Advice on Drawing teams in and exploiting space...

[djpdavey]

Hi, I am experimenting with drawing teams in and exploiting space and I was wondering if anyone can give advice and their experiences and or strategies.

I do find that by doing it i.e dropping my LOE and DL there is space to exploit but I am under quite a bit more pressure and it is unnerving. Some times I go a goal a down in the process because of the constant pressure making my players make mistakes on occasions. Some times my team just isnt good enough to make the pass or good enough off the ball or fast enough to capitalise.

I was wondering with what ease and success rate everyone is able to take advantage and make space??? Also difficulties and advice???

I am new to trying this and am using FM19 still which I get the impression is slightly easier than FM20.

[Experienced Defender]

Do you at least have an idea which formation you want to use? For what you described, I think systems such as 442, 4132 wide and 42dm22 wide would make most sense. 

[djpdavey]

7 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Do you at least have an idea which formation you want to use? For what you described, I think systems such as 442, 4132 wide and 42dm22 wide would make most sense. 

I am using a 4-4-2 with 2 DM's on this particular save but I was just trying to get a general idea of how much of an exact science is it? 

 

[JEinchy]

I had some success with this style on FM19, playing a conventional 433 or 4411. What I think is crucial is making sure your deep/mid block is active rather than passive. If you're coming under more pressure than you're comfortable with, it could be because your defending is too passive, so you could try increasing off the ball pressure and using the Get Stuck In instruction.

Other considerations to make: mentality and duties. Positive/Attacking mentalities may seem counter-intuitive at first but they encourage quicker and more direct passes, which are useful for counters. A good spread of duties is important as it'll determine which players contribute to the defence and how much. For example, a pair of strikes on attack duties will mostly stay up front and not chase back very far, which coupd leave you short on numbers (in exchange, they'll be in goof positions for counters.).

Edited January 31, 2020 by JEinchy

[summatsupeer]

I think one main thing to keep in mind is the opponents strategy.  If they're using a safe mentality and your sitting deep they can easily pass it around at the back have have lots of possession in both FM terms (time) and RL (number of passes).  This is especially true if your expected to best the opponents.  In these cases I think you need to take risks in allowing opponents space to progress the ball through your lines rather than giving them space to play in front of your team.  Basically passive defence vs passive offense hurts you as the expected winner.

If they are more attacking they're less likely to pass backwards and just play keep ball at the back so much.  Then you can play a deeper lower press since they are looking to use the ball anyway.

Dont get stuck in the idea that you have to play deeper dline and/or LOE. Theres lots of ways of implementing it through mentality, instructions, formation and roles&duties.  The only thing the style shares is the aim of not pinning opponents into there defensive phase, if and how they transition out of that phase will depend on your setup vs theres.

[Experienced Defender]

5 hours ago, djpdavey said:

I am using a 4-4-2 with 2 DM's on this particular save but I was just trying to get a general idea of how much of an exact science is it?

Basically, when I want to implement such style of play, there are 2 basic principles I follow:

- lower LOE (to draw the opposition in), coupled with standard DL for an optimal compactness

- both strikers on attack duties, but in complementary roles

Other settings vary, depending on a number of factors, including the mentality of course.