[When would you want the trait 'likes ball played into feet'?]

From the description, it sounds like it should increase the frequency of the player receiving a pass to feet rather than anything else.

The question is, in what circumstances would you want this trait, and what sort of players would you want to have it?

[BVB Bielsa inspired tactics help me!!!]

4 hours ago, reggerbob said:

After 22 games in my first season in fm20 I am 10-6-6 and in 6th place in the Bundesliga. i have been trying to patiently tweak this tactic all season without losing the original intention to emulate Bielsa's philosophies. I am trying to incorporate an enganche and inverted wingbacks into a high energy, high possession, high chance creation side. I initially wanted to use a halfback after watching Kalvin Phillips success but an anchor man seems to fit that role better in game. I average 47% possession in the Bundesliga- 15th, but the third highest chances created with 63 and the most goals with 43 (12 from dead ball situations). I'm reluctant to lower my tempo in order to increase my possession because I don't feel thats the way I want to play. but logically I know it will take some time for my support players to join the attack from deep positions (Brandt my enganche drops very deep when out of possession for some reason leaving Haaland on an island).

Defensively I've allowed 30 goals which is 9th in the league which is a concern but largely to be expected.

I don't know how Bielsa's teams generally play, so I'm not sure if this is an instruction that you desperately want to keep. But the one that sticks out for me the most is 'regroup'. Everything else about the tactic suggests that you want to win the ball quickly, and high up the pitch, and then either immediately counter (the 'counter' instruction), or if there is no opportunity for the counter, keep the ball patiently and wait for a chance.

'Regroup' seems to be the exact opposite of what you want from the team.

Think about what you are telling the team to do by regrouping. You are essentially saying 'get back into formation .' While your formation has two DMs, it also has four players in the AM strata or above. They probably are not going to get back into a defensive shape especially well. To make matters worse, the team is playing a higher line with an already positive mentality. AND you then also tell the team to close down extremely urgently. So, you are saying to your players:

Step 1: Get back into a fairly attacking defensive shape;

Step 2: Hold your position, but very high up the pitch; and

Step 3: Immediately break your shape by closing down extremely urgently.

'Counter press' might sound like it would be more risky, but I think it would make so much more sense in the context of your tactic.

[When to 'Add/remove reserve or youth team player to first team training']

In what circumstances, if ever, would you use this:

I considered using it because I wanted to add a reserve team player to a mentoring unit, while keeping him in the reserves. However, it didn't work. I assume the player needs to actually be in the first team squad in order to be part of a mentoring unit. 

Which leads me to wonder why you would ever use this feature. Surely if you wanted a player to undergo first team training, he would be in the first team!

Do any of you ever use it, and if so, what for?

[Is injury susceptibility changeable?]

I've often wondered, but never asked, if it is possible for a player's injury susceptibility to change. Can they become less injury prone, or do repeated injuries make the player more injury prone, for example?

[How to counter smaller teams using 'gegenpress']

How to you get around their press, before they manage to win the ball back?

Just had another almost identical game against Sheffield Utd. They played three at the back, extremely aggressive press, and it seemed like they won pretty much every tackle, and there was nothing my team could do to get around it.

[How to counter smaller teams using 'gegenpress']

Just now, emil_sbn said:

Just mark individual player can be really effective if you use a fast striker to mark the other teams slowest dc.

I'll give that a go, had never considered that. I don't generally use opposition instructions, never sure how effective they are, or how they all work

[How to counter smaller teams using 'gegenpress']

Just now, emil_sbn said:

You can use man marking to force them them to play a certain player. I often use that in my 4-2-3-1 system against teams that play with a dm then i use my amc to man mark the opponents dm. 

Interesting, hadn't thought of that. Would you use the 'tighter marking' team instruction? Or just specifically mark individual players?

