Building a tactic, the narrow way. Help appreciated

[sporadicsmiles]

I will give a little background about what I want to do here, the aims, and the input I would appreciate. The main thing I want to do is to try something new. I have had a lot of success in the last few iterations of FM using a 433 tactic, and have grown accustomed to the details of how this works; the combination of players, the type of players, how to get people interlinking, how to spot and adapt to different AI strategies within this framework. This is all very well and good, but I now want to try and use what I have learnt to develop a new way of playing, and to understand different combinations of players. I hope that this can give me a better flexibility tactically, and also further my understanding of the game. I do not expect to become a tactical God, and have the incredible success that you read from some of the extremely talented members of this board. Instead, I want to build my understanding and to create something I have not used before, something that functions. I have started a save with Milan using a similar tactic to that discussed below, and it has been rather successful so far, but I have some issues I want to iron out. To this end, I have created a throw-away save to play with tactic, get community input, and to understand what is going on and how the formation interacts with itself and other tactics. I want to do this in a throw away save because firstly I will be less attached to it, and thus have fewer concerns about playing around and performing badly whilst doing it. Secondly, I want to use a good team so I can focus initially on the formation. Afterwards, I will perhaps repeat this process so I can understand how different player characteristics come into things. This may not be the best way to go about things, and I will take advice on that too, see what people think. Anyway, I will now introduce the system I want to implement, and discuss the issues I have seen previously that I wish to overcome, and how I plan to try to do that. 

The System.

Here is the basic idea for the tactic I wish to create. A couple of notes on this particular formation. Firstly, I know that Rachidi has made some very excellent posts on this, and I have watched the Bust the Net videos, and learnt a lot. However, the one thing I do not want to do is to just copy what is done there. While I am happy to take advice, I want to start from my own ideas and base (if that makes sense). Secondly, I choose this formation because it has a number of things I have rarely used previously in FM, and I want to explore this. Namely, two strikers, an attacking midfielder, a central midfield with 3 players, and no wider players except full backs.

The envisage playing relatively direct football, focusing on getting the ball forward to my front 3 quite quickly. If this does not work, I want to be able to patiently work the ball around to create openings in the defence. I hope that with 3 advanced players I should be able to create holes in the defence using their movement, for others to exploit. I would also like to have variable outlets in the wide channels, in particular full backs pushing forward, but if possible also sending wider midfielders into those channels to create overloads. The central midfielder will be more of a holding player to provide cover to the back two, since pushing full backs fowards in this top-heavy formation is likely to see me vulnerable to balls to the flanks over my midfield. I also expect to be pretty dominant in midfield battles against most formations I will face, given my extra midfielder compared to the 2 and 3 man formations I expect to face.

Translating this to FM.

Here is how I envisage this formation within FM, at least as a starting base. I will note again here that I have half a season playing a similar formation with Milan, although I went back to 433 often since I knew I could get results this way. Like I said above, this is something I want to avoid if possible by understanding this system better, so I can exploit it better. I have chosen PSG as my test team for this formation initially, since they have a good balanced side, and money to spend on improvements. As I noted above, if you think it is better I test this with a different side, I am open to suggestions. 

I have started with standard/flexible and no TIs yet. There is no point adding things to the system when I want to understand the basics. I can add TIs if and when it becomes apparent they are required. The same goes for mentality and shape, I want to explore what these things do to my team and performances by observing how things change when I change them. To do this, I need to see the base performance of this tactic.

I do, however, use several PIs, because as we saw above I do have some idea on how I want individual players to perform. I will also explain a little but about why I choose each of the roles I did.

GK(d): no PIs. Here I want to use a standard goalkeeper, since I do not have a particularly high block yet. If I change to a high D line, this could change.

CD(D): No PIs. Again, a simple defensive setup here. I may experiment with this as time goes on, but to start I will use a centre back pairing I am used to. In particular I want to see how they respond to being isolated in counters.

WB(S): No PIs. On the right, I have a less attacking fullback (marginally). I have to see how this role interacts with the midfield, and if we are left too exposed. Perhaps I will then have to change to a FB(A) or a WB(D). Since I do not really want to sacrifice the width, I would be reluctant to use a FB(D).

WB(A): No PIs. On the left, we have a less attacking midfielder, so we have a more attacking fullback. Again, we will see how this role interacts with the midfield.

BWM(D): No PIs. This player is there to break up counter attacks, acts as a solid and unspectacular pivot for the midfield, and to harry players in the AM strata the AI may employ.

CM(S): Close down more, move into channels. I want to have a player who will aid in build up play and get involved in defence. Alongside the BWM, I  envisage he will be very important in linking the attack and defence, and in recycling the ball. The close down more shout I hope will encourage the player to defend the left flank more often, helping with potential overlaps. The move into channels I hope will encourage him to move into the wide open space on the left flank, to link with the WB(A).

CM(A): Close down more. The close down more is for identical reason given above. Here, I use an attacking duty as an alternative way to try to get players forward and possibly attack the right flank, or provide support there. I do not include "moves into channels" yet because I would like to see what he does without it first. I have to make sure he is not occupying the same space as the attacker ahead of him. Ideally, he would run beyond that forward to provide overlaps and exploit any space created by the DLF dropping deeper.

AP(S): Close down much more. I want a creator who can link together all the elements of the team, and I feel this is the position to put him. From the central position, he can link to the flanks, provide through balls to the forwards or on rushing CM(A). I have to make sure that he has enough space to operate in, and is not swamped by defensive teams. In such a situation, I may move the play maker to the CM strata and use a different role here. Close down much more is to try to harry defenders and force them into bad passes, I use it often in my games.

DFL(S): Close down much more. See above for the reason for the PI. I want this player to drop deep, provide a link between attack and midfield, particularly if we get the ball forward quickly. He should be able to draw defenders out of position to deal with him. How he links both to the DM(A) and AF(A) is going to be vital to observe.

AF(A): Close down much more. I want there to be a player who is available to run into space behind the defence, to provide the main goalscoring threat in the team, and to be able to both exploit and create space. 

I plan to do a quick pre-season where I can analyse how much of what I want to see happening is actually happening. Really focusing on the interaction of players, their positions, and how we are creating goal scoring chances. With the proviso that it is pre-season, so too much must not be read into it. Afterwards, I want to put into effect what I have learnt into the league season. I hope this thread to provide an iterative improvement, and a sense of how it is possible to go from an idea to a functioning and enjoyable tactic by observing what happens and taking advice from others. Hence, the first piece of advice would be to look at what I have written so far and provide any insight into things I may have misconstrued, any glaring holes, any possible improvements, any comments at all really. In the coming weeks, we should be able to witness the evolution of a tactic.

[sporadicsmiles]

So let us have a look at how the base tactic I have created looks in matches. We must note that this is pre-season, and I have only played weaker teams so far. As such, I am not going to look in detail in the attacking or defensive play. The main thing we want to examine is how does the team look with and without the ball, what trends am I spotting, and how the players interact with each other. I want to see that some of the things I identified in the post above are being observed. Saying this, let us look at the results from one of the pre-season games, which was admittedly against a much weaker side. So the result is unimportant, as I said.

Here is how the team looks whilst with and without the ball.

With.

Without

This was a pleasant surprise when I realised what has happening. The BWM(D) in the centre is always dropping deeper than the rest of the midfield, providing the screen that I want in front of my centre backs both with and without the ball. This gives us a 4132 formation in defence, which is exactly what I want to see - as noted above I want the BWM(D) to drop into the DM strata to interfere with the opposition attacking midfielder(s). This looks like it should happen, but we will wait to see when we play "real" matches. The second thing to note is that in attack, the AP(S) drops into the midfield to make something that also looks like a 4132, although this does not catch the dynamism of the attacking, as I will touch on later when we look at player interactions. We can also note that the attack or support duty on the wing back significantly affects their average position, as expected. 

