Can anyone help me turn this into a title winning team!?

[ryan91]

Hello all,

Soooo, I started a save a few weeks ago with Valencia (with the hope of bringing back some glory).

My first season went average (I finished 7th, not too bad but I had hoped for slightly better). Second season went poor (finished 5th, but choked on last few games or it could have been 4th). The third season was the worst yet (finishing 6th, but last 16 of europa league).

I am now in my fourth season and I am still struggling. I feel my team has the quality to finish top four, or even be able to challenge for the title (but I am strugglign big time!).

 

First off, this is my team (at least top three quality, surely!?).

 

 

These tactics have been used throughout my save, having a nice 13 game unbeaten run (including draws with Real Madrid and beating Barcelona).

 

T1

 

T2

 

This is the league table from last season (not awful, not great):

 

This is how things have gone so far this season (some shocking results):

 

 

Other points:

• I have struggled with morale from time to time. I have tried player meetings (on there own and as a team).
• Majority of games I am dominating, but not finding the net enough (despite work into box etc)
• Alcacer has scored almost 50 goals (in a season and a half)
• Majority of players have finished every season on 7+ average.
• I have had to sell 1-2 key players each season (expcept last season, every one has been her over one season except the Ox and the LW).
• We moved to a new stadium this season, seems to go along with my poor home records?

 

If you would like any more screenshots, or info then let me know. I would appreciate any help as it is becoming frustrating now!

Thank you!

 

[MichaelBrown]

I'm not an expert, but the first thing that pops into my head (for T2) is that your team is so narrow. You've got the two CMs, two wingers and a forward moving in to central areas which is an issue considering that'll suit smaller clubs who will want to sit deeper and compact space. I think the shout ''work into box'' means your players will avoid crossing the ball into the box (not sure about that) which doesn't take advantage of your full backs who're providing the only width in your side. 


Also, you've got ''retain possession'' and ''play out from defence'' which imo will limit the creativity of your players (retain possession limits through balls). Add the fact that the tempo is low and you've got a side that will dominate possession 30 yards from the penalty spot, but offer hardly anything further forward. This will suit clubs who don't expect to get anything from playing you thus explaining why you are dominating yet not getting results. 
 

[noikeee]

I've been playing a similar formation for many seasons now and initially I struggled in a similar fashion, getting okay results but sitting still instead of progressing my club. Eventually I turned it around and started climbing the leagues rapidly, but it was a very slow gradual process of fine-tuning everything until I reached that stage. I think possession football under this formation whilst deceptively simple, needs a lot of attention to detail to make sure everything clicks together.

Plenty of things come to mind looking at that:

- I second Michael's concern you might have an issue with a lack of penetration. Retain possession + work ball into box seems like overkill, you are instructing your team to not pass into space, to not shoot from long and not cross the ball, so all that remains is passing from side to side and attempting to dribble past players. I'm not sure this is enough options to break down any stubborn, numerous, deep defence.

- There's a lack of players running into the box. In tactic 1 you might have 3 attack roles, but your fullbacks will come from way far, your striker is a false 9, so effectively the only finisher is the IF/A. If I only had one change to make in your entire setup, I'd turn your BBM/S into a CM/A. It's the exact same change I made a few seasons ago (under advice of others here!) and it was important to add an extra target that makes some late runs into the box, and it helps link up better the striker with midfield by shortening the distance between those lines.

- By contrast I suspect your DM/S may be too ambitious when you have two fullbacks on attack role. You might get away with it in many matches, it might even be the right thing to have vs teams that attack with very few players, but when the AI comes at you with lots of attackers, you don't find your 2 CBs to be too isolated? Unless your very aggressive pressing game takes care of most instances and you always win the ball quickly? (I don't use such aggressive closing down settings so don't know). I'd consider keeping the DM more cautious at least in these instances. Overall I don't like the trio of midfielders all on support role.

- Still connected to defending and pressing, be very wary of how centre-backs and full-backs interact when FBs have attack duties as they're often lured out of position too easily, and experiment with the player instructions for both of them, to be covered properly.

- On tactic 2 I'm unsure why you added pass shorter and went structured at the same time? In my opinion pass shorter goes much better (goes great in fact!) with fluid, with the players much closer. By going structured you're stretching your side vertically so with shorter passes you are not using this space. I'm not entirely sure what are you trying to do differently with #2 compared to #1. What's the game plan? Stretch the pitch as much as possible with Structured and Much Wider? But telling your team to play much more slowly at the same time? Why?

- Consider going down a mentality to Standard, rather than adding all these slow down/lower risk instructions like "retain possession", "work ball into box", "lower tempo" etc etc, when facing stubborn defences. Going down a mentality will do just a little bit of all of this by default, and also make your players not rush forward as early, which might lure the opposition out. I like going down just 1 notch of mentality, but at the same time using the kinds of instructions that stretch the field (ex play wider).