[How to counter smaller teams using 'gegenpress']

I just played a game as Arsenal against Brighton, watching the full game. Their press was unbelievable. It almost resembled a game of tag at times. All their players had to do was get close to my players, and we lost the ball. We strung together almost nothing. My press, on the other hand, was pretty weak, and we barely managed to get a proper tackle in.

These were the stats:

The possession stat looks ok, but we did almost nothing with it, scoring with literally our only shot on target.

The pre-game report suggested that Brighton would use a 'gegenpress' type style, meaning that they would have an extremely high line, and press like mad. I thought that would make them fairly easy to play against, as they are a weaker side. Alas, it was a very one-sided game the other way around!

If Brighton were much stronger than my team, it would make sense for me to play a direct counter attack style, to soak up the pressure. But given that my team is supposed to be a lot better, it doesn't seem right for that to be the best option.

Has anybody else had difficulties with almost god-like pressing from weaker teams, and how do you counter it?

As a side note, they also managed to have four players 'preventing short GK distribution,' despite having only three players in the AM or ST positions. I play a 4-3-3, and only ever have three players trying to prevent it. Does anybody know how to force a forth player to get involved?

[How does everyone set their scouting team up?]

10 hours ago, isignedupfornorealreason said:

I find it best to set them up myself.

I go for nation specific scouting, ongoing assignments, only restriction is to stop suggesting players aged 27+ (since they will be 28 by the time I bid and sign them).

 

The reason I go for no restrictions is because I don't want talent that the Scout (or AI) identifies as poor, when they're actually not far off from world class. I'd rather their 'crap' players still land on my desk, so I can slap them for underrating them. - I think this is an important thing to do if you're not a big club as you can poach some genuine stars if you sift through the paperwork yourself.

Nation specific scouting allows me to build the network from the bottom up. For small clubs, I stick with scouting local nations - the home nation and the neighbours for example. But the bigger the scouting budget, the further I expand.

For a decent team in England, I will go like this:

1. Next Opposition and Chief scout, who will float around and scout my transfer targets.

2. England (duh)

3. France

4. Germany

5. Italy

6. Spain

7. Portugal

8. Russia (if I'm in the mood to deal with the nationality restrictions).

You can switch it up to suit, but my main aim is to get scouts in the major European nations and the top leagues. Only once I have those set up do I start going for smaller reputation leagues, like Holland, Belgium and so, and it is a long way down the list before I get to bother with Scotland etc. If I can spare one, I will send a scout to Brazil or Argentina, but the priority is Europe because the EU is a wonderful thing, and freedom of movement gets you all the sexy stars.

Of course, with FM21 having the hardest of hard Brexits, I think my FM21 scouting network would be heavily focused on the home nations and just the top leagues - no point going for the middle/lower reputation leagues based on how the new work permit system looks to be like. But for EU member states (Spain, Italy, Germany, France, etc) I'd stick to my EU-centric method I think, because it's a huge market really.

Makes a lot of sense! I've just had a re-shuffle of the scouting team, so each scout if looking at at least two nations. In theory, that should mean six month of the year per nation, which seems like enough, and it means I can cover a large part of Europe in particular.

How are you finding continental recruitment after Brexit in the game?

[How does everyone set their scouting team up?]

Ah I see--I hadn't even thought that you could assign more than one nation/region. Thanks guys

[How does everyone set their scouting team up?]

@DarJ @Justified great suggestions, thanks, I was planning on assigning scouts to individual nations instead. Might amend that to regions instead.

How do you specify only certain nations within a region?

[How does everyone set their scouting team up?]

Just now, DarJ said:

I set them myself. 

I send one scout to each continent to look for players 19 at most with 4 star potential; then I might set one to just look for players that are running out of contract. I might also scout youth competitions depending on the number of scouts I have

How effective do you find continental scouting to be? I imagine the scout can only do one country at a time, so isn't spending too long in any one place

[How does everyone set their scouting team up?]

Not sure if this is the right place, but I wanted to start a discussion on how people are doing their scouting.

Do you leave it to the chief scout to assign?

Do you set up assignments yourself?

