_b said:

Great results! Are you going to be able to bring in Tammy full time? If not how do you plan on replacing him?

Amazingly he's in his fourth season on loan. Chelsea just keep agreeing to it and even though I've got a half decent agreed fee in place I just keep getting him on loan as why not  

[Pattric_b]

20 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

Amazingly he's in his fourth season on loan. Chelsea just keep agreeing to it and even though I've got a half decent agreed fee in place I just keep getting him on loan as why not  

Strange. If you have the funds I'd sign him permanently before Chelsea realize he's still their player !

[KI Heynckes]

.

Edited April 17, 2019 by KI Heynckes
I'm stupid

[Razor940]

The thing that striked me the most was the LoE one. I just followed that advice myself and I see my team keeping possession a lot better and having a lot more support.

[pq]

1 hour ago, Razor940 said:

The thing that striked me the most was the LoE one. I just followed that advice myself and I see my team keeping possession a lot better and having a lot more support.

But why does it work this way? Isn’t the options of Defensive Line and Line of Engagement supposed to only “work/function” when out of possesion? 

[Razor940]

1 minuto atrás, pq disse:

But why does it work this way? Isn’t the options of Defensive Line and Line of Engagement supposed to only “work/function” when out of possesion? 

All phases of play are all in involvement with each other at every time. The time you get the ball back you start the attacking transition and if you use an higher LoE your striker will be too high and isolated in that moment. I don't know if it works that way, but I saw a lot more support upfront lowering the LoE.

[yipster1986]

1 minute ago, Razor940 said:

All phases of play are all in involvement with each other at every time. The time you get the ball back you start the attacking transition and if you use an higher LoE your striker will be too high and isolated in that moment. I don't know if it works that way, but I saw a lot more support upfront lowering the LoE.

This would make sense as he's already higher up the pitch when pressing. If you win the ball back he'll be up there all alone not being able to fend of 3-4 defenders swarming him.

[Razor940]

2 minutos atrás, yipster1986 disse:

This would make sense as he's already higher up the pitch when pressing. If you win the ball back he'll be up there all alone not being able to fend of 3-4 defenders swarming him.

Yes, but I was thinking and doesn't make much sense in the attacking phase the TI still being in play, it should be only in the transition because it's the last position that he occupied. After that he shouldn't be following any instructions, I guess?

[pq]

4 minutes ago, Razor940 said:

All phases of play are all in involvement with each other at every time. The time you get the ball back you start the attacking transition and if you use an higher LoE your striker will be too high and isolated in that moment. I don't know if it works that way, but I saw a lot more support upfront lowering the LoE.

I understand that it works that way “RIGHT” after winning the ball and going into transition. But after some time in possesion, the frontmen should surely not be influenced by the LoE?

[Razor940]

1 minuto atrás, pq disse:

I understand that it works that way “RIGHT” after winning the ball and going into transition. But after some time in possesion, the frontmen should surely not be influenced by the LoE?

I came to the same conclusion in the following posts like you can see. Now I'm confused. 

[Experienced Defender]

Speaking solely about the LOE, I think the easiest way to understand it is this: a lower LOE is more suitable for counter-attacking football (which does not necessarily implies a low-risk mentality), whereas a higher LOE is a better/more logical choice when you want to control possession and dominate the game in general. Because LOE tells your players - specifically forwards - where on the pitch to start pressing the opposition.

Now, when it comes to the interaction between DL and LOE - the lesser the distance between them is, the more vertically compact your team is (and vice versa, of course). Here you also need to take your formation into account. 

[beverage1982]

24 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Speaking solely about the LOE, I think the easiest way to understand it is this: a lower LOE is more suitable for counter-attacking football (which does not necessarily implies a low-risk mentality), whereas a higher LOE is a better/more logical choice when you want to control possession and dominate the game in general. Because LOE tells your players - specifically forwards - where on the pitch to start pressing the opposition.

Now, when it comes to the interaction between DL and LOE - the lesser the distance between them is, the more vertically compact your team is (and vice versa, of course). Here you also need to take your formation into account. 

This!

 

Sorry I realized I never explained this properly but it's all to do with vertical compactness. Basically I need my striker closer to my midfielders to encourage more overlapping. But in a formation like this a higher LOE creates more distance. However higher defensive line and lower LOE means he is closer to teammates when we win the ball. 

[beverage1982]

Just re-envigorating this as I'm torn on a bit of a question at the moment. What do people think Jack Grealish's role would be on FM? 

 

IN real life he sticks to the halfspaces on the left quite a lot, draws a lot of fouls by running at defenders and creates overloads. That would suggest a Mezzala to me but he's also very much a p[laymaker apart from the lack of throughballs.

 

I've tried RPM with some success but he almost roams too much. 

[Experienced Defender]

16 hours ago, beverage1982 said:

What do people think Jack Grealish's role would be on FM?

Depending on the system I play, he would be either a mezzala or IF on the left flank. I think these 2 roles would best utilize his abilities. Of course, he could occasionally serve on the right flank as a winger, or even IF on attack.

If I played him in a counter-attacking 4141dm wide system, AP on attack in a CM position is also a role I would consider. 

[Finners]

Interesting read. I have Lucas Paqueta and Houssem Aouar as the indisputable stars of my team and I've been struggling to reinvent myself to get the best out of both of them. 

Tactically, I'd normally describe my approach as punk rock. Fast, aggressive, simple, direct, I take the tenets of Klopp ball and ramp it up to 11. I was playing a 352 where my central midfielders largely exist to win the ball back and then punt it in to the channels for either a wing back or one of two advanced forwards to run on to. 

It's great, I like it, my wing backs rack up huge ratings and bags of assists and the strikers score for days but the midfield is near totally bypassed. 

I've been struggling to adapt and tweak what I have to get them more involved but I always get very frustrated by football that's too slow, too patient. 

I've borrowed a lot from your tactic, opted for a single false nine and two wide players, also used your mezzala and roaming playmaker. Oh my days. Aouar and Paqueta are on an absolute rampage, scoring for fun. They'll take it in turns to bag a brace in alternate games (they're also my set piece takers tbf and some were dead balls.) 

However, as positive as all of this has been, I do find that my striker becomes a bit of a passenger. Or maybe that's harsh, a link man (even when experimenting with more advanced ST roles.) Obviously I've not copied you exactly so I don't expect identical results but I'm surprised Tammy is still so comfortably top scoring. Goals are pretty evenly split around what I'd call my front five. 

Edited May 20, 2019 by Finners

[Jeffpics]

This looks like the kind of detail I struggle with tactically. I have created a balanced side in terms of duties but I struggle to use player roles correctly and my biggest problem is a lack of knowledge and what to look at when assessing my squad.