Chasing the Pep dream - I think I took a step closer..

[dazza11]

Since the launch of FM, I ( and plenty others) have chased the dream of recreating Pep's tactics genius from when he first arrived in Man City. I know many have produced some very good recreations, especially as the limitations of a computer game means its impossible to fully achieve. Before the arrival of FM21, I wanted one final crack at it, and the team shape, player movement and goals scored has brought some great results. 

My interpretation of when Pep arrived was of the following ( of course there were many, but these were what I wanted to focus on within the constraints of FM, as replicating the movement and instinct of Silva/De Bruyne is impossible) :-

A high line, with high pressing forcing the opposition to cough up the ball in dangerous areas

Inverted wingbacks who stepped in alongside Fernandinho when the team was attacking to allow the front five more freedom to go create havoc, whilst being a creative outlet themselves.

Width.. Whilst they had the freedom to express themselves, Sterling and Sane in particular stretched the game, hugging the touchline, forcing the opposition defenders to step out wide, giving greater space to Silva and De Bruyne to rip teams apart, but whilst still providing a goalscoring threat

I am useless at technology, so I've no idea how to upload the videos of the goals scored, but in the second season Spurs won the league, with my main IWB's ( Reguilon and Aurier) scoring 9 between them and providing 15 assists. We scored 103 goals, conceding only 26, and the goals were really spread around with only the DM not troubling the scoreboards

 

First the tactic

Importantly, I wasn't trying to recreate each player role down to the minute detail,  what I wanted more was to recreate the team shapes and player movements within the limitations that FM poses. The obvious stand out difference from that team is the SS, but I tweaked this to generate a further goalscoring running threat when the DLF is deeper, linking up play. 
 

 

 

Team shape - where I got most excited - Pep was very much about creating triangles so that there was always a passing option and as u can see this gave us the attacking three triangle and that middle core. 

The top image shows our attacking team shape, absolute thing of beauty, 2cbs, the dm holding and the iwbs tucking in to create that defensive 5, condensing the space, providing great passing options and being ready to breakdown should the opposition win the ball.

we've got the two wingers hugging the touchline, stretching the pitch whilst that front three are moving around occupying the opposition centre backs. 

But then in defence, the lower image, we fall back into a standard 4141, where the biggest threat and bugbear of mine has been conceding goals from long range when the DM got overloaded and the AP was slow in dropping back in. Id say 1/4 to a 1/3 of goals conceded came via this, but you can't have everything in life!

About some of the instructions - I never normally use this many, but again its provided great results. I found that using Attacking with standard tempo and slightly shorter passing gave us the right blend in terms of ball movement, again if I knew how to upload videos, some of the interplay has been great. I thought focus play through middle and Wide might prove contradictory, but actually far from it, it seems to help the Wingers stay wide, whilst focusing passing on that DM/AP zone who spray the ball around for fun. 

Dribble less - I want the ball pinged around, and with the hardcoded instructions for wingers to dribble more, it creates the perfect balance for the rest of the team.

I used no OI, but PI's on most players.

Thoughts/Comments welcome!

[NotSoSpecialOne]

I will admit that, when I opened this thread, that is not the shape I expected to see. Unexpected, but definitely interesting.

[04texag]

Generally speaking, I really dislike funky, non symmetrical, or weird formations that are used to FORCE players into particular positions. Doing so can force a particular in possession result, but they usually break apart defensively, especially against good teams. 

You can recreate the player movements you are trying to force in this tactic with a regular, 433 (4123). It's all about choosing the proper P/R/D and using the correct combination of TI/PI. 

Those things said, if you like the recreation you are getting, then that's awesome! Are there any areas you feel like are lacking or you wish were better? Can you do a screenshot of results? (Please learn to use windows (assuming you aren't on a mac) for this, (win key + shift + s, then click and drag to highlight, then control +v in this forum) so that you aren't taking cell phone pics of your screen)

[dazza11]

im on a Mac! 

[04texag]

49 minutes ago, dazza11 said:

im on a Mac! 

Naturally! Here you go:

Press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 4. Drag the crosshair to select the area of the screen to capture. To move the selection, press and hold Space bar while dragging. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.

