My take on 4-4-2

[nick1408]

Here is the mathc stats from a recent match of mine (I'm Melbourne Victory):

All the halmarks of a loss right?  Wrong!  I won this FFA Cup match 0-1 with an understrength squad against a full strength Sydney FC. 

I have been reading quite a bit of Ö-zil to the Arsenal!, particularly his Wales thread for my inspiration here.  I usually love to play 3-5-2's with MR/ML but haven't been able to get it to click in FM17 so went down the route I should have first off.

 

Identify Strengths/Weaknesses

The A-League is a small league of 10 clubs with a priority on Australian players.  In the first season I can have 5 visa players and this later drops to 4.  Knowing this, recruiting becomes a matter of signing the best available Australian players and filling the gaps in the squad with the visa players.

There is also a salary cap similar to MLS and a Marquee Player rule that is the same more or less as the designated player rule in MLS.  The salary cap has far more rigid than MLS (not as many off-cap players) with only the marquee players and players on youth contracts not counting (there are a couple of other ways to have players off-cap but it really isn't relevant here).

Noting the above, I felt that due to recruiting being about getting the best in regardless of formation I felt I needed a flexible formation that could accomodate any player I got in.  4-4-2 I felt was the formation.  I initially went for this:

It wasn't ideal as I didn't like trying to force the hole in the middle of the pitch to be filled.  While it worked it really wasn't what I wanted as it was too much maintenance.  I even noted in an earlier thread that I would likely switch the shape.

While the above was working I needed to understand why before I could change.  The biggest thing I noted was what I was facing:

The first formation is the one from the match stats at the top.  The next four are from sides I faced at the end of the season prior.  What is one thing you guys noticed?  See how narrow all these formations are?  I did too.  I had now recognised haslf of my league opposition's weaknesses.  I felt the above formation was working but it was lucky to be working.  I was giving up the middle of the pitch.  I then identified that I don't have enough quality in the middle to match the opposition so had to decide another route to the front and the wings was it.

Now I had identified some formation strengths and weaknessed on both sides of the pitch I needed to work out how I was to defend so many players in the middle if I was also giving up players in the middle.

Formation

The above is what I came up with.  DM's to protect the central area.  My theory was that the opposition will shoot anyway but lets force them to shoot from deep.  The original formation I had FBs as both full backs but quickly realised this was a waste.  Why?  Let me show you:

I already have four players centrally defending so I can afford for them to be very aggressive and potentially supply crosses for forwards.  As you can see from the Sydney FC heatmap above they can't penetrate my  central players.  They have had a lot of ball in what should be a dangerous position but cannot find the final ball forward to kill us off.  It is what I see as an issue with such a narrow formation.  Just for comparassion here is my heat map from the same game:

One issue I had to overcome was how to get the DM's to also be a threat on attack.  Here are their PI's:

I plumped for a RPM as I need to have a playmaker to actually create when playing so structured.  Eventually, I want the ML to become a WPa (which is what I did against Sydney FC, above) but at the moment he acts like a IF.  I originally had the trequartista set as a DFd or CFs but felt I needed a target player (not targetman) closer to goal and the trequartista fulfills this role because he demands the ball to his feet.  It also allows the RPM to charge up and down the centre of the pitch and become another passing option.

As both DM's are operating deeply by positioning I also need them to try a fair few speculative passes.  I let them both try risky passes to try and unlock the defences a bit more.  Since the BWM will close down much more I told the RPM to close down much less to balance out the DM area of the pitch closing down.  It also means there is at least one player ready to shield the DC's if the other is out of position.  This has worked out fantastically,  More or less, I use Aiden O'Neill (on loan from Burnley) as my RPM with Terry Antonis as the backup.  O'Neill is more defensive and closer to a BBM while Antonis is an AP by trade.  They offer different options depending on what I need to do in that position.

The BWM I tend to look for is someone who can pass a bit but mostly someone who can win the ball high up the pitch.  I used O'Neill as the BWM a lot so I could also play Antonis but I also used Stefan Nigro and Callum Elder (Leicester) as they were more defensive.  If I got Mile Jedinak as an example I wouldn't play him here as his passing isn't what I would want.  While his passing would be useful enough compared to the rest of the A-League he would play DC for me.  I ended up getting Andrea Poli as a marquee to fill this role for the coming season.  He can both tackle and pass so should really play well here.  I feel this is the key position here as he has an important job in not only winning the ball but also supplying it to dangerous positions.

The rest of the PI's are as follows:

I have picked up Robbie Kruse from Leverkusen as my second marquee to play as a trequartista.  He isn't typically seen as a trequartista but as I said, I don't really need him to be an out-and-out playmnaker but I need him to attract the ball.  My strikers are not tall so targetman doesn't suit.  Playmakers attract the ball so I went this way instead.  Originally, I had him as a DFd becasue I felt I needed someone to operate around the AM area (as the description describes) and also tried a F9.  Neither of these players was either mobile enough of did enough around the AM area.  The trequartista finds space, attracts the ball and defenders while making space for others to attack.  If Robbie doesn't work out I will swap him with Reno Piscopo (Inter) or James Triosi.

