[How to make a wide player move into channels?]

Play them as a Raum, that is the only wide role which has moves into channels, in fact it is hard coded.

 

Raum is easier to get working in this years ME, not sure I'd want to play 2 though, The other option could be a wide AP or like you say try the PIs you mentioned but it would just be an approximation

[Headed shots - heading or Shooting?]

and bravery?

[Building out from the 'wrong' side]

If your keeper is right footed he will naturally distribute to the left CB more often.  Like Cloud says the only way round this is to specify which CB he is to distribute to, but even then there will be some situations where he still goes left because it is more natural for him to do so.

[Raumdeuter's Preferred Foot]

Both can work, but personally I would prefer to use him on the right flank as I find the shot across the keeper from the right channel inside the box is a great source of goals for a Raum.  It is also less reliant on dribbling and more on off the ball movement and as a nice added bonus it can be a good source of square balls for a striker and/or on rushing midfielder or opposite flank wide player.

[Help with a 4-3-1-2]

I would suggest having a read of the enigmatic 10 thread as it is centred around the 4-3-1-2 formation my own system is in there as well.  I suspect your problem is the 2 outside CMs both being roles which positionally rotate to the AM strata with the new positional play leaving you with little defensive cover and an overloaded central area (i.e. no space).  First thing I would do is swap the Mez for a support role that doesn't positionally rotate such as a CM-s, Car or BWM-s.  You could consider a Mez-s instead of the BBM on that side if you want to keep a Mez in the team.

 

 

[In a non-one club save, is it rational to apply for jobs?]

I don't think your chances of getting bigger jobs is affected by whether you apply or if you are approached.  However, it can be difficult to gauge the sort of jobs you might be able to get so waiting to be approached is definitely easier and like Dan says it is usually unrealistic to start applying to better jobs until you have had at least a year probably two.  It can help to pay attention to the news items after someone gets fired to see if you are listed in the contenders for the job, but mostly I use my reputation (stars) and the clubs reputation to decide if I have a vague chance.  Bearing in mind its easier to get jobs in the same nation you are from/are currently managing in

[Pendulum defending in a 3-5-2]

You can defend in a 4-4-2 and attack in a 3-5-2 yes (at least in theory), but you can't do it depending on which side the opposition has the ball.  In FM the formation you have on the tactics screen is your defensive shape and the roles and duties you select will dictate your attacking shape.  So in principle to get what you want you would select a 4-4-2 as your base formation and then pick roles and duties that would approximate a 3-5-2 in attack.  But what you can't do in FM is get the wingbacks to move depending on where the ball is on the pitch.

[Building around an enigmatic 10]

On 05/03/2024 at 18:45, TheMartello said:

Maybe screenshots of the tactic and results? Always interested to see!

Here you are

Tactic with season 2 first 11:

 

Only PIs are get further forward and move into channels on the Vol and hold position on the BWM.

The team instructions shown are the default ones I start most games with, but I will drop the trap inside option when facing other narrow formations and the defensive line to standard when facing good teams with fast but short strikers.

 

I do a lot of rotating due to European commitments so my players are not top in the league individually for goal scoring or assists etc. though several of them do feature in the top 5 for various aspects.  However, due to the quality difference in the champions league they don't get on those lists.

Bearing in mind I do use 2 other narrow formations as mentioned so players won't always be in exactly the same positions, in terms of positional performance the biggest contributors to goals scored are as you would expect the best performers are the front 3 with goals spread fairly evenly between them  with about 27 each in 47 matches.  Assists wise the stand out is the FB-a with 23 assists in 47 matches followed by the CF-a with 16, the CWB-a with 15 and the TQ with 14, with the reg-s also contributing 10.

Despite the high assists from the full backs the positional assists picture doesn't have many from the flanks from the last 50 league matches (again not all from the main formation) and the majority are not crosses.

 

In terms of match performances the best of the season so far was an 8-1 against Spezia

Other notable results were a 4-0 away win against Lazio

and a run of 4 games in a row against Inter with 3 wins and a draw (freak draw to play them in the Italian cup and champions league round of 16 and the league in subsequent matches).  All of those matches were very close though with fairly even XG in most of them, though the best performance was:

 

To balance that out a bit the worst performances of the season were against Atletico Madrid and Napoli, both result in defeats.  The first one (Napoli) was perhaps a tad unlucky, but we didn't create any decent chances as you can see with the low XG per shot and Napoli created one really good chance which they put away.