Do you assign scouts to regions, or individual nations?

Trying to get some inspiration for my own set up.

[Which training schedules to use, and how to use match preparation]

2 minutes ago, tyro said:

There is a sticky in this forum explaining the whole training scheme. There are also several youtube videos by foxinthebox going into details.

In short, if you want to do the training yourself, you need to read what it says on it. There's 3 sessions possible per day and depending what session you choose the intensity of the training increases. When you have matches you might also have travel which takes away from available sessions. Match Preview you need for the tactical information. There is also a Match Review. There is Match Preparation, and they all improve tactical familiarity. There are set piece trainings that give you boosts for the next game - again read the descriptions carefully to see what the impact is on the tactic, on what attributes are trained, which training unit (attack, defense, goalkeeping) is training it and at what percentage, or if they will be training individual roles. You also need to take care at the overview screen if players complain that they want a certain training.

It is a bit complicated in the beginning but then very intuitive and everything is described.

 

Thanks for the reply. I might try and make my own schedules at some point, but for now I'm trying to stick, largely, to the pre-sets (though I may make some adjustments, such as the 'match review' session). I was wondering how to decide which pre-set would be best. If my team plays a tiki-taka-esque style, is selecting the tiki taka pre-set every week a reasonable idea, or are there any drawbacks? If so, how do I decide when to use it and when not, that kind of thing.

I might check those videos out though, thank you.

[Which training schedules to use, and how to use match preparation]

15 hours ago, zlatanera said:

You should keep Match Preview - I believe its necessary for the pre-match tactical briefing (which has always seemed undercooked, but if I get red thumbs down my team usually performs worse so it must have some effect). I'm still on FM19 but I know some are included in the 'Big Match Preparation' scenario. Match Review after the match is a great session which is only available if you add it in, it doesn't appear in any of the presets. I would strongly advise doing so, even if you ignore the rest of what I post.

I personally have found great success using - for my first team - schedules that are almost entirely filled with Match Preparation sessions. I was 'inspired' (copied, initially at least) by a post on strikerless which used them for youth team training as they are the best way to get players training their assigned individual roles (for outfield players the general Goalkeeping session, Att. Movement, Def. Shape, and Match Practice all train individual roles, goalkeepers get the same minus the Goalkeeping session). I ended up with schedules like this:

Most of these sessions have a boost for the upcoming match i.e. Att. Movement focuses on Attacking Movement (obvious, right?) and passing, whilst the Delivery session improves your set piece delivery. It boosts your overall familiarity and Team Cohesion. Each boost only applies once, I'm only doubling down on the sessions as it allows me to control my players' development more. I always play with large squads for youth development, but the low intensity means I rarely ever get any injuries too. 

Now you could see it as gaming the system, but given how modern managers complain they don't have time to do much beyond getting ready for the next game I think it's realistic. 

 

That's a really interesting way of looking at it, I hadn't paid a great deal of attention to the fact that those sessions train the players in their assigned roles. It makes sense when you explain it in that way.

Could I ask what the 'match review' that you recommended does?

[Good player trait suggestions for defenders]

Just now, Johnny Ace said:

Brings ball out of defense is very nice to have on a ball playing defender. 

The "Dives into tackles" makes me a bit twitchy but with good Tackling, Positioning & Anticipation, it's not normally a problem 

Runs on the Ball often & Runs with the ball through the centre are good to have on Libero's

Stay back at all times, then the passing ones can be useful depending on how you play 

Thanks, I'd forgotten about that first one, I remember signing VVD from Liverpool on FM19 I think (around £25million somehow, one of the best transfers I've ever made!) and he had it, completely transformed how the team played.

What do you think about the tight marking trait? Would you want that on any defender with excellent marking?

[Good player trait suggestions for defenders]

Good player traits for attackers can be fairly straightforward. For example, an an inside forward who you want to score goals will likely have 'cut inside,' 'get into area,' etc.