This dropping off of the AP(S) will hopefully space for both DLF and CM(A) to attack during matches, and the interplay between these positions is as expected. A further thing I have noticed is that we create a lot of chances from crosses. This makes sense, since the WB on the left is often alone in space, and is a good attacking outlet, who crosses to the central players. We often have 3 players in the box to get on the end, with 3 deeper players ready to recycle the ball. I am quite happy with this, but it has to be monitored to make sure we are not over reliant on crosses from the left in goal scoring, as a one dimensional tactic will suffer from being easier to shut down; just stop the left wingback, and stop goals. Here is an example of how we often look whilst attacking.

This is very offensive looking, although facing a lone striker as here, it is not going to be an issue. There are gaping holes on my flanks to be exposed here though, we have to watch for this in future matches against better teams, and in particular during competitive matches. One thing else to note here is that there is often a large gap between the left MC and the WB on the left. This is not ideal, as I would prefer my left MC to be closer to the wingback, but here the ball is on the right wing, and the midfield tends to drift across towards the ball. I will keep an eye on this in future matches. 

 

Here is another shape that often crops up during matches, which is what I expected to see more. This we see particularly during transitions or when we have the ball deep. A diamond is formed in the midfield, which provides an awful lot of passing options and would be a nightmare to try to shut down. We have 6 players in midfield at this point, providing a wealth of passing options for the CB, and almost ensuring there is going to be a free man to pass to in such a situation. It should be noted the opposition here were playing a narrow formation, giving my WBs acres of space. Against a team with either wingers, passing will be more restricted. 

One of the other things I wanted to achieve was my wider midfielders to be involved in play on the wing. I have seen plenty of occasions where the strikers will drift into space in the wider channels (not shown here), which does provide width and they interact nicely with the wing backs. However, I have seen nice evidence for the right MC getting onto the flank as well, and linking both with the DLF and the WB. I suspect that the wing back being more withdrawn encourages the MC on that side to sometimes take up a wider position. Here is an example of such play which almost led to a goal. The right CM has the ball on the flank, and the DLF has also drifted onto the flank to provide support. Note the space this has created on the left side of the pitch.

The ball is played into the DLF, who is quickly closed down from all sides. This has produced a hole in the defence, and a huge amount of space on the left have side of the field. There is a 3 v 3 on that side if the ball can be found.

The DLF plays the ball to the left CM, and during this phase, in combination with the CM(A) and AP has drawn 6 players to this area of the pitch. This has left a 3 v 2 now on the left hand side, and the CM(S) has the ball completely alone and in acres of space.

The CM(S) plays the ball into the WB on the left, who is in the penalty area. The defence has actually done a pretty decent effort to get back into a semblance of a shape here, but the WB has a tonne of time on the ball, to the pick the pass. He passes to the AF...

Who has loads of space, dropping deeper into the defence. We have the defence completely reactive here, they are all over the place. The AF, sadly, hits the post. But this was some lovely play where the players interlinked nicely. I could drag out further examples, but this was the nicest so far (albeit against a much weaker side, in pre-season, lets keep out feet on the ground here).

So, I now believe I have a handle on what sort of play I expect to see from the base formation I have created. It is now time to explore what happens if I start to modify it slightly. I want not just to understand, but to idea for how I can change play and exploit different aspects of this tactic. It looks to be extremely flexible (this has been noted by Rachidi in many of his posts) and this is something I am really starting to appreciate. So what will the next steps be for me to try? I have several idea.

1. What happens  if we have an AP(A) instead of AP(S). This is going to change the shapes we see both with and without the ball, I expect to something much more resembling a diamond. How does this affect out play, and is it a useful tool for our arsenal?

2. What happens if we switch the playmaker back into the midfield and change the AP to an AM? In particular, how does the buildup play change?

3. This tactic should be deadly on counter attacks if set up correctly, can we find a way to do that? As PSG I do not expect to have to use it often, but it could be a useful thing to develop. 

That should take the remainder of pre-season, and I hope to understand a little more by the end! Since my first 3 fixtures of the season are Monaco (N), Monaco (A), Marseille (H), I expect to have significant defensive challenges to come where I can really look at how my team responds under pressure. 

[ajsr1982]

This is the exact system I'm using at the moment, right down to the same roles and duties.

TIs I use are 'Close Down More', for obvious reasons, and 'Dribble Less', which is an attempt to move the ball around a little more and disrupt the opposition's shape.

PIs... I tell my WBs to 'Stay Wider' if it's not already ticked, and I tell my CM/S to 'Hold Position' to provide a little extra balance to offset the attacking instincts of the WB/A on that side.

Working pretty well for me so far, though I play with a lower league Italian club. Expect to see some pretty high possession stats! Good luck!

[sporadicsmiles]

1 hour ago, ajsr1982 said:

This is the exact system I'm using at the moment, right down to the same roles and duties.

TIs I use are 'Close Down More', for obvious reasons, and 'Dribble Less', which is an attempt to move the ball around a little more and disrupt the opposition's shape.

PIs... I tell my WBs to 'Stay Wider' if it's not already ticked, and I tell my CM/S to 'Hold Position' to provide a little extra balance to offset the attacking instincts of the WB/A on that side.

Working pretty well for me so far, though I play with a lower league Italian club. Expect to see some pretty high possession stats! Good luck!

Well, at least I know my thinking is not a million miles away from what other people are trying! I shall take a note of the TIs you have used with the intention of checking out how they affect my play at some point. 

[Cuenca Guy]

Whenever I've used a 4-3-1-2, I've used a CM(d) instead of a BWM. Doesn't the BWM get out of position a lot? I know he can stop counters because he chases the ball, but I've seen/heard it to be not quite as solid because of his tendency to chase.

[sporadicsmiles]

6 hours ago, Cuenca Guy said:

Whenever I've used a 4-3-1-2, I've used a CM(d) instead of a BWM. Doesn't the BWM get out of position a lot? I know he can stop counters because he chases the ball, but I've seen/heard it to be not quite as solid because of his tendency to chase.

At the moment, and particularly with the AP dropping back when defending, he is patrolling the DM strata, and so his chasing is actually a very useful thing to have. I did just do a match where I used a AP(A), and in this formation this player no longer provides the same coverage (I should make a most on that this afternoon) in defence. This means when the BWM goes off to the DM strata, or to chase the ball, we were left seriously short and narrow in midfield, and it caused some problems. Whether a CM(D) will be better in that case, I do not know, but it is something I may check. 

I will have a better handle on this during my first competitive games, which are Monaco (N), Monaco (A), Marseille (H). Those first two games should be fairly good for exposing defensive frailty. 

[sporadicsmiles]

Trying out new things. 

As I noted in the post above, I wanted to play about with the roles and duties given to my midfield to see how it affects team performance. I will look at 4 matches where I have used 4 different roles and duties, so we can compare, contrast, and decide what we like and may use at times during the season. 

1. Using an AP(A).

Here we simply change the AP(S) to AP(A), and examine the changes. Below are how we look with and without the ball. I should note that it is easy to observe the shape you see here, but it is much more fluid than it looks. I am not only drawing conclusions from this one screen, but I have watched back large segments of the match where I purely follow what my midfield does. That is for everything I post here. I do not post loads of screenshots here because I do not want huge picture heavy posts.

With.

Without.