- On tactic 1, what are you trying to do with a AP and a RPM both next to each other in the same half of the pitch? Seems unusual, is this intentional? You could either switch the RPM to the other side to spread play a bit more, or try to use this to lure the opposition to this side then play direct balls to a runner on the other side of the pitch (perhaps with one of the playmakers told to pass longer, and a Raumdeuter on the other wing instead of a IF?).

This should give you more than enough to think about.

[ryan91]

Thank you for the responses guys! Plenty for me to tweak about and look into. What I want from my team is to close down quickly to win the ball back and then pass around waiting for the correct opening in order to not waste attacks.. I want to close down like a Klopp team, but retain the ball like Pep's Barcelona (not sure this is really possible).

 

• I believed 'work ball into box' would be for my team to pass around waiting for the perfect run (a good oppurtunity to score). But maybe I am limiting what they can actually do.
• Some of the things I have added are from looking at tactics online etc. For example the RPM and AP (I wouldnt have done this personally), but on a forum/ tactic somewhere, someone said this worked well for possesion based football??
• I agree with the DM/S but I do change this depending on opponent, it is normally DM/S (and I did try Half Back, but that didnt really work out!
• The reason for so many players on support is also because support is apparently good for possesion style football as all the players have a close passing option?

 

I feel maybe I have gone a bit OTT on the instructions, which is what I always do lol. The tactics have been tweaked so much they have ended up very similar but with different roles!

Say removing tactic two, and working on tactic one.. how does this sound?

1. For instructions, do you think maybe keeping on 'control' with 'fluid' but removing 'work ball into box', remove 'retain possesion',
2. For positions, change the BBM to CM/A and maybe change to RPM to a DLP/S (for a bit more structure). Swap these position so IF/A on left and CM/A on the right of two CM's?
3. I want to keep my full backs on attack as they are brilliant and do alot going forward.
4. Keep the DM as DM/D all the time.
5. I would like my striker to stay on F9  as I feel Alcacer fulfils this roles brilliantly and contributes in creating aswell as scoring.
6. This would give me two playmakers, four players on attack, three on support and four on defend (including GK).

[noikeee]

Sounds like a good plan. I'd try that and let those settings play out over a few different situations, then start adjusting later according to what happens.

[Torskus77]

I started off with a similar plan of possession football with this very formation with my club Walsall.  I am now in December 2023. Climbed the leagues, won the Europa League, Champions League , FA Cup. Not won the League yet mind as Man United have turned in to some super power again, racking up really high points totals. 

 

On my journey I have learned a lot, changed a lot, gone back, changed some more. Personally I have found getting the right kind of players in is the most important thing.  My set up wasn't exactly like yours, I never used a rpm, and I mostly stuck to a defend role in the DM strata.  My team started to be a team once I had a player who could really break from midfield. Can't remember what the players name was now, but he was just a pretty cheap bargain I took a chance on, not technically brilliant but had great off the ball and physical and mental stats, was quick too. He stopped my team from being a pass it round and get no where team, in to one that won matches. 

 

It is very important to get the right players for the job you want them to do. For example, I'm not certain on Oxlade Chamberlain's stats, but I don't see him as an advanced playmaker, he may be able to play it, but you will find better players than him for that role over time, and bear in mind he is playing a playmaker role so he will be a focal point of your team. I moved away from being obsessed with possession a little too, you don't need all the shouts to have a large amount of possession either. Having a lot of support roles that blend well will do this on it's own.  I have also recently changed my one wing so I have an inverted wing back (never used the role before ever) and a winger down the one side, it has worked really nicely. 

 

Maybe this post isn't as much help as I'd hoped before writing. I'd definitely remove the much lower tempo and at least move it to lower, or you will just tip tap around too much.  I had those great runs, then runs when I couldn't buy a win, I put this down to teams not giving us enough respect to begin with.   I assume you used Cleon's thread about possession football for inspiration, which I did too, and I wouldn't dismiss anything he says at all, but I'd have a real think about what you want your team to do, what they are capable of now and where you want them to be in 1, 2, 3 etc seasons time. RPM for an example, takes quite a special player to nail that role, it's not a must, I have used a bland old CM (s) with a few tweaks for ages now, the type of player you use, makes a huge difference to how they play it.

 

I'd also recommend looking up  some of Rashidi's posts and videos on busthenet, regarding pressing, it opened my eyes a lot, and helped me create a better all round system.

 

Good luck

 

 

[OLLMEISTER1]

14 hours ago, ryan91 said:

What I want from my team is to close down quickly to win the ball back and then pass around waiting for the correct opening in order to not waste attacks.. I want to close down like a Klopp team, but retain the ball like Pep's Barcelona (not sure this is really possible).

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To retain possession like Pep, I would suggest using defensive mentality, this is such an undervalued and often misunderstood mentality on FM.

Defensive mentality will help with you retaining possession and wanting a controlled passage of play as this mentality takes less risks when passing, looking for the sensible pass in order to create openings in the opposition defence. It is in no way a negative style of play, some say it is the opposite funnily enough. If you have the ball, you cant concede can you? If you have quality players at your disposal which you seem to have this will help immensely.

I've been using this mentality with great success in my last few saves after initially struggling.