Flat 343 can it work?

[madmike]

Firstly sorry for the screenshot I'm currently at work and without access to FM so I used ratemytactic to show you my approach. The 2 TI'S that are missing are whipped crosses and distribute to CB...

 

Has anyone had any success with this formation keeping the players in the positions. I have tried this on multiple versions of FM and never been able to get it to work consistently. Am I just giving the AI an advantage with such a formation? 

 

It plays some lovely football but I'll loose games heavily sometimes having barely given the AI any xg... far post crosses have always been the weakness with this but this years introduction of WCB has helped negate that slightly.

 

Just wondered if anyone plays like this and any roles or changes they would make?

 

I have had loads of success with 442, 4231 and 3412 with WBs but this particular formation seems to just give the AI an advantage no matter what...

 

Am I just flogging a dead horse here?

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by madmike

[Johnny Ace]

On 27/03/2022 at 08:26, madmike said:

Am I just flogging a dead horse here?

Only way to know is to give it a run for a few games, no harm in trying  I think that lineup looks pretty sound 

Let us know how you get on! Someone years from now may want to give this shape a go and search the board for a 3-4-3

[wattzy]

My concern would be trying to play out of the back with this system. You've already got a man less in midfield/defence than with a conventional formation, and only the DLP dropping in to receive the ball. If you can break the press it'd be great, but I can imagine a few turnovers as you've three players stood the other end of the pitch while your defenders try to find a way out. 

As above though, the only way to know is to play games with it and see what happens.  There is of course always the issue of the formation bring great but the players not so much - so you'll need to carefully weigh up both things together! I'd say the only way to work out if one specific tactic is 'good' or not would be to use it long term, until you have a team that should consistently be winning. If it doesn't work then, it's likely the formation.

[Zemahh]

I have no experience with the 3-4-3, but I did use the 3-4-1-2 in FM21 with reasonable success. It produced some beautiful football through the middle (especially when facing a 4-4-2, which it can really overload in central areas), but it is a formation that is inherently vulnerable down the flanks, meaning you will always struggle against world class wingers in Europe.

What you can do to make it more defensively stable, is retrain your FBs as DWs and focus on defending high and wide, to give opposition no time to overlap, but I think that sort of a tactic that will just always be a bit shaky against better opposition (especially the 3 strikers variant).

[backpocket]

Do you know why you’re conceding and why you can’t convert? If you can’t find the reason it’s hard to give advice.

[Argonaut]

3-4-3 Flat is my favourite formation in theory. And I've tried to get it to work on older match engines like I want, but had to compromise in certain respects. It's working better now and I'm pretty close to getting the kind of play that I want.

If you look at the formation at face value, there is a crazy number of natural triangles and diamonds, possibly the most you can make with any shape. I believe this works well with a short passing possession game. Problem was in previous FMs, setting the front 3 as strikers or attacking midfielders didn't quite work as I imagined it should. Now it works better. Here is what I have currently in the attached image:

My latest realization personally is that I don't want any (or very little) dynamic movement between the lines. This can work well in football and FM, but I don't want it. I want to keep shape and my triangles and diamonds, and pass teams off the park.

Defense is simple, 3 CD(D)s. BPDs would play unwanted through balls.

Midfield we've got all the basic roles, CM(S) and WM(S). They will hold the midfield line necessary to maintain the overall shape.

Strikers are all DLF, with only the middle one on Attack duty. They will all drop deep to produce those passing triangles, but the middle one will have more of a mind to finish off moves. DLF(S)s are set to play wider.

Keeping defense in mind, I want a front/wide press and to hold shape in the middle. So I set the strikers and WMs to press more, the CDs to close down less, and the CMs to hold position. The latter also means the CMs will set up a nice camping position in the final third when in possession. The strikers in a front 3 are often in no man's land when defending in my half... so sometimes it's necessary to have the wide DLFs man-mark opposition fullbacks. Still working on the best solution to this.

Balanced mentality, shorter passing, force opposition inside, play out of defense. Push higher up and lower line of engagement, to compress the shape. And that's about it.

The best topic I ever read on FM was about specialists versus generalists. To me this is a very generalist tactic, and I want all my players to be Jack-of-all-Trades. Pretty good at most things, but better than average at Passing and First Touch. If you want a star player, the DLF(A) should probably be the guy as he has a lot of goal-scoring responsibility. But the other strikers get chances too.

Another great thing about the 3-4-3 Flat, and my take on it, is that it's awesome for team-building. Just need to have GK, CD, CM, WM, and ST. That's it. And they sub for each other easily. Just need to find or develop a set of guys with the right attributes.

 

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by Argonaut

[madmike]

14 hours ago, Argonaut said:

3-4-3 Flat is my favourite formation in theory. And I've tried to get it to work on older match engines like I want, but had to compromise in certain respects. It's working better now and I'm pretty close to getting the kind of play that I want.