But I am struggling to think of good player traits for more defensive players. When would you want your centre backs to 'mark tighter'? What would govern your choice between 'dives into tackles' and 'does not dive into tackles'?

[Which training schedules to use, and how to use match preparation]

I have never looked too deeply into the training schedules side of the game. At some point, I may look to create my own schedules, but that isn't the purpose of this thread.

I have two questions:

1. What would be an efficient way to set up the pre-set training schedules? and

2. How do you effectively use the 'match preparation' sessions?

At the moment, my team plays with a slightly modified tiki taka, and so I almost every week I select 'tactical style - tiki taka' as the weekly training schedule. Something tells me that this is not a great way to do it!

Also, before every match, the pre-sets use 'match preview,' but I never seem to see any of these (except for 'match tactics' and 'match practice,' which are part of the tiki taka schedule):

I feel like I am missing out by not taking advantage of these, but I don't know what to do with them. Should I swap 'match preview' for one of these? Should I keep 'match preview,' and add these elsewhere?

Any advice on training schedule set up would be great.

[4-3-3 DM Wide question]

@made_in_turkey4If the tactic is working, and you're happy with the results, definitely stick with it.

For me, looking at the tactic, there are still too many players desperate to get forward at all times, and not enough staying back to create chances. 

However, if you're consistently winning 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-0 every game, something is clearly working!

[[FM21] - Possession-based 4-3-3DM with a Regista]

1 hour ago, Murcon17 said:

As I've changed quite a bit on my current tactic and to give an update of sorts. A lot of what you guys suspected and I also was wary of, happened quite quickly with the Advanced Forward. When there wasn't the space or opportunity to play him in with long balls over the top or through balls, there was a complete inability of the team to even attempt to build-up play through the middle of the park. And especially against stronger opposition sides what usually happened was the ball going out wide to the wingers, who then attempted suicidal dribbles across the whole pitch with varying success rates, but it looked and also played atrocious. And for some reason the defensive workrate also completely went nowhere, it honestly felt like the players just didn't want to do anything that could be considered having to work, they were mostly just escorting the opponent all the way into our penalty area without pressuring them. Results wise it was still kinda fine, with still some wins, but those didn't feel earned and they weren't. I think most games the team had 5-6 shots and an xG of 0.2-0.3. While trying to fixing the tactic, I also got pretty fed up with the Hertha players and decided to try again with a different club (I really wonder how many real life managers wish they could do that sometimes, just reload and take a different team) and as I also read something about the Bundesliga having ridicilously high pass completion rates, which I also saw in my own save, no club was below 85%. I swapped over to Nantes and rebuild the tactic.

This is the current look of the tactic, where I tried to adress most problems and concerns I found. Both the IF(S) and the IW(A) I felt were way too dribble heavy, always preferring to try to dribble across the whole field and shooting instead of being more involved in trying to build up an attack, which is why I've now gone with an IW(S) and a W(S) on the opposite side, to have some stretch a bit wider on one side as being too narrow on both flanks also felt like an issue. I still do use an opposite footed player on the right side at times, as that can create a sort of wider IW that doesn't only cut inside, and was also what I used before the IW was implemented, as I never really liked the one-track goal scoring focus of the IF.

To furthermore rein in the aggressive cutting and dribbling inside of the IW, I've gone with an underlap on the left side to lower both his mentality and then raise the corresponding mentality of the now WB(S) so that he still attacks down the left on the regular, but without the dribble more of WB(A) (The dribbling was really driving me mad and I'm not sure if it's just a tactic issue, but also too eager dribbling through the ME, but anyhow tactically I can at least attempt to tone it down). The reason I went for underlap instead of overlap is, that as far as I understand the underlap instruction from guides by Rashidi and others is that underlapping leads to the players looking for and playing predominantly low passes inside the box, without completely taking away the outside pass, which is exactly what I want as I don't want to rely predominantly on crosses. As on the right side the winger will now be providing the width, I've gone with a simple FB(S), so that he still goes forward at times, but mainly stays deeper to provide some defensive cover behind the winger. I'd also really like to go with the same underlap instruction here, to achieve similar passing behaviour than on the left flank, but it would bump the FB mentality also to attacking and then he becomes too much of an aggressive overlapper, rather than this more supportive function on positive. The reason for both CBs now being CDs is that Nantes doesn't really have a CB that I trust to fulfil the role of a BPD otherwise I'd be using one BPD+CD.

