Can't win at home... any advice?

[bbgunn]

This is a continuation of the FM 2014 save I talked about in this thread.  However, I've come across a new, more specific problem, so I thought it would be best to start a new thread.

For those of you who were reading that last thread, I'm in my second season with Figueirense, a Second Division team in Brazil.  After getting rid of some expensive players in the offseason and bringing in some loanees, and losing some AMCs in the process, I made the switch from a 442 narrow Diamond to a 352 with 2 wingbacks and a DM.  This turned us into a defensive fortress; teams struggle to score goals on us. 

With the 352, we made our way through the Santa Catarina State Championship and won the title for my first trophy.  However, in the Second Division against better competition, something odd has happened.  Check out my recent home and away form:

Away form, last 5 away games: 4 wins and a draw

Home form, last 5 home games: 3 draws and two losses

Usually people playing FM manage to win at home, but struggle to win away, myself included.  But here, I have the opposite problem.

Before I go any further, let me give you the tactics.

AF (a) -- DF (s)

 

AP (s) -- CM (a)

WB (s)   --  --  DLP (d)  --  --  WB (s)

CD (d) -- CD (d) -- BPD (d)

GK (d)

Mentality is Counter and Fluidity is Balanced.

The only TIs are Shorter Passing, Lower Tempo, and Work Into the Box.  I use Shorter Passing because it's a narrow formation and Work Into the Box because I want to limit crossing.  Lower Tempo is on as a base setting, in order for us to be patient and open up the opposition's Magic Box.  However, I will change it depending on what the opposition is doing in the match.  For example, if they are heavily pressing, I will remove Lower Tempo or even change it to Higher Tempo.

The only PI is on my GK: Distribute to Defenders.

Let me explain a bit about my tactical choices.

• I experimented a bit with the mentality during the state championship and I found that the team seems to play better on Counter.  Possession and pass percentage stats are great, and sitting back a bit and being patient seems to open up a bit of space for my forwards to attempt to attack the opposition goal.
• Fluidity is Balanced because I don't want the team as a whole to have too much creative freedom, but the midfield trio is very creative and technically skilled.
• My Wing Backs are set to Support duties because when they were on Attack duties, they crossed the ball into the box too much.  My forwards are not physically gifted; they are more technical, and the advanced forward is pacey.  Against the Boxes we usually face, my forwards more often than not are not going to win aerial challenges against 4-6 opponents in the penalty area.  I'd rather try to draw them out and then attack goal via a well-placed through ball.
• I use a Defensive Forward (Support) because I like what he does compared to a Deep Lying Forward.  A lot of the teams using the Magic Box build attacks from the back, and I think it helps to have a forward harassing the back line and put pressure on them there.  The downside is that he doesn't drop deep often to link with the midfield like a DLF does.  On the other hand, my player there doesn't play well with a DLF role, but does somewhat well with a DF role.
• The Ball-Playing Defender is there to help give us some more attack options in this inherently defensive formation.  He is on the right side to try to link with the DLP and the CM(a).

Anyway, when we do win, it's usually 1-0 or 2-0, which is fine.  All of our draws have been 0-0, save for one which was 1-1.  Our two losses have been 0-1.  Again, I think our defense is solid and doing a great job.  But the offense leaves a lot to be desired.   The forwards don't score much at all, and at home they hardly attempt shots, which seems to suggest a problem with supply.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

(1) Up the Mentality for Home Games, say to Standard or Control.  I've actually made this sort of change at halftime of a few matches.  It doesn't seem to help much.  The opposition is already keeping men back in my home stadium; using Standard or Control just seems to pack them more tightly into their own box, meaning my MCs are making more long shots and my wingbacks are crossing more.  Plus it leaves me more open to long passes behind my slow defense.  One of my losses and my 1-1 draw were the result of that scenario.

(2) Change one or both of the WBs to Attack duties for home games.  Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and put more crosses into the box and see what happens.  But again, my forwards are not very physical.  Plus, ever since I switched both WBs to Support, I haven't seen many counter attacks down the flanks.  Opponents now counter via the long ball.

So, any advice?  Thank you in advance.

