Mainz 3rd Season - It's all going wrong

[jimbobBRFC]

Hi all,

I used to be quite a common poster on these forums and fell out of love with the game around FM14 mainly due to a lack of time to really spend getting used to the game. Even into FM16 I was still not 100% back into it, that's until I started a save with Mainz. Inspired by the journeys of Klopp and Tuchel I decided to give it a go. First season was mainly one of consolidation and managed a 9th placed finish, second season was a stormer and we managed to comfortably make 4th place and guaranteed European competition. I didn't change much personal wise over the summer as I was happy with the squad and had a lot of youth prospects ready to make the step up, I didn't lose many players either so the squad is nigh on identical. Since the start of the 3rd season things have, simply put, gone off the rails! 5 games in, 2 draws and 3 losses including an 4-0 demolishing at the hands of Bayern. I'm asking for a bit of tactical help here, just to see if I am missing anything glaring. I usually play in a more counter attacking high tempo style:

Standard

Counter

Slightly Deeper Line, High Tempo, Direct Passing, Exploit the Flanks.

-------------------GK-------------------

-WB(S)---DC(D)-------DC(D)---WB(S)-

-WM(A)--CM(D)-CM(A)-DLP(S)--W(S)-

-------------------------------------------

------------------F9(S)--------------------

I do have quite a lot of individual player instructions which I will quickly try to summarise

GK: Distribute to flanks, distribute quickly

DC's: Closing down less

WM(A): Sit narrower, cut inside, get further forward, close down more

CM(D) & DLP(S): Hold position close down less

CM(A): Close down more, get further forward

W(S): Close down more

F9(S): Close down more

In possession it plays a lot more like a 4-1-2-2-1 but falls back into a flat 4-5-1 when defending.

Any suggestions/thoughts from anyone or much appreciated. I've developed quite the attachment to this Mainz side and don't want to throw it all away.

Thanks,

James

[summatsupeer]

It looks like you've gave instructions to play counter, but you don't need to, if there is a counter attack available your players will ignore your instructions and go for it.

Your instructions are what you are going to do if there is no counter attack. I wouldn't be surprised if your lone ST was a bit isolated and your just giving it back quickly and having to soak up more pressure.

I think you need to come up with a plan of how you want to play when you can't counter. Playing direct anyway is fine but you'll need the formation and physical players to win it and to have close support.

Rather than me repeating it, have a read of Cleon's counter guide: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/444680-The-Art-of-Counter-Attacking

[jimbobBRFC]

It looks like you've gave instructions to play counter, but you don't need to, if there is a counter attack available your players will ignore your instructions and go for it.

Your instructions are what you are going to do if there is no counter attack. I wouldn't be surprised if your lone ST was a bit isolated and your just giving it back quickly and having to soak up more pressure.

I think you need to come up with a plan of how you want to play when you can't counter. Playing direct anyway is fine but you'll need the formation and physical players to win it and to have close support.

Rather than me repeating it, have a read of Cleon's counter guide: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/444680-The-Art-of-Counter-Attacking

Thanks for the reply and the link to Cleons thread, Ill have a read through that.

So you're basically saying, because of my mentality etc that the team will try to Counter if the opportunity arises. The Instructions I put in should be how the team play when NOT countering? As far as I understood it, and I may be way off the mark, you should set the team up to try and be defensive to soak up pressure and then hit the counter

Yeah agree on the lonely striker point, the thinking behind the False 9 was that he would drop deep and try to get involved in play.

[herne79]

The idea of the Counter attack is to drop deep, invite the opposition to commit players forward before hitting them fast and in numbers to overload their defence before they have a chance to recover.

In theory any mentality and tactical system can produce counter attacks. It's therefore up to us to try to promote the chances for counter attacks to happen. We can do this in 2 main ways:

- Use a mentality that by default sets your defensive line deep and doesn't have much pressing. The Counter mentality is the obvious choice here, although Defensive also works.

- Set up your formation effectively so as not to leave too many of your players in advanced positions when out of possession. If you leave too many players forward, the opposition won't commit sufficient men in attack for you to be able to launch counter attacks. A 4231 is a bad choice as you have 4 players high up the pitch, whereas your 451 can be a good choice.

Further, when a counter attack starts, the AI effectively takes control of your team for the duration of the counter attack, ignores all of your set tactical instructions and makes your team very attacking to get players forward quickly and so create the overload. That's why any Team Instructions and so on that you set are only used when you are not counter attacking.

So, TL;DR - set your team up in such a way so as to encourage the creation of counter attacks. And read Cleon's excellent thread .

[jimbobBRFC]

Thanks for that ? I think I need to tweak my roles slightly to give a bit more of a solid defensive base! Thinking

- drop a MC back to the DM strata and make an anchorman

- switch fullbacks to FB(S) instead of wingbacks to tighten things up

- change striker to be DLF(A) instead of false 9

[summatsupeer]

So you're basically saying, because of my mentality etc that the team will try to Counter if the opportunity arises.

Kind of yes, teams will always counter attack when they are available, the requirements for the team to trigger a counter attack are lowered when using the Counter mentality (so they happen more often).

The Instructions I put in should be how the team play when NOT countering? As far as I understood it, and I may be way off the mark, you should set the team up to try and be defensive to soak up pressure and then hit the counter

Yes but you need to balance your formation, roles & duties and instructions to create space to counter attack. Since roles, duties and instructions are ignored when a counter attack is triggered, this allows you to use the roles, duties and instructions that control what you do with possession to create your plan b. You might want to go direct quickly all the time or you might want to keep possession and force them to press you. Two opposite examples but will require different roles&duties and instructions plus different types of players.

Yeah agree on the lonely striker point, the thinking behind the False 9 was that he would drop deep and try to get involved in play.

He will, but he looks for risky passes and to run with the ball, potentially running away from the players trying to catch up with him. My personal preference when playing a style where the ball goes forward quickly is to have a ST role that has Hold Up Ball (or add PI) so they take a couple of extra moments to let support reach them. If the ball works its way forward slower then the need to Hold Up Ball is reduced as support should be closer.

[jimbobBRFC]

Kind of yes, teams will always counter attack when they are available, the requirements for the team to trigger a counter attack are lowered when using the Counter mentality (so they happen more often).

Yes but you need to balance your formation, roles & duties and instructions to create space to counter attack. Since roles, duties and instructions are ignored when a counter attack is triggered, this allows you to use the roles, duties and instructions that control what you do with possession to create your plan b. You might want to go direct quickly all the time or you might want to keep possession and force them to press you. Two opposite examples but will require different roles&duties and instructions plus different types of players.

He will, but he looks for risky passes and to run with the ball, potentially running away from the players trying to catch up with him. My personal preference when playing a style where the ball goes forward quickly is to have a ST role that has Hold Up Ball (or add PI) so they take a couple of extra moments to let support reach them. If the ball works its way forward slower then the need to Hold Up Ball is reduced as support should be closer.

Fantastic response, thanks mate! With the players I've got as possession based system that draws the opponent on wouldn't work brilliantly. I'm going to do down the route of a more pure defensive tactic that is solid and allows the opponent to keep the ball and draws them in that way. Then counters quickly.

Thanks for all the responses though