Plymouth Argyle Tactics Help

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, danbanbury said:

for example you wouldn't go from playing with a positive mentality to defensive?

Definitely not. From Positive to Balanced (or vice versa) can work nicely if your tactic is simple and optimally balanced, but bigger mentality changes would require making subtle adjustments to other instructions and in some cases also a couple of roles or duties. 

The team mentality does not define your style of play (contrary to what many people believe). Neither a high mentality makes you more attacking by itself, nor does a lower mentality make you more defensively solid. With the right level of compactness (DL/LOE combo) and the balanced setup of roles and duties, you can be more defensively solid under the most attacking mentality than under the most defensive one. 

[danbanbury]

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

These results don't look bad, except perhaps the defeat by WBA (although I don't know what's their reputation in your save in 2031). Btw, I can't see which of those matches have been played at home and which were away games.

Apologies, please see the screen shot below, it now includes if the games were home/away. In terms of the reputation, i've just checked our rep is higher than all of those teams apart from United, Arsenal and Villa.

 

 

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

- distribution to CBs and FBs instead of the Play out of defence (to add a bit of directness in the build-up phase of play)

- playing one of the CBs on the cover duty, given that you don't use offside trap

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

Nothing wrong with this tactic in and of itself (provided all roles are assigned to players with suitable attributes). Tweaks worth consideration may include:

- distribution to CBs and FBs instead of the Play out of defence (to add a bit of directness in the build-up phase of play)

- playing one of the CBs on the cover duty, given that you don't use offside trap

- In case your defense struggles against opposition balls over the top, either drop the mentality to the Balanced or drop the defensive line to standard

Do you use any kind of split block?

I've been alternating between play out of defence and distributes to cb's and fb's. I'll stick with the later for a few games to see how it goes.

I'm open to playing offside trap or putting a cb on cover, i'm think i'd opt for safro due to his stats being well suited to it. What do you think would be more suitable?

I'm not sure how to upload clips of the goals but the goals we've conceded:

Wolves - Penalty

Newcastle - Countered down our right flank, players beats the WB and crosses to the far post.

United - Man united in possession inside our half, their play maker plays a ball over the top of my right WB and rodrygo cuts inside and fires home.

Southampton - Set Piece then cutback from their left winger against my right WB to the edge of the fire and fires home. 

Arsenal - Set piece then CB tries clearing the lines from the edge our box, goes straight to their left back then he sprays a ball into the box, my left back gets caught in possession then their player scores. (Mistake from LB, and poor clearance from LCB).

West Brom - Mistake fro CB who plays attempts to play a ball to my number 6 but it's intercepted and he plays in their number 7. (Mistake by centre back and mezzala?).

We've also been conceding these goals really early in games.  Three of the goals have come down our right flank, two from set pieces and two mistakes. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Split Block - I've got the striker, AML, AMR, MCR with Roam from Position and Close down more. I am thinking of removing the roam from position instructions.

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

As for the risk of being sacked, it should depend on your results and league position relative to the board expectation.

We're expected to finish in the top half and this is the current league standings:

[danbanbury]

2 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Definitely not. From Positive to Balanced (or vice versa) can work nicely if your tactic is simple and optimally balanced, but bigger mentality changes would require making subtle adjustments to other instructions and in some cases also a couple of roles or duties. 

The team mentality does not define your style of play (contrary to what many people believe). Neither a high mentality makes you more attacking by itself, nor does a lower mentality make you more defensively solid. With the right level of compactness (DL/LOE combo) and the balanced setup of roles and duties, you can be more defensively solid under the most attacking mentality than under the most defensive one. 

Fair enough, that's good to know. I've learnt so much from this thread.

[olegmelnikov]

@danbanbury

What you can say about your attacking movement? What do you think about playing MezAt and IWs?

Several weeks ago I tried this combination, but failed. 

You can see the screenshot: IWs, MezAt, WBs are in the same position =)

[danbanbury]

 

8 hours ago, olegmelnikov said:

What you can say about your attacking movement? What do you think about playing MezAt and IWs?

Several weeks ago I tried this combination, but failed. 

You can see the screenshot: IWs, MezAt, WBs are in the same position =)

Hey @olegmelnikov, during the matches did you notice it happening a lot? I'm not sure on the answer but it could because of team/player instructions. I'm really not an expert, trying to learn things myself.  What were the players like playing in those positions?

As you raised i thought it would be good to focus in on this and see what sort of patterns i'm getting. This a game against united  i just played. These are a few examples from the first 15 minutes of the match and i could've easily included more where in my opinion the mezz and IW take positions that are close to each other but not too close. A couple of times it lead to some really nice inter play between the two players. I'll keep an eye in other games and observe what happens. 

