[FM 21] Flank overload 4-1-4-1 DM Wide - opinions wanted

[Tsuru]

One of my most successful tactics on Football Manager was a 4-1-4-1 DM Wide in FM 15, an approach which used two open Wingers to open space for a kind of unorthodox midfield/attacking trio: CM-Su, BBM-Su and DLF-At. Although I could never recreate this tactic completely, also because the ME changed a lot since then and because every team is different from the other, I could never forget how simple and effective it was. 

So I decided to use a similar idea on my FM 21 save with Tokyo Verdy in Japan, but now on a more focused and strategic way. That is, we will try to create overloads on the flanks to open space on the middle of the pitch. This idea is not new, in fact, it is one of the main principles of Juego de Posición; however my idea here is not recreate Juego de Posición or something like that, I will use just the flank overload part. 

I want to do flank overloads on a simple and basic tactic, defensively solid and focused on roles and duties: I don´t want lots of instructions, I don´t want a very specific pattern of play (despite the overload itself) like using shorter passing or something, or keeping possession, or direct football, whatever. Of course I can use this instructions to reinforce what I am trying to do, but they are not mandatory, I am not looking for a very specific style of football although it can happen as the tactic develops.

The formation

When I think about flank overloads, I think about fast Wingers with fullbacks/wingbacks helping them to keep the ball out wide, as we will need our wingbacks to move up the pitch to execute our strategy. But if we do this on a 4-2-3-1, 4-4-1-1 or a 4-4-2 we can badly expose our defensive line as we won´t have a DM, and central midfielders with defensive duties are not so reliable in FM for this kind of strategy. So we will need a DM, fullbacks/wingbacks and wingers moving up the pitch. This takes me back to the same 4-1-4-1 DM Wide I used on FM 15, and it will be our starting formation.

Movement and cover

If our fullbacks are moving up the pitch to help our wingers, somebody will need to cover the space they will left behind. There are many possibilities here, but one jumps at my eyes immediately: a Half Back. This DM will try to cover through balls on the flanks, will help the CBs more (as our fullbacks will be more attacking focused) and will help us recycling possession when necessary. This will create kind of a 3-4-3 when we are attacking. And I have a player that would be a very good Half Back so here we go.

Using the space

If we are going to overload the flanks and open space at the centre, somebody needs to explore this space, otherwise our strategy does not make sense. As we are playing a 4-1-4-1 DM Wide, a balanced approach would be a Box-to-Box midfielder on one side (someone who will help the defence but also move ahead, support the attacks and score goals when the opportunity arises) and a midfielder with an attacking duty at the other side, more focused on dribbling and moving ahead to help our striker. This gives us an AP-At or a CM-At.

Fullbacks or wingbacks?

When I think about flank overloads, I believe that wingbacks are better than fullbacks for this. I need them to move up early, quick and help the wingers, instead of doing this on a later attacking phase. So I decided to start with wingbacks - a traditional one on one side and, due to lack of options, an inverted on the other one. I believe that two traditional wingbacks were not working very well and the inverted gives us a mixture of a fullback and a wingback on the defending/attacking movement, although I am not completely sure about this specific choice (see below).

I could also use FB-At, but he has a locked PI of crossing more which I don´t want here. So this option is not being considered right now.

Mentality and instructions

I did start with Positive mentality with no instructions, but my defensive line was suffering with through balls. So I decided to move back to Balanced with Higher Defensive Line and it really worked well defensively, we were much more solid. 

Wide and Focus Play on Left and Right (although not on the image below due to RMT´s restrictions) were natural choices, the same with Overload Left and Right (which is something we are trying to do). Later I added Play out of Defence because my team was hoofing the ball upfront (see below the improvement points/possibilities for more information on this).

The first version

I came up with this as the final first version:

The testing process

We played four official matches and won them all, scoring 10 goals and suffering two. For a starting point I believe it is doing well and we can keep working from there.

What I liked?