Then just hit control+v to paste that selection straight in to the forums

[zabyl]

I tried a similar style on one of my saves. I'm happy to see likeliness of this on real life PEP's false back tactics. There is no way to replicate Pep's positional play completely but his style can be replicated like this i think.

I wanted to create their high pressing. It is my starting point. So i used a classic set up like this: not a revolutionary one.

PIs:

deep lying forward: roam from position

inverted wingers: stay wider

advanced playmakers: move into channels

 

This provided their high pressing but gave too much space on the flanks and on the center. So i adapted a more defensive setup like yours and dropped wide forwards to wide midfielder positions and wingbacks to fullback positions to make it more solid in defence. There was a gap between defensive midfielder and attacking midfielders so i tried to solve it with giving DM a conservative support role like DLPs instead of DLPd and combined it with much higher D-line and dropped LOE from much higher to higher to minimize the gap between DM and AMs without reducing engaging position to opposition too much.

 

This is the tactic that evolved at the end:

PIs:

inverted wingers: stay wider

advanced playmakers: move into channels

DLPs: dribble less

 

I changed DLF to a F9 to drop him deeper and added "counter" TI because with these changes i had 2 deep wide attackers and a striker who dropped to help compactness. F9 helped the gap between DM and AMs with APs and DLPs.

This tactic worked fine for me when i managed top sides.

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by zabyl
corrected some text

[dazza11]

3 hours ago, 04texag said:

Naturally! Here you go:

Press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 4. Drag the crosshair to select the area of the screen to capture. To move the selection, press and hold Space bar while dragging. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.

Then just hit control+v to paste that selection straight in to the forums

Legend, thanks I’ll give it a go tomorrow and upload some more screenshots the correct way 

[mp_87]

I've worked through endless combinations and experiments since FM14/15 to see what is possible in terms of PepBall and if what we see in real life can be replicated in game. That shape is something I have done before, in order to get the central midfielders very high in the half space, but leaving the wide players in the midfield strata where historically on FM they have held their width better than when placed further forward. It worked ok from what I can recall, against weaker teams. But you were obviously very light in midfield at times.

 

Personally what I have found from these many many experiments is that the best shape, for me at least, when trying to replicate Pep style football is actually a flat 4-5-1. And also just use generic highly customisable roles where possible. Also there is the age old debate about mentality etc. - In my opinion the way to go is a lower team mentality, with more aggressive individual duties for your attacking players. But most see it differently.

 

 

[afailed10]

Interesting take and good read. Those with and without the ball screens look good, albeit there might be issues with the gap. I didn't test it but I bet that's a pretty decent recreation and well closer to the real deal than any other using standard 4141Dm wide or any other variant that deploys center mids, as those positions aren't pressing as they should. 

[zlatanera]

1 hour ago, dazza11 said:

Legend, thanks I’ll give it a go tomorrow and upload some more screenshots the correct way 

@04texag actually Shift + Cmd (Control to most people) + 5 gives you the box to drag without having to hold down the keys. Still use Esc to cancel it though!

More on topic, I see in the tactic you're using Be More Disciplined similar to the other user tagged in this post, its certainly a refreshing attitude to possession play to see (whilst some people swore by Highly Structured on FM18 and earlier that seems too rigid to me), but one thing that surprised me was an Inverted Winger at MR. Especially given your emphasis on the Wingers stretching the play, to then use a role that cuts inside. Care to go into more detail?

[dazza11]

10 hours ago, zlatanera said:

@04texag actually Shift + Cmd (Control to most people) + 5 gives you the box to drag without having to hold down the keys. Still use Esc to cancel it though!

More on topic, I see in the tactic you're using Be More Disciplined similar to the other user tagged in this post, its certainly a refreshing attitude to possession play to see (whilst some people swore by Highly Structured on FM18 and earlier that seems too rigid to me), but one thing that surprised me was an Inverted Winger at MR. Especially given your emphasis on the Wingers stretching the play, to then use a role that cuts inside. Care to go into more detail?

