What on earth is my Left Winger up to?

[dactz]

I've been playing my Arminia Bielefeld save and things are going well we are top of the league and not keeping clean sheets in all bar 1 game so far. My only concern has been my conversion rate which dropped down to 8%. I decided to dive into the deep analytics about why this is happening by comparing 2 recent games one where I very much over performed xG one where we underperformed it by some margan. This gave me some very clear answers why (we can't get a header on target to save our lives).

But one thing caught my eye that I cannot explain when looking at the analytics that I cannot explain. When I looked at the average position with the ball my players position stays roughly the same give your take a couple of yards forward or back. This is with the exception of my LW who for some reason has moved quite significantly infield in the game we underperformed in. Infact I'd be tempted to say ended up playing more of an AMC rather than LW position. 

It is worth noting we had significantly more possesion in this game but I cant imagine this would make that much difference and whilst our opponents shifted to a back 5 instead of a 4 it seems bizzare this would make him want to drift that far infield. 

If anyone has any insights or ideas I'd be happy to hear them. I've added screen grabs of the position maps for my team, the opponents, my tactics and the player himself for additional context.

My team average position

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Opponent average position

 

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My tactic

 

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The player

 

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[Flokerface]

Wide players in the attacking midfield strata will move infield in the final third. Inverted wingers will cut inside with the ball. Inverted wingers on attack duty in the attacking midfield strata will often make runs into the channel and may even take up positions similar to an advanced forward. On top of this, you are playing narrowly.

All of which is to say is that it is not completely bizarre for your IW-A to end up with an average position that is closer to an attacking midfielder than a winger.

That there is a difference from match to match may be due to the circumstances of that particular match, and it may be most instructive to simply look through some extended highlights from that match. Are the opponent focusing heavily on the left IW and constantly forcing him inside?

What stands out to me is not so much the difference from match to match, though, but the difference between the positioning of your left and right IW in that particular match. Your tactic is, as far as I can tell, completely symetrical, which means you would expect identical behaviour (before taking opposition behaviour into account). On top of that your left IW prefers hugging the line. So why is he narrower than the right IW? What are happening when you are attacking down the right versus down the left?

 

 

[Garrlor]

As you are playing a back 5 in the game where he moves way inside, they have enough players to pick up your runners from wide. Instead of attacking space between full back and centre back which creates space for your AF as the centre backs get caught in two minds there was a centre back apiece for your wide players and AF along with 2 wing backs to deal with any overlapping runs and provide a counter threat. They effectively have a solid 5 in the middle when you look at the Bremen midfield and striker meaning you just had no space to attack. Your IW has obviously come inside to look for space and possibly for the ball. On the second game your right hand side ended up close together (Mez, IW and FB) and you also had a large void with no runners anywhere near your AF which looks like you could be running into some congestion issues caused by playing a narrow high tempo game with players who might not be at the technical level to pull it off consistently.

One thing you could do is add some OI's if you want to keep using the same tactic. Asking your IW's to stay wider would mean you can stretch the space a little more, they will still cut in but just later on - you could also change one to an (SU) duty. You also have the option of using a IF(Su) or T(A) for something different. If you were to use a support duty on one side I would consider using an attacking runner from deep to try and get a little more penetration centrally, but I would consider moving to a more regular width to give your players space to run into should you try that.

[Incubus89]

He has the "cuts inside from left wing" ppm so that is going to be one of the big reasons he's doing it.

[bosque]

hace 17 horas, Incubus89 dijo:

He has the "cuts inside from left wing" ppm so that is going to be one of the big reasons he's doing it.

Cuts inside trait is when the player has possesion of the ball?

[Incubus89]

On 27/09/2021 at 23:41, dactz said:

When I looked at the average position with the ball my players position stays roughly the same give your take a couple of yards forward or back. This is with the exception of my LW who for some reason has moved quite significantly infield in the game we underperformed in.

@bosque I assume so, OP was looking for explanation as to why he moves so far in with the ball and his left winger is right footed with cuts in from the left and I can't think of anything else to explain it really. 

[dactz]

Hey thanks for all the suggestions. Went back watched the highlights again and looked at the heat map and it seems most of our attacking was done down the right flank (no tactical reason for it think was just a mismatch of my 18 pace RW vs their 11 pace LWB)  so every time I saw him in the highlights he is making a run for the back post so think this is probably what caused it