What we can see is that, as we would expect, the AP is now much further up the field, sitting between MC and STC instead of the in the midfield strata. Now, I noticed that this has a further consequence, which you can see comparing the average positions with the ball here and in the post above. The midfield is now playing on average much narrower. You can notice this in the match, and the combination of the AP staying forward and the BWM dropping in deeper, often left the other two midfielders in the centre out numbers and easily shutdown. This concerns me slightly, because one of the advantages of this midfield should be to dominate, and this set of instructions apparently hindered this. However, there was nice link play between the AP and the strikers, which I liked.This tactic may be successful against teams where we significantly outnumber their midfield, so the isolation of our two central players is not so critical. 

AMC(S) and DLP(S) on the left of midfield.

Here we shift the playmaker back into the midfield strata, and go with a generic AM rather than advanced playmaker. I thought this could be interesting in games where we want to control the game from further back, or if there is a very congested AM/DM strata we are attacking. Here again are the average positions with and without ball.

With

Without

The first thing we should notice here is how lopsided we are, and this is a general thing. This is something I want to address separately at some point, because the right WB is simply not involved in the attacking phases at all currently. He does provide a good screen for his wing, but he does this all the time, and it is not always going to be necessary for him to do so. So the reason we see everyone gravitating to the left is because (a) the DLP is on that side and (b) the ball is often going to the WB on that side. Now I definitely do not like this, because it will mean that to shut my side down you have to shut down my left hand side. I need to get the right side of my attack more into the game. Usually, attacks down this side funnel through the DLF, and I have to work out how to get him more support. 

Another thing to notice is we have a distorted diamond, which almost looks like a 4222, which is not what I intended to create. This becomes very obvious when watching the match. Now perhaps I can find a way to use that, now I know how to create it, but I do not really want that right now. In defence, the shape looks pretty much the same in all cases. I should note here, and I will cover that in more detail later, that the close down more on the wider midfielders definitively works in helping close down the flanks, but as a downside disrupts your defensive shape (all three of my midfielders are closing down more either by role or by instruction).

AMC(S) with hold position, and AP(A) instead of CM(A).

Now, you will notice that the AM is in general further forward than the AP, and I noted above that this seems to cause a narrowing of my midfield, which I do not particularly want. Since the AP(S) has hold position, I decide to activate this PI and see the effect. Also, to shift the playmaker type and position. Here are the with and without average positions.

With

Without.

We can see that this provides the same lopsided midfield that gravitates left as noted before, and this I think I understand. The AP(A) here is on average in advance of the AM(S), and we get a similar box type shape that we noticed in the previous example. However, it is less pronounced here because a CM(S) on the left tends to drop deeper less than the DLP(S) in the same position. You can notice that this is similar but narrower to using the AP(S) in attacking midfield and CM(A) in central midfield. In this respect, I think this combination is probably not the most useful. It is also worth noting that the AP(A) likes to run with the ball, and this usually leads to him running into space on the right. Whilst this is something I like, it also leads to him getting isolated and losing the ball often. I have problems on the right side of my attack that clearly need to be addressed. 

AM(S) and RPM(S) for CM(A).

My final midfield combination that I will try here uses a roaming playmaker on the right. My hope here is that his inherent seeking of space that comes from the built in roam from position will see him take up residence on the right hand side of the pitch more. Here are the average with and without ball positions.

With.

Without.

So we can notice immediately that we have a wider base for the midfield when using the RPM, which is exactly what I hoped for. Even better, you would often see him getting the ball in the wide right channel. This is good news, because being able to effectively exploit that position allows to create more space in the middle of the park. There was some very nice link-up play between the RPM and the DLF in this particular tactic on the right of the attack, as both drifted out there. This prevented isolation from occurring as much as previously, and allowed the midfield trio to find more space (of course the BWM(D) stays in a deeper central position much of the time anyway. As I have noted, you can force the AM to sit deeper if you want to create a flatter midfield 3 by using the hold position PI. This is currently my favoured of the 3 central midfield playmaker iterations I used. It could also be possible to change the BWM into a DLP(D), and turn him into a proper pivot for the possession. That, I think, could be combined with a more conservative midfield and more aggressive wing backs, and be used as a formation where possession may be controlled. 

So, to summarise what I have learnt from doing this.

1. AP(A) in the attacking midfield strata can interlink nice with strikers, but at the cost of a narrowing of the midfield, and making him easier to isolate and mark.

2. You really cannot just stick a playmaker anywhere in midfield, because it significantly changes how your players interact. The roaming playmaker playing on the right, where we leave a lot of space to run into, is the best role I have found for this so far.

3. There is a problem on the right of my formation in general, and the right back is not getting involved in play hardly at all. In particular the attacking phases. This is fine for defending, but if I want to maximize my attacking options, I should work out how to get him more involved.

4. This is an under appreciated point I think for FM, but this has shown just how important it can be to change a few roles in a team. I have been aware of this for some time, but this is the first time I have spent a good amount of time analysing those changes and thinking about them a lot more carefully. Doing this is easy, and only as slow as it takes to watch a match, but it allows you to understand how to make your players do what you want them to do.

The next steps.

I have 2 friendlies left, and one of them is my customary "host a local side" final friendly. So this final game is not going to be terribly useful for anything other than getting all players up to maximum fitness. I may use this to see the difference between  BWM and CM(D) in the middle of my trio of midfielders. At least I can look at the attacking positioning of these two roles. In the other game, I want to try to address the right hand side or my attack. One option is to play with the role of the left fullback. Perhaps I need to try a FB(A), or even see what happens with a WB(A) on that side. The combination of WB(A) and CM(A) seems a little gung-ho and problematic, however, and I would not like to try that against teams who counter quickly. The other alternative is to play with my striker roles (I have not looked at them at all yet) and see if I can encourage the right striker to stray into this channel even more, and to have him supported by the right most midfielder and the full back. That is a lot to try to do in one match, so this is going to follow on into the season I think.

[JustinAero]

I've been wanting to start using a narrow formation like the 4-3-1-2 after using a 433/442 for a while, and this thread has been really helpful. Great work, and I look forward to reading more.

[sporadicsmiles]

35 minutes ago, JustinAero said:

I've been wanting to start using a narrow formation like the 4-3-1-2 after using a 433/442 for a while, and this thread has been really helpful. Great work, and I look forward to reading more.

Glad it could be useful! I would definitely suggest playing around with things when you do it. There is a lot of things you can do with these type of tactics apparently. 

[Thyra13]

If your amc had the ppm "comes deep to get ball" I find the ss/a is a brilliant role, I use ozil there in my 442 diamond and 4312 and he absolutely dominates. Drops deep to help buildup due to ppm and then with his high mentality and get further forward pi on, he the  drives forward from deep linking up beautifully with the 2 forwards 

Depending on who I play I alternaye between dlf/s and cf/s on 1 forward and af/a and CF/a on the other, not yet sure why different combos work vs different sides, but when I'm not doing well the switch often helps 

[sporadicsmiles]

First Game. Monaco (N), Trophee des Champions.