The IW decision was one I kind of stumbled upon. Initially went with WA, however I was finding that when the AP or DLF had the ball and the SS was pushing through, there would at times be quite a void in that right hand channel as the W was hugging the touchline. So I  switched to IWS to to fill that gap, he also has Take more Risk, Roam from Position.  And its part of the reason I use the underlap function - the IWB will naturally drive inside, but the underlap function seems to encourage this even further, and it seemed rightly or wrongly to initially encourage the IWS to stay wider. As you can see from the average positions shots above, the IWS holds basically the same position as the W on the other side, it just allows him to attack that gap behind the SS better. 

Re your point on Be more Disciplined... I think this is quite a crucial instruction to carry when using an Attacking mentality. My thinking is, I use Attacking mentality, with standard LOE and be more disciplined... the scenario being, the opposition have the ball, we are only standard LOE so it encourages them to come out, away from their box, normally in a cautious manner, then our More Urgent pressing kicks in, we win the ball, our attacking mentality and counter  kicks in, but rather then everyone  just bomb forward, the be more disciplined instruction just puts the handbrake on a touch, especially as I have all players on support duty rather than attack ( apart from the SS obv). When I was developing the tactic, and was watching the games live, adding those instructions seem to make a big difference to holding that back 5 diamond of 2cb, 1dm, 2 iwb in a good shape whilst everyone else pours forward. Maybe im talking out my backside, but watching the 2d it seemed to make a difference. 

[dazza11]

12 hours ago, mp_87 said:

Personally what I have found from these many many experiments is that the best shape, for me at least, when trying to replicate Pep style football is actually a flat 4-5-1. And also just use generic highly customisable roles where possible. Also there is the age old debate about mentality etc. - In my opinion the way to go is a lower team mentality, with more aggressive individual duties for your attacking players. But most see it differently.

 

 

Would be interesting to see what player roles and PI's you used in a flat 451 to see how you got on.... I have tried all the variants, 433, 451 etc, in the 433 I found that the wide men in the advanced role then limited the space for the central flatter midfielders to move into, or were then too high up field and ended up crowded. In the flat 451, I just could never get the central midfielders close enough to the striker unless I went for a slower build up, and then I found the opposition had regrouped and my attacking options were limited. So would be intriguing to hear how you set it up.

[dazza11]

@zabyl Great post, and interesting we ended up with very similar shapes. I did try with the DLP, maybe because I was on attacking mentality, I found it didn't give me the same defensive cover as the DM. Also , I signed Tonali this season, ive been playing him in the DMD position and found it provides me with the right defensive shape, and he loses none of his playmaking skills, he just sits in that pocket like a quarterback firing out passes, normally to the wingers which starts our attacks nicely. 

[04texag]

In the midst of doing my positional play, juego de posicion study, which is another thread here, I've experimented some with using the 433 shape and some slight tweaks to my base 4231 JdP. Below is what I believe is a pretty darned close representation of the way Pep played in 2018 and 2019. I've tested this tactic just simming with City using the FM20 starting squad, and the results have been pretty stellar. I'd imagine with a human manager, you would be hard pressed to lose.

 

There are some key PI's here, but don't want to rob this guy's thread. Needless to say though, as I mentioned before, you can get what you're wanting with a Pep tactic, with a NORMAL team shape. It's important to realize that the tactical shape in FM is your defensive shape. So forcing your players into their offensive positioning you want by placing them in weird lineups in the tactical creator will lead to unintended consequences in the ME. A tactic like above will give you the offensive shape you want by using the correct roles and duties, and the correct combinations if TI/PI.

[zabyl]

52 minutes ago, 04texag said:

Lots of FM users tried a tactic like this with some PIs like move into channels for RPM or sit narrower for FB if not an IWB selected. It was close. But not close enough.

When i used a similar one to this while i was trying to replicate it; i saw that it did not provide high pressing required from 2 CMs similar to David Silva and De Bruyne in real. They started high pressing almost the same area of lone forward in those matches. Even so tactic creator doesn't give enough closing down PI for CMs. I understand the idea why @dazza11created this. I understand your thoughts too. There is nothing wrong both of these.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

It's cool and all, but damn, clean your screen.

 

 

[04texag]

18 minutes ago, zabyl said:

Lots of FM users tried a tactic like this with some PIs like move into channels for RPM or sit narrower for FB if not an IWB selected. It was close. But not close enough.