 

[olegmelnikov]

7 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Hey @olegmelnikov, during the matches did you notice it happening a lot? I'm not sure on the answer but it could because of team/player instructions. I'm really not an expert, trying to learn things myself.  What were the players like playing in those positions?

Yes, I noticed that Mezzala is often to close to IWs. When I set up roles and duties I believed it could be great pair, but CMa is much better for my team.

I'm sure that the problem is with my style of play (I want to play more direct, fast, progressive football) or with my Mezzala player.

So, all we can say, that every team is unique and it's really interesting thing that in one case it can work and in other it fails.

8 hours ago, danbanbury said:

I'm really not an expert, trying to learn things myself.

Yes, in my case learning takes near 50% of the time I play FM. 

 

[Experienced Defender]

22 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Mistake fro CB who plays attempts to play a ball to my number 6 but it's intercepted and he plays in their number 7. (Mistake by centre back and mezzala?).

We've also been conceding these goals really early in games.  Three of the goals have come down our right flank, two from set pieces and two mistakes. What are your thoughts on this?

You probably need to work on defending set pieces, both in terms of setting them up within the tactic and training schedules. As for the goals being conceded following mistakes, if these mistakes are usually coming from your defenders' misplaced passes, then the Play out of defence should definitely be replaced with distribution to CBs and FBs. The vulnerability of your right flank might suggest that you should drop the mentality to the Balanced (which I already suggested as an option) or change the WB on support into FB on support. But all these are just my speculations, because I don't watch your matches. 

 

22 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Split Block - I've got the striker, AML, AMR, MCR with Roam from Position and Close down more

Wait a minute - you use the "Roam from position" PI for all these players ??? Or I misunderstood something? 

[Experienced Defender]

22 hours ago, danbanbury said:

 

22 hours ago, danbanbury said:

We're expected to finish in the top half and this is the current league standings

Unfortunately, this does not bode well. 

[danbanbury]

3 hours ago, olegmelnikov said:

Yes, I noticed that Mezzala is often to close to IWs. When I set up roles and duties I believed it could be great pair, but CMa is much better for my team.

Its good that you've spotted it and found something that works for you! 

 

3 hours ago, olegmelnikov said:

I'm sure that the problem is with my style of play (I want to play more direct, fast, progressive football) or with my Mezzala player.

So, all we can say, that every team is unique and it's really interesting thing that in one case it can work and in other it fails.

Yeah definitely, I think you could get it to work, would just need to make sure the the team is suited to it, that's where I'm trying to get to now. Along with the right instructions, mentality, roles and training etc. 

[danbanbury]

25 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

You probably need to work on defending set pieces, both in terms of setting them up within the tactic and training schedules. As for the goals being conceded following mistakes, if these mistakes are usually coming from your defenders' misplaced passes, then the Play out of defence should definitely be replaced with distribution to CBs and FBs. The vulnerability of your right flank might suggest that you should drop the mentality to the Balanced (which I already suggested as an option) or change the WB on support into FB on support. But all these are just my speculations, because I don't watch your matches. 

Yeah I'll take a look at my set pieces see what I can make alterations too. Do you have any advice on this? For example, entirely zonal or a combination of zonal and man marking? 

I shall remove the play out of defense and see how that goes and experiment with balanced mentality and the full back. 

28 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Wait a minute - you use the "Roam from position" PI for all these players ??? Or I misunderstood something? 

Yes, these have been on since the start, I think I included that in the original post, apologies if I didn't. Should these be removed? My reason for having this instruction was to try and encouraging movement and ensure an option was available for a pass. I didn't think this could clash with the be more expressive instruction. 

 

27 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Unfortunately, this does not bode well. 

There's plenty of time to turn things a round. A couple of decent results and we can get back up the table. 

[danbanbury]

Having looked at the heat maps and passing combinations from a few of the previous games, these are typical outcomes. It seems there's a disconnect between the striker and the AML, MCL or the striker and the right hand side. I'm not sure what to do about this/ is it necessarily bad thing? Lot of our play if focused down the right and the DLP is rarely involved in the play.  We've increased the number of key passes into the opposition penalty area however, still not many. Am i reading too much into this, as the results in the last few games have picked up.

 

 

 

Also @Experienced Defender, i captured this screen shot earlier as example of what i see what happen from time to time, less frequently now play out of defense has been removed. The LB Samide on the ball plays a pass to number 6 who is tightly marked and it's intercepted. What could be the reason for that? as 21 is available for an easy ball. 