• This is absurdly defensively solid, opponents had little chances to score and during matches almost kicked no balls on our goal. So far so good.
   
• The left side works wonders: WB-Su and W-Su with Overlap do excellent and nice combinations, we see the WB-Su crossing the ball almost free and he is always helping the Winger. The left Winger itself is very good too and has been decisive on some matches.
   
• The BBM and his roaming movement are perfect for this kind of strategy: he is always wandering around trying to help on possession, he looks for empty space and he helps switching the ball from one side to another, and as the left side movement is good, he finds space to operate.
   
• The right central midfielder is also working well, despite the role. Now he is an AP-At and he leads the line, moves the ball forward and look for deadly passes: on one match he did two assistances for the right winger to move behind the line and score twice. But he also does good as CM-At.
   
• I love the Half Back. He helps the defence, he recycles possession and he does deadly passes when needed. He is perfect for what we are doing.
   

What I did not like?

• The right flank is...strange. The W-At became a goalscoring threat, which is interesting, but he lacks support. On some matches we see kind of an "underlap" movement, that is, the Winger moves wide and passes the ball back to the inside IWB, which crosses the ball. It is interesting but it kind of creates a conflict with the instructions I am using.
   
• The striker has been suffering a bit. If I use a CM-At/DLF-At combination, the team becomes more possession oriented but I feel that we lack some penetration against packed defences. If I use a PF-At/AP-At combination the AP-At plays very well, leading the line as I said, but the PF is kind of isolated - which makes sense as he is a true single striker on this kind of system, we don´t have a "second striker" here like a IW or IF.

Improvement points/possibilities

• For the right side, one possibility is simply turning the IWB into a normal Wingback on Support and keep the Overload instruction. I have two concerns about this: exposing us more on the defensive line (as the WB is more aggressive than the IWB itself) and being more unidimensional (with the exact same roles doing the same thing on both sides). I did try a WB-D on the right using Overlap TI but the W-At was kind of isolated.
   
• The right side could also be an IWB-Su with W-At ahead and the Underlap Right TI instead of Overlap. This way we would reinforce what is already happening. 
   
• As for the striker combination, as I said the PF is naturally more isolated (he almost never receives the ball, just on goalscoring positions) but presses the defensive line more than DLF-At, and tries to score more; the DLF-At is the opposite, helping on buildup but being less of a goalscoring threat. I believe there will be no perfect choice here, but I would like to hear your opinions about this. Remember that we are still on FM 21 so the AF still has "Get Further Forward", if we were on 22 I believe the PF or AF without GFF would be the best options here.
   
• The Play out of Defence was added because using a PF-At the team was directly hoofing the ball to him, which created good opportunities for our opponents. If I change the combination of third midfielder/striker pair this TI may not be necessary.
   
• I like the penetrating power of the CM-At and the passes and dribbling power of the AP-At, so if I opt for a DLF-At I am considering the CM-At with some of the AP´s PIs (Take More Risks, Dribble More), this way he could become a hybrid of a creator and a goalscoring threat. I considered a MEZ-At but maybe it is too offensive for the setup we are using.
   

So far so good, as we have some improvement points I would love to hear your opinions and ideas on this. Thank you very much!

Edited September 16, 2022 by Tsuru

[Dutchy1983]

How's it coming along? I'd have thought a DM-D might hold a better position during transitions, HB dropping too deep from the attacking pair in the middle?

And if your wanting the width why play an IWB? Try at least a FB-S on that side maybe?

[Tsuru]

Em 17/09/2022 em 08:27, Dutchy1983 disse:

How's it coming along? I'd have thought a DM-D might hold a better position during transitions, HB dropping too deep from the attacking pair in the middle?

And if your wanting the width why play an IWB? Try at least a FB-S on that side maybe?

The HB is playing very nice. I also tried a FB-S but he does not move ahead quickly enough to create the overload.

The problem in fact is using two wingers on a 4-1-4-1 DM, a formation that has only one striker in the centre. During some matches we went well, but the lack of opportunities against very weak teams in pre-season is very dangerous IMHO.