[Frank27]

Well, your own possible solutions sound solid. Playing counter mentality at home should only be done if you are heavy underdogs anyways. WB(A)'s will provide more of a threat to teams sitting back than a WB(S).

[bbgunn]

3 hours ago, Frank27 said:

Well, your own possible solutions sound solid. Playing counter mentality at home should only be done if you are heavy underdogs anyways. WB(A)'s will provide more of a threat to teams sitting back than a WB(S).

Okay, I'll give it a try, then.  Thank you!  I think I'm too cautious sometimes.  Perhaps some risk is necessary to win.

[bbgunn]

I was able to play the next three matches last night, the last of which was a home game.  Since my Counter tactic was successful away but too passive to do much at home, I decided to go back to the system I had used before which was inspired by Loverleaper's Tactical Central and Insight thread.  In a nutshell, prepare five different tactics based off of the five mentalities, from Defensive to Attacking, and use one based on match odds, home and away, the strength of the opposition, etc. 

Very briefly, in those two away games I used the Counter system as stated above, except I changed my DF(s) to a Trequartista because it suits that player's attributes more.  We drew the first one 1-1 and won the second 1-0. 

The home game was a titanic match.  My team, Figueirense, was 3rd in the table and we hosted the 2nd place team, Atletico Paranaense.  A win would be massive for us, since my board was expecting promotion with a team that was predicted by the media to finish 6th. 

We were comfortable favorites in this match, so I decided to create an Attacking tactic.  I kept the basic 352 formation, but made some changes.

AF (a)         

              Treq (a)

AP (s) -- CM (a)

WB (a)   --  --  DLP (d)  --  --  WB (a)

CD (d) -- CD (d) -- BPD (d)

GK (d)

As you can see, I dropped my right forward back to the AM strata.  The reason is that, despite him being "accomplished" in the forward role, that player plays best as an AMC.  I've always struggled with getting him involved in the offense, and he consistently racks up 6.4 and 6.5 ratings, even when the rest of the team is around 7.0.   So I experimented with him in his best scenario: a Treq in the AM strata.

I also changed both WBs' duties from Support to Attack.  All the other roles and duties were left as is.

The mentality was of course Attacking.  I also changed the fluidity to Fluid to give the team more creative freedom to break down the opponents' Magic Box.

For TIs, I removed Work Ball Into Box.  I was nervous about this because it meant more long shots and crossing, but I wanted to see if that would actually help us break down the opposition more.  My DM is really good at long shots and has a related PPM.   I also added Retain Possession to the already-selected Shorter Passing and Lower Tempo, in an attempt to further slow down the high tempo on this mentality and make my players take their time a little more with the ball. 

The result?  A dominating 2-0 win for our first home win of the season... after 15 Second Division matches!  We are now first in the table.  Amazing!

Some observations:

• I'm at work, so I can't open up FM and check, but if I recall correctly, we had something like 14 shots, 5 on target and 3 CCCs, with 57% possession.  I can't remember the pass percentage, but it was either in the 70s or 80s.  But what was most shocking - and I remember this clearly - can you guess how many shots Atletico Paranaense had?  Yup, ZERO.  I did not expect us to shut them down so well on an Attacking mentality.  I wasn't even trying to play a pressing game.
• Both goals came in open play.
• My WBs did put more crosses into the box.  Some were deflected away, of course, but despite a 6% cross completion percentage, we had some good opportunities.  Had certain headers been on target, we might have had a couple of more goals.  So crossing isn't so bad.
• Despite having Attack duties, my WBs did not go too far forward at the beginning of attacking moves.  They often dropped back to provide a passing option, then tried to beat their man to put a cross in from near the byline.  In addition, they often dropped back to defend when the opposition tried countering.  I was happy with that.  Even with the few times they were beat, my outer DCs did a good job of stepping out and challenging them on the flanks.
• My Treq AM had a 7.7 rating, easily his highest of the year.  He seemed much more involved at the AM position, effectively dropping into space and fashioning chances for the players around him.  Had it not been for my CM(a) and his 8.1 rating and one goal, the Treq would have been Man of the Match.  I might keep him there permanently!
• Finally, the other goal was scored by my DM on - you guessed it - a long shot outside the penalty box.  I'm going to have to leave Work Ball Into Box off for the time being.

Thank you for your advice!