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Yeah I'll take a look at my set pieces see what I can make alterations too. Do you have any advice on this?

Set pieces are not my area of expertise. I am neither too good nor too bad in that particular respect. You can take a look at this topic, particularly the comment by Rashidi. 

 

2 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Yes, these have been on since the start

You don't need to use roam from position on so many players. And when you use the "Be more expressive" team instruction, then you actually don't need to use the "roam" PI at all, because the BME already encourages freedom of movement in the attacking third. 

 

2 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Should these be removed?

Yes, as explained above. 

 

2 hours ago, danbanbury said:

There's plenty of time to turn things a round. A couple of decent results and we can get back up the table

That's true 

[Experienced Defender]

40 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

Having looked at the heat maps and passing combinations from a few of the previous games, these are typical outcomes. It seems there's a disconnect between the striker and the AML, MCL or the striker and the right hand side. I'm not sure what to do about this/ is it necessarily bad thing? Lot of our play if focused down the right and the DLP is rarely involved in the play.  We've increased the number of key passes into the opposition penalty area however, still not many. Am i reading too much into this, as the results in the last few games have picked up

What matters a lot more are the results of these matches:

- 0-0 against Man Utd 

- 1-0 against Leicester 

- 2-0 against Wolves 

- 3-1 against Villa (away)  

Seems that the tactic is finally starting to work. 

44 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

 

44 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

i captured this screen shot earlier as example of what i see what happen from time to time, less frequently now play out of defense has been removed. The LB Samide on the ball plays a pass to number 6 who is tightly marked and it's intercepted. What could be the reason for that? as 21 is available for an easy ball

What kind of pass did he try to play for the number 6 - to feet or into space in front of him? 

Btw, I am not sure that a potential pass to the 21 would have been that "easy" as you said, given where is the opposition number 10 (looks like Utd were playing aggressive pressing). 

Can you post a screenshot of Samide?

[danbanbury]

19 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Set pieces are not my area of expertise. I am neither too good nor too bad in that particular respect. You can take a look at this topic, particularly the comment by Rashidi.

Thanks for the link i will take a look.

4 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

What matters a lot more are the results of these matches:

- 0-0 against Man Utd 

- 1-0 against Leicester 

- 2-0 against Wolves 

- 3-1 against Villa (away)  

Seems that the tactic is finally starting to work. 

Yeah definitely, playing some tidy football.  Just played Man City and lost 2-0 however one goal was a penalty and we created a few chances, so it's starting to look promising. Some smart recruitment in the summer should do us good. Do you have any recommendations on which positions you would improve in this team?

6 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

What kind of pass did he try to play for the number 6 - to feet or into space in front of him? 

Btw, I am not sure that a potential pass to the 21 would have been that "easy" as you said, given where is the opposition number 10 (looks like Utd were playing aggressive pressing). 

Can you post a screenshot of Samide?

It was a ball into feet. I know what you mean but it would seem less risky that the longer pass he attempted? What do you recommend to try and beat the aggressive press? As requested, screenshot of Samide :). 

[Experienced Defender]

15 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

What do you recommend to try and beat the aggressive press?

Depends on who is applying that aggressive press and how good your players are (composure, decisions and off the ball play an important part besides good technical skill). When you play against a top team (like United), the risk is proportionally higher than against some average side. 

 

18 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

 

18 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

As requested, screenshot of Samide

I don't see anything in his profile that would point directly to the exact reason why he opted for such a pass. Maybe it was affected by the "Be more expressive" team instruction in combination with his vision. I guess he spotted the number 6, got an idea to switch the play, but his passing and technique were not good enough to execute such a demanding pass properly. 

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, danbanbury said:

Wait a minute... looking at this screenshot again, I spotted that the commentary says that he actually did play a short pass to number 21 (not 6).

[danbanbury]

2 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Wait a minute... looking at this screenshot again, I spotted that the commentary says that he actually did play a short pass to number 21 (not 6).

I must have stopped it at the wrong point, he plays a one two with 21, when he gets it back he plays the pass to 6.

With regards to lacking the passing and technique to execute the pass. What would you say my team could do with to improve in terms of personnel to implement the style more effectively?

[Experienced Defender]

11 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

With regards to lacking the passing and technique to execute the pass. What would you say my team could do with to improve in terms of personnel to implement the style more effectively?

A combination of good technical skills and mental attributes is vital. However, mistakes will inevitably happen here and there even if you have best players in the world. That's a normal part of the football game, so the sooner you accept it - the better. 