So, the first game came around, and it is the first of a double header against Monaco. I have to note that Monaco played midweek in the Champion's League playoffs, so they did not have a full strength side here, and there is a bit of fatigue, which gives me an immediate advantage. Monaco are lining up in a 442 formation. Now, I have not documented it here, but I played with the right wing back and decided to go with a FB(A), since this gives me some more support and width on the right, and balances the formation. I realise that I am probably not going to be able to play like that in every match, in particular if the AI has advanced attacking wingers I am going to have to adapt or risk being caught on the counter. Against a 442, I have less concerns about this, because their wide players will start from much deeper if I lose the ball in attack, and that means I can back both my full backs to get back into position with about the same speed their wide players get up the pitch to support their strikers. In cases where I face attacking wingers, I may very well have to be more conservative on the side where the AI is attacking most, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I have decided to go with the original set of duties I have in midfield from the original post. Here, there are no players in the DM strata, so I should be able to exploit that space. I have 3 players who should be moving in and out of that space; the DFL, the CM(A) and the AP(S). I am happy also that the AP(S) dropping into the midfield to give a 3 v 2 there, with the BWM sitting deeper is a good way to control the match - I should always have an extra player there, so the AI is going to have to decide who to mark, close down, etc, and leave a man free. In the end, the match ends as a very comfortable 3-1 win, which was aided by the AI having a man sent off. However, it was 3-0 at half time, and the sending off stopped any possible comeback rather than providing me with the chance to get an easy win. Here are the stats, and as you can see, it could (and probably should) have been a much more comfortable win. Too many shots off target, but 6 of those off target shots hit the woodwork, so on a different day, with more luck, it could have been 5 or 6, potentially. I am not too concerned by this right now, but we can monitor this as we go.

So let us take a look at the attacking and defensive phases of play. I have several examples of play to show in videos, but first let's examine a couple of things that I notice. The first is a shape that crops up in attack very often in this game.

We can see that now both fullbacks push high up the pitch, and give me what is in effect a 6 man midfield (with the BWM being deeper). You can already see from this screenshot how this is causing issues to the two banks of 4 that Monaco are using to defend. There is a lot of space out to the left, the AP(S) has dropped into central midfield, and the DLF has found a pocket of space and the number 8 has got possibly 3 people to deal with, depending on where the ball goes. This sort of thing crops up a lot, and it is ultra attacking. You can see that the wide players for Monaco are all deep, so there is no real threat to my flanks except from the strikers moving wide. Since I have good defenders, and a screen in the BWM, I am quite happy to have this. If there were players waiting out wide, this would concern me, and I would have to be more conservative with some of the roles. However, this is exactly what I want to see versus a 442, we are stressing their midfield. Since one of the goals was a penalty, lets first take a look at the two goals we scored, which are in the following videos.

First Goal

Second Goal.

The first goal is quite nice. It starts from a cross from the right wing, which is not cleared very well, and fell to my left fullback. Here the ball is passed across the line of 3 midfielders in the centre of the pitch. Here, notice how the CM(S) holds the ball up and allows players to close him down before passing it, as does the AP(s). This provides the CM(A) the time and space to pick out the DLF, who has dropped off his marker, who shoots into the corner. Here the midfield is working as I want it to, and this was very pleasing. 

The second goal is, I think, quite beautiful, and shows another thing that is working as I want it to be. The ball is cleared by my defence and falls to an unmarked CM(A), who quickly gets it forward to the DLF. The DLF runs with the ball into the wide right channel, which is something I wanted to see happen. He is quite lucky to keep hold of it as he is isolated, but the FB(A) arrives to support him at the right moment. He then puts in a great cross, and the AF(A) lays the ball off to the CM(A), who has arrived late and unmarked in the box to finish off the move he started. We can see that things are looking pretty good in terms of the chances we create. 

Finally, here is an example of a lovely move through the centre, which sadly did not result in a goal. This is against 10 men, with the AI using a 441 formation at this point. 

This attack starts as a ball passed to my AF, who holds it up and eventually lays it off to the AP. The midfield then recycles the ball looking for an opening, which they fashion quite wonderfully. You can see the passing by the CM(S) and CM(A) draws out the two Monaco central midfielders, which leaves space between midfield and attack for the AP. What is then created is a zig zag of players, who make one touch passes to each other. From CM(A) to AP to DLF to AF, who then ruins everything by hitting the post! This, though, was very pleasing to see, and it shows that we are not entirely reliant on using wide men to hit crosses. All in all, the attacking movement in this game, the chances created, and the quality of the chances, was very nice. The finishing could have been better, but I am not going to turn my nose up at 3 goals. 

Let us look at the Monaco goal, and then a few defensive passages and things that I noticed and are of interest to us. Firstly, the goal, which is in the video below.

This goal came directly from the kick off, and I am pretty sure that it had more to do with the effect of team talks and getting caught cold than anything I need to worry about particularly. At half time the score is 3-0 to PSG. I tell my players well done, because to go in 3-0 at half time against Monaco in your first match in anger is pretty impressive. I imagine that Monaco had a fire lit under them (I certainly would have done so). So take a bit of motivation with a bit of complacency, and you have this goal, at least in my interpretation. From the kick off, the ball goes to their left winger, who beats his man, puts in a great cross, and the striker beats both defender and goalkeeper to the ball. It took about 15 seconds from the kick off. Like I said, this just looks like my team had nit switched on at the start of the half and got caught cold. These things happen, and I have to take some of the blame here.

The two other things I want to look at (and sorry again for the long post) is how we defend when the ball is wide, and to show an example of how the BWM behaves very nicely and not as a mad dog closing everything down everywhere. Lets take a look at these two screenshots, defending on the left and on the right. 

The first thing I want to draw attention to is that in each case, the wider of the midfielders is closing down the wide player, and this is vital to this tactic working. I need these players to be active in closing players down in wider channels, since this is where my tactic is weakest. In the first example you will also notice that the marking is excellent. The fullback has the wing covered to chase a ball down to the AI fullback. The CM(S) on the left of midfield is covering their winger, the AP has one of their MC marked, and the CM(A) on the right is covering the space in midfield. Now, in this example, the ball was ultimately played long to the unmarked central midfielder, and we recovered out defensive shape. This example was quite common for covering the flanks.

The second example shows something that is quite dangerous, can you spot it? Now once again the flank is defended very well. The fullback is on the winger, right CM and AP are on the two wingers, the BWM here is covering the ball to the left striker, and the left CM is covering central space. Where is the danger? The long ball to the right hand side of the pitch. Playing narrow, your defence tends to drift over to the side of the pitch you are defending, and short of setting a man marking, I cannot mark the right winger and fullback of Monaco. There is an huge amount of space over there to be exploited by switching the play, and a potential 2v1 on my left flank. This is something I have to pay a lot of attention to, and have to decide how to deal with if it is ever exploited. Monaco never managed to exploit it in this match, but it is so important to be aware of your limitations as well as your strengths. Indeed, with the good defensive positioning I have on the right flank, I am almost inviting the ball over to the left..

So, one thing you may have noticed in this is that has not closed down anybody in these two examples, and this is a general trend. If a player is marked or not a threat, the BWM tends to ignore them. In both these examples, he is marking space to prevent balls to the strikers. Now that is interesting, and exactly what I want to see him do. When there is a need for a player to be closed down though, he will do so with gusto. Take this final clip as an example of that. 

We lose the ball from a cross, and it is cleared to the flank by the Monaco defender. This, as noted many times, is a severe weakness of this team in this match, with the roles I have. The Monaco striker runs with the ball down the left, and you will see my right fullback hares off after him to get back in position. He, unfortunately, misses the tackle. Now look at the BWM. He has simply been tracking the play up to the point where the tackle is missed. At this point, the Monaco player has a free run at my defence, and this looks very dangerous. The BWM makes a beeline for the Monaco player and wins the ball. Attack completely snuffed out, error from the defender is not costly. This is what a BWM should be doing, and in this case is doing. This is shown in his stats. He made 6 tackles and 10 interceptions during the match, only beaten by one of my centre backs, who broke up play very well with 14 interceptions and 4 tackles. I hope that this means we can have defensive stability and not closing down insanity from the BWM, although we have to have a larger sample size than one match.