When i used a similar one to this while i was trying to replicate it; i saw that it did not provide high pressing required from 2 CMs similar to David Silva and De Bruyne in real. They started high pressing almost the same area of lone forward in those matches. Even so tactic creator doesn't give enough closing down PI for CMs. I understand the idea why @dazza11created this. I understand your thoughts too. There is nothing wrong both of these.

What you are highlighting there with that very specific complaint about the pressing is a failure of the 433 shape. Generally speaking, it is a balanced team shape but not the best for pressing, as you really only have 3 to press 4 with, and the CMs are just not going to get high enough due to ME (or real life in most cases). That's why the 4231 is such a staple formation for modern soccer, as it's naturally better for pressing high as you  have 4 to press 4. This is precisely the reason why in my entire tactical thread about positional play, I'm using the 4231.

[zabyl]

These pictures are from https://spielverlagerung.com/ . All of them are showing their high pressing against a back-5 and back-4.

[mp_87]

3 hours ago, dazza11 said:

Would be interesting to see what player roles and PI's you used in a flat 451 to see how you got on.... I have tried all the variants, 433, 451 etc, in the 433 I found that the wide men in the advanced role then limited the space for the central flatter midfielders to move into, or were then too high up field and ended up crowded. In the flat 451, I just could never get the central midfielders close enough to the striker unless I went for a slower build up, and then I found the opposition had regrouped and my attacking options were limited. So would be intriguing to hear how you set it up.

 

If I was going to set up, as an example, the Man City shape of a couple of years ago (which I thought was their best version) - Inverted left back, Sane on the left, Silva left half space, De Bruyne right half space, Sterling on the right - I'd go:

SWK(d)

FB(s) CB(st) CB(st) IWB(d)

WM(a) CM(s) CM(d) CM(a) WM(a)

DLF(s)

Most players on shorter passing PI and not to dribble. And to press more.

WM's told to stay wider.

CM(a) with move into channels.

CM(s) with max freedom - Get forward, roam, channels, everything.

Plus loads of other TI's and PI's.......

With a lower team mentality the five defensive players just recycle the ball and give it to the attacking ones to do the damage - which is largely what happens in PepBall in real life. And the two CM's always see the most ball, so become the 'playmakers' without the playmaker role tendencies of always wanting the ball to feet, often wandering from position, and not getting so advanced. The CM with attack duty also presses the best out of all the roles and so can join the centre forward in pressing the back line (see the common complaint above...). They also I find push the wide players higher and wider, especially in the build up phase, but the WM role will get into the box. It is also not as 'arcadey' and one dimensional as run + cross/shoot spam you get from wingers or inside forwards...

PPM's/Traits (plus attributes of course - particularly mental and technical) are as important if not more so in all honesty. Players need the appropriate ones (some you want for most players) - Short passes, Stops play, Dictates Tempo, One-two's, Plays way out of trouble, Brings ball out of Defence, Hugs Line, Gets into area, etc. From scratch to be honest I find it takes the best part of 3-5 seasons to absolutely hone a squad of players to play this way fluently.

 

In terms of how it plays out, I'll freely admit it is a slower and patient way of playing, and one probably unpalatable to many FM'ers who seem to want to attack every 10 seconds, but I think it is more realistic to what we see in real life - Controlling the possession, resetting, moving it around, and then the attacking players having the freedom to put a pick combination together to open up the opposition.

I'd also say that in FM19 + 20 it was harder to get this to work, due mostly to what the ME did and it favouring more direct play, it was better from FM13-18 in this regard. But I still prefer this to the other interpretations I see put up tbh which I find often way too aggressive for my liking and lack a lot of the essence of what we see in real life - either too much wideplay or direct play, not replicating the real life structures, and so on.

Edited October 29, 2020 by mp_87

[04texag]

9 minutes ago, zabyl said:

These pictures are from https://spielverlagerung.com/ . All of them are showing their high pressing against a back-5 and back-4.

I'm not saying you can't press high in a 433, that's why I said generally speaking. Pep pushes the 433 shape with very agressive pushing of the central mids. This is hard to do in FM. You can somewhat do it if you sign the right players. In the tactic I posted above, if you use aggressive, high work rate, high team work players, you can get them to do this.