[danbanbury]

1 minute ago, Experienced Defender said:

A combination of good technical skills and mental attributes is vital. However, mistakes will inevitably happen here and there even if you have best players in the world. That's a normal part of the football game, so the sooner you accept it - the better

Absolutely, I get that mistakes will happen, was just trying to think longer term about finding upgrades in the summer etc. 

Were playing better and the results have picked up the last few games. I'll give an update abit later into the season. Hopefully creep back into the top half!

Is there a list or link on the forum that has suggestions on good PPMs for different roles or could you recommend any for any of the roles? 

[Experienced Defender]

13 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Is there a list or link on the forum that has suggestions on good PPMs for different roles or could you recommend any for any of the roles?

There might be some thread addressing PPMs, but nothing official (sticky) as far as I know. But the "problem" with PPMs is that it's very relative what PPM is welcome or not for a certain role because that can vary depending on the player himself (attributes) and the tactical style you want to implement. For example, "Places shots" can be a good PPM for a striker (especially poacher), but it requires attributes such as not just finishing but also composure, technique, first touch and decisions.

[danbanbury]

Hey all, i thought i'd give everyone a quick update. Since the Villa game here's our run of form and current progress in the league and cups:

As you can see the results have been really good and we've crept up to 10th and could easily finish 7/8th with the right results. We also have an FA Cup and Europa League quarter final to look forward too! I shall keep you posted. It would be lovely to get a bit of silverware in the cabinet and i would take a top ten finish after the slow start to the season.

On 25/05/2020 at 13:14, Experienced Defender said:

There might be some thread addressing PPMs, but nothing official (sticky) as far as I know. But the "problem" with PPMs is that it's very relative what PPM is welcome or not for a certain role because that can vary depending on the player himself (attributes) and the tactical style you want to implement. For example, "Places shots" can be a good PPM for a striker (especially poacher), but it requires attributes such as not just finishing but also composure, technique, first touch and decisions.

That's fair enough, thank you!

[danbanbury]

Hey all, 

Another quick update, weve got 2 league games left against Liverpool and Fulham, can still finish in the top 10. We've got the second league against Everton in the europa league final to play however we lost 1-0 at their place. Then were finishing the season at Wembley in the fa Cup final against spurs. 

Im not on my laptop currently to provide a screenshot however, our away form is generally been poor when compared to our form. We've drawn alot of games, admittedly were not conceding but weve had real issues sticking it in the back of the net despite increasing the number of chances were creating, perhaps they're not of a high enough quality? 

What are peoples thoughts on this? And what could we do to improve on this next season?

[danbanbury]

Managed to get on the laptop and grab a couple of screenshots:

Away Results:

Home Results:

Any advice on this on this would be very welcome.

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, danbanbury said:

Away Results:

Home Results:

 

These results don't look bad at all. The away ones (arguably) look even better than those at home. 

[olegmelnikov]

1 hour ago, danbanbury said:

Away Results:

Looking pretty good =) 

And what you can say about games with Norwich, West Ham, Leeds, Valencia? You were closer to win the game or avoided defeat?

15 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Home Results:

You need a home win against Everton =)

As I see you played quite a lot of matches with your new tactic? Do you see the areas to upgrade? What do you think does not work good? 

[danbanbury]

12 minutes ago, olegmelnikov said:

Looking pretty good =) 

And what you can say about games with Norwich, West Ham, Leeds, Valencia? You were closer to win the game or avoided defeat?

I would say we dominated against Norwich, West Ham and Valencia, should've won those really. We got lucky against Leeds, they played us off the park.

 

13 minutes ago, olegmelnikov said:

You need a home win against Everton =)

We did it! Won 1-0 then it went to penalties!

 

13 minutes ago, olegmelnikov said:

As I see you played quite a lot of matches with your new tactic? Do you see the areas to upgrade? What do you think does not work good? 

In terms of players to upgrade i'm not sure. It's difficult as we have the youngest squad in the premier by a good couple of years and alot of our players have potential to become better so i'm tempted to give them time.  Barrera playing AMR IW (s) gets quite low ratings and i don't seem to get much from him but again it's he's only 21 and his first season in a new country. We played some decent stuff and are solid at the back.  A lot of the time i'm confident that if we can get a goal we'll go onto win the game. 

I know that we have let a few goals in at set pieces so that's something we can get better at. I think it's really scoring goals where we struggle, i'd like us to be scoring more but i'm not sure what needs to be tweaked for that to happy. How are you getting on?

[danbanbury]

35 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

These results don't look bad at all. The away ones (arguably) look even better than those at home.