The second was a similar story in that we created naff all, but Atletico Madrid were dominant creating several good chances and truth is we were lucky to escape with a 2-0 defeat.  The stats don't really reflect quite how bad we were.

[Building around an enigmatic 10]

@ElJefe4also want to add my thanks for providing inspiration for a new save, this got me curious whether a 4-3-1-2 with 3 DMs could work and do well and I have to say despite playing with a mid-table Italian team (Fiorentina) rather than Inter it has been a big success, really enjoyed the football with a lot of goals scored and few conceded.

The front 3 are the same as you and only small changes to the back 5, mainly due to personnel available (RCB BPD on cover and LCB on a regular CB on defend and GK SK-d).

The midfield DM  3 I am using are Vol-s ---- Reg-s ----- BWM-s with hold position PI on the BWM.  Depending on the opposition formation the Vol does occasionally go on an attack duty, but generally speaking this has worked very well.

I do also have 2 alternative formations set for if the standard formation isn't working well, a 4-2-2-2 DM AM box formation (mostly use this against opposition box formations) and a 4-3-2-1 Christmas tree with 3 DMs and 2 AMs, but the standard formations is used in about 90% of matches.

Happy to post some further details if anyone is interested, but this is mostly just to say thanks :-)

[Building around an enigmatic 10]

This is a slightly left field suggestion, but have you considered dropping the entire CM line  to the DM  strata  and playing  Hakan as a  regista?  For example, if you played him on the right of trio of Vol-s  ---- HB-d  -----  Reg-s then he would move centrally as the HB drops and he would orchestra things from the deep position without having too much defensive responsibility.  Basically make him the new Pirlo.  You could probably also do something with him as a Reg in the central position with a BWM or DM-d on the right instead of a HB.

[What to do with two very attacking players on the same side?]

If the ML is creative then playing both on attack with the ML as WP-a could work well, you would need a holding MCL though.  I've had good success with WB-a and WP-a on the same side in a 4-4-1-1 (central mids in the DM strata though)

[Help with tactic]

Nothing silly in it roles and duties wise, worth testing to see if it works at least.  Two things I'd look out for though are is the AP-a close enough to the RMD to feed him the ball, the winger and wing back should create some chances for him from crosses/cutbacks but good supply from central midfield could be a problem.  If it is you could try making the AP-a CM-a instead and changing the CAR to an AP-s (probably would need to drop the wing back to support as well).  It might not be an issue, but worth keeping an eye on.  As a side note, I'd also give the wing back a stay wider and run wide with ball instruction to ensure he gives the width you need and doesn't get in the RMD's way.

On the instructions, I would be cautious about using trap inside as a default instruction, for me its more situational depending on the opposition formation, yes you have 3 players in the middle, but only 1 DM and if the opposition formation and team is strong in the middle as well you could end up in trouble.  I use trap inside when facing a 4-4-2 for example, but I would use trap outside when facing a 4-4-2 narrow diamond.  Though I am sure some of the more  knowledgeable tactics people can tell you if this is right.

[When can you get a bigger job? When is it worthwhile to start applying for jobs?]

Put in too many applications for other jobs and your current club will fire you for disloyalty.  I find that a couple of years at a club is the minimum if you want to move up substantially, you can even get approached without an application, by a notably bigger club if you do well enough.  You also don't want to apply to more than one job at a time, the clubs you apply for don't like that, you have to pick the one you most want/think you have the highest chance of getting (no use applying to Everton and AC Milan at the same time, either your rep is high enough AC Milan is viable in which case Everton isn't likely to be a major step up, or it isn't and you just make yourself look desperate.  This his my experience anyway.  I definitely wouldn't say these are rules though, I am sure other people have other ways of doing it, but this works for me.

[[HELP] Everything is OK, but i can't use wings effectively & poor goalscoring]

Personally I've never been a massive fan of an AF as a lone striker in a 4-3-3 wide, he tends to get isolated and you do not have sufficient support from central midfield getting close to him and neither of your flank roles will provide that support either.

Even though I am not a fan there are plenty of combinations that you can use if you are wedded to the AF that will get closer and provide more opportunities for him, but it does depend on the players you have available to you and the type of football you want to play.

