[Mbappe vs Walker pace]

Am 11.12.2022 um 23:03 schrieb Wolf_pd:

Just make sure the sunday league player doesn't have 20 pace.

Well he has a valid point, at least since the last ME update. Pace and Acceleration seem heavily nerfed, probably to reduce the power of physical strong strikers like Haaland. It might have been over the top before, but now it seems weird, i.e. overnerfed as well. I just had Haaland up against West Hams aging Craig Dawson (Acc/Pace 11 each) and he wasnt able to outrun him (no carries!) all match long. I was actually expecting a tough one vs Kurt Zouma, who is a beast, hoping for the 1-on-1s vs Dawson to decide the match. But it absolutely didnt matter which of the two Haaland was against, as there was no noticeable difference between Zouma and Dawson.

[Manchester City Pep Guardiola Tactic Recreation]

Still, if i set up a 'Extremely Wide' tactic and set my AML/R on 'Stay Wide', i would want these players to actually be as wide as possible, i.e. more or less hug the line for most phases. Pretty much unless the ball is on the other side of the pitch and the oppositions defense line moved towards that side, and a cross or quick pass and therefore a goal threat is imminent. Otherwise these options, checkboxes and whatnot are more decoration than an actual content, as they don't seem to matter.

[Manchester City Pep Guardiola Tactic Recreation]

Yep, i used 'Get Forward' for both wingers. I also considered abusing the 'Hug Line' Trait, but haven't tried yet. It's a bit cheesy but i can guess one gets desperate ...

[Manchester City Pep Guardiola Tactic Recreation]

Tried the ML/R on Support and it kinda helped quite a bit regarding width in the final third:

Thats a good width from the wingers, even though i would like them to be a bit more ahead (esp. Sane) and on line with my striker.

Setting the winger to ML/R support had some drawbacks in other phases though, b/c the ML/R position themselves a lot lower when my team is not in position. Once i gain possession and get into transition, they are often so far behind that my team can't use them for quick counters. For example (Sane behind the ball going to Gündogan):

Or another example here (Silva making a forward run with ball, being far higher than Sane):

Where my midfielder had to use my Striker that moved out of the box to the wings:

He then ran up the touchline and put a cross into the empty box. Doesn't really help at all ...

Another drawback of the low positioning is the pressing of the wingers, b/c i want them to press the opponents fullbacks, which they are now having a hard time to to due to their lower positioning. I also saw the wingers stand behind the opposing AML/R when the opponent was in possession in my half, so that both my wingbacks and my wingers were virtually marking the enemy AML/R, which is just a waste.

So overall setting ML/R support wingers helps indeed with the width but creates two new problems. In the end i will have to decide what is the lesser evil. Maybe on a match by match basis. But generally i would prefer to be able to somehow set the width of my wingers, i.e. be able to let them use the full width of the pitch even in the final third.

[Manchester City Pep Guardiola Tactic Recreation]

That looks alright. Gonna try that out then. No. 11 is set as ML i guess? And do you mind posting your team tactics?

I am still not 100% convinced looking at the pic a 2nd time. Like i said, ML/R make a difference in transition, b/c they arrive in the box later. Your 2nd pic seems to be a transition with No. 7 dribbling into the final third and the ML/R currently doing the run from a deep wide position to inside the box ... seeing how their heads are pointed (towards goal, i.e. their running direction). But i will try it out regardless

[Manchester City Pep Guardiola Tactic Recreation]

Pretty much default: Sane as Winger - Attack and B. Silva as Inverted Winger with just 'Stay Wide'. Resulting in pretty much the same positional movements for both. I even tried 'Roam from Positions' on both in 2nd half, but didn't make a noticeable difference. And otherwise same tactics as above, i.e. mostly 'Positive' mentality.

[Manchester City Pep Guardiola Tactic Recreation]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Kharza_FM:

Yeah I had to ditch AML/AMR and do this as well.  It will keep the width in the final third.  I did a test to figure this out and broke out the editor and even added hugs line PPMs and still could never get the AML/AMR wide in the final third.  If you want that from your winger they have to be in the ML/MR slots.