Would you say that is due to the level of opposition we played in the away matches? Draws have killed us this season. Admittedly a lot of those were from the start of the season before i came onto here for help and advice. I would like us to score more goals than we do, statistically we have scored the 11th most goals in the league with 41 after 37 games and created the 15th best amount of chances with the 3rd best shots on target ratio at 52% and 12th best conversion rate at 8%.

Defensively we've got the 5th best defense in the league. 8th most clean sheets. and we've actually not done badly at set pieces at all. It felt worse that what it was, we're in the top 3 for corners, FK and IDKs conceded.

What are your thoughts on that and is there anything you would recommend? 

[Experienced Defender]

5 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

Would you say that is due to the level of opposition we played in the away matches? Draws have killed us this season

Away matches are inherently tougher than home ones, especially if your style of play is essentially attack-minded and/or your team has a better reputation than the opponent. You yourself said that your team is not a top one - plus the youngest in the league - so you have a pretty solid base to build upon in years to come. I guess you should now focus primarily on strengthening the squad in areas that are not good enough so as to have players that fit the tactic you are using. But do this very sensibly and gradually, and do not make big changes to the squad in a short period of time. Also, do not buy only good attacking players but pay as much attention to defense, lest you end up with an unbalanced squad. 

[olegmelnikov]

5 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

In terms of players to upgrade i'm not sure. It's difficult as we have the youngest squad in the premier by a good couple of years and alot of our players have potential to become better so i'm tempted to give them time.  Barrera playing AMR IW (s) gets quite low ratings and i don't seem to get much from him but again it's he's only 21 and his first season in a new country. We played some decent stuff and are solid at the back.  A lot of the time i'm confident that if we can get a goal we'll go onto win the game.

And in terms of tactics? Because for me it't really hard to stop with upgrading, testing something new. I know that sometimes my team struggle with my experiments, but I need to learn. And the best way to learn for is try smth myself.

 

10 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

How are you getting on?

Now I can say - much better than 2-3 weeks ago =)

I manage Benfica (it is very interesting to me, because in league, 98% of matches I need to break down defensive teams - so I need to be attacking, aggressive team. And I need to adapt my tactics to play in Champions cup, because the level of competitors is much higher.

I played only two seasons: first season I won premier league, two domestic cups, but failed in Champions cup and played in Euro cup. And I lost it to Lazio: 3-0.

Now is my second season and I have very, very good results, both in premier league and in Champions cup. But it's only December...

 

[danbanbury]

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

Away matches are inherently tougher than home ones, especially if your style of play is essentially attack-minded and/or your team has a better reputation than the opponent. You yourself said that your team is not a top one - plus the youngest in the league - so you have a pretty solid base to build upon in years to come. I guess you should now focus primarily on strengthening the squad in areas that are not good enough so as to have players that fit the tactic you are using. But do this very sensibly and gradually, and do not make big changes to the squad in a short period of time. Also, do not buy only good attacking players but pay as much attention to defense, lest you end up with an unbalanced squad. 

Thanks for the advice, i will assess the squad over the close season and look at what positions we can improve in. It's possible we need some more experience in the team in a few key positions. From looking at my squad, what positions would you have said need improving?

1 hour ago, olegmelnikov said:

And in terms of tactics? Because for me it't really hard to stop with upgrading, testing something new. I know that sometimes my team struggle with my experiments, but I need to learn. And the best way to learn for is try smth myself.

We play some nice football. I'm happy with how the tactic performs, just struggle to break teams down to create decent quality chances. It's something i'll look at in pre-season. That's the right attitude, it's good to try things out.

 

1 hour ago, olegmelnikov said:

Now I can say - much better than 2-3 weeks ago =)

I manage Benfica (it is very interesting to me, because in league, 98% of matches I need to break down defensive teams - so I need to be attacking, aggressive team. And I need to adapt my tactics to play in Champions cup, because the level of competitors is much higher.

I played only two seasons: first season I won premier league, two domestic cups, but failed in Champions cup and played in Euro cup. And I lost it to Lazio: 3-0.

Now is my second season and I have very, very good results, both in premier league and in Champions cup. But it's only December...

That's cool, it sounds promising whats your current tactical setup?

So, a slightly disappointing end to the season, we got thrashed 4-0 in the FA Cup final against Tottenham, and we lost 3-2 to AC Milan in the Europa League final. a mistake from our centre back gifted their striker the ball in our box to slot home. They had 4 shots, 3 on target, 3 goals. Quite unfortunate really but i take a lot of positives from the season and looking forward to seeing this squad grow and develop. Hopefully reach more finals.