Phew, I sure can write a lot.

[sporadicsmiles]

1 hour ago, Thyra13 said:

If your amc had the ppm "comes deep to get ball" I find the ss/a is a brilliant role, I use ozil there in my 442 diamond and 4312 and he absolutely dominates. Drops deep to help buildup due to ppm and then with his high mentality and get further forward pi on, he the  drives forward from deep linking up beautifully with the 2 forwards 

Depending on who I play I alternaye between dlf/s and cf/s on 1 forward and af/a and CF/a on the other, not yet sure why different combos work vs different sides, but when I'm not doing well the switch often helps 

Unfortunately, none of them do, but I will make a note of that for future use, just in case I come up against it. 

It is a good system you use, I can see why both those combinations of attacker roles would work in this case, both are going to create space for the onrushing SS, or at least give the defenders too many things to worry about. This is something I may explore in the future as well, if I can find the correct player (or since this is a throwaway save about understanding tactics, I could just give the PPM to someone - comparing having to not having the PPM could be very interesting actually for this). I also find there is probably not a great deal of difference between a 442 diamond and a 4312, except what you do with the base of the diamond. In the 442 diamond, he is deep by default, so you can be more aggressive with him, in a 4312, you have to make him be deeper and so be more conservative. This is a general rule for most formations that only differ by a single person, I find. 

Out of interest, how do you go about setting up the midfield in your two examples, and why do you do so?

[Thyra13]

In the pure diamond I use a bwm/d at the bottom tip. 

In the flat 3 I use a cm/d. 

The central mids are both always cm/s. Depending on the game and player I can sometimes either leave them both with only the ode down more often  pi or I can add get forward on one and hold position on the other. 

A few times in the flat 3 alignment I've gone cms-cmd-bwm/s

This would be mostly in games I "should" win but am not getting enough possession - Ie the other team is doing a good job just passing the ball around. I get a bit aggressive to win the ball back. 

I'm not very fancy in midfield, just want players to control the game, I play fluid so they have creative freedom 

[sporadicsmiles]

6 hours ago, Thyra13 said:

In the pure diamond I use a bwm/d at the bottom tip. 

In the flat 3 I use a cm/d. 

The central mids are both always cm/s. Depending on the game and player I can sometimes either leave them both with only the ode down more often  pi or I can add get forward on one and hold position on the other. 

A few times in the flat 3 alignment I've gone cms-cmd-bwm/s

This would be mostly in games I "should" win but am not getting enough possession - Ie the other team is doing a good job just passing the ball around. I get a bit aggressive to win the ball back. 

I'm not very fancy in midfield, just want players to control the game, I play fluid so they have creative freedom 

Interesting, I do plan to look at the difference between BWM and CM on defend at the centre of my midfield, but from what I have seen so far, it is not that big. I think the BWM sits a little deeper, but they both close down more by default anyway.

I think you can afford to be very flexible with the midfield, and the balance and link between midfield and attack is crucial for these formations. As you will see in the post I will make next, this link was very well managed by Monaco in this match, and they stopped me from carving too many chances. We also had a lot of ball but not so much penetration, which may be due to the AP dropping too deep. The centre backs never had much to deal with except the strikers, so in short I did not take advantage of the midfield advantage. 

It is interesting to think about being more aggressive when struggling to get control of the game. I shall bear that in mind. I also will consider the creative freedom issue. I have not yet touched either mentality or shape, they are balanced and flexible. 

[sporadicsmiles]

Monaco, Ligue 1, Away.

So, round two against Monaco, this time playing away from home. I can possibly expect Monaco to be a little more expansive in this match, and play their full strength side, so it should be a different challenge. I am forced to make one change to my lineup. Rudiger in at CB for the injured Thiago Silva (which sucks, Thiago Silva is a great CB). The formations are pretty much as before. You can see that Monaco are playing with more aggressive wingbacks, which means my suspicion of their attacking intentions are probably correct. 

In the end, the match is a 0-0 draw, which is probably a fair reflection based on the chances created by both sides. I will go into the types of chances created, discuss the defensive shape this tactic creates, and what problems we encountered (which were surprisingly few). First, lets have a look at the general statistics of the match to understand overall what happened.

So looking at these stats, we clearly were in charge of this match. We had more shots, more possession, and the better chances (according to the CCC, but as we will see this is really not the story with chances in this match). I want to draw attention to a couple of things here. Firstly, around 50% of my shots were from distance, which is far from ideal. This was because Monaco defended very well, and really managed to shut down links between midfield and defence, which meant we could not get many balls in their box. Having said that, we created plenty of chances in this match, and many of the shots on target were from within the box, just not always from great positions. Also look at the possession and the number of passes. Making more than 700 passes shows that we had midfield dominance, but scoring no goals shows I did not fully take advantage of this. In this match, I did not make any tactical alterations, because I want to focus on how we play, and doing so adds a layer of complexity at this stage we do not need. We can look at changes in the match at a later date. Lets take a look at the passing maps for the two sides, because they are revealing about how both PSG and Monaco played.

PSG                                                                                                                                         Monaco.

We clearly had charge of the midfield, which is expected given our numerical advantage in the midfield. Look, however, at how well Monaco kept us from breaking into their box. There are maybe 4 or 5 passes that took place in their box. Monaco defended very well in this game. However, this looks like a superb midfield platform to try to create more chances with. In a real save, I can imagine making changes to the midfield to try to unlock the defence, rather than just leaving things. In conclusion, that is pretty pleasing.

What can we say about Monaco? Two things are evident. They were playing very wide, they were direct, and if you watched the match (by the way, I can upload pkms if anyone is interested), they were also playing very quick football. They were probably happy to cede possession to me. Notice how much of their play is funnelled down the flanks. I do not know if this was their game plan, or a byproduct of my narrow formation (perhaps both). Given we are weak on the flanks, this is something to pay attention to. So let us look at a generic position where Monaco have the ball, and we are in our defensive shape. 

This is pretty standard for Monaco taking the ball from their own half. As in the previous match, this positioning is nice, and in particular the midfield is quite spread out rather than being congregated in the middle. This is important, because we need to be able to deal with cross field balls. In this situation, there is not much on for Monaco, either in terms of a ball over the top, or dangerous passing options. That is, save the ball out to the opposite flank, in which case my team would drift across and cover. I am very happy with this, and you will notice that Monaco did not really create that many good chances in this match. Indeed, the following videos show their best chances (and damn they should have taken one) and both come from errors from my players.

The first is a mixup between BWM and CB, who both leave the ball for the other (or maybe a missed header, it is hard to tell in 2D. Either way an error by someone). This allows Falcao to get free, and release Germain. To be fair, the ball from Falcao is poor and allows my players to get into a better position. If that ball is for Germain to run onto, it is a goal.

The second is a sloppy pass from Di Maria that is intercepted by one of the Monaco midfielders and played to Falcao, who starts a good counter attack exploiting the space left by my fullbacks. Giving the ball away like that is killer when you have attacking fullbacks, because they are going to be a long way from where they need to be, and have a lot of space to catch up. They end up with a 3v1 overlap, but again the second to last ball is not great, and there is some pressure applied to the striker, who shoots wide. To be honest, I could easily be two goals down after these (assuming I scored none of my own chances). That being said, these were clearly the most dangerous chances Monaco had, and that they come from errors within my team rather than their own play pleases me, because it means we were in general solid. I can understand errors in a new system, and unless the same errors keep being made, then I cannot really do anything about them. Note as well that this is an example of the CCC system for measuring chances, because both these videos show very good chances for a goal, but neither registered. 