To try and improve the build-up play through the middle, I've opted to go with a CM(A), as on the old midfield none of the three players got up the pitch fast enough or seemed to want to, which only increased the amount of dribbling from the wingers (I have nightmares from those dribbles now). The CM(A) now nicely gets early and fast up the pitch providing an advanced sort of passing option and pivot, similiarly to how having an AM would work, just starting from deeper. And as I was also lacking forward pushes from the central midfield up the pitch, the CM(A) has been instructed to dribble more, I'll be going through all the PIs later. The Regista and CM(D) stayed the same as their partnership works as expected. And to round off the lack of buildup through the middle I now went to a CF(S), so that the striker especially early in the build-up drops into the AM strata and is available for passes and moves defenders around.

 

Team instruction wise I've added the aforementioned Underlap left as well as a slower tempo, to try and increase the patience of the forwards coupled with them now being all on support duties, to easier facilitate the fullbacks and midfielders getting up the pitch, before the forwards decide again that dribbling will save them.

In transition I added slowing the pace down to also help with building properly and controlled from the back, to achieve the playstyle I want; if I could get them to play like Spain did against Germany yesterday, I'd be ecstatic, because Spain's build-up from the back was beautiful. And while I'm generally a fan of letting the keeper decide where to distribute the ball, he was hoofing it up field to often for my liking, hence the instruction to distribute it to the backline.

And defensively is still the same with the higher line to congest the space and move the whole formation closer together and with the offside trap to help the defenders in maintaining the high line.

PI wise the front three are still instructed to close down more, but to help with that press when the opponent moves forward into our half the two CMs are also now instructed to close down more, which seemed to really help the lack of pressure on the ball in our own half. The CM(A) also has the aforementioned dribble more and the CM(D) has been instructed to also stay wider in possession, which both opens up the space centrally when the Regista pushes level and beyond him and also covers the vacated space on the left flank left by the LB a bit better. And due to the LB providing the width and the CM(D) staying behind to fill the gap in the left AM strata, the IW(S) has also been told to sit narrower when in possession to be available as an option.

 

Still early days with this current iteration, but it's looking more promising so far. Been generally in the lead in terms of possession as well as completed passes and while in some games the tactic struggles to create a lot of shots, it's mostly been hovering around 7-8 shots per game, most of those have been high quality with an xG/shot ratio of 0.15-0.2. And in a more game sense I've also been wondering where exactly the Regista ends and the DLP starts, as while the distinction in the game is pretty clear cut, it obviously isn't with how players like Pirlo or more recent Jorginho under Sarri played. I certainly will experiment at least with trying the DLP against bigger sides as the Regista due to his aggressiveness, will always leave the formation more vulnerable to the counter than a DLP would, but it would feel kind of wrong to not use the Regista role, when it is in the game.

Improvement wise I'd defintely like to see more passes attempted into the box from wider areas as well as centrally, which could be achieved with work ball into the box or maybe focus play through the middle, but I'm kinda wary of either, as I feel like direction play to the middle could make it too narrow again, and working the ball into the box in conjunction with short passing and lower tempo may end up being overkill. Do any of you have experience or attempted something in that direction?

The new set up looks really nice, I'd be interested to see how it plays. I might try the Reg(s) and CM(d) set up myself in some games.

The only suggestion I would make would be don't underlap on the left, it seems contradictory to the roles you have chosen (IW(s) comes inside, and should surely be overlapped by the WB(s)). Ideally, the WB(s) overlapping should occupy the opposing full back, stretching the defence, and giving your team more room to move in the middle.