[olegmelnikov]

1 hour ago, danbanbury said:

That's cool, it sounds promising whats your current tactical setup?

This is my tactic for home league.

I use split block: DLF, IW, IF, DLP, CM

DLPse - more direct passing, CMat - roam from position, BMWde - mark tigher (occasionally).

When I play away game with Porto or sporting I tend to avoid Counter press and play counter, but it depends on how the match is going.

In Champions Cup games I usually change roles, IWat to IWs, Left WBsu to FBat, with top teams I play counter, small split block - DLFsu to DLFat. And I don't play Overlap left/overlap right. Sometimes without work ball into box and be more expressive. I watch matches at full and try to see what I need to do - for example Play into space. 

And PI: cross from deep to FBat (occasionally) and etc. 

All depends on my opponent and how match goes

My results this season are very good: 31 match without loosing (from the end of my first season) in Premier league (only 3 draws) .

I feel myself much better in Champions Cup: tough group + Arsenal, Napoli, Lille - and I have first place, only one away draw with Arsenal. 

So, I can say I dominate in the premier league and dream about champions cup.

In my first season I played with High Def Line and Standard LOE + split block, but after loosing Bayer 0-3 I decided that I need some changes.

I changed to Higher line of engagement, began to use counter press and changed one role: Luis in DM position played as Anchor man and I changed it to BMWde.

And it really began to work. 

Edited May 28, 2020 by olegmelnikov
add info and pictures

[danbanbury]

31 minutes ago, olegmelnikov said:

This is my tactic for home league.

I use split block: DLF, IW, IF, DLP, CM

DLPse - more direct passing, CMat - roam from position, BMWde - mark tigher (occasionally).

When I play away game with Porto or sporting I tend to avoid Counter press and play counter, but it depends on how the match is going.

In Champions Cup games I usually change roles, IWat to IWs, Left WBsu to FBat, with top teams I play counter, small split block - DLFsu to DLFat. And I don't play Overlap left/overlap right. Sometimes without work ball into box and be more expressive. I watch matches at full and try to see what I need to do - for example Play into space. 

And PI: cross from deep to FBat (occasionally) and etc. 

All depends on my opponent and how match goes

My results this season are very good: 31 match without loosing (from the end of my first season) in Premier league (only 3 draws) .

I feel myself much better in Champions Cup: tough group + Arsenal, Napoli, Lille - and I have first place, only one away draw with Arsenal. 

So, I can say I dominate in the premier league and dream about champions cup.

In my first season I played with High Def Line and Standard LOE + split block, but after loosing Bayer 0-3 I decided that I need some changes.

I changed to Higher line of engagement, began to use counter press and changed one role: Luis in DM position played as Anchor man and I changed it to BMWde.

And it really began to work. 

Absolutely smashing it! Great set of results, does It produce the football you want to see? It's a very similar set up to what I have now. Producing tidy stuff, need to work on producing some more goals next season

[olegmelnikov]

7 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

Absolutely smashing it! Great set of results, does It produce the football you want to see? It's a very similar set up to what I have now. Producing tidy stuff, need to work on producing some more goals next season

Yes, I'm really happy because when I started the game I wanted my team to play attacking football, but try to avoid high possession style.

My idea was to have a balance. Be ready to dominate and be ready to defense against Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayern and etc.

I do not like to much possession and prefer more direct style,but I think it is really hard to play for Benfica with more direct approach. All my opponents play with low block, reduce the space, so I think this is maximum direct style for my team. 

The only thing I can't understand is why BMWde is playing much better than Anchor Man for my tactic. 

 

[danbanbury]

On 28/05/2020 at 22:10, olegmelnikov said:

Yes, I'm really happy because when I started the game I wanted my team to play attacking football, but try to avoid high possession style.

My idea was to have a balance. Be ready to dominate and be ready to defense against Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayern and etc.

I do not like to much possession and prefer more direct style,but I think it is really hard to play for Benfica with more direct approach. All my opponents play with low block, reduce the space, so I think this is maximum direct style for my team. 

The only thing I can't understand is why BMWde is playing much better than Anchor Man for my tactic. 

 

It's really cool that you've managed to get the team to play in a way you're happy with! 

I'm not sure why the BWM would play better than an anchorman, is it the same against bigger teams too? 

My guess would be that because you dominate teams the anchorman doesn't really have much to do and is quite a static role. The BWM can go hunting for it as soon as you loose possession to win it back quickly for you? Obviously other people with more knowledge maybe able to answer that for you. 

[olegmelnikov]

9 hours ago, danbanbury said:

I'm not sure why the BWM would play better than an anchorman, is it the same against bigger teams too? 

