Cleon

You do have a RSS feed, I just been to your site and found it. I'll edit it on the site for you now and then it will pull your last blog post through and then any new ones automatically. EDIT - It's now done and working https://teaandbusquets.com/+secondcityblues

There's lots really, it really depends what you want from them. There are a lot of book reviews about football up on my site; https://teaandbusquets.com/blog/football-books

I wrote a pretty lengthy article about defensive football, you can find it here https://teaandbusquets.com/blog/176-2

Attack duty players will naturally start higher up the pitch too. Mentality alters the base starting positions a player starts with. So support = deeper and attack = higher. Okay, so I think I see the issue here. You don't want to create a counter attacking system. It seems like you want to play a more direct game and attack with a certain number of players at a specific time. This is different to counter attacking in the general sense of how under the hood counters are triggered. Ideally you need players deeper, maybe expect for one or two at the maximum for a pure counter attacking system. If not then players will be too advanced to ever trigger a counter. If you have too many players forward too early then you end up disjointed. Instead of focusing on how many support/attacking duties you need you should simplify things and focus on the role you use and what it actually does by looking at the settings it comes with. Then ask yourself if the role suits what you want and understand exactly what kind of stuff he will be doing. This is easy because you can see the settings he has. If your player is fast and on an attack duty then chances are the rest of the side will struggle to keep up with him. It's great that you have a fast player but if his role is aggressive then how does he get support if the rest of the side are slower than him? They're always playing catch up. Although your Mez is a playmaker type he is still a Mez. He will still use his attributes though like I highlighted in the David Brooks article, where I used a creative player for the Advanced Forward role. But you still need to understand how his playmaking skills make him play the role differently. So, what does he offer you different than you're average Mez? In this type of system or in general? The thing is, a pure counter system like you asked about earlier is about the team as a collective and making the most of the team. If you want more help about the LW and ST though I suggest you read the 4231 Deep article I did, as that focuses on the LW and ST and making them score goals. First I'd address why your midfielders aren't never near the ball. When you watch games/clips back what's the general theme or why they aren't connecting? Is it the mentality thing I mentioned earlier in my reply or something else? Only you have the answers as to why something is happening. I'm unable to see your games, so I rely on you telling me What's the players positioning like when this happens? Also check out the settings of these players who are doing the clearances and it might tell you something............. Do these players have roles that would allow for this to happen or do they have roles that stay out wide or do a specific thing? Well it's not, that's not how it works. Remember you've asked the players to play more direct than usual in the TI's, maybe its a by product of this? You also use a playmaker in the centre which attracts the ball. So this could be another reason why it's hit longer bypassing certain players in certain positions because you're funnelling play in specific way based on the roles you use and the TI's you've added. When using TI's you need a specific reason for using them and need to understand how these settings change the roles.

You’ve nailed it

I think people (not you) get hung up on TI's and think they stop things happening when you use them rather than realising they only reduce the frequency of such actions. If you use winger roles like you do, then they'll still cross regular but it'll be a slightly reduced the amount. But ultimately the winger is a crossing role, so you can't stop them happening without changing the role.

The winger role doesn't suit a system that has a striker who plays outside the box too and no-one else initially in the box. Where are the crosses expected to go?

You aren't going to trigger many under the hood counter attacks with those roles at all. The IW, Winger and Mez are all more advanced and quite aggressive roles. So you lose the numbers advantage based on positions alone. However you can generate plenty of user created counter attacks. But one question, who is supposed to provide them in this set up? The DLP? and that's it really. It's a lot of responsibility for one man. Also add in the fact of your TI's, you've asked everyone to be more direct in passing so they'll be passing longer than they do normally. But that doesn't mean they are good/accurate passes. You've also asked players to hit crosses early to a striker who drops deep and doesn't really play in the box. You're asking players to prioritise hitting the ball early to the forward. What use is this and how is that supposed to start intelligent counters? And then there's the tempo, why much higher encouraging players to play more riskier and faster? People think this increases accuracy/chance that you trigger counters but again how? It's not really logical. You want people to assess each scenario and not force them to do one specific thing constantly. You want more counter attacks then stop forcing playing to a play a specific way. More direct passing, higher tempo and hit early crosses is the easiest way to get the ball from the back to the front. However that doesn't equal it being a good strategy for counters. As the other players in midfield will be bypassed and playing catch up. If you want more counters you want more options and varied ways of playing instead of pigeonholing them to do a specific thing. And one final thing, you need the team to move as a whole or at least the majority of players, or you'll always be out numbered. By passing the midfield for example with hitting early crosses means those players who get passed by and likely not going to be involved with the move. How a look at the mentality and instructions the role you use have. Then look at the TI's you've used and it should start to become clearer on what your actual issues are.

No it doesn't really have much details about how the systems function, it's more about the history of tactics rather than systems. It lacks any real substance when it comes to actual tactical related stuff. So if you was using it to understand tactics I'd say no, there are far better books that discuss tactics.

I think it's a sweeping generalised statement based on what you said without the real context behind why he said it. 442 can be fine against stronger teams. It all depends on what you expect from your 442 and how its used. 442 is a solid formation and you can make it play many different ways and make it a 451/433/411 and so on. So not sure why someone would avoid it because someone might be better than them. You might lack central control at times but you still have major strengths.

None of them are even remotely true with the exception of playing a high line. The reason being, if you play a low defensive line and ask the players to step up and play offside you're asking for trouble as they'll be so close to goal. They'll be no recovery time and mistakes will be more costly. When playing OT the most important thing is players are on the same page, so physical and technical attributes don't matter as much, it's all about the mental attributes because it requires intelligence of knowing when to step up and that the rest of his teammates are doing the same. Mental awareness is everything when using OT.

I explained how I did it in the posts at the start of the thread. I scored goals and had possession but the possession wasn't pointless passing, it was very attack minded. Possession is pointless if you aren't using it to be a threat, you can't really win games.

Spot on

All it does is Decreases forward runs and tempo. that's it. It has nothing to do with slowing it down then speeding up like you suggest sadly

You see weak keepers all the time go for crosses and them not get the ball. You only have to look through the hundreds of clips on YouTube to see.