4-3-2-1 Christmas Tree (Advice Required)

[Anmw97]

Hi All,

Defence

I have by far the best defence in the league. My aim is to sit tight in the Christmas tree formation and have my LCM and RCM press the opposition wide men. We don't tend to shut down fullbacks. We are happy to have the ball in front of us, not in between the lines. If you have any suggestions on how better to implement this - perhaps with player roles - please let me know.

Attack

This is the main issue. I am 2nd in the league table (only just) but our offensive record is on par with a mid-table side.

- How do I create more chances?

At the moment, I'm a little lost. I tell my team to counter... but I'm not sure that's really what I want to do. Previously, the mentality was 'positive', but 'attacking' seemed to help somewhat in encouraging chances. I have amassed players that are good on the ball in midfield. Yet, we can't seem to break teams down and create one-on-ones. 

What tends to happen is that we pass into midfield, get stuck, lob the ball out to the LB or RB, who then takes the ball the length of the pitch and gets slide-tackled out of play. I have scored loads from set pieces (which probably further masks my poor attacking performance). 

Any input is greatly appreciated!

[zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz]

Your being too cautious with your roles up front and in the midfield.

As it is you have a forward who will drop back into midfield, two attacking midfielders who will mostly operate in the space outside the area, one midfielder who holds position deep in the midfield and two midfielders who will mostly move around the midfield unless they have PI's or player traits instructing them to do otherwise. The only players who will make penetrating runs and attack the box in your current formation are your wingbacks. This can be fine if you want to play cautious possession football and get 1-0 or 2-0 victories, but if you want to score a lot of goals you will need to take more risks and attack the opposition.

I would change your AM-s to an AM-a or a Shadow Striker, that way you would have a player attacking the area being left behind by the DLF when he drops into midfield. I would also consider changing the midfielder on the left to a mezzala and drop the left CWB to support duty, between the two of them and the AP-s you will draw possession and the opposition defenders to your left flank, opening up space on the right for the AM and the right CWB to attack.

[Anmw97]

4 minutes ago, zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz said:

Your being too cautious with your roles up front and in the midfield.

As it is you have a forward who will drop back into midfield, two attacking midfielders who will mostly operate in the space outside the area, one midfielder who holds position deep in the midfield and two midfielders who will mostly move around the midfield unless they have PI's or player traits instructing them to do otherwise. The only players who will make penetrating runs and attack the box in your current formation are your wingbacks. This can be fine if you want to play cautious possession football and get 1-0 or 2-0 victories, but if you want to score a lot of goals you will need to take more risks and attack the opposition.

I would change your AM-s to an AM-a or a Shadow Striker, that way you would have a player attacking the area being left behind by the DLF when he drops into midfield. I would also consider changing the midfielder on the left to a mezzala and drop the left CWB to support duty, between the two of them and the AP-s you will draw possession and the opposition defenders to your left flank, opening up space on the right for the AM and the right CWB to attack.

Thanks for your reply.

I'd tried the shadow striker and AM-A but unfortunately to no avail. I'll give your suggestion about the Mezzala a go though, combined with a shadow striker or AM-A.

[Experienced Defender]

Here are my couple of tips:

- when you play in a narrow formation, do not use narrow defensive width (a.k.a. force oppo outside), because you need to encourage - not discourage - your players to help out the fullbacks/wing-backs when defending their respective flanks

- your lateral CMs should be switched to more covering or holding roles, both in order to cover for the attack-minded fullbacks and help recycle possession in the midfield + avoid competition for space with the 2 AMCs in front of them (who are both played on support duties)

I would like to know what's the exact reason you opted for instructions such as regroup and/or slightly less urgent pressing? The same question about your choice of the team mentality (attacking)?

[Anmw97]

30 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Here are my couple of tips:

- when you play in a narrow formation, do not use narrow defensive width (a.k.a. force oppo outside), because you need to encourage - not discourage - your players to help out the fullbacks/wing-backs when defending their respective flanks

- your lateral CMs should be switched to more covering or holding roles, both in order to cover for the attack-minded fullbacks and help recycle possession in the midfield + avoid competition for space with the 2 AMCs in front of them (who are both played on support duties)

I would like to know what's the exact reason you opted for instructions such as regroup and/or slightly less urgent pressing? The same question about your choice of the team mentality (attacking)?

On your first point: Thanks, this had crossed my mind. I'll make the change.