For example you could play an AP-s on the left flank, swap the LCM to a CAR or CM-s and the RCM to a CM-a.  This would overload the right flank with scorers, get more players closer to the AF from both central and wide positions (including an additional player aggressively attacking the box).  Essentially the plan would be to create on the left flank and left channel for the striker and the players on the right flank and right channel to score.  Your attacking LB,  LCM and wide AP being your primary creators with the CM-a and winger likely chipping in with some assists too.  Your AF would be your primary goal scorer, with the CM-a and winger also getting good numbers.  Your DM and  right back will provide good defensive cover and ball recycling options.

If your striker suits it you could change his role to a more scorer/creator hybrid such as a DLF-a or CF-s/a, that that wouldn't change your lack of support from central midfield so even then you would need to switch up some other roles.  The 4-3-3 wide is a relatively bottom heavy formation so you can afford to be a bit more adventurous with roles and duties in the midfield, but the combo needs to work well with the flanks.

Hope this helps

[Building around an AP(a) who is the best player in the world]

Probably play him as a Treq or AM-A

[Save my laptop from getting thrown out the window]

You look like you are playing a Gegenpress instructions wise, both attack and defence instructions so nothing obviously problematic there.  However, some of the roles you have selected won't do what you are looking for them to do.  Specifically the winger-attack on the left will stay wide the vast majority of the time and will only cut inside WITH the ball, he will attack the far post when the ball is on the opposite side but he won't come inside and sit narrow like you are looking for.  There isn't really a role which does this 100% consistently  but I had a fair bit of luck playing an RMD for that purpose.  RMD's seem to be much better in FM24 and easier to get going than they were in previous FMs so that might be worth a try.  I would switch the sides of your CM duo though, you want the playmaker on the same side as the  RMD to feed him the ball (I played an AP-s in the CM slot behind mine).

The winger on support won't drop back into CM strata from the AMR position (no role will really), but you could try adding hold position to him to stop him making forward runs if that is what you are looking for.

Last but not least I would suggest swapping the DLP-d for a DM-s with hold position PI (you can also add play making PIs if you feel you need them).  This is for two reasons, firstly you don't really need 4 defend duties and you already have the IFB and secondly you don't really want two playmakers so close to each other.

If you do flip the BBM and playmaker  to the opposite sides in midfield you could experiment with a more attacking role instead of the BBM (i.e. CM-a) or you could add a get further forward PI to the BBM (this is what I paired my  AP-s with).

[Is there any way to make it more likely to get a target forward as part of your youth intake (managing in German 3rd tier atm)?]

I found the search filter for tactical style in the staff search filters and it turns out its only a thing for managers now.  HOYDs don't have one so there goes that plan sadly.  Anyone else know of a way to encourage TFs?

[Is there any way to make it more likely to get a target forward as part of your youth intake (managing in German 3rd tier atm)?]

good shout I found it in the comparison, not sure where it is supposed to be in the profile though as I looked and looked.  However, the only 2 decent HOYDs who were interested in joining me were blank on tactical style

[Is there any way to make it more likely to get a target forward as part of your youth intake (managing in German 3rd tier atm)?]

Thanks for the response Gene.  That is what I thought too, but I can't seem to find that information anymore, they just seem to have a preferred formation (and 2nd formation) and set piece preferences now

[Is there any way to make it more likely to get a target forward as part of your youth intake (managing in German 3rd tier atm)?]

As it says in the title, is there any way to make it more likely to get a target forward as part of your youth intake (managing in German 3rd tier atm)?

[Removing Brexit]

I changed the date on @Wolf_pd's file for England to join the EU to 2022 and started a new game to test with a manager in England and one in charge of AC Milan (who have 2 English players), whilst England does seem to show up as EU again for the premier league manager players like Tomori and Loftus-Cheek are still considered foreign in Italy.  Has anyone been able to change it so this doesn't happen with English players being treated as EU for European nations?

[Removing Brexit]

I'm also interested in this as I am waiting to be able to remove brexit before starting a long term save.  Can anyone confirm if @Wolf_pd's solution means that leagues in Europe treat English players as EU where they have non-EU player limits (Germany, Italy and I think Spain all do for example)?  I don't want to remove work permits entirely from England, just turn it back to how it was pre-brexit travesty

Just wanted to add appreciation for Wolf's and Roy's efforts on this!