I tried that and it didn't change the default positioning in the attacking line for me. Once my team established themselves in the final third (like in my above pic) the ML/R will stand in the same spot than my AML/R did. He just arrives there later. That can make a difference in the transition phase for example, b/c the ML/R start from a lower position. Lets say in a certain phase of play while my team is moving up the pitch, my AML would be 5 meters (sideways) inside the box and 15 meters from the goalline, but the same player set as ML would be 5 meters (sideways) outside the box and 25 meters from the goalline, b/c he started his run from a position that is behind the AML would have been (using random numbers here, but i hope you get the point). So it can help in certain situations and phases, depending how you set up the game, while it might also have drawbacks. But i don't see how it makes a difference in a high possession game, which is the topic here. See this pic with Sane and B.Silva set up as ML/MR this time:

 

 

[Manchester City Pep Guardiola Tactic Recreation]

Am 12.11.2018 um 19:14 schrieb cocoadavid:

I use the RM/LM slots because I don't like the movement of the AMR/L in the current match engine when the ball is already in the final third.

This is actually my main issue when trying to recreate Guardiolas tactics. Since his final season at Bayern, Guardiola likes to use natural wingers (i.e. left footed winger on left side and vice versa) in very wide positions during all phases, so that they are either almost always free enough to be an outlet for a pass or stretch the defensive line (if opponents fullbacks come to mark them), thus creating space for central players and inverted wingbacks that can do underlapping runs. Also with the added protection from counter attacks by the narrow positioned wingbacks. He strayed a bit from that recently by sometimes using Mendy as natural wingback with Sterling as inverted left forward. But this is about the general tactic to have attacking wingers position themselves very wide.

So much for the reality. In FM however, the AML/R position themselves simply way too narrow as baseline IN THE FINAL THIRD. They are indeed hugging the touchline while the ball is in the midfield, i.e. in the 2nd third. But as soon as my team moving into the final third, they run deep into the oppositions box, no matter what is going on in the game. It would actually be fine if they move into the box when the ball is on the other flank for example (and the oppositions defensive line moves towards that side too), but they are always there, esp. in a very neutral phase of the game that you can see this in this pic:

 

Unfortunately, there is apparently nothing you can do about it. I set the width to 'very wide' and tell them to 'stay wider' (in individual setup) and feel like to set everything in a way to allow or direct that kind of play. And tried a lot from fiddling around with 'focus play' to 'tempo' and 'work ball into box' (see the pic). But to no avail.

To me it seems that the game engine is just hard coded to position the AML/R into the box, maybe b/c the developers thought the outside space in that phase is for attacking fullbacks. You can ofc use them to occupy this space and it is how most teams actually operate IRL. But you can't setup the wingers like Guardiola does. And this is the issue here. If you wanna setup the wingplay like he does in the past 3-4 years, the game engine simply stops you. Which i find is annoying. Its nothing new though, as it was the same before already, but dribbling/tackling was a lot different and far more advantageous for the offensive winger, so he could still pull sth off when they get the ball deep in the box close to a defender, making good use of high dribbling and technical skills.

You see the latter issue and the consequences from the limited wingplay from my 1st pic and esp. the stats on the left:

- 100% Tackling rates for both teams is pretty much ridiculous. Its only after 33 Min, but the numbers still usually don't drop below 90%. Its not only far from realistic, its also no fun to watch such matches and not really tempting to deploy any kind of offensive tactic.

- Due to the limited offensive options caused by the horrible wingers positions, my players often switch to long shots. 7 out of 13 shots were long in this game so far. And i even set my players up to refrain from long shots!

- Also my ratings are terrible, b/c not only do i rarely score, i also rarely get key passes off. Even worse, despite totally dominating my opponent, my players ratings are lower than his! How can that be?

- Finally, i get my results mostly from set pieces. The good thing is that i get a lot of corners with my tactic (7 already in 33 Min here), and sooner or later, i score from one. And as soon as i get ahead and the opponent opens up, i might score another goal form a counter attack. But scoring from high possession play? Forget it ...