I haven't used the narrow width with focus through middle, but I just saw a video by @Rashidi on it, and it looks like it could work. I'll probably give it a go, as long as the opposition are not relying on multiple DMs. Definitely worth a try, and might get the sort of build up you want.

[[FM21] - Possession-based 4-3-3DM with a Regista]

1 hour ago, DudeRat said:

Great advice @ryandormer, i've also had (some) success using similar roles and movement is key. Not had a great deal of time on FM21 yet but I suspect it is similar to FM20 in that the ME really penalises possession based tactics. It's common to see 60% + possession, 30 shots to you 2 against and draw 1-1... or lose!

I tend to use an IF one side and Winger the other. Behind the winger I tend to use an IWB and on that side I play the more attacking central midfielder, the IWB then covers some of his marauding play. The one question I would like to ask you @ryandormer is how have you managed to create a very fluid system with your roles as the majority of them need to be support?  It might be 7 or 8 in a balanced mentality.

I've always looked to play a very fluid system, but you are somewhat shoehorned into choosing certain duties to keep the fluidity. I often use 'Be more Expressive' as I just believe creative players should be given license to use flair to add an extra dimension to the movement and passing. However, in FM20 thid did not always translate into much during matches, except players deciding not to defend as well!!

I had the same hesitation--I always wanted to use 'very fluid' in FM20, but it only ever worked when my team was already head and shoulders above every other team, so it didn't really feel like an achievement! I think the engine in FM21 makes 'very fluid' quite viable again. Some of the movement that is possible in the final third on this engine is superb, I really enjoy this game. Credit to SI for being able to get it out.

Essentially, I took the 'tiki taka' pre-set, and removed any instructions that I thought were unnecessary/unhelpful. The instructions I normally add during game, if required, are 'overlap right' and 'focus play down the right.' Sometimes I increase the width if I struggle to break teams down. I haven't felt the need to use 'be more expressive' yet. I packed the team with support duties, only using one attack duty in midfield to bridge the gap between CM and CF. So the tactic looks like this:

Sometimes I change the CF(s) to F9.

Table currently looks like this:

These were the stats for my home win against Barcelona:

To relate it back to @Murcon17's original post, I wouldn't use a regista in my system because I want both central midfielders in front of the DM to get forward (albeit to different extents). If I did use a regista, as @Murcon17 wants to, I would probably amend the roles to:

In FM20, it was really difficult to get the front three to offer enough penetration if they were all on support (unless you did something like @Rashidi did with liquid), but I've not had that problem so far with the FM21 engine.

[[FM21] - Possession-based 4-3-3DM with a Regista]

4 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

For me the biggest problem you have is in entirely lacking any central penetration. You midfielders and striker are just always going to be so far away from each other that almost all of your play is going to be long balls toward the striker or more likely down the flanks. None of this will suit the regista. Worse, your roles in midfield are encouraging teams to defend in the area with the regista, which will result in him lacking both space and time.

Playing with an AF in this formation is trying to create space between midfield and defence. It will keep the CDs deeper to deal with the AF, who is not going to drift deep. However he is always outnumbered, so that it is a problem, and he entirely lacks support so he will have to do things by himself. 

What you really want to be doing here is giving the opposition midfield and defenders some questions to answer. Having the striker drop off the defensive line towards the AMC area, and having a midfielder joining to the same area will create choices for opposition players to make. Who picks up whom? Do CDs drop with the striker? Does a midfielder pick him up? If the midfielder picks him up who deals with the attacking CM? If the CD picks him up who deals with the wingers cutting inside? This is advantageous because opposition players making the wrong choice will create space, and you can exploit that space. And even better, if you make the midfield have to do things closer to their defence, they are further away from the regista, and so he can have more influence on the game. 

Agree with this advice.