[Tactical experiment: morphing a 3-4-3 defensive formation into a 2-2-4-2 in attack]

Like a lot of people I've been enjoying playing around with the new positional play aspects of the FM24 match engine and since full release I've been playing around in a test save trying to get a libero based 3-4-3 to work effectively in the way I want it to.  This thread is about what I have learnt so far with my experiment and the tactic I have landed on.

First I started with a few principles of what I was trying to achieve.

1. 3-4-3 formation as the base
2. High press
3. Possession football
4. Double pivot
5. 2-2-4-2 on attack

So the first part of the attack system was the box defence on the transition and in possession.  The furthest forward of this box provides the double pivot.  The  main idea here was to create passing options in the centre for whomever had the ball at the back, but also options to progress the ball forward through the middle.  I experimented with various roles for the back 3 and wing backs and settled on this for my back 5 + GK:

 

The SK is on attack so he will join in with the 3 centre backs a little higher up the pitch to form a diamond in early transition to give the defenders an out ball if needed if they get pressed.

The wide centre backs on defend could probably be any role really given they come narrower in possession because of the libero but the WCB role does progress the ball well without taking too many risks (such as a BPD).

The Libero is the left hand side of the double pivot, I did experiment with him in the left CB position, but I found that he moved too central in the early transition rather than sticking to the left hand channel when moving into the defensive midfield strata which made for messy transitions and often led to giving the ball away in dangerous positions, particularly as the central CB would move to the top of the D when the GK had the ball instead of left to cover the advancing libero.

The IWB on defend is the other half of the double pivot, he will move into the right hand defensive central midfield position, pushing the libero a bit further to left of centre (though not quite as far as I would like).

4 defend roles isn't normally something I go for but in this case I find that if I put either the Lib or IWB on support they sometimes get too far up the pitch to form the double pivot effectively and both on support is defensive suicide on the counter attack.  I do sometimes put one on support against specific opposition formations, but never both.  Libero on support against a 4-5-1 can be very effective for example.

The left wing back is there to provide the width on the left both in the transition and in the final third.  He has PIs to stay wider and run wide with the ball to further emphasise that width

Next we have the midfield 2

The central midfield 2 were probably where I have experimented the most, I knew I wanted 1 creator and 1 runner and that I didn't need to worry too much about defensive cover as I had 4 defend roles in the back 5.  The creator needed to be close enough to the attack that they would be able to thread passes through to the wide forward or striker and the runner needed to be a goal threat.  Initially I thought I would have the striker drop deeper for an attacking runner and experimented with the Mez-a and the CM-a but this just didn't work consistently enough, but after re-reading @Rashidi's excellent thread on the positional rotations for the different roles I settled on the box to box midfielder with get further forward and move into channels PIs.  This proved to be a good compromise, providing a goal threat arriving late in the box, but not going mad about it too early in transition.  For the creative role, I tried a variety of roles ranging from a PI'd CM-s, a DLP and the RPM, but again after another look at Rashidi's thread I settled on the AP-s to get him close to the attack in the final third (with the Roaming PI)

Last but by no means least, the front 3.  I knew that the right hand wide man had to provide the primary width for that flank so his role was a no brainer, winger on support all day long.  However, the other 2 were trickier to decide on.  As I mentioned earlier I initially experimented with a deeper striker to support both the wide forward and the attacking runner from midfield, but this didn't work consistently and didn't really provide the 2 man spearhead that I wanted consistently (tested DLF-a and s and a CF-s here).  So I eventually swapped to a spearhead striker, the Pressing Forward on attack.  The final part of the system was the left hand wide man.  I wanted this player to get into the opposition box and move towards goal without the ball attacking the left hand channel, essentially forming an offset 2 man strike force with the central striker.  Obviously this meant the winger and inverted winger roles were out and I didn't have the player to try a wide target man on attack (though this could be interesting) so it was either an IF-a with sit narrower or Raumdeuter,  I love the concept of the Raumdeuter and have a go at trying to get one to work in every FM (usually unsuccessfully) and so I thought why not give it a whirl here (this time inspired by @04texag's positional play thread).  Much to my great surprise it worked quite well, though I think some player traits would help it work even better (namely gets further forward, gets into opposition area, moves into channels and probably likes to beat offside trap).

