Free 8's and Traditional Wingers - A Pep Inspired 4141

[Jack722]

Spoiler

Warning* This isn't supposed to be a game-breaking tactic. Having holidayed 1/3 a season, we are no better than the season preview position.

The purpose of this is more to look at interesting tactical systems.

What's the coolest position to play on a football pitch? - If you said anything other than the CAM or the No.10, then in my eyes, you are entirely wrong. For this reason, when Manchester City started the 2017/18 season with De Bruyne, David Silva, Bernardo Silva, Gundogan, and the highly rated Foden coming through the academy, you just knew they were going to be an interesting team to watch. These players were also in addition to having talented attacking wingers like Sterling and Sane, as well as Aguero at ST, all on the same pitch. How was all this attacking talent accommodated?

The answer is to do with the wide players. Most top teams in the modern day have attacking wingbacks being the widest attacking players on the pitch, as the inside forwards further up the pitch cut inside to operate in the half spaces. This means that the central midfielders have little reason to break forward and support an already large front three, and having all the reason to stay cautious, having to focus on covering spaces in defence and retaining the ball. This is how a standard 433 works (especially in FM).

 

                                  

 

However, in a formation with wingers in the ML/R strata instead of the AML/R strata, you can have them position themselves and act more like a traditional 442 winger. This means that (while you can still have overlapping fullbacks) the team no longer requires one of its fullbacks to be the only source of width, since the wingers hold their position better. And now with only a lone striker, you have the security and space available to really push up your central midfielders high and wide into the halfspaces, to rack up the goals and assists. Essentially two no.10's

What Pep did at Manchester City to allow this was to use a 4141 attacking shape. As the wingers held width, CM's pushed up, the fullbacks inverted to take up auxiliary central midfield positions. The basic shape can be seen below.

 

Using a 4141 in FM, we're able to create similar positions on the ball (yellow):

You can see here how the shape works. The central striker can pin both centrebacks, while the wide wingers force opposition fullbacks to step out a little wider than they'd like. This then opens up the channel in between CB and FB, which our free 8's can absolutely abuse.

Most of the roles are fairly self explanatory based on the picture, so the tactic I settled on is shown below:

*No instructions other than press high when we're at home or losing and drop deeper when winning

 

Using this system, you can really get the best out of some attacking players that otherwise won't quite fit well into a standard 433 or 4231. Not only do Chelsea have an abundance of natural CAMs (Mount, Havertz, Loftus-Cheek, Barkley), but also traditional crossing wingers, like Callum Hudson-Odoi (who in real life is having to be retrained as a wingback). Reece James is another player who fits really great in this system, as a natural fullback who can play in central midfield - perfect for the inverted wingback.

You can see that the strikers score for fun, while our wingers are picking up assists and our  'free 8's' score or assist whenever they want.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Jack722

[Jack722]

And some goals:

[Jack722]

[Marinho]

Very nice. Love me a good inverted Wingback, so will have a look at this eventually. Have used a double Mezzala setup myself in a 532, find the role much more effective than last year.

Love the lack of instructions ('only' using 4-5 myself currently in a narrow diamond with FB only on support)

[footballconnoisseur]

How have you found pressing high within this relatively bottom heavy shape?

[Jack722]

4 minutes ago, footballconnoisseur said:

How have you found pressing high within this relatively bottom heavy shape?

No worse than any other shape for FM22 

No but seriously, I think the FM22 ME in general is brilliant, and if they fix the high pressing problems then it will be my favourite of any I've played.

It was a struggle to get the 4141 to work at times in FM21 with a top team, for various reasons, but one of them being the difficulties in high pressing. But what I've found in FM22 is that it's much more likely for a CM or winger to join up with the striker when a press is triggered to defend in a 442. It doesn't happen all the time but is fairly common. The 442 is obivously covers the hole pitch more evenly than a 4141, so I currently don't believe youre at so much of a disadvantage anymore.

But I think pressing in general in FM22 is more intelligent. For example a 4411 will at times now look like a 442 in defence, which is more difficult to break down if you're playing compact.

[footballconnoisseur]

20 minutes ago, Jack722 said:

No worse than any other shape for FM22 

No but seriously, I think the FM22 ME in general is brilliant, and if they fix the high pressing problems then it will be my favourite of any I've played.

It was a struggle to get the 4141 to work at times in FM21 with a top team, for various reasons, but one of them being the difficulties in high pressing. But what I've found in FM22 is that it's much more likely for a CM or winger to join up with the striker when a press is triggered to defend in a 442. It doesn't happen all the time but is fairly common. The 442 is obivously covers the hole pitch more evenly than a 4141, so I currently don't believe youre at so much of a disadvantage anymore.