Conclusion

The above allowed me to win the A-League and bring myself back into contention for the Asian Champions League after being 1 win and two losses at the halfway stage of the group.  The final match against Ulsan Hyundai needed to be a win otherwise it was a third place in the group.  I won that 3-0 and am now into the semi finals against Suwon Bluewings.  I also managed to beat Perth Glory (purple formation, above) in the Grand Final after they won the league by 12 points.  As I indicated, I will most probably be changing the LM to a WP if I can find the right player (most likely a visa player) but ultimately, it will be down to how I recruit as to how this formation will develop.

 

[nick1408]

I actually forgot to post this before:

This is the shots taken during the match in the FFA Cup against Sydney FC.  Look at how many shots they had outside the box.  The two inside the box are both from set pieces.  This means with the setup above every shot from open play is from outside the box.  Exactly what I'm after.

[yipster1986]

I'm actually trying something similar to this with the only difference being the 2 forwards dropping to the AM strata. Not sure yet what roles I should use for those 2. It needs a lot of testing  

[nick1408]

7 hours ago, yipster1986 said:

I'm actually trying something similar to this with the only difference being the 2 forwards dropping to the AM strata. Not sure yet what roles I should use for those 2. It needs a lot of testing  

If you were going to play with the strikers back a strata you could stick with the trequartista and have either a shadow striker next to him (what I feel makes the most sense) or setup an advanced midfielder to act like a defensive forward.

[nick1408]

Even though this thread didn't elicit any discussion I still feel there is a need for an update.

 

I have started a new game with RB Leipzig.  The above tactic was originally built with a future game with them in mind but I wanted to perfect it at a different club first.  The final shape looked like this:

As you can see the shape is the same with the right wing changing to a wide midfielder and the roaming playmaker becoming a regista.  I'll explain more on that later.

With the team instructions I have added three - Play Much Narrower, Be More Disiplined and Push Higher Up:

Play Much Narrower:  I felt the benefit of this tactic was limiting shots in dangerous areas (i.e. inside the box).  For this reason I am willing to let the opposition have the ball out wide and try and flick it inside the box.  I know I can defend these type of balls easily and do.  The other thing I have done to help defend while playing narrow is set the field size to minimum.  I found in FM16 that by setting the field to the minimum size my players didn't leave so much space for opposition to fill and if they happened to it was a lot easier to close down.  If there was a failed tackle or missed interception it was easier to get back to where a player was supposed to be or for another player to be filling the space.  Ultimately, a minimum-sized field was a hell of a lot easier to defend in a 4-4-2.

Be More Disiplined:  I read the tooltip here - "... ask players to play as part of a robust and focused tactical shape in order to make the team a stronger collective group.  It may come at the expense of some individual expression."  The bold part was the important part here.  Play as a collective and keep the team shape.  I want my players to be fairly central when defending to stop opposition getting into the box through the middle.  The second part is also important.  I mentioned in the opening post that I more or less wanted the roaming playmaker dictating play through the middle while I am using the trequartista as a pseudo targetman.  With asking the team to be more disiplined in the play only the really creative players will try something 'risky'.  Some may see this as blunting attack, I see it as only letting the appropraitely-skilled player do what he should - defenders defend, attackers attack and playmakers play-make.  I see the second part of the tooltip making the players play more like their attributes say they will.

Push Higher Up:  With such a defensive shape naturally I can afford to start the defensive phase a touch higher up the pitch with no real detrement to the actual number of goals going in.  It also allows a quicker transition when winning the ball back.

 

Player Instructions:

The goalkeeper has been asked to distribute to full backs and play fewer risky passes.  More or less to get the ball wide quickly.

The Regista is told to get further forwardas well as inhereting the instructions the roaming playmaker already had.  I couldn't tell the roaming playmaker to get further forward (the instruction was in red) but I could with the regista, hence I went with this option.  The roaming playmaker says he camps on the edge of the area but the PI's don't suggest this to me.  The regista dictates play from deep but I can also tell him to get forward to be an attacking threat.

Right wide midfielder:

A winger's instructions with one key difference.  I noticed during matches there was a lot of space infront of the regista/roaming playmaker when the winger got the ball.  I saw this as a waste and wanted my right wing player to exploit this space.  When exploiting the space I wanted him to have either a passing option or dribbling option.  The best way to achieve this was to hav e him sit narrower rather than cut inside.  The reason being that cut inside requires the player to have the ball while sit narrower is a ball-receiving instruction. It allows the player to make a decision rather than being pigeon-holed into dribbling up the sideline only.

So, what did the above allow me to do?  Well, it took a season to gel (finished fourth) then won the Bundesliga in the second season with more-or-less the same squad.  The highlight being knocking over Bayern twice (then again first up in the third season).  my 5 losses were to Dortmund twice and Leverkusen twice and an early season loss to Wolfsburg.  These losses didn't worry me too much as Dortmund and Leverkusen are really strong sides and I still scored in each loss.  I have actually found Hoffenheim the toughest side to face.  They play a 5-3-2 which I find hard to break down.  Other than that I am more than happy with how it is playing and the results I am achieving.