Tactical Help: 5-2-3 (WB) Progressing the Ball Forwards

[Anexxias]

Hi all,

I have a very clear idea of how I want to set my tactic up (with a few rules I'm trying to follow; I want to use 5atb, and a Trequartista) and I am right on the edge of sorting it out. For reference, I am playing as St. Pauli in season 5. We're predicted to finish 6th in the Bundesliga, so we are in the sweet spot where the bottom 3-4 teams park the bus, but the rest still try to press us high, for the most part.

I'm going to start by showing the tactic I started recently in a 1-1 draw away to HSV.

 

The idea is simple; we build from the back through the progressive passing of Bosko Sutalo, who is playing as the Libero aided by the presence of the 2 wide centre backs, wing backs, and Monchu, who is a CM(D) with the PIs of a DLP (so he doesn't act as a ball-magnet and interrupt the Libero & Treq) . Eventually we seek to get the ball to the exceptionally technical Lonngy (Lonngy is by some distance our best player with 18 vision, 17 technique, 15 passing, 18 off the ball, and 15 decisions. He has free rein to move into space and do whatever he wants, because he is that good, and with 19 work rate he still helps out, even as a Treq) who can feed the onrushing Guendouzi or the very (very) pacey Prieto and Selcuk. Our line of engagement is set as (Standard) in order to facilitate the space for the front 3 to play in.

However, here is the heat map from our game against HSV:

As you can see, we defended remarkably well. They had barely any touches in our box and only an xG of 0.73, but they still found 1 goal. Frustratingly however, you can see that they absolutely pinned us back. Our goalkeeper clearly had the ball more than anyone else on the team, and when we did score our goal, it came from the LCB(No.5) pinging a hopeful ball over the top to the AF(No.9). Despite having very good, technical players in key positions, we just couldn't keep hold of the ball or progress it up the pitch effectively.

So I can summarise my findings like this:

1) The Advanced Forward was clearly isolated on his own up top. Despite this, he served as our out-ball, and managed to get 1 goal from a ball over the top, but this was not the desired style of play.

2) We defended our box very well, but still conceded, and were pinned very deep in our own half the entire game.

So now my question for you guys is this; how can I beat the high press when teams do this to us, bearing these things in mind?:

1) My Advanced Forward. My strikers are ALL small, quick, and agile. They have excellent pace/dribbling but aren't suited to dropping deep. I feel if I played my AF as a Support striker, I'd have no out-ball and would just end up being pinned back anyway, as no long ball aimed at him is going to stick.

2) I don't want to resort to sitting deep and hitting high balls into space for the AF. Obviously I know this can be effective, but as I'm playing only 1 upfront, I feel like I would just be playing percentages football (and as a Middlesbrough fan, I've seen enough of Neil Warnock pumping long hopeful balls into the channels for our strikers to haplessly chase after). I'm starting to build a team now that should be capable of dominating the football against most sides (apart from maybe the top 2) and I want to take advantage of that.

Any suggestions on changes would be appreciated. I'm potentially open to the idea of moving the Inverted Winger and Trequartista in field as a second striker and a CAM, but then that creates defensive issues in wide areas and congests the middle, giving our Trequartista a lack of space to operate in.

Thanks for any help!

[Experienced Defender]

In terms of tactical balance regarding the roles and duties, the only potentially problematic area is the right flank/side, where there are 2 roaming roles - BBM and TQ - one of which (TQ) tends to be defensively negligent + an attack-minded WB role (WBsu). Which means that the right flank may lack proper defensive protection. Switching the BBM to BWM on support duty looks like the easiest way to solve the issue, especially as Guendouzi should have what it takes for the BWM role. 

AF can struggle as a lone striker in aggressive and/or attack-minded tactical styles, so that's another role you may want to reconsider (PF on attack or DLF on attack could be alternative options). 

A defensive TI such as tight marking does not look suited both to your style of play and the formation itself, and even more so when paired with aggressive pressing. So I would definitely remove the tight marking from your tactic - absolutely no need for it.

[Tilling]

2 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

In terms of tactical balance regarding the roles and duties, the only potentially problematic area is the right flank/side, where there are 2 roaming roles - BBM and TQ - one of which (TQ) tends to be defensively negligent + an attack-minded WB role (WBsu). Which means that the right flank may lack proper defensive protection. Switching the BBM to BWM on support duty looks like the easiest way to solve the issue, especially as Guendouzi should have what it takes for the BWM role. 

I wouldn't follow this line of advice at all; this change in particular I'd argue would in fact be directly counter-productive to the issues you've identified. If you're struggling to score goals but your defence is tight, the last thing you want to do is change to a more defensively minded role. The BBM is perfectly capable of covering that space, and the BWM can very easily roam as much as the BBM, without the added benefit of the BBM carrying the ball forward on a more regular basis. Similarly, don't fiddle with Tighter Marking if you're happy with what you're seeing defensively.

It seems like your striker is definitely isolated though, looking at those average positions and from the heatmap; you might benefit from figuring out exactly what you want that striker to do. It's no surprise you scored from a long ball over the top despite the instructions - look at the opposing high line, it's almost at the halfway line! As a result, your players will occasionally play the long ball. Similarly, it seems like your back three is struggling for options to play the ball into, pinging it around for a little bit, and then the lack of options (perhaps caused by the team mentality encouraging them to stay up field) is resulting in long balls up to players who can't win them. It might be worth exploring lowering your CMs into more adventurous DMs, or potentially dropping the striker into either attacking midfield (you certainly have all the relevant TIs already for taking advantage of numerical superiority in the midfield), or a more conservative role like a PF/DLF.

 

[Garlic]

What if you try to change the DC-L-DC line with a BPD-DC-BPD, where the external dc have the PI "stay wide" and "dribble more"?
In this way, when the team builds from defence, if the DC has the necessary space it can rise above the half of the pitch, attracting an opposing Fb \ WB \ DM to it, opening a hole for the combinations between your WB \ IW \ AF a left and WB \ T \ AF on the right.

[marko82]

I've been trying to (kind of) copy Fonseca's Roma, i couldn't get it to work with 3-4-2-1, so i did a 5-2-3(WB) like this

 

Instructions are very similar to yours(no tight marking), BPD's have stay wider, sometimes it' struggles to break down very defensive teams (especially the ones which play with 3 at the back and a DM) but overall plays very nice football

Edited March 12, 2021 by marko82