Yes, BMWde position looks great against any team I play.

9 hours ago, danbanbury said:

My guess would be that because you dominate teams the anchorman doesn't really have much to do and is quite a static role. The BWM can go hunting for it as soon as you loose possession to win it back quickly for you? Obviously other people with more knowledge maybe able to answer that for you. 

You know, I thought that if he goes hunting - I will switch back to Anchor or Half Back. But when I started to watch matches I didn't see him loosing position or too much pressing. I can say that it looked like anchor man...

How are you getting on?

[danbanbury]

2 hours ago, olegmelnikov said:

Yes, BMWde position looks great against any team I play.

You know, I thought that if he goes hunting - I will switch back to Anchor or Half Back. But when I started to watch matches I didn't see him loosing position or too much pressing. I can say that it looked like anchor man...

How are you getting on?

That's odd then, I'm not sure how to explain that 😂! 

Yeah pretty well, we had a tough start to the new season, first 3 league games were Liverpool, man United and man City! We got pumped 4-1against Liverpool and 5-0 against man City, but only lost 1-0 to man united after player with 10 men from 10 after my striker got sent off so we did well in that game. It was abit of naivety on my part, I didn't make any tweaks to the tactic at all, I just wanted to see if we could compete at that level but we're still some way off. Our squad is still so young. I think the oldest player in the starting 11 was 26. Since then however we've moved up to 7th or 8th I cant remember off the top of my head which one and we've not lost another game. After about 9 games I think. Its looking really promising, watching the games really helps and I'm started to tweak bits in games just to see if things pay off. For example upping the tempo is something I've work quite well in moving the opposition around with quicker passing. 

[olegmelnikov]

2 minutes ago, danbanbury said:

That's odd then, I'm not sure how to explain that 😂! 

Yeah pretty well, we had a tough start to the new season, first 3 league games were Liverpool, man United and man City! We got pumped 4-1against Liverpool and 5-0 against man City, but only lost 1-0 to man united after player with 10 men from 10 after my striker got sent off so we did well in that game. It was abit of naivety on my part, I didn't make any tweaks to the tactic at all, I just wanted to see if we could compete at that level but we're still some way off. Our squad is still so young. I think the oldest player in the starting 11 was 26. Since then however we've moved up to 7th or 8th I cant remember off the top of my head which one and we've not lost another game. After about 9 games I think. Its looking really promising, watching the games really helps and I'm started to tweak bits in games just to see if things pay off. For example upping the tempo is something I've work quite well in moving the opposition around with quicker passing. 

Wow, heavy games in the first 3 league games...

Yes, watching matches really helps, but sometimes it upsets. Watching a match, know what you want to do but can't realize it in terms of game tweaking. 

Also wanted to say that I explored pretty well combination for possession style play in 4123DM: Winger Support, Mezzala Attack, IWB Defence. I think it can also work with Inverted winger. It looked perfect in terms of balance: IWBde supports passing options in the DM strata when your tean is attacking and also a good cover for Mezzala as players in this position usually have lack in defense. So, if your players fit for this roles I highly recommend to try it.

[danbanbury]

On 04/06/2020 at 22:24, olegmelnikov said:

Wow, heavy games in the first 3 league games...

Yes, watching matches really helps, but sometimes it upsets. Watching a match, know what you want to do but can't realize it in terms of game tweaking. 

Also wanted to say that I explored pretty well combination for possession style play in 4123DM: Winger Support, Mezzala Attack, IWB Defence. I think it can also work with Inverted winger. It looked perfect in terms of balance: IWBde supports passing options in the DM strata when your tean is attacking and also a good cover for Mezzala as players in this position usually have lack in defense. So, if your players fit for this roles I highly recommend to try it.

That something i might have to try. Thanks for the advice.

[danbanbury]

Hey All,

Currently in 10th after 14th, really thought we'd be doing a little better. Scored the 10th highest amount of goals and conceded the 6th most goals. Here is the current tactic based, i'm not sure how to change it, with the firepower in the team i'd really expect us to be scoring more often than we are. In terms of players the only real changes to the team are in the CM slots. I feel the two players there are upgrades on the previous players.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by danbanbury

[Starsurfer]

9 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Hey All,

Currently in 10th after 14th, really thought we'd be doing a little better. Scored the 10th highest amount of goals and conceded the 6th most goals. Here is the current tactic based, i'm not sure how to change it, with the firepower in the team i'd really expect us to be scoring more often than we are. In terms of players the only real changes to the team are in the CM slots. I feel the two players there are upgrades on the previous players.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. 

