Where has my defence gone this season?

[apaat]

I am 5 seasons in to a save right now. I have tried to build a somewhat defensive possession tactic and have done so with decent success, earning 2 promotions in 5 years doing a lower league save.

I have two questions. Firstly, I would like feedback on the tactic generally. I have recently rediscovered these forums after many many years away (where did the LLM forum go?!), and have not see a somewhat niché tactic like this under discussion/scrutiny and would enjoy the feedback. Secondly, as my post title suggests, I have some defensive issues in my current save and am not sure why...

My games for the first 4 seasons tended to be low scoring games, I would control possession as planned (averaging 60%+ every season), scoring few goals and conceding less. This season however, I am scoring a few more goals (mainly due to squad improvements I believe, as the tactic has changed very little), but I am conceding a lot - I am half way through my current season and have not kept a clean sheet in 2 months. Last season we finished 9th, but with the best defensive record in the league.

Below is my tactic and also my xGA visualisation for this season - 17 games in.

For the discussion generally, my MCL has been a AP(s) and my MCR a RPM(s) for the majority of my save. I didn't realise until I put the image here that I had a tweaked version of the tactic.

What is going on here? I am aware that maybe things will level out over the course of the season but this is still unusual for my setup.

I wonder if it may be the growing reputation of my club? Is the tactic too defensive now my club has parity in reputation with the rest of the league? The players have improved and I am truly not sure what could be causing this issue.

I look forward to the discussion

[MadOnion]

What is your media prediction for the season?

I'd be wary about using counter-press, a much higher defensive line, tight marking and get stuck in. I'm ok with the first two, but if the tight marking and get stuck in fail, that could leave your team exposed.

I suppose the main question is how/why are you conceding those goals? I'd go back a few games and analyse them. You may be able to spot a pattern.

[apaat]

I have had three seasons in the Spanish second division (22 teams). In my first season, I finished 4th, with the 4th best defence, while being predicted in a relegation spot. Second season finished 9th, best defence in the league, predicted relegation spot. This season I am 3rd, 11th best defence, predicted 9th. Obviously I am doing well generally and fairly happy, but I enjoy seeing my overachieving team lock out defences and have no idea why with an unchanged tactic, my defence has disappeared.

I took your advice and looked over my last 10 games briefly to see what kinds of goals I conceded. In my last 10 games I have conceded 17 with an xGA of 9.20.

Of those 17:

 - 3 were corners with no repeating pattern (front post goal, back post goal, front header to back post goal).

 - 1 penalty. I didn't look to see the cause as it was only 1 incident.

 - 3 byline crosses with no repeating goal. Positions did occur from somewhat counter-attacking moments.

 - 3 were switch balls to a winger, who beat my fullback 1v1 and scored a shot from wide in penalty area (one left to right switch, two right to left). team were in a defensive moment, not hit on the counter.

- 3 were deep crosses. twice finding deep running midfielders, once finding a striker in behind. again occurred during a defensive moment, not on the counter

- 2 counter attacking goals. one long ball in behind my high line from the counter. the second a TM header to striker, dribbles past the last defender to score

- 2 "clever" goals. one a one-two leading to a wide striker breaking through my left channel to score. the second a short through ball between my CB's for a 1v1 chance and goal. both occurring in defensive moments.

As far as I can tell 5 goals might have stemmed from counters - no issue here. Although I try to force teams in a defensive shell via possession I expect some counter attacking goals. What did surprise me was that 8 goals seemed to come in moments where my team were in a set defensive moment, either post corner or from a period of opposition possession. Pressure was not obviously lacking on the opposition assister, but it may be that my high line when in a set defensive moment, causes me issues with balls in behind or across the pitch?

I am still unsure though, I did not analyse goals conceded much at all over the last 2 season so maybe I have been lucky, but this very much feels like a weird statistical anomaly.

 

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, apaat said:

as my post title suggests, I have some defensive issues in my current save and am not sure why

Potential - and IMHO most obvious - reasons:

- the right flank/side clearly vulnerable (no proper midfield cover for the attack-minded fullback role - CWB)

- the fullback on the left flank (WB defend) potentially left to his own devices when defending, given the roles in front of him (attacking IF and mezzala)

- neither CM is played in either a holding or covering role (the mezzala is an attack-minded roaming runner, whereas AP is an attack-minded type of playmaker)

- both wide forwards (AMR & AML) played on attack duties, which logically makes them less defensively responsible

- aggressive out-of-possession TIs such as tight marking and get stuck in coupled with maximally high lines of defense also contribute to overall defensive vulnerability, especially when considered together with those listed above 

Other issues in your tactic (again in my personal view) include:

- you combine short passing with extreme attacking width, which is contradictory (for effective short-passing / possession-oriented play, you certainly don't want the players to be far away from one another)

- on the left flank, WB on defend duty might be a bit too conservative as a fullback role to provide proper and sufficient wide attacking support for his inside-cutting partner in AML (especially in a tactic that is intended to be possession-oriented) 

1 hour ago, apaat said:

I have tried to build a somewhat defensive possession tactic

What exactly do you mean by "defensive possession tactic" and what in your opinion does make it "defensive"? 