There was another trend I spotted in this match, and it is that if my fullback is beaten by a winger, then we are very exposed defensively because the fullback is the last line of defence on that side. This happened a number of times on my right flank, and created a number of good crossing opportunities. Look at the following screen shot, and you will see there is a cluster of misses tackles where the winger has beaten a defender on the flank, allowing him to run into the space behind.

This is something we have to watch for in the match, because if it happens a lot, then I may need to give the fullback on that side a little extra help. In principle what I should be doing here is identifying the side which is being attacked the most, and switch my roles so that this side has the most support. In this instance, perhaps mirroring the tactic so the CM(S) and WB(A) are on that side would have been better. Something to try. Anyway, an example of how this looks in the match, so you can see how potentially dangerous it can be.

What about in attack? As I mentioned, we created a couple of nice chances by working the ball around the middle of the park, but only one of those chances was very good (which was the one registered as a CCC). The two videos below show first the chance that could have won the game, and second a chance where the play is built by recycling the ball in midfield.

I am not going to spend a lot of time decoding this, because I did so above, and we can see that the ball can be moved around very nicely in midfield. I have also done a crap load of this analysis in the past couple of days and I am probably getting a little overloaded with information. I do not really plan to do this and post every single match, but the ones are the start are quite important for looking at the trends, and writing it down helps my thought process. What I need to do next is first to see what happens in more games, and second to try to improve what I see so I am playing the football I want. This I will not document as I do it, but rather in one go to show the process. 

I have to also note that the whole point of this, other than to hopefully provide some useful insight and an interesting thread, is to apply this to a save I have with Milan, where I was trying to use this formation but was struggling to understand what I was seeing. So it is very likely I will play both saves concurrently, applying what I have learnt with PSG to the Milan game (indeed, I did so to defeat Juventus 1-0 last night). This is something I also want to try to show, but in the end, I think it is probably much the same as just doing this with PSG. Anyway, I hope everyone is finding this interesting and useful. Feedback is always welcome.

[M4X1]

Hi, i am from Uruguay, sorry for my bad English. I dont understand why you decided to go with the original set of duties you did in the original post If you decide in the next post to play with  CM(S) BWM RPM AM(S)?

I dont know if you can understand me haha. NICE POST.

[sporadicsmiles]

7 hours ago, M4X1 said:

Hi, i am from Uruguay, sorry for my bad English. I dont understand why you decided to go with the original set of duties you did in the original post If you decide in the next post to play with  CM(S) BWM RPM AM(S)?

I dont know if you can understand me haha. NICE POST.

I understand you, and I will try to explain for you. I went with the original set of duties simply because this seemed like a balanced starting point for this formation. However, the main point of what I am trying to do here is not to build an amazing all conquering tactic. It is instead to try to understand how this particular formation can be set up, how different roles affects the shape and interaction of players. It was clear both from watching the games and from looking at the match analysis that changing even one or two roles can greatly change the way the midfield played. 

Ultimately, it comes down to me not knowing straight away what is the best set of roles. I do not know how a CM(A) and RPM(S) would play differently within the same framework. I do not know how moving the playmaker from attacking midfield to midfield would is going to change the build up. I suspect that, aside from those members of this forum who are experts in the tactical side of FM, few people know. So my idea was to explore this in pre-season, and also to show people the process by which I can do this. 

I hope that makes sense for you.

[sporadicsmiles]

I plan to do an update on this in the next few days. I have switched back to my main save with Milan now, having learnt what I wanted to learn with PSG, and noting that it is easier to be motivated to play when you have investment in a save. We ended up winning the title, and only losing two games after I went back to it (so taking the time to understand was clearly a good idea). The only league loss came after we won the title and I rested players. The second was the final of the cup, and was on penalties (and we have been awful at them all season, only 50% conversion).

I now have my first request for community input here. I have noticed that whilst I am doing very well when teams either give me space, or when they play narrow (we absolutely destroy teams that play narrow, I have plans to show that in a future post), we really struggle against teams that set up defensively. Now, it is not the usual "We dominate and lose to one shot", because in general we do not. We dominate, but we really struggle to open up defences. I plan to make a more detailed post about this, but I wondered if anyone has any suggestions.

What I tend to see is we have plenty of ball, but we do not have the movement or the incision to cut the defence open. My strikers tend to struggle to get involved, and we have a high percentage of long shots. In the games like this we win, it is often a set piece or a bit of individual brilliance; I have a couple of players who have excellent long shots and score pretty regularly. My question is, how can I better unlock defences? Here are a few of my ideas, or things I have tried.

- give the players a bit more creative freedom so they are going to deviate from instructions and possibly create more chances.

- have move players on attack duty, although I tend to see we pile up on the defence a bit, so I think this will not work very well.

- drop deeper a bit, to create more space in attack and force the other team to close me down more.

So far, none of these things have given me any consistent success. Another idea I have had, and something I have tried to address in the summer transfer window is to increase the creativity of my midfield (which was not great before). Hopefully this means players spot passes better. My question for you guys, given that my tactic is basically the same as the one in the first post, how can I increase my ability to break down defensive sides? 

[Thyra13]

What's your shape / mentality again? I tend to stick to fluid/standard and play around with ti's and roles when things aren't going great. 

Mc get further forward, change tempo, add pass into space (or remove). Rarely do I ever increase to control. 

I tend to watch to see where my front three is breaking down  and cha get roles af/a or cf/a, dlf/s or cf/s, ss/a or ap/a(+get forward) or t/a

I find that altering the combo of the front 3 can change get the attack. 

I'll also try much higher defensive line+close down much more+get stuck in with high tempo and pass into space to go for absolute suffocation and quick counters putting pressure on their lines 

[sporadicsmiles]

18 hours ago, Thyra13 said:

What's your shape / mentality again? I tend to stick to fluid/standard and play around with ti's and roles when things aren't going great. 

Mc get further forward, change tempo, add pass into space (or remove). Rarely do I ever increase to control. 

I tend to watch to see where my front three is breaking down  and cha get roles af/a or cf/a, dlf/s or cf/s, ss/a or ap/a(+get forward) or t/a

I find that altering the combo of the front 3 can change get the attack. 

I'll also try much higher defensive line+close down much more+get stuck in with high tempo and pass into space to go for absolute suffocation and quick counters putting pressure on their lines 

Standard and flexible by default, but I will usually up these a level when I am struggling to break a team down. Not that it has been terrible successful. I intend to make a more detailed post about this later on this afternoon, and have done the analysis so I have an idea of what to try.

The idea about changing the combination of the front three is key here I think, you are right there. If anything, I am being too conservative. As you note, slow build up play (which my team tends to have), and not taking advantage of my attacking threat quickly enough is the biggest problem. I will use a little of what you say actually when it come to my attempted solution, so thanks for the advice =}.

[sporadicsmiles]

When things work. Juventus 0 Milan 3.

So as I said in a previous post, I have moved back to playing as Milan. Partly because I was not sure I would learn that much more playing as an excellent team, and partly because it is easier to motivate myself when playing a save I care about. Like I said, not only do I want to document a tactical development, I want to do it within a save so it is not just about tactics. Now I will not detail everything here too much, just to show how things can go right, and how they can go wrong. We ended up winning the league, losing only a single game in the league after I came back to the save, and that was once the title was secured and I was resting players. This is already what I want to achieve. I want to do well, whilst understanding how to change things when doing badly.