I'm playing with Arsenal at the moment, and after a very lucky second place finish in season one, I have switched to a very fluid possession tactic for season two, and it has been unbelievable. Smashed Barcelona in the Champions League 3-0 at home, 4-1 away, as well as beating Man Utd and Man City away.

The critical thing for my tactic has been filling the gap left between striker and central midfield, and I do that with either a F9 or CF(s) and a CM(a). Opposing defenders get dragged all over the place. As @sporadicsmiles said, defenders then have difficult choices to make. Do they follow the striker who has dropped deep, or hold the line? Do they push up to close down the CM(a) who is making a forward run into the box? Etc.

With your set up, you'll probably find that one of the opposing centre backs is always able to mark Piatek fairly comfortably.

Also, you have a positive mentality, and so even with 'shorter passing,' the tempo is likely to be slightly higher, and so the team will probably try more forward passes than sideways or backwards. This will probably give your full backs less time to get forward and overlap. As such, opposing full backs can probably mark your wide players fairly comfortably.

Given that both central midfielders have fairly conservative roles, the regista probably has very few passing options available. The full backs won't have had time to get forward, the central midfielders have no intention of moving forward, and all three attackers are marked out of the game.

Since the regista is an aggressive playmaking role, with roaming by default, you'll probably want one of the central midfielders to be quite conservative, but the other should get forward and support the attack. I think something like this:

CM(d)          CM(a)

Reg(s)

This way, you can still have an aggressive left-sided full back, with a slightly less aggressive right-sided full back to account for the CM(a) on that side. The CM(a) should get forward to support the attack, leaving space for the regista to roam into. If you use a supporting striker, the regista should have tons of options to pass to.

You should see 'overlaps' everywhere, which should help with possession football:

Left WB(a) overlaps CM(d);

Left WB(a) also overlaps left IW(s);

Reg(s) 'overlaps' CM(d); and

CM(a) 'overlaps' the supporting striker.

The right WB(s), if you stick with that role, will also overlap sometimes, but not as often as the left one.

Possibly consider dropping the tempo slightly, too, to give the full backs time to get forward.

I wasn't expecting this to be such a long post, but I hope it helps!

[4-3-3 DM Wide question]

Lack of creator

Although you don't have to play with a playmaker if you don't want to, I think part of the problem might be the lack of creator in the midfield three. I read a guide years ago ( cannot remember who wrote it, so can't give credit) that suggested that your midfield should ideally include a defender, a creator, and a runner (several roles would be a combination of those). In your midfield, you have a defender (DM(d)) and two runners (BBM(s) x2), but no creator. Additionally, all wide players--wingers and full backs--are on an attack duty, so they are predominantly runners, too.

If you really don't want the DM to be a 'creator,' then maybe one of your centre midfield duo should be. Perhaps try a RPM, so he can be both a creator and a runner. That would leave you with your two CM roaming from their position, and might cause an issue with shape, but it could still work. But I would be tempted to change one of the BBMs to something like an AP(s).

Alternatively, if you were willing to try the DM as a creator, change him to DLP(d) or (s), and leave both centre midfielders on BBM, and see if that works.

I'd probably also have one of the wide attackers on support also, so he can help the midfield.

However...

Too much roaming

I also wouldn't set all of the attackers to roam. Firstly, you have 'be more expressive' ticked, which makes the players more likely to roam a little bit anyway. Both midfielders are BBM, and so they will roam by default, and even more so with the BME instruction. Then you have specifically asked all three attackers to roam. The only players holding any kind of shape are the centre backs and the DM.

Hope that helps a little!

[Cannot assign U18 and U23 coaches]

In FM20, even when U18 and U23 duties were fully delegated, you could still assign training coaches. However, the UI doesn't let you do it in FM21.

You can still do it when you sign a new coach--it gives you the option to assign the new coach, and you can also re-assign everyone else--but you cannot do it otherwise.

[How to combat 'park the bus']

@RashidiThanks for the suggestions, I'll give those a go. Adding the focus down right might be a good idea to exaggerate the overload.