But I think pressing in general in FM22 is more intelligent. For example a 4411 will at times now look like a 442 in defence, which is more difficult to break down if you're playing compact.

i'm currently on fm21  using a 442 in fact. I find that the press doesn't quite work as well as i want as the wingers aren't agressivee enough

[JoOSTAR]

35 minutes ago, Jack722 said:

*No instructions other than press high when we're at home or losing and drop deeper when winning

Which Team Instructions do you use for this?

[Shirts]

Absolutely love the simplicity of this - it's actually inspired me to buy the game. 

With previous versions I think I have over complicated tactics so to see something make sense that is so simple really helps. 

Looks like it really brought Kai Havertz to life!

Now to find a team to play around with it...

Edited November 10, 2021 by Shirts

[coach vahid]

Beautiful. I hope I can reproduce that on the 19. Can you share some stats (possession, shots...) please? And some other goals too...

[Jack722]

11 hours ago, JoOSTAR said:

Which Team Instructions do you use for this?

I always like to keep things as simple as possible. Unless I have really good reason not to, I always lock together the pressing instructions (trigger/urgency, defensive line and line of engagement). So if I want to put on more pressure, I raise everything by one. If I want the team to chill out a bit or defend a lead, I drop everything by one.

Basically if you push up the defensive line without increasing the pressure, you're going to get loads of accurate passes over the top, as opposition midfielders and centrebacks have the time and space to get their heads up and pick out a pass. Whereas if you drop the defensive line without also reducing the pressing urgency, you're going to be easier to play through, since individual players have more space to cover and can get dragged about.

[Aquaplex]

Tried this out, seeing some beautiful football for sure.   Well done Jack722.

[nexting]

So when you are at home or losing you press high, what do you do when playing away from home. Leave everything on default?

[Jack722]

8 minutes ago, nexting said:

So when you are at home or losing you press high, what do you do when playing away from home. Leave everything on default?

I basically improvised it for the most part tbh. Just left it up to the situation (score / minute / playing at home / strength of opposition).

At home against bottom of the league and I'll leave it on maximum pressing and loe / dline for most the game. Whereas away at a difficult game I'd leave everything on standard and only press higher if we need a goal later on. Everything in between I might just play on higher pressing, or only press high for the first 45 mins etc. If we really need a goal against a team parking the bus I'd also increase the width. But bear in mind I was Chelsea and was expected to win most games, so it was pretty easy to dominate and not tire your players out when pressing high.

But if you want to do more of an exact pep recreation then I'd recommend to just do maximum dline, loe and pressing triggers, as well as play out defence, shorter passing, work ball into box.

[killacam0913]

This is great. But why did you put the wingers in MR\ML instead of AMR/AML? Did you something different from wingers in the higher position that you didn’t like?

[Jack722]

1 hour ago, killacam0913 said:

This is great. But why did you put the wingers in MR\ML instead of AMR/AML? Did you something different from wingers in the higher position that you didn’t like?

Thanks. 

Two reasons. Firstly a 433 in defence will put more strain on the CM's, since they'd have to shuttle out wide to cover ground when either the front 3's first line of pressure gets bypassed and/ or when the wide forwards don't track back as much. I want to avoid this as we have very attacking CM's. In a 4141, the wingers will always drop to form that line of four, allowing the CM's  not to have to cover so much ground.

Secondly, in attack, 433 wingers do not hold their width anywhere near as much as in a 4141. Even if you set the instructions to extremely wide. If you try this setup in a 433, i think you will either have 0 width, or your IWB's will be intelligent enough to move away from midfield and be that wide man. I've seen it work before, but it defeats the point of the system and I don't think it's optimal.

[killacam0913]

I’m using essentially the same thing but with a 443. I’m only a few games in so far, but I haven’t seen any instances yet where I wish the winger was wider. 
 

Defensively, I like them higher up for pressing. I think your reasoning is something everyone should understand though because something as simple as that can have multiple knock on affects. 

[Gegenklaus]

What mentality are you usually playing on? Standard? 
 

Does the AF get isolated or does he actually help stretching the opposition vertically so the free 8s will move high earlier in the build up? 
 

Avid fan of the 4-1-4-1 myself simply because of how the wingers hold width for much longer. 

[Jack722]

18 hours ago, Gegenklaus said:

What mentality are you usually playing on? Standard? 
 

Does the AF get isolated or does he actually help stretching the opposition vertically so the free 8s will move high earlier in the build up? 
 

Avid fan of the 4-1-4-1 myself simply because of how the wingers hold width for much longer. 

I adjust the mentality based on how likely I'm going to win, or by how much we need a goal.

And the striker never gets isolated. I think it's mostly an FM myth that playing a AF or P will very easily get isolated and not contribute, Especially with an AF as they also run the channels. Even if your striker gets poor ratings and few goals, you'll find that lots of them make intelligent runs to open spaces for other players, so even the more in general 'selfish' strikers can end up helping your team massively. The wingers provide service from crosses and cutbacks, and the Mezzalas push up really high and sometimes even look like shadows strikers or deep lying forwards.