The final tactic (including instructions is:

The only PI I haven't mentioned is take more risks on the winger (simply because I had the player to take advantage of it).

Team instructions wise its relatively self explanatory.  The out of possession instructions are pretty default for a high press without going full gegenpress, transition wise I am not using play out of defence and I want my GK to play to centre backs and I was testing this with a top team which would have 6 players forward so counter press made sense.  In possession does vary a bit depending on the opposition formation but the ones shown are my default.  Fairly narrow is to get the Raum a bit closer to goal by default and the rest as relatively standard progressive possession style instructions.

The with ball position map usually looks something like this:

As you can see the the wing back support gets high and forms the left hand side of the 4 in attacking midfield and the striker forms the spearhead.  The Raumdueter isn't quite as narrow or as high as I would like him to be ideally, but it plays out pretty well in general and since he starts the transition out wide it does make sense.

So what are the strengths and weaknesses of the system and where does it fall down?

I'm not going to share the league table or specific results as this was an experimental save to try and get a specific style of play working so I selected a top team (Bayern) which had most of the players I needed to fit the system so winning was always going to be expected, suffice to say I did well in all competitions.

The positives were in offense I scored 89 goals in the league (16 higher than the next best), which is good but not ridiculous given Bayern's relative stature, but only conceded 15 goals, less than half the next best of 34.  Goal difference wise that is an impressive 74, almost 3 times the next best of 26.  Now like I said this was an experimental save so when problems were identified with the system there were a small number of games (3 or 4) I would play several times to test changes to the base tactic as solutions, so take this with a pinch of salt, but still pretty happy.

Goals wise while the central striker did score twice as many goals (33 from 40 starts and 8 sub appearances in all comps) as any other position that did include 10 penalties.  So the goals were shared across all of the front 5 with 4 of the starting 11 hitting double figures and the starting AP just behind on 9.  The 2nd highest was (slightly disappointingly) not the Raum as the first choice BBM chipped in with 16 goals from 39 starts (7 sub).  However, the Raum was the most rotated position and the players that started there also started games as the right winger so this may be why.

Assists were also evenly spread again with 4 of the front 5 getting double figures for assists (this time with the BBM just short on 9) with the first choice left wingback also chipping in with 14 and a scattering from the libero and IWB (half a dozen each).

 

All of which sounds lovely, but what about weaknesses?

The system is heavily dependant on having players capable of playing the key specialist roles (Libero, Raum, IWB) and getting a top quality Raumdueter in particular is hard, even for a team like Bayern.  You need players capable of playing multiple roles and multiple duties for when things aren't quite working in the base system.  i.e. libero or IWB on support as well as defend, CMs who can also play AM or DM if you need a more radical change if things really aren't working (I also had a version with the CMs as DMS and a 4-2-3-1 for when nothing was going according to plan).

The base system in particular struggles to create much against very narrow formations with 2 DMs (e.g. the 4-2-2-2 Brazilian box or the 3-4-2-1 DM - AM narrow) and you usually need to play around with some roles, duties or team instructions to get things to tick against managers who use these systems.  Finding solutions to this was where most of the replayed test games occurred and even then I am not convinced I have solved it entirely.

I am still not really happy with the striker role, but this may be because Harry Kane is well suited to the original plan of a deep dropping striker role, but doesn't really suit a spearhead role (lack of pace and jumping reach), I have considered a poacher for the spearhead role, but I am concerned a loan poacher won't work well.

Last but not least, in an ideal world I would like the Raum to be getting more goals and I do wonder if a left footer on the left would work better here (i.e. gets through in the channel and then smashes it across the keeper for a goal or squares it for the spearhead), but I don't have the player to test this (had to sell Sane).

 

 

[Creation 3-4-2-1]

I am using a 3ATB formation yes, but I made a new one for FM24 as I wanted to play around with the new options with positional play.  I am currently using a 3-4-3 WB system which attempts to morph into a 2-2-4-2 double pivot system in attack.  I was considering doing a thread on it as its been getting good results and some nice football but I am struggling to get the striker and primary wide forward to fire quite as effectively as I would like, pretty good but not quite there yet.

[Tactical recreation : 'Ringhio' Gattuso's at Olympique de Marseille]

Not seen anything of Gattuso as a manager so I can't contribute to the tactical design, but following with interest as I loved him as a player, used to sign him in FM all the time!