I think that this kind of strategy may suit other formations better - like 4-4-2, 4-4-4-1 or even a 4-2-3-1, in which you can have a striker pair in order to help creating goal opportunities. But now as I hired players for a 4-1-4-1 DM I will stick with it and try another strategy.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Tsuru

[04texag]

Instead of Wingers, have you tried inverted wingers? On support, they can be told to stay wider and hold position. This can mimic the winger in phase 1 and 2 but in the final third they will get more central and support the striker, whilst encouraging the overlap from behind. I use this very often, and a FB-s behind that will work well.

[Tsuru]

18 horas atrás, 04texag disse:

Instead of Wingers, have you tried inverted wingers? On support, they can be told to stay wider and hold position. This can mimic the winger in phase 1 and 2 but in the final third they will get more central and support the striker, whilst encouraging the overlap from behind. I use this very often, and a FB-s behind that will work well.

Thank you for the inputs, really appreciated.

I can try the IW-S/IW-At (or two IW-S, one with PIs) instead of the Winger. About the FB-S, do you really see them overlapping? I have the impression that on a Balanced mentality they take a lot of time to move forward, so we don´t create a true overload. But it can be an impression, of course, it is a matter of trying.

The original tactic uses two Wingers with AP-At/BBM-S, as for me it makes sense to play two central midfielders with two open wingers. But using IW I would probably need to adjust the midfield, right? Maybe DLP-S/RPM-S, or Car/Mez? I can see that the playmakers would use the spaces to move around and create opportunities, while CAR would cover the fullback and MEZ would attack the empty spaces.

I also considered changing the formation to a 4-2-3-1 DM, this way the fullbacks and the wingers (normal or inverted) would open space for the two DMs, the AMC and the striker to operate. 

[Tsuru]

@04texagI did try your suggestions yesterday and used two IW-S with PIs. However I liked more the results when I used a W-Su paired with a simple FB-S without PIs, plus the Overlap TI, alongside a CM-AT, on the right side. The results were very nice, the FB-Su used to overlap very well and cross the ball frequently.

On the left side I did try an IF-S/IF-At because I really feel we need another goalscoring threat, something that the IW is really not. I am seriously considering using a simple IF-At/WB-Su pair on the left flank, but without the Overlap TI on that side. The pair itself already creates a natural overlap, I play Wide and I use Focus Play to the flanks, so the TI maybe it is not really necessary here. It also reduces the mentality of my IF which can make him play far away from the goal on a Balanced mentality, something I don´t want as he needs to support the striker.

The strategy will still be the same, but the tactic itself will be more simple and natural: DLF-S retreating to create space for the IF-At and the CM-At, with my fullbacks bombing down the flanks and offering nice passing outlets, and a DM and second midfielder offering cover and recycling possession options. And let´s see how it goes.

Edited September 21, 2022 by Tsuru

[Nyron]

Glad you posted this - I played with almost the exact same tactic on FM16 and have spent years trying to recreate it. Wingbacks were massively OP then and were my main source of assists. 

Think I will try and recreate it in FM22 (fits my current save perfectly), but for now here's what I remember from my FM16 save.

I had almost exactly the same roles and duties - 4141, BBM and AP(A), DLF(A). Not sure if HBs were in the game then but I used an Anchor to sit in front of the centre backs and mop up in front of them. IWs definitely weren't a thing then so I used a WPM on one side and either a winger on support our defensive winger on the other. I set width to narrow which was key - in defence we had a very compact and narrow 4141 that didn't concede many chances, in attack the LM and RM became the pivots, they would contribute in defence and attack, draw out the opposition and create overloads for the wingbacks to bomb on which in turn created space for the BBM and AP to join the attack, becoming 2-1-6-1 in transition.

Personally I think a PF would struggle in that formation, he'll be pressing on his own with no support when really you need someone who'll drop deep and hold the ball up until the others get forward in support.