[apaat]

 Thank you, love the feedback.

3 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

What exactly do you mean by "defensive possession tactic" and what in your opinion does make it "defensive"? 

I wanted to try make a tactic that suffocated teams with possession, even if I am not particularly prolific - and my team tends not be be! I enjoyed watching clips of my team pass the ball around for ages, lose it, only to see the opposition hoof the ball to nobody because their shape had dropped so deep. Kind of a shithousing anti-football spin on "beautiful football".

8 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

you combine short passing with extreme attacking width, which is contradictory (for effective short-passing / possession-oriented play, you certainly don't want the players to be far away from one another)

I usually play on normal width, I didn't notice this when I took the screen-shot. Alongside my different CM roles this was just a change I tried for one game.

 

For the fullback/midfield role issues you're highlighting, I usually have a RPM(s) in the MCR slot but maybe a DLP(s) is a better option. The MCL slot is usually an AP(s) but I am planning on persisting with the MEZ(s) for the second half of my season - I want to see if the MEZ can operate and create in that half space, leaving the central spaces for my main playmaker. The left wing back on support is certainly an idea I will implement for the second half of the season to see what happens.

For the forwards, I try to get them the PPMs "moves into channels" and "likes to beat offside trap", as I want to see goals were the wide players drift into the channels and receive through balls in behind from the playmakers. I figured having them on attack best achieves this. It feels like it has been relatively successful, but memories are inconsistent things - maybe I will have to look over my recent goals. In any case what modifications would you suggest?

 

24 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

- aggressive out-of-possession TIs such as tight marking and get stuck in coupled with maximally high lines of defense also contribute to overall defensive vulnerability, especially when considered together with those listed above 

For this, I have broke down my last 10 games and the types of goals conceded just above your post. It seems like I am weakest when in my defensive shape. The breakdown there may give you better information on exactly the issues?

[Experienced Defender]

11 hours ago, apaat said:

For the fullback/midfield role issues you're highlighting, I usually have a RPM(s) in the MCR slot

RPM makes no difference in terms of my remark (the lack of proper midfield cover for an attack-minded fullback). 

 

11 hours ago, apaat said:

but maybe a DLP(s) is a better option

Yes (in the context of this particular setup)  

It's hard to reply to the rest of your last post because it seems that you don't have a consistent tactic but are instead making changes - including roles and duties - on a rather random basis + viewing tactical elements in isolation (rather than conjunction with other parts of the tactic). 

For example, you said that MCL is usually AP on support - not the mezzala, as shown in the screenshot - but if so, it actually means you play both CMs in the same role (AP on support). Or I misunderstood something?

[apaat]

18 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

It's hard to reply to the rest of your last post because it seems that you don't have a consistent tactic but are instead making changes

@Experienced Defender This is a mistake on my part. My tactic has been very consistent over the past 4 seasons. The tactic uploaded above however, is from after a game where I changed a couple things - I didn't notice at the time it was not my original tactic. Below I will post my original tactic and new one, explaining the rationale behind the original tactic and behind the changes I have made. My first post really wasn't clear enough and didn't even use a correct picture! Hopefully this post will resolve any confusion.

Here is my original tactic:

 

Here is my new tactic:

 

As for the changes themselves, I have made a few and will maintain them until the end of the season to give me a good sample size for review.

After noticing a good portion of conceded goals seemed to come when my team were defensively set, and taking on board the advice that my "tight marking" and "get stuck in" instructions were quite aggressive, I removed them. I am thinking that since I control possession for most of the game and have counter-press on for transitional moments, removing this will stop my players over-committing in 1v1 situations and losing out in defensively set moments. Hopefully the team shape will still be good during counter-pressing transitions, I will find out over the coming half-season no doubt.

Secondly I changed the DL from a WB(d) to a WB(s). I had him on defend because he is my quickest defender and I want him on hand to cover balls in behind but he was always quite useless offensively. He has quite poor mentals but hopefully his speed will still be useful covering the space behind him. Offensively I hope he can give us a deep, wide out ball to help us maintain possession. A non-tactical change I have also made is to bring in a quicker, more physical CB, my current main centre backs are both slow and technical - Hopefully the added speed and physicality helps in some defensive moments (losing out on headers during crossing and corner sequences).

