Help me find what's wrong with my tactic

[arik.ev]

so i have been playing fm for couple of months now i have always used downloaded tactics but i wanted to try and make a counter attacking tactic but cant seem to get it to work,

 

ps: sorry for my bad english 

[Cloud9]

3 hours ago, arik.ev said:

so i have been playing fm for couple of months now i have always used downloaded tactics but i wanted to try and make a counter attacking tactic but cant seem to get it to work,

 

ps: sorry for my bad english 

Your English is fine!  

It looks like you've got a gap between the midfield and front two which might be leaving the strikers isolated. I'd try switching the Wingers (s) to Wingers (a). You've got defensive fullbacks behind them so they will be able to go forward without exposing your defence. 

I'd also consider swapping the TF(a) to a TF(s), but that's just personal preference. I like to have a strike pairing where one is the main goal scorer the and the other one looks to set him up.

 

Edit: Another fun way to bridge that gap would be dropping the midfield two back in the DM Strada (counter intuitive I know) and placing one of them as a SV. I've particularly enjoyed the SV's interaction with a winger next to them. When building a tactic finding solid role pairings can be a great place to start. 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Cloud9

[Poison]

I would try 5-3-2 or 3-4-3 with cautious mentality. Also a dlp is exactly what a counter attacking formation needs?

[Cloud9]

1 hour ago, Poison said:

I would try 5-3-2 or 3-4-3 with cautious mentality. Also a dlp is exactly what a counter attacking formation needs?

The DLP will mostly recycle possession, if you want him to launch counters in a low lines system you'll need to tick "take more risks" which will see him pass into space. Telling him to play more direct can help as well. I'd recommend telling less talented players to play it short combined with this. You certainly can't go wrong with a midfield two of a DLP(s)/BWM(d) while the wings get forward.

Choosing to play without a playmaker is fine as well, it can make your counter attack more dynamic if you've got players who can pull it off. The blank canvas role's @arik.ev is using are great for tinkering in the PIs to create a system w/out a playmaker. These blank roles are a great place to focus since they're trying to build their own tactic

 

DLP is a solid role, but don't feel pigeon holed into picking it.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Cloud9

[Etebaer]

To me it looks like you want to execute counter play but there is no one supporting the strikers in doing so and they are all left alone...

Put a CM on attack may already help a little...but you are probably easy to mark death (to be neutralized) and every chance you squander is an oportunity for the other team to get revenge on you (make you concede goals instead) and while i prefer high tempo football to my experience you never set the tempo slider to the extreme but to a "quarter", "half" or "3 of a quarter" position.

Overall i cant say much more bcs our ways of football do not match so i have no more experience to relate to that would give me ground for a deeper opinion.

 

Hope you sort it out!

Edited April 4, 2023 by Etebaer

[LatexGuru]

I've been playing 442 a lot in series of football manager, I would like to share my thoughts here. English is not my first language as well, hopefully I do not make too much grammar mistakes so u can understand.

442 Formation

442 Formation is pretty Iconic. It only has players in 3 tiers, ST, CM and CB, there are no player in DM or AM tier. The gaps between back 4, midfield 4 and striker 2 is quite big. Therefore normally I wouldn't play shorter passing with 442 unless I have the player with best off the ball attribtues. In your tactic u are working with standard passing(middle notch) which is quite good.

Mentality 

Mentality is the key starting point to all tactics. Since u want to play a counter attacking tactic, I definately will not use Positive as starting mentality. Remember mentality influence everything in the game like passing, width, creative freedom etc.  I would either use Cautious, Balance or Attacking. Let me explain the resonale behind it.

Positive Automatically reduce the passing directness, which is not good for counter attacking tactic and 442 formation. This is the screenshot for positive mentality passing directness.

Cautious, Balance and Attacking

As u can see, for cautious, balance and attacking mentality, the passing directness are all standard, which is more suitable for 442 system.

 

Core of 442 is the Midfield player selection

Since 442 only has 2 players in in midfield, it will be easily overloaded in midfield by formations like 433, 4231, 41212 narrow diamond etc, therefore the player selection is very important since u need them to fight very hard. It is neccessary to have 2 all rounded players who can defend. For top level teams I would recommend players like Franck Zambo Anguissa. Two Anguissa almost solves everything for 442 no matter what roles u choose.

 

Striker combination

Double Attacking duty is very good for counter attacking 442. Some common combinations I used such as DLFa + AFa, TFa + AFa, TFa + P, PFa+AFa, they are all good combinations, choose them based on your player.

 

Midfield Combination

I will not go through every possible midfield combination, but I really enjoy to place an BWMs in 442 since he break down a lot of opposition attack and make that our own transition attack.

 

Width

442 does not have extra players in the midfield for narrow attack, therefore I definately will not select narrow width, this is I think the biggest issue cause your tactic to under perform.

 

Mid Block or Low Block

I prefer Mid block, I simply think low block allowing opposition to have too many room to attack. Also flat 442 is system without DM therefore I don't think it is suitable for low block, system like 532 5212 can be more suitable. But this is entirely personal opinion.

 

Tactic

This is the tactic I would change and use as a starting based on your tactic, I try to make minimum changes as possible but maintain the flavour of soak and counter.

[Johnny Ace]

On 03/04/2023 at 15:40, arik.ev said:

so i have been playing fm for couple of months now i have always used downloaded tactics but i wanted to try and make a counter attacking tactic but cant seem to get it to work

Try and think of Counter Attacking as part of your tactic, not the main part of it

So base your team instructions to best fit fit your squad or however you want to play, then add the Counter instruction to complement the tactic rather than try and force the counter attacks 

Setting the lower lines has the opposition team come at you, do you want that against the stronger teams, the Bayern Munichs? Even the lower teams won't be committing enough players forward enough the trigger the counter so the team need to be effective in possession 

The pass into space and higher tempo on the ball will force turnovers, lower quality possession and chances at goal, which probably isn't the best use of the ball 

Think the of real life teams that counter, counter attack isn't their main style of play and just part of it