The Barnsley Way

[kiwityke1983]

As I do in every edition of FM I set off to try and recreate the way the club I support IRL Barnsley plays on FM. I gave this an aborted attempt in the beta but due to player revolts over a lack of squad depth beyond my control I gave up and moved on to other saves. Having completed those I thought I'd return to give it another go on FM24 due to the new and IMO excellent match engine.

The clubs philosophy

Over the past 5-7 years the club has employed a somewhat unified tactical philosophy and transfer policy to try to mitigate the effects of our very many managerial changes over that period.

That philosophy being buy young promising players and play them in a high pressing 5-3-2 / 3-5-2 system that plays out from the back, no matter who the manager is.

Every manager we have had has somewhat stuck to this remit to lesser (Val - long-ball) and greater degrees (Ashbagi - God knows what he was attempting) but I'd argue Neil Collins brand of football is the nearest to what the club has been trying to achieve.

Neil Collins spin on this

The formation is pretty much always a 5-3-2 (arguably a 3-5-2)  with a very occasional 5-2-1-2 with the main features of note being very attacking wingbacks and wide centre-backs that have the freedom to roam forward to support attacks. 

Play is slow and methodical building out from the back attempting to stretch play via playing across the backline with a playmaker in midfield before hitting cross field balls or through balls to either a more advanced midfielder or wing-back. Then attempting to work the ball into the box via a cross or through-ball.

My interpretation of Collinsball - Tactical Shape and roles

There wasn't any doubt in my mind that I was going to employ a 5-3-2 with a DM as I think it most closely replicates how we've played IRL recently. Earlier in the season we definitely played more of a 5-2-1-2 with a more attacking midfielder present but have in recent months not employed that other than when chasing games.

Within that basic shape there were a few decisions I had to make about roles which I'll discuss now.

The Defence

In the back 3 IRL the player at the centre of defence covers behind two players given license to get forward to support attacks. With this in mind I knew I'd want a CD -Cover flanked by either two Wide-Centre-Backs or a WCB with a ball-playing defender. 

In previous attempts at this formation I've paired a WCB-S with a WCB-D or a WCB-S with a Ball-playing defender but had been disappointed with the results, so thought I'd be a bit more aggressive and go with a WCB-S and WCB-A. (fully expecting this to fail miserably as they both charged off up field leaving nobody at home in defence)

I have to say I've been much more impressed with how these two work in building attacks.

With them patiently recycling play between themselves and the DMC before hitting those forward balls into a player in space with one of them usually stepping forward depending on which side we are attacking and the other staying at the back and vice-versa. It's really helped to create the overloads in the half spaces I wanted to create by being this aggressive.

As you can see from the below screenshots, with us first building up in a 3-4-3 formation before making the pass forward and turning that into a 2-4-4. Which creates lots of nice overloads and means we dominate in every third of their half.

I also went with a sweeper keeper on support as I knew I wanted him to be involved in building up from the back but also knew Roberts isn't the greatest with his feet so didn't want him THAT involved in it.

Moving on to the wingbacks I initially thought these would be better as complete wingbacks but actually just ordinary wingbacks on attack were much more effective as  they allowed us to create the above 3-4-3 shape whereas CWB's would make more of a 3-2-5 which meant we were less effective at building out from the back.

The Midfield

This is possibly where I have deviated the most from real life with our midfield trio normally being Luca Connell as a DMC or BWM-D, Herbie Kane as a DLP-S and Adam Phillips as a Mezzala-A IRL.

I wanted the DMC to be more involved in the slow build up from the back so decided it would be more sensible to have a DLP-D in the DMC slot.

Ahead of him I decided to pair a box-to-box midfielder with a CM-A because the roles suited the players I wanted to employ in them and if I put Phillips as a Mezzala he would have been occupying the half-spaces I wanted the WCB-A to run into on the right hand side. The BBM role also offers a little bit more defensively and I didn't want to have two playmakers sucking the ball towards them so either another DLP or advanced playmaker were out of the question.

The Attack

Again I deviated somewhat from how we play in real life to what is our back up plan (and IMO should be our plan A but that's by the by) with Devante Cole being an Advanced Forward and John McAtee being a pressing forward-S.

I decided I'd go with an Advanced forward and a targetman as I really like targetmen on a philosophical tactical level, he'd also offer us the option to occasionally go long (or so I hoped), or an out ball if you will.

My interpretation of Collinsball - The instructions

Tactically I knew I wanted to achieve a number of things, build up patiently from the back employing the 3 centre-backs and the DLP-D before hitting the ball either to the two more advanced midfielders or as we do IRL more often than not to one of the wing-backs, before then working the ball into the box something that Neil Collins has publicly spoken about a number of times being part of his philosophy. Out of possession the team presses but doesn't press as high up the pitch or as aggressively under Collins as they have in previous seasons.

With that in mind I went with these tactical instructions:

In possession

With what I wanted to achieve in mind I went with the above for our in possession instructions with the hope we'd build out from the back utilizing the centre-backs and DLP (play out of defence and focus play through the middle) before hitting one of our marauding wing-backs (overlaps). I went fairly narrow and work ball into the box to try and mitigate the fact we aren't the greatest team in the world so being closer together would make building out from the back easier and as I said previously Collins has spoken about how patiently working an opening is part of his tactical philosophy.

I also made 3 different versions of the tactic positive which was our main one, balanced for if we were under the cosh or wanted to see out a game and attacking if we needed to chase a game with just a few players having their mentality moved up or down a notch from the ones shown above.