The third group of changes I made were to my MCR and AMR. To cover the vulnerabilities noted, I have turned the MCR in to a DLP(s) and taken the AMR from a IW(a) to a IW(s). I am not sure what this will do to us offensively yet, it remains to be seem. Hopefully my wide players PPM's should still get them the goal scoring opportunities I want to see. Defensively, I imagine the "hold position" instruction of the DLP will help add some solidity, while moving the AMR from an attack to support duty might keep him in a better shape during transitions and during defensive phases.

Another change I have made that I did not mention in my initial post was that ALL of my front 5 were instructed or had within their roles "roam from position". Now only the F9 and MEZ(s) have this instruction. I am not sure why I had this set. The idea behind my tactic is to have a positionally structured team, so we maintain the ball with good spacing between players and we defend high and tight so suffocate the opposition in transition. From transition to defensive phase we look to hold shape. I wonder if having so many roaming players was counter-productive to this idea and meant it was poorly implemented?

 

[Experienced Defender]

Unfortunately, I am too short of time at the moment to read through your entire post and go into much detail. so I'll just tell you this: the second tactic can be improved and sorted out far more quickly and easily than the first one, so my advice for you is to entirely discard the first tactic and focus exclusively on the second. 

One quick tip though: you probably don't need a CWB in a non-narrow formation. Because the role's attacking potential is likely to be reduced by the presence of another player on the flank, while at the same time the very nature of the role makes it less defensively responsible compared to other FB/WB roles. So you are essentially increasing overall defensive risk and exposure without getting any really tangible benefit in attack. 

[apaat]

3 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Unfortunately, I am too short of time at the moment to read through your entire post and go into much detail. so I'll just tell you this: the second tactic can be improved and sorted out far more quickly and easily than the first one, so my advice for you is to entirely discard the first tactic and focus exclusively on the second. 

It has been done - I will be using the second tactic for the remainder of my season (20+ games).

3 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

One quick tip though: you probably don't need a CWB in a non-narrow formation. Because the role's attacking potential is likely to be reduced by the presence of another player on the flank, while at the same time the very nature of the role makes it less defensively responsible compared to other FB/WB roles. So you are essentially increasing overall defensive risk and exposure without getting any really tangible benefit in attack. 

This makes sense looking at the list of instructions between the roles. Consider my second tactic with this change in mind. I am running through the remainder of my season now and will see what progress is made.

[apaat]

On 07/01/2021 at 18:51, apaat said:

It has been done - I will be using the second tactic for the remainder of my season (20+ games).

Season 5 has been completed. We finished 7th in the end, almost winning an automatic promotion spot before collapsing in the final games and subsequent play-off matches. I maintained the second tactic as shown above - the defence did improve during the second half of the season, with xGA looking less like an outlier after that anomalous start to the season. Goal scoring went down too and there wasn't much change in terms of points per game.

In season 6 I have changed two things. Firstly, my striker is now playing as a Trequartista rather than an F9. The reason behind this is because I felt when we stay in the defensive phase for a while and sat a bit deeper, the F9 was too deep to be an out-ball. I hope with the Trequartista I can maintain similar attacking movements (coming deep, going wide, linking play), while in the defensive phase, by way of his role being an attacking one, he can stay higher up the pitch as an out-ball. Secondly, I have changed the DR from a WB(s) to a WB(a). This is to vary my attacking options across the flanks and make better use of my very technical first choice RB.

Here is the current tactic:

 

Here is how season 6 has started:

It has been a very good start. We are predicted to finish 8th, one position higher than last season, but currently find ourselves top. Most importantly the football is looking as I want it. I am getting plenty of highlights of the opposition being pinned back, getting hold of the ball only to clear it back to us because they are so deep. Offensively, the wide right IW(s) position has become quite useless. The wide left position is acting very well for me though. I am seeing recurring highlights of midfield interplay with the T(a) dropping deep, my DLP(s) playing it across to my MEZ(s), who plays passes in to the left channel for the IF(a) running in behind. 

The tactic is still not exactly how I want it. The wide right position is a problem for me that I am unsure how to resolve. For now I have made a personnel change, using a central playmaker in that position instead of a wide forward. This has given us better defensive stability and play making from the position, but very few goals, and no goals looking similar to the wide right position.

 

[apaat]

I have played a few more games and believe I made a mistake taking the DR from a WB(s) to a WB(a). It seems that on the attack duty, the wing back was pushing too much in to the wide right IW(s) space. The WB(a) did provide me some nice assists and chances via byline crosses but it seemed to be impacting the wide rights performance. It also meant my players looked a bit too close and squashed at times on the right side. The DR is back to a WB(s) and I have been rewarded with a few clean sheets once more. The IW(s) has also scored a few - it could be a coincidence as the sample size is small (5 games), but I think I will keep the right WB on support for the rest of the season then re-evaluate.