If you look at the formation at face value, there is a crazy number of natural triangles and diamonds, possibly the most you can make with any shape. I believe this works well with a short passing possession game. Problem was in previous FMs, setting the front 3 as strikers or attacking midfielders didn't quite work as I imagined it should. Now it works better. Here is what I have currently in the attached image:

My latest realization personally is that I don't want any (or very little) dynamic movement between the lines. This can work well in football and FM, but I don't want it. I want to keep shape and my triangles and diamonds, and pass teams off the park.

Defense is simple, 3 CD(D)s. BPDs would play unwanted through balls.

Midfield we've got all the basic roles, CM(S) and WM(S). They will hold the midfield line necessary to maintain the overall shape.

Strikers are all DLF, with only the middle one on Attack duty. They will all drop deep to produce those passing triangles, but the middle one will have more of a mind to finish off moves. DLF(S)s are set to play wider.

Keeping defense in mind, I want a front/wide press and to hold shape in the middle. So I set the strikers and WMs to press more, the CDs to close down less, and the CMs to hold position. The latter also means the CMs will set up a nice camping position in the final third when in possession. The strikers in a front 3 are often in no man's land when defending in my half... so sometimes it's necessary to have the wide DLFs man-mark opposition fullbacks. Still working on the best solution to this.

Balanced mentality, shorter passing, force opposition inside, play out of defense. Push higher up and lower line of engagement, to compress the shape. And that's about it.

The best topic I ever read on FM was about specialists versus generalists. To me this is a very generalist tactic, and I want all my players to be Jack-of-all-Trades. Pretty good at most things, but better than average at Passing and First Touch. If you want a star player, the DLF(A) should probably be the guy as he has a lot of goal-scoring responsibility. But the other strikers get chances too.

Another great thing about the 3-4-3 Flat, and my take on it, is that it's awesome for team-building. Just need to have GK, CD, CM, WM, and ST. That's it. And they sub for each other easily. Just need to find or develop a set of guys with the right attributes.

 

 

This is fantastic thankyou for your insights. The natural triangles is exactly what I thought of when I started with this. 

Very interesting you saying about the CD being on support? This is correct and not a typo? I have never used CD on anything other than defend. The stay wider instruction for the wide DLF makes a lot of sense too as well as the individual closing down instructions. Generally I stick to TI'S and not mess with PI's too much but maybe this is something I need to consider.

 

Thanks for all replies, I finally have some time off work from tomorrow so I'm going to run through a season and I'll come back with some screenshots.

[-Jef-]

When playing with 3 atb and only 2 wide players being in central midfield strata I have found to be extremely vulnerable to teams that play wide or have a dominant wide player. Only changing to DW-D made it kinda work and I had to make too many concessions to make it work. Maybe WCB-S/A with DW-D would work?

[Argonaut]

5 hours ago, madmike said:

This is fantastic thankyou for your insights. The natural triangles is exactly what I thought of when I started with this. 

Very interesting you saying about the CD being on support? This is correct and not a typo? I have never used CD on anything other than defend. The stay wider instruction for the wide DLF makes a lot of sense too as well as the individual closing down instructions. Generally I stick to TI'S and not mess with PI's too much but maybe this is something I need to consider.

 

Thanks for all replies, I finally have some time off work from tomorrow so I'm going to run through a season and I'll come back with some screenshots.

No, just regular CDs on defend duty. I guess my syntax of "CDs" might have been confusing, the 's' is just plural.

Yeah, I only use team instructions if it's something I want my entire team to do. Like short passing in this case. Otherwise player instructions work well to get the nuanced play you want.

54 minutes ago, -Jef- said:

When playing with 3 atb and only 2 wide players being in central midfield strata I have found to be extremely vulnerable to teams that play wide or have a dominant wide player. Only changing to DW-D made it kinda work and I had to make too many concessions to make it work. Maybe WCB-S/A with DW-D would work?

The wide areas can be a problem with a 3-4-3 Flat for sure. The wide press plus forcing the opposition inside aims to address this. I've tried Defensive Wingers in the past, and they can work for some styles. But for my own tactic I avoid them because I don't want more dribbling, crossing, or harder tackling. They will pick up at least a yellow card almost every game it seems. The WMs are better for a short passing possession focus. Having more of the ball means fewer chances against, which indirectly helps defense. And with 3 CD(D)s and 2 CM(S)s with hold position, getting burned on the counter isn't a big problem.

Looking a bit more under the hood of Football Manager player development, the MR/ML position has very cheap access to Marking, Tackling, and Positioning. So the wide players can be trained defensively without using a lot of their Potential Ability. And avoid Crossing and Quickness training, which are still somewhat important in this tactic, but they cost a lot of Current Ability for MR/ML compared to the other attributes.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Argonaut