dolph11 Posted June 23, 2017 Share Posted June 23, 2017 I wanted to begin a career save and take a team from the National league south in England as far as I could. I've been hoping to get back into it after not playing for a while due to boredom/annoyance at the ME. Anyhow, I chose Margate so you know the quality of players at my disposal. It was obvious that there would be no tiki-taka or gegenpress happening in this save. I started of by using Highly Structured - Counter 4-4-1-1 TM/s SS/a W/a CM/d CM/s W/a FB/s CD/d CD/d FB/s GK/d Team Instructions- Deepest defensive line, close down less, more direct passing. I managed to sign (for this level) players who should be able to compete at least for a mid-table finish. My thinking was to defend deep and not leave any holes/gaps that could be exploited, suffice to say that didn't work so I changed it a little. This is my new formation and instructions Ok, this is where the help is necessary. I am conceding goals galore. Despite defending deep and on low-block I'm getting caught out with balls behind the defence and my defenders are absolutely calamatous. They are unable to win headers from crosses into the box when attackers smaller than them are right next to them. I had to use shorter passing and work out of defence in the latter formation to stop the defenders kicking it aimlessly into ridiculous areas of the pitch. So, my reason for attacking/control mentality - I wanted positive forward passing without hoofing the ball aimlessly or changing the tempo too much. I just want to have a defensive shield that defends as a unit without breaking ranks (which constantly happens with this formation despite the instructions) which in turn plays positive football when possession has been won back. I have tried different mentalities to combat the closing down and nothing changes except for the style of play but I will concede that I know very little about how the game works in reality due to its ambiguity so am genuinely interested in feedback to help me conquer this formation! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelossoul Posted June 23, 2017 Share Posted June 23, 2017 9 hours ago, dolph11 said: I wanted to begin a career save and take a team from the National league south in England as far as I could. I've been hoping to get back into it after not playing for a while due to boredom/annoyance at the ME. Anyhow, I chose Margate so you know the quality of players at my disposal. It was obvious that there would be no tiki-taka or gegenpress happening in this save. I started of by using Highly Structured - Counter 4-4-1-1 TM/s SS/a W/a CM/d CM/s W/a FB/s CD/d CD/d FB/s GK/d Team Instructions- Deepest defensive line, close down less, more direct passing. I managed to sign (for this level) players who should be able to compete at least for a mid-table finish. My thinking was to defend deep and not leave any holes/gaps that could be exploited, suffice to say that didn't work so I changed it a little. This is my new formation and instructions Ok, this is where the help is necessary. I am conceding goals galore. Despite defending deep and on low-block I'm getting caught out with balls behind the defence and my defenders are absolutely calamatous. They are unable to win headers from crosses into the box when attackers smaller than them are right next to them. I had to use shorter passing and work out of defence in the latter formation to stop the defenders kicking it aimlessly into ridiculous areas of the pitch. So, my reason for attacking/control mentality - I wanted positive forward passing without hoofing the ball aimlessly or changing the tempo too much. I just want to have a defensive shield that defends as a unit without breaking ranks (which constantly happens with this formation despite the instructions) which in turn plays positive football when possession has been won back. I have tried different mentalities to combat the closing down and nothing changes except for the style of play but I will concede that I know very little about how the game works in reality due to its ambiguity so am genuinely interested in feedback to help me conquer this formation! How are you supposed to win the ball if your players never press? You could use press sometimes and see how it goes for a few matches maybe watch them full highlights. I understand that you want to play counter attacking football but not spread passes to nowhere. I wpuld suggest high tempo + short passing for a quick transition from defense to attack and maybe pass into space for which I am still not quite sure as I experiment with my Diego Simeone tactic Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrench Posted June 24, 2017 Share Posted June 24, 2017 Mentality means how much risks you take. With control your team will defend higher, play more direct, play with faster tempo, with more risky passes etc. by default. With highly structured the deviation from this mentality can be pretty extreme. Standard could be a better choice for now, and see how it goes, maybe try out toning down the team shape to structured. The first thing that could be the main problem is how both of your wingers are on attack duty, which means they will take a lot of risks, and as they are high and wide during posession phase, transitioning back to their defensive position might take more time than usual. Changing one of them to support duty could be useful. Dropping one of your strikers to AM strata also helps out the defense, i prefer AM for this, but it is up to you and how fit your players are for the selected role. As for your defenders hoofing the ball: Having the right defenders is the key. You could select any instructions, any structure, if your defender is dumb weak in this area of play he will just hoof it as he doesn't have the intelligence. Good vision and composure are two things to look for. I might be wrong on some matters, and there are a million ways to solve the problems, but i hope i could help you out a bit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dolph11 Posted June 25, 2017 Author Share Posted June 25, 2017 I appreciate the feedback guys. Stress, I think the idea of dropping one the strikers to the AM strata could work, I was a little apprehensive to change a winger to a support duty as I want them to simply attack the wing with pace and cross the ball in, old school style. Still, I will take some of your ideas and hopefully it improves my teams performance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cholo991 Posted June 25, 2017 Share Posted June 25, 2017 First of all, I would try something like this ---------------GK------------------ FB-------CB------CB--------FB WM----CM-----CM-------WM -------------------SS------------- ----------TM--------------------- I would also maybe try to mix it up on flanks, for example, one attacking fb, the other one on support. On the attacking fullback side, I'd leave wm, and on support fullback side maybe I'd go with winger. The reason I would go with wide midfielder instead of winger on both sides is I'd want to defend narrow. You can always give wide midfielder player instruction to run wide with the ball or something. As far as the team instruction goes, as I said, I'd go with narrow, closing down sometimes because we have to close down at some point if we want to win the ball back, and if you defend deep, don't worry, they won't lose their shape. You can also give team instruction to stay on feet and to be more disciplined to ensure it. Maybe even switching from highly structured to just structured as you don't have so many (hardly any except ss which was your idea in first place) and you'd want to give them a little more freedom in counters, but I'm not sure about it, you can try it and see how it goes. You also may want to play a bit faster on counters so direct passing and higher tempo would be appropriate, but it's not mandatory. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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