In Transition and out of possession

Knowing that we don't press as aggressively or as high as we have in prior years I went with the above instructions in transition and out of possession. We definitely try to prevent short GK distribution as shown from our goal against Bolton on Tuesday night where we blocked a pass out from the back leaving McAtee clean through on goal so ticked that option.

The results

They were nothing short of spectacular even though Devante Cole broke his leg in November, Kane decided he wanted to leave in pre-season and whilst drunk I hadn't realized Leicester had bought out Jordan WIlliam's min-fee release clause in January (meaning I had to convert a midfielder to a defender) and the fact I used the real world game mode (so we had a patched up defence for half a season) we romped to the League One and the Bristol Street motors titles. Beat Sheff Utd away 4-1 in the cup and lost narrowly to Leeds and Manchester Utd in the cups 1-0 at home. We also smashed the goal scoring record for League One scoring an improbable 127 goals whilst beng fairly solid at the back, a run of 4 games where we bizarrely conceded 14 in 4 games (The AI outscoring their XG by about 12) ruining an other wise brilliant season for our defence.

Goals surprisingly mainly came from the midfield pairing or our targetman. Neither Cole or Jalo who played as the advanced forwards scored as many as I thought they would.

Unsurprisingly most assists came from out wide but I was quite pleased to see the wide-centre-backs chip in with a handful of assists each and both central midfielders got a fair few assists which was pleasing. The targetman role was a little bit underwhelming in the amount of assists they provided but made up for that with the sheer amount of goals Marsh and Cosgrove plundered.

 

In conclusion

Overall I was really pleased with how this tactic turned out in both the fact it looked very much how we play IRL we dominated the ball in most matches, had most of the match momentum and scored at will with goals coming from all over the pitch (we are the top scorers in L1 or were the other week) and it recreated the same issues I see with Barnsley IRL too, those being we often give the ball away cheaply passing out from the back and were counter-attacked as a result, we gave soft goals away quite a lot and in attack we had a horrible tendency to over play it especially against weaker teams (hence we lost to two sides who ended up relegated, the other defeats were Charlton twice and Blackpool).

Not sure how I'd improve this tactic to be honest as I loved using it nearly every minute of the season except a 5-1 defeat to Charlton!

[warlock]

I don't know much about Barnsley - managed them a couple of times back around FM21/22 - but that's a well-explained tactical post.

Nicely done 

[kiwityke1983]

4 hours ago, warlock said:

I don't know much about Barnsley - managed them a couple of times back around FM21/22 - but that's a well-explained tactical post.

Nicely done 

Cheers it was great fun not sure I'd know enough about any other team to attempt it.

Don't know how we will go on in the Championship, big step up and most of the budget has been swallowed keeping my current players happy.

 

[AzrulMaulud]

nice explaination. i like how your players move into position. 352 is my go to formation in fm24. might change my libero on the rcb slot and use wingback on attack instead of cwb on the right.

[JoOSTAR]

I might have missed it, but did you use any player instructions?

[bosque]

Lovely! I love a tactic post with sensible explanation behind each team instruction. I would love to be that meticulous too.

[kiwityke1983]

7 hours ago, AzrulMaulud said:

nice explaination. i like how your players move into position. 352 is my go to formation in fm24. might change my libero on the rcb slot and use wingback on attack instead of cwb on the right.

I contemplated using a libero on the right about halfway through the season as it was a role that suited the player I had to parachute into place having accidentally drunkenly  sold Williams but didn't in the end.

I also occasionally against weaker teams made the RWB into a CWB to try and be more aggressive.

6 hours ago, JoOSTAR said:

I might have missed it, but did you use any player instructions?

No I didn't use them, I thought about adding one player instruction to the CM-A to move into channels.

But having tried it in one match and thinking about it a bit more rejected it for a few reasons.

1) it defeated the idea of not using a mezzala in the first place that he would move into the half spaces I wanted the WCB to exploit.

2) I liked him being more central breaking beyond the TM and in retrospect its what caused the targetman/CM's to score so many goals. Two of the Advanced forward, TM or MC-A would occupy the centre-backs creating an overload so one of them was effectively unmarked or the TM/BBM would arrive late in the box also unmarked to score.

3) I'm trying to get away from using them unless I want some sort of specific behaviour like Fullbacks hitting crosses from deep in a counter-attacking tactic or a playmaker played in the AML/R position to sit narrower to create space for a wingback to overlap him. Otherwise I end up giving every player a daft number of them and break my own tactics.

[AzrulMaulud]

Quote

I contemplated using a libero on the right about halfway through the season as it was a role that suited the player I had to parachute into place having accidentally drunkenly  sold Williams but didn't in the end.

I also occasionally against weaker teams made the RWB into a CWB to try and be more aggressive.

i think the libero works well with higher defensive line against low block. but that depends on the personnel too. one thing i dont like playing the libero is the rest defense. 2 at the back with my low/mid table team, inviting.

the 352 is my go to formation in fm24. i use the tactic as a base and adapts what kind of play our opponent is playing. keeping the play out of defend regardless who our opponent is.

• against gegenpressing i use low block + standard defensive lines and pass into space, and put roaming on both strikers. 
• against team who build from the back i use mid block/high, both strikers mark the center back positions and the more attack midfielder marks the dm position. ticked prevent keeper short passes. i had giants in my fc twente, when they hoof the ball, thats when we win the ball back. this one works well.

never tried both wingback on attack. i did after reading your post. it works better in my setup than the 1 wingback on support and 1 cwb on attack. thank you.