 

[zabyl]

3 minutes ago, 04texag said:

I'm not saying you can't press high in a 433,

There is a misunderstanding 

I didn't post those pictures for your comment. I shared them because they are about the subject.

[04texag]

Gotcha! good stuff. But still kind of applies.

[04texag]

I have yet to digest this full article, but this is a good read. I think you can achieve both of these offensive formations from standard 433, or 4231.

https://spielverlagerung.com/2020/09/18/analysing-manchester-citys-attack-structural-considerations-and-variations/

[dazza11]

 @04texag  Could you post the average in possession/out of that tactic? You keep mentioning forced positions in my tactic, I don't see what having two players in the amc is so forced? 

What I was trying to achieve was to get my two midfielders closer to the striker so that when attacking, we could create passing options within the triangle, and then in defence  allowing us to press high, albeit with a standard LOE, limiting the passing options of the opposition around their low central midfielders. And as you correctly pointed out, the tactic screen is a representation of your defensive set up, not your attacking set up, given you play on a balanced mentality with high LOE vs my attacking mentality with standard LOE, there probably isn't from a defensive situation a great deal of difference in how the midfield two perform. Its however from  an attacking perspective that I believe by having two amc's provides the better link play to the striker. FM and football is a game of opinions, and clearly ours differ. 

As per previous, and as others like @zabyl have mentioned, our attempts at creating that triangle shape with the midfielders as close to the strikers as we want them, just hasnt been achievable by using the more standard 433 formation - but the reason for my post was to challenge for thoughts and suggestions, so if there is a way to produce those in/out possession shapes as per the OP, then id love to see them, its just in my replications so far, this tactic has been the only way ive been able to achieve what I wanted. 

 

 

[themadsheep2001]

I'll probably do this for FM21, but it's definitely possible to get the pressing and the aggressive CM shape with the 4-3-3 in FM20

[zabyl]

19 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

I'll probably do this for FM21, but it's definitely possible to get the pressing and the aggressive CM shape with the 4-3-3 in FM20

I prepared my drinks and chips and i am looking forward to it 

[04texag]

53 minutes ago, dazza11 said:

You keep mentioning forced positions in my tactic, I don't see what having two players in the amc is so forced? 

Maybe I'm just a purist, but you don't see teams lining up in a 4141 with no one in the central midfield positions and 5 in attack like that. My point is the players move to those positions but that's not the natural team shape. I elaborate a lot on positional play team shape etc elsewhere but I think it matters, and it is quintessentially Pep. Two, Pep himself will tell you he plays a 433, so in trying to recreate what he's doing, I would always aim to do that. I agree, there are LOTS of ways to get similar movements and results on the FM screen, but something to me just always sits wrong with weird shapes that I see floating around. Doesn't mean you can't do it though.

EDIT< I notice you don't really have the 4 in the AM strata, but it is a very unique shape.

Edited October 29, 2020 by 04texag

[zlatanera]

6 hours ago, dazza11 said:

The IW decision was one I kind of stumbled upon. Initially went with WA, however I was finding that when the AP or DLF had the ball and the SS was pushing through, there would at times be quite a void in that right hand channel as the W was hugging the touchline. So I  switched to IWS to to fill that gap, he also has Take more Risk, Roam from Position.  And its part of the reason I use the underlap function - the IWB will naturally drive inside, but the underlap function seems to encourage this even further, and it seemed rightly or wrongly to initially encourage the IWS to stay wider. As you can see from the average positions shots above, the IWS holds basically the same position as the W on the other side, it just allows him to attack that gap behind the SS better. 

Okay. Yeah I did notice the shape looked right, which aroused my curiosity further. I think I noticed something similar with the Overlap instruction on a 4-4-2 where a natural W-At would sometimes be found narrower than you would expect. I suppose you're predominantly using Raheem Sterling, who is right-footed, as well? I'd imagine that will help him stay wide too.

[04texag]

57 minutes ago, dazza11 said:

Could you post the average in possession/out of that tactic?

I'm not playing a save with City, so loaded up a new one and simmed a month in with this tactic. Here are average positions. Of course, this is just one game example.