Based on your above setup and making as few changes as possible, I suggest trying the following changes:

• Add player instructions more urgent pressing intensity to STC, AML, AMR, MCR
• If still find difficulty in scoring, change either F9 to DLFat, or IFsu back to IFat
• If RB is not competent enough to play IWBsu, change to FBsu instead

Hope this helps. 

[danbanbury]

11 hours ago, Starsurfer said:

Based on your above setup and making as few changes as possible, I suggest trying the following changes:

• Add player instructions more urgent pressing intensity to STC, AML, AMR, MCR
• If still find difficulty in scoring, change either F9 to DLFat, or IFsu back to IFat
• If RB is not competent enough to play IWBsu, change to FBsu instead

Hope this helps. 

Thanks for the advice, can i ask why you would make those changes? Keen to understand peoples thinking behind the changes/tactics.

[Starsurfer]

11 hours ago, danbanbury said:

Thanks for the advice, can i ask why you would make those changes? Keen to understand peoples thinking behind the changes/tactics.

As different position/role/duty occupy and move differently on the pitch, the changes aim to create space for each position to link up effectively during the 3 phases of play, ie defence, transition, offence.

[danbanbury]

10 hours ago, Starsurfer said:

As different position/role/duty occupy and move differently on the pitch, the changes aim to create space for each position to link up effectively during the 3 phases of play, ie defence, transition, offence.

That makes sense. Do you think that area of the pitch could be overcrowded? 

Ill try and include some examples later on but from what i see sometimes in games is that my two centre mids are really far apart. Could this be an issue? 

Also do you think the instructions could be an issue? 

[danbanbury]

We score the majority of our goals from crosses which isn't a problem however, i feel as though i would like to try and create goals via other methods as this can make us more unpredictable dangerous going forward. If the opposition can nullify our threat from putting crosses into the box then we'll struggle to score.

What would people suggest trying to do this or how do people go about doing it in their saves?

[Starsurfer]

14 hours ago, danbanbury said:

That makes sense. Do you think that area of the pitch could be overcrowded? 

Ill try and include some examples later on but from what i see sometimes in games is that my two centre mids are really far apart. Could this be an issue? 

Also do you think the instructions could be an issue? 

This is because DLP drops deeper while the MEZat goes wider and surges forward. This creates space allowing the DLP to do his playmaking thing. You can also use MEZsu instead of MEZat to keep him closer to midfield, however this may blunt your offence. In this case, you may choose to change AMR Wsu to Wat. However it may throw the balance of the right flank off and require adjusting the role/duty/instructions of your RB, CMR, and DM. There are many ways to skin the same cat, you can also choose to change the DM HBde to DMde to help occupy the space vacated by the MEZat. But again to balance the setup, changes to other players will be required. We can also use a CMat instead of MEZat, so on and so forth. All these are merely changes to player roles/duty only, we are not even considering changes to team mentality, formation, instructions to achieve how we want the team to play.

Thus, as you (and I hope other users too) will realize, setting up a tactic is about getting all 11 players to play cohesively together. I have seen too many users approach their tactics one player at a time trying to shoehorn their players into specific roles/duty.

Sidetracked for a bit, I hope this helps you in your tactics creation. 

[danbanbury]

1 hour ago, Starsurfer said:

This is because DLP drops deeper while the MEZat goes wider and surges forward. This creates space allowing the DLP to do his playmaking thing. You can also use MEZsu instead of MEZat to keep him closer to midfield, however this may blunt your offence. In this case, you may choose to change AMR Wsu to Wat. However it may throw the balance of the right flank off and require adjusting the role/duty/instructions of your RB, CMR, and DM. There are many ways to skin the same cat, you can also choose to change the DM HBde to DMde to help occupy the space vacated by the MEZat. But again to balance the setup, changes to other players will be required. We can also use a CMat instead of MEZat, so on and so forth. All these are merely changes to player roles/duty only, we are not even considering changes to team mentality, formation, instructions to achieve how we want the team to play.

Thus, as you (and I hope other users too) will realize, setting up a tactic is about getting all 11 players to play cohesively together. I have seen too many users approach their tactics one player at a time trying to shoehorn their players into specific roles/duty.

Sidetracked for a bit, I hope this helps you in your tactics creation. 

Thats really helpful thank you. I get what you're saying about considering tactic as a whole and not just bits of it in isolation its something i am definitely guilty of.

I also think i panic after a couple of dodgey results. I forget were plymouth argyle and not Liverpool or united etc. So shouldnt expect to be beating everyone. Perhaps abit of patience is needed as well.