So let's start out with things going well. This win is probably one of my best in the game, not least because the last time I played Juventus away I got smashed 4-2. If you look at the formation, you can see that Juventus were very attacking because they were chasing a 1 goal deficit (this is in the semi final of the Italian cup). 

Now I think a lot of people would feel unnerved by this attacking intent from Juventus and make changes to make themselves more defensive. On the other hand, I am not terribly concerned, except about quick counter attacks with my advanced fullbacks. Why? Firstly Juventus are giving us absolutely loads of space. There is a gap between defence and midfield, there are the flanks, and there is the gap between midfield and attack. Second, they are going to keep 3 forward at most points in the game. That means more space simply because less players are available for them to cover defensively. Finally, I always like the way the team plays when the flanks are left exposed like this. So I decide to change nothing. 

The match stats show that this was a pretty decent idea. We played extremely well in this game, and there was a couple of important factors to it. The first was we were given so much space to launch counter attacks into. We did not score from this directly, but we had good outlet balls from defence, and this stops an attacking team from smothering you.

 

Secondly, look at the space we are afforded down the flanks here. We have got what amounts to a 6 man midfield here. The AP has dropped deep, and we outnumber Juventus in defence 4 to 3, plus the outlet balls to the flanks. Thus, we should (and did) almost always have a passing option. We did not always use it effectively, but Juventus were never going to dominate me if this is how things look. Now two of my goals came from the flanks in this game, which does not shock me at all. The long pass out to my left flank here has acres of space for the WB to exploit and run into. Couple that to the fact that the AF has also drifted over to this side, and did so repeatedly, we were able to stress their defence doing so. I am not going to spend as much time analysing as I did the previous games, but this is a general snapshot of how we looked in attack.

So, one thing you may notice here is that we have left Juventus 3v2 on a counter attack. Defending a one goal lead this should be seen as relatively gung-ho and suicidal, right? Not for me here. Firstly, I do not want Juventus to get control of the game and start to smother me. So I need to have my fullbacks pushing forward to take advantage of the space they are given. Secondly, the BWM is absolutely designed to prevent counter attacks when the roles are like this. To see what I mean, look at the following screenshots. 

On the left, we have just lost the ball from a bad pass by the left fullback. In this case, it is a 3v3 because my fullbacks is close to the Juventus left-most striker. The central striker drops off to receive the ball to start the counter. Look at the positioning of the BWM in the first image. He is deeper than everyone else, and he is perfectly positioned to sweep the space between midfield and attack. This is exactly what he does. He intercepts the ball before the Juventus striker can get there, and we now have the chance to build our own attack. This was a general theme of the match, the BWM made 23 interceptions, and the two centrebacks also making 15 and 20. In total we intercepted the ball 81 times in this match. This is what I hoped to see to break up counter attacks, and in general I did. We defended very well.

Finally, looking at how we looked when Juventus had the ball and were trying to build an attack. Here is the general shape both teams had in such a situation.

Now, all three of the Juventus strikers are marked, which means they are not in a position to get the ball, and can only chase one over the top. This they tried many times, and is one of the reason for our high interception stats. The BWM is also screening the defence very well, getting into the passing lane should one of the strikers try to drop in deeper. There are also no real balls to be played in midfield, either a player is marked or the passing lane is blocked. Again, this was a general theme, and is more or less as you expect for a 3v3 in midfield. This leaves a ball out wide to exploit the space on my flanks. This was how Juventus attacked mostly, because it was the only space I would give them. They attempted 47 crosses in the match. So all in all, a very convincing display in both attack and defence.

When things go wrong. Udinese 0 Milan 0.

Just to show that this is not all plain sailing, I will show you briefly how much we struggle to break down a team who are playing defensively and probably looking for a draw. In this case it was Udinese, who really played the most defensive I have ever seen! They were relegated in the end, thank goodness, I did not want to have to try to batter this wall down again! 

Formation-wise, you can tell that Udinese are going to defend and look for counter attacks as their only outlet.

And this really did not work in terms of them creating a chance. Their single shot was a freekick. They were completely a non-entity in attack. Sadly, I was not much better. There are a couple of stats that jump out to me here to show how little penetration I could muster in the middle of the park. Firstly we have over 800 passes. That means we have possession, but we did very little with it. Secondly, we attempted 86 crosses. I feel like David Moyes. So we had no penetration in the middle, and the only outlet we had was out wide where there was more space (sound familiar, I did this to Juventus in the previous example). We also took a lot of long shots, almost 50% of the total shots, which is because there was nothing when we had the ball centrally. So this is a managerial fail on my part. What went wrong? 

So first let's credit the Udinese defence. They were setup very nicely, and this is a good example of that. Their back 5 is totally outnumbering my strikers. Notice also that if I play a ball into either striker, there are at least 3 players in close proximity to close them down and prevent them doing anything useful. This was a general observation, and this is why I could not get my strikers into the game. You can see here why I had so many crosses and so many passes. My player has two options here really. Pass to an unmarked man in midfield, or send the ball to the right flank. He could try a through ball to a striker, but they are well covered and we would likely lose possession.  So we lack a cutting edge, and I also feel we are much too conservative with the midfield here. There is nothing for the most defensive of the Udinese midfield players to worry about except my strikers. 

Finally, our buildup was much, much too slow, and this comes down again to having my midfield too conservative. So it would be unlikely I could counter attack very efficiently in this game anyway, partly because Udinese rarely committed people forward, and partly because Udinese rarely attacked. The problem I have here is that there are 5 outfield players in my own half, behind the player with the ball. Now, if I want to break down an organised defence, the last thing I should be doing is letting that defence organise itself. That is exactly what I am doing here. There is also no way I can attack through the middle, my strikers are completely isolated and surrounded. It is not hard to see how I struggled to create any chances when you look at things like this.

So, what do I propose as a solution? Well, the first point here is do I really need a defensive BWM when playing against such a defensive team? I would argue no. The second point is that I clearly need the AP to be more attacking and to occupy the space between strikers and midfielders. I need to give that Udinese defence something to worry about other than the strikers. I also need to draw midfield players out of position to try to create space. This was the other obvious problem. I clearly did not create space very well here, and that needs to be addressed. Finally, my midfield was not the most creative in the world, and often I could spot an interesting ball that the players did not. So I have upgraded the midfield to bring in more creative players, to hope that they will better spot good passing to create chances. 

So, the formation I propose will look something like this, I think, the next time I feel I have to move a parked bus.

The roles are not set in stone, I will have to try things out to see what works. Firstly, I want to have a more attacking player in AMC, and will try a shadow striker. Anything to attacks between the lines and stresses the defence. I also shift the playmaker back into CM, replacing the BMW with a DLP(S). This gives us a central focus for our play still, but sticks him further back. Hopefully this will put the onus on the other team to move forward and shut him down. I will for now stick with the CM(A), but I will see how it goes. I may also switch to a CM(S) on this side too. So I have a midfield three to recycle the ball and hopefully force the midfield to have to move out to stop them. More aggressive for sure, and possibly more open to being countered, but if you score goals, you are less likely to lose, and once I have scored, I know how to control a match. I will test this out in some pre-season matches.

[jc577]

Keep up the good work mate, I'm learning an awful lot following this thread. Quick observation about your latest tactic, I feel the space in front of the opposition's box could become crowded with the DLF dropping deep, and both the SS and the CM(a) looking to run into that space. I've actually been playing something similar to that myself and it's something I've noticed but obviously see how you get on. An AM(s) with a few pi's could be an alternative to the SS - still more aggressive than the AP(s) but not as aggressive at the SS, could provide a nice balance.