With two striker formations and front three's (as in AML,AMR,ST) you get natural support from surrounding players. With a 4141, the easiest way to get good support for your striker is by pushing the 2 CM's quite high (like in the OP). The only thing to worry about is if you start getting dominated and the CM's get pulled back having to track runners all game. Probably the only really difficult formation to get support to the striker is a flat 541. But this is quite rare anyway, and chances are that if you use it, your priority is to defend. In this case I'd most likely set my striker to a target man and play someone that can hold up the ball. 

[Jack722]

On 13/11/2021 at 01:53, killacam0913 said:

I’m using essentially the same thing but with a 443. I’m only a few games in so far, but I haven’t seen any instances yet where I wish the winger was wider. 
 

Defensively, I like them higher up for pressing. I think your reasoning is something everyone should understand though because something as simple as that can have multiple knock on affects. 

This is the attacking shape that I get when trying to play this way in a 433. No.10 is the AMR (winger) and no.29 is the MCR (Mezzala). There's not really any reason for the CM to get further forward, since our winger has come so narrow so early in the buildup. Not saying the shape won't work, but firstly I don't think it's a realistic Guardiola-type recreation if your wingers aren't consistently the widest players, and secondly, our very attacking minded midfielders are unlikely to score so many goals and assists. Think about how much easier it would be for no.29 to score a goal or play a killer pass if no.10 was hugging the touchline, forcing his marker out with him. Then there'd be a big hole to exploit, and all the CM needs is a bit of acceleration and good off the ball movement to lose his marker.

[killacam0913]

1 hour ago, Jack722 said:

Not saying the shape won't work, but firstly I don't think it's a realistic Guardiola-type recreation if your wingers aren't consistently the widest players

Yeah, I completely agree. I recall something about wingers coming more inside when they get near the box (i.e. they come in towards goal when they get to the box instead of going towards the end line). I don’t remember the specifics, or if it’s even still a thing, so that may be what’s happening.

I haven’t used this setup nearly as much as you probably, so I’ll defer to your experience   

[Jack722]

On 10/11/2021 at 10:02, coach vahid said:

Beautiful. I hope I can reproduce that on the 19. Can you share some stats (possession, shots...) please? And some other goals too...

Good luck, I hope this can work for you in 19. I tried the exact same thing in 21 and could only take Manchester City to 5th with some really inconsistent performances. I think not only does the FM22 ME have better pressing shapes (normally either a CM or winger will step up alongside the striker to press in a 442) but it also has better attacking movement.

In FM21 the wide triangles (MEZ,IWB,W) had terrible chemistry. Normally the ball went wide and the winger would try and dribble past a FB, fail, then drill a cross into the first man. Now I see lots neat through balls and passing. The biggest difference IMO is the underlaps and cutbacks from W --> IWB / MEZ, I see this classic Man City goal all the time in the current ME.

Some cool stats:

We're creating loads of chances for our striker Lukaku, and our two 8's have by far the best goal output compared to midfielders in the league.

I also tried the tactic with Man City, but with a more possession approach, and scored some more nice goals

Normally the winger pulls a fullback out, which creates space for the mezzala. But here it looks like they had some sort of close down more instruction placed on De Bruyne, because here is what happens when the fullback doesn't mark the winger, just an easy cross and easy goal.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Jack722

[Gegenklaus]

4 hours ago, Jack722 said:

I adjust the mentality based on how likely I'm going to win, or by how much we need a goal.

And the striker never gets isolated. I think it's mostly an FM myth that playing a AF or P will very easily get isolated and not contribute, Especially with an AF as they also run the channels. Even if your striker gets poor ratings and few goals, you'll find that lots of them make intelligent runs to open spaces for other players, so even the more in general 'selfish' strikers can end up helping your team massively. The wingers provide service from crosses and cutbacks, and the Mezzalas push up really high and sometimes even look like shadows strikers or deep lying forwards.

With two striker formations and front three's (as in AML,AMR,ST) you get natural support from surrounding players. With a 4141, the easiest way to get good support for your striker is by pushing the 2 CM's quite high (like in the OP). The only thing to worry about is if you start getting dominated and the CM's get pulled back having to track runners all game. Probably the only really difficult formation to get support to the striker is a flat 541. But this is quite rare anyway, and chances are that if you use it, your priority is to defend. In this case I'd most likely set my striker to a target man and play someone that can hold up the ball. 

Awesome reply, mate. Thank you.

[nikolaj760]

How are you finding the Wingers? I've found them not to very creative at times in my experience, which have drawn me to Inverted Wingers. They have better creativity in terms of passes, through balls etc. but not as good movement as the Winger imo.