On your second point: The wide CMs were previously on cm-defend. They are still to hold position. I had considered this. My only problem here is that, as another commenter mentioned, changing their roles to be a little more attacking may help create more chances. This is where my tactic really fails. Defensively we are superb. Offensively, I very rarely see us manage to actually work the ball into the box.

Regroup and less urgent pressing is in order to protect our shape. I want our shape to be compact, so that it cannot be passed through. I will allow the opposition to play around about the outside of the formation, but not the freedom to pass with ease through the centre. This has worked and also explains why I defend narrow - it's one of few instructions I can use that stops players shutting down the opposition fullbacks. 

[Anmw97]

We seem to still be rather uninventive in attack unfortunately. 

[Experienced Defender]

16 hours ago, Anmw97 said:

On your second point: The wide CMs were previously on cm-defend

That's too conservative, especially when the third (central) CM is also on defend duty. Support duty is quite okay as long as they are played in holding or covering roles. 

 

16 hours ago, Anmw97 said:

They are still to hold position

Okay, but you need to know that manually added PIs have less effect than hard-coded ones. 

 

16 hours ago, Anmw97 said:

My only problem here is that, as another commenter mentioned, changing their roles to be a little more attacking may help create more chances

Honestly, I don't think that changing your CMs on support into more attacking roles (or giving them attack duties) would be a good idea in this particular type of setup/formation. A high(er) number of attack duties is not something that will necessarily help you create more chances or make you generally more potent in attack. Smart distribution of duties within the system is more important than the pure number of them. Think about roles and duties in terms of space creation and utilization and how they interact with one another, that's the best approach. 

 

16 hours ago, Anmw97 said:

Defensively we are superb. Offensively, I very rarely see us manage to actually work the ball into the box

Team instructions - including the WBiB - are effective only if the tactic as a whole - and particularly the setup of roles and duties - is created in such a way as to naturally encourage a certain type of behavior. I have tactics where my players are effectively working the ball into box even though I don't use that team instruction at all - because I achieved that primarily through my setup of roles and duties.

Roles and duties are key, instructions are rather a secondary (auxiliary) tactical tool (at least in my experience). 

16 hours ago, Anmw97 said:

Regroup and less urgent pressing is in order to protect our shape. I want our shape to be compact, so that it cannot be passed through. I will allow the opposition to play around about the outside of the formation, but not the freedom to pass with ease through the centre. This has worked and also explains why I defend narrow - it's one of few instructions I can use that stops players shutting down the opposition fullbacks

Okay, that makes sense when viewed in isolation. But the potential problem in this case is that the rest of your tactic suggests that your intended style of play is primarily attack-minded. Which means that there might be a degree of inconsistency between your attacking and defensive phases of play - i.e. your manner/style of attacking and your style of defending do not optimally match. And here you need to know that the way you attack affects the way you defend - and vice versa.

However, this absolutely does not mean that you should now go to the opposite extreme and up the pressing urgency to more urgent (let alone extremely urgent). Instead, default (medium) setting would probably suffice, especially in conjunction with your higher D-line and very high team mentality (attacking). 

The same applies to the Regroup instruction. You don't have to use either regroup or counter-press. You can simply leave them both unselected and let the players defend in accordance with regular out-of-possession instructions and their roles and duties. 

[Experienced Defender]

8 hours ago, Anmw97 said:

We seem to still be rather uninventive in attack unfortunately. 

I personally think that you need to create a bit more variety in your setup of roles and duties while preserving the overall tactical balance. I can give you a more concrete example if you want 

[Anmw97]

2 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

I personally think that you need to create a bit more variety in your setup of roles and duties while preserving the overall tactical balance. I can give you a more concrete example if you want 

Great help so far, so thank you.

 

Some more concrete examples would be great! 

[Experienced Defender]

3 hours ago, Anmw97 said:

Some more concrete examples would be great!

Okay, so this is one possible example of a 4321 setup I was referring to in terms of more variety:

DLFat (CFat)

APsu     SS

BWMsu   DLPde   CAR

(C)WBat   CDde  CD/BPDde   (C)WBsu

SKsu/de

So you still have two attack-minded fullback roles that will provide enough attacking width and support up front (even though the RB's duty is now switched to support, he is still attack-minded by virtue of the role), whereas central attacking penetration is improved by changing the AMsu into SS in AMCR (AM on attack duty can also work fine as an alternative option). At the same time, the central midfield roles and duties are set up so as to provide both defensive cover for the attacking fullbacks and support more advanced players in front of them when attacking, but without needless competition for space (which I already explained in my earlier comment).

Any questions perhaps?