 

With ball, a 2-3-5 shape, just like City

Without ball, a flat 4141, with CMS high up the pitch.

 

[04texag]

I'm running through the simmed results, and I might need to do a short pre FM21 Pep save now, because it is looking good. I love seeing combination trees as well, and this one looks great.

 

[Sarriball14]

10 hours ago, 04texag said:

In the midst of doing my positional play, juego de posicion study, which is another thread here, I've experimented some with using the 433 shape and some slight tweaks to my base 4231 JdP. Below is what I believe is a pretty darned close representation of the way Pep played in 2018 and 2019. I've tested this tactic just simming with City using the FM20 starting squad, and the results have been pretty stellar. I'd imagine with a human manager, you would be hard pressed to lose.

 

There are some key PI's here, but don't want to rob this guy's thread. Needless to say though, as I mentioned before, you can get what you're wanting with a Pep tactic, with a NORMAL team shape. It's important to realize that the tactical shape in FM is your defensive shape. So forcing your players into their offensive positioning you want by placing them in weird lineups in the tactical creator will lead to unintended consequences in the ME. A tactic like above will give you the offensive shape you want by using the correct roles and duties, and the correct combinations if TI/PI.

What PI did you use?

[04texag]

14 minutes ago, Sarriball14 said:

What PI did you use?

It's in the linked post. 

[themadsheep2001]

7 hours ago, zabyl said:

I prepared my drinks and chips and i am looking forward to it 

Got the bug after watching the football, and since you were keen

So this is how I play:

 

 

I think lots of people work along the same lines on most team instructions but rather than a general press I use a combination of OI instructions on the back line and GK, and PIs on my front 5 players to create an aggressive split press.

 

Here with the ball: you can see the 2-3-5, and clear passing triangles for the team

 

And without the ball, a  high 4-1-4-1 shape, to counter-press hard and go

You can see the overloads on both flanks, with the DM providing a high safe base to recycle

And the result of the game I played: Despite Southampton playing a defensive 5-3-2, we went at them time and time again, with Sancho sending Ryan Betrand to the gulag, he may have only got the one assist, but he did the damage time and again to create space for everyone else, and won free kick after free kick (how they finished with 11 men is beyond me)

Don't want to derail from the OP, but just my 2 cents. Will delve deeper in FM21 when it releases

[zabyl]

Ok. Good but it’s just the same result what i had for pressing with PIs & OIs. Not bad. 

Can you post screenshots with the  opposition when you press high them? I want to see both team’s positions. Because without ball ss you shared; there is a huge gap between RCM-FW-RW. A potential weakness in pressing chain to explode when playing against human players not ai. Because we know that ai is not dynamic enough like a human. 

I used that weakness against my friends in online matches when they replicated Pep with a 4-3-3. 

Stopped playing for 2 months and i’m waiting for FM21 to see the changes on ME or tactic creator and xG-xA thing that i generally use out of the game.

[dazza11]

So Ive carried on with the Spurs save into the next season and I wanted to upload this screenshot to allay most peoples fears about using a formation like this, that fear being that it won't be defensively sound. Well 12 games into the new season, we've only conceded 3 goals, 1 each vs Liverpool, man city and arsenal. And the defence is not overflowing with big names, we have Lloris, Reguillon, Dias, Dier, Aurier with Tonali as the holding DM. At this stage only Dias is world class, altho Reguillon and Tonali will develop into that level. And even better I uploaded it using the command shift function, cheers guys! ( u can teach an old dog new tricks after all!)

Our goalscoring is less than impressive than last season so far, a mixture of Kane injured, the usual hitting the woodwork 3/4 times in a match and maybe last seasons success meaning teams are even more cautious against us, so wins are 2-0 rather than 4-0. Likewise, the four draws equally disappointing, but the team is still producing great football ( now ive mastered control and command function, I need to learn how to upload video highlights!), we are still getting those great triangle shapes. Im still not happy with the SS role, but every other role is performing perfectly so maybe I just need to accept this one disappointment. 

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by dazza11

[Luizinho]

14 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Any reason why you use Sancho in a IW role rather than an IF? Is it primarily attribute based?