Why is my 4-5-1/4-3-3 being so innefective?

[aston_martin]

Despite my failed attempts to get it work in earlier editions, I've recently had a go at putting together a 4-5-1/4-3-3. This post is C&P'ed from OTF2, so when it refers to a discussion above or something similar, it's referring to that, which was a discussion mostly about the merits of man marking and the composition of the front 3. Now my main problems with this system were in defence, although the attack was inconsistent, being brilliant one game, and none existant the next, this culminated in a 10 match streak of not winning, where upon I decided it was time to stop the experiment and the save and start afresh with shapes that I've used before. What I want to know is, is why was this system failing so badly? I never imagined it a world beater, but didn't think it would just completely and utterly collapse in to awfulness as it did. Info below:

My shape was a 4-5-1/4-3-3. I use the tactics creator so most roles will be as set in there.

GK: Enyeama/Friedel. No problem here, Enyeama was generally very good and Friedel provided adequate back up.

RB: Walker/Young/Beye. Played as full backs on automatic. Switched marking to man and tight as zonal and normal didn't seem to work too well. However, removed tight marking instructions as it saw them getting skinned by fast wingers. Reduced TTB to rarely after I decided they were trying to look for the winger over the top too often

LB: Warnock/Young: Same as above

CB: Dunne/Cuellar (first choice) Clark (second choice) Collins (third choice, rarely played.) Set as regular CB's. Were set as limited for a while, but this seemed to result in them hoofing the ball forward when under little pressure, which just resulted in lots of lost possesion.

DMC: Makoun. Set as DMC defend. Pretty solid overall.

MC: Parejo/M'Vila/Bradley/Gibson/Bannan. One was set as a CM support, the other as a CM attack. The support was about half way through my playing time set to TTB mixed as opposed to often as I thought that too many killer balls were being attempted. Bradley, Gibson and Bannan were all pretty solid, if unspectacular, M'Vila was very good, Parejo was a massive flop. Parejo/Bradley/Bannan were the ones who generally found themselves in the attacking MC role, while M'Vila (purchased in January) was usually in the MC support role, with Gibson/Bannan backing him up there.

AML: Young/Downing/Pires. Was an inside forwward supprt when Young or Pires played there and a winger support when Downing did.

AMR: Young/Albrighton/Downing/Agbonlahor. Set as a Winger support when Young/Albrighton/Gabby were there, Inside fwd when Downing was. Both wingers were set to man mark so they'd track their full back. Early in the season, wide men were set to attack, but that changed after the discussion above.

ST: Bent/Gabby/Babacar/Delfouneso. Set to Adv FWD most of the time, however were deep-lying fwd support until I changed my wide men to support. Returns were inconsistent on both roles. Babacar was brought in in January, with Fonz shipped out in January.

General team tactics:

Philosophy was balanced. Would start games I was slight favourite to win at home with standard mentality, games where I was heavy favourite at home with control. Games where I was favourite away from home would be set to standard, where I wasn't, it would be counter.

In game changes:

If I went into the lead in a game at home where I was slight favourite, I would change to Counter. If I went behind I would stay as standard until HT, then switching to control if I was still behind. If I was leading and I was heavy favourite, I'd stay standard until half time, where I'd then switch to counter if I was still in the lead. If I was leading in the second half, I'd switch to defensive around 65-70 mins, pulling my AML/R back to ML/R and sometimes my ST to support, other times not, both seemed to have pretty poor results. If I was losing around 65-70 mins I'd change to attacking. Would change to Overload/Contain from about 83 mins onward where I was losing/winning.

If I was struggling to keep possesion due to "misplacing too many long passes" I'd switch to retain possesion. (this happened a lot, Villa are generally one of the poorer passing teams in the PL, although the little possesion I often had was way past what I expected). I'd also use "pass to feet" if I was struggling to retain possession.

Now, where have I been going wrong? Because I'm completely baffled. If you'd like any screenshots etc to help me solve this, then I'll upload some.

[pieteruitterlinden]

Your description fails to outline your basic philosophy of play. What are your tempo and pressure instructions? Do you have quick wingers, or a strong targetman? in other words: how do you like your team to play?

To me this tactic sounds too much like a bit of everything (which I found out in the game means usually nothing). I generally find that three or less players on attacking focus means you are either playing a defensive (counter?) tactic, or you're more attacking tactic fails to deliver. IMO MC's'are key in this tactic, both defensive and attacking, and SC should be a genuin all-rounder.

I play the same tactic, with a considerable amount of pressure and with quick defenders who tend to push up. Stamina is a key for all players in this tactic, especially the two MCs, who I get great results with playing both as box-to-box's.