[sporadicsmiles]

40 minutes ago, jc577 said:

Keep up the good work mate, I'm learning an awful lot following this thread. Quick observation about your latest tactic, I feel the space in front of the opposition's box could become crowded with the DLF dropping deep, and both the SS and the CM(a) looking to run into that space. I've actually been playing something similar to that myself and it's something I've noticed but obviously see how you get on. An AM(s) with a few pi's could be an alternative to the SS - still more aggressive than the AP(s) but not as aggressive at the SS, could provide a nice balance.

Indeed, I have a similar worry myself, and I perhaps do not need to have the CM(A) running into space from deep if the SS is already going to do that. This is compounded further since I have decided that a F9 rather than DLF seems to drop deeper and create a lot more movement. I have had some success with this in preseason, although since I tend not to play difficult sides and know that often both sides do not give their all, I try not to read too much into that.

I did experiment with switching the CM(A) to the other side, so I have two different options for creating space. I can then hope that the SS and F9 interact with the latter creating space for the former to run into. The CM(A) behind the AF(A) may create space in a different way. Rather than looking to overlap players, the AF should pull a defender deeper into the box and create space behind which a CM(A) could possibly exploit. I have not really had time to play with that fully, and I will need to see how this pans out in real competition. The one thing I am certain about so far is that the F9 behaves much better than the DLF in terms of dropping back. I will probably make a post on that at some point.

Another change I have made is to fiddle again with the full backs. Whilst I do enjoy the width they provide, I saw a number of times we would become too reliant on them. They would have the most space, and so see a lot of the ball. Much of this ball was then wasted via blocked or inaccurate crossing. I have tried having a CWB(S) on the right, to try to strike a balance between the player being in an advanced position, but not so advanced that he gets isolated and has to cross the ball. So far, I have seen a reduction i the number of crosses, without a decrease in the goals. With this kind of thing, it will take more games to get a better handle.

I am glad you are finding it useful. I am too. It really creates a different perspective on what you are doing when you try to write it down and explain to others. Whilst I do not pretend to have a deep insight into the match engine, at the very least I can show how to try to improve yourself based on what you can see.

[jc577]

An F9 is definitely the way to go - especially if you have a player that has the ppm 'comes deep to get ball' like I do - it is much better at dragging the opposition around and moving into the channels than the DLF. Moving the CM(a) to the other side seems like a shrewd move - I actually moved the SS to the AMLC behind the AF due to what I mentioned previously, but your method seems more.. natural  

The full-backs are an issue also for me. They provide good width, but as you said are often isolated and end up crossing from nothing positions which end up getting blocked or caught by the keeper. I think in one game we attempted 31 crosses and only completed 6, which is dismal in all honesty. In my last match I used two full-backs on attack, and whilst they didn't stretch the pitch as much as I would have liked the were more involved in play which resulted in crosses from just outside their penalty box. I also edited their pi's to dribble less and make fewer risky passes - try to influence a sequence of 'pass and move' as opposed to dribbling their way into cul-de-sacs and losing the ball. I am thinking of using WB's on support/automatic so that they enter the final third once we have firmly consolidated the midfield-attack transition. Unfortunately this is usually where play breaks down. 

[Thyra13]

I'd put the cma on the other side as well, more room behind the advanced forward. In a case like this I usually try and make the right sided fullback (fb side of deeper forward) a w/a in the central midfield spot. They're sitting very deep and have a line isolated forward. Your back 3 plus a defensive  central mid (I'd keep the bwm) would be enough cover. You want someone that will make a pacey run to the byline or even into the box wide of goal if the defense is that narrow. 

I'd also consider allowing the SS roam if he's built for it. 

Let him move around and hopefully create a mismatch or two. 

However I should note, where I struggle tactically is "dropping deep to draw out an opponent that is sitting deep and defending" 

Never fully been able to consistently set that up. So I try and smother them with varied attacks hoping to unlock them once 

[sporadicsmiles]

51 minutes ago, jc577 said:

The full-backs are an issue also for me. They provide good width, but as you said are often isolated and end up crossing from nothing positions which end up getting blocked or caught by the keeper. I think in one game we attempted 31 crosses and only completed 6, which is dismal in all honesty. In my last match I used two full-backs on attack, and whilst they didn't stretch the pitch as much as I would have liked the were more involved in play which resulted in crosses from just outside their penalty box. I also edited their pi's to dribble less and make fewer risky passes - try to influence a sequence of 'pass and move' as opposed to dribbling their way into cul-de-sacs and losing the ball. I am thinking of using WB's on support/automatic so that they enter the final third once we have firmly consolidated the midfield-attack transition. Unfortunately this is usually where play breaks down. 

It makes sense that this is the vital part of this tactic to get right, given it is the only width you have on a consistent basis. The problem is, at least for me, that I am so used to playing with two wide players that I have never had to put too much thought into not having wide support. It used to be there naturally. Now I have to manufacture it somewhat, it is more complicated. I will continue to mess around with this. I have finally added work ball into the box, as this does seem to sometimes allow the full back to assess options and make a mass in field. 

 

32 minutes ago, Thyra13 said:

I'd put the cma on the other side as well, more room behind the advanced forward. In a case like this I usually try and make the right sided fullback (fb side of deeper forward) a w/a in the central midfield spot. They're sitting very deep and have a line isolated forward. Your back 3 plus a defensive  central mid (I'd keep the bwm) would be enough cover. You want someone that will make a pacey run to the byline or even into the box wide of goal if the defense is that narrow. 

I'd also consider allowing the SS roam if he's built for it. 

Let him move around and hopefully create a mismatch or two. 

However I should note, where I struggle tactically is "dropping deep to draw out an opponent that is sitting deep and defending" 

Never fully been able to consistently set that up. So I try and smother them with varied attacks hoping to unlock them once 

I will keep the BWM in most situations anyway. We do not really have any problems except when a team is defending. Then I need to mix it up. When the teams are quite evenly matched, or when the opposition actually try to attack me, then the original setup works well. In that case, I will probably now stick with the F9 and CM(A) on the right, in conjunction with the AP(S) in the centre, as this provides the kind of movement I like. When we need to be more attacking, this is when I will use a deeper playmaker. I will make sure that the BWM is not really needed before I make the change, but when I am pushing for a goal a BWM is a passenger. He has nothing to do in defence as we hardly defend. And he has "short simple passes" whilst being the deep pivot. It is not an ideal setup for unlocking a defence. It is an interesting idea to shift one of the wing backs forward though, I might try that the next time I am losing and need a goal.

I was considering doing this, but first I want to just see what he does naturally. One thing I have learnt from doing this is that I should understand how a role will work naturally before starting to change it up. On paper roaming would be good, but it depends where he will roam to. If he roams deep, it just takes me back to where I was before!

I have the same problem, but it makes sense, a defensive team in a top league should be hard to break down. Whilst I do not expect to win every single time I play against a team like that, I want to be able to create 2 or 3 decent chances a match, which currently we do not do. If we miss those chances, so be it, it happens. I think that using the F9/SS and the AF/CM(A) combinations, there should be much more movement and potential to create something than what I had before. With the proviso that if I change to a DLP rather than BWM, I am likely to be more open on the counter myself. Get more aggressive, become potentially more fragile. Its all about the balance. 

[craiigman]

Have you tried 2 B2B players with the BWM?

[sporadicsmiles]

10 hours ago, craiigman said:

Have you tried 2 B2B players with the BWM?

I think I tried a B2B and a CM(A) at one point. The thing is, I already find I am very congested centrally around the box using only one player who gets into the box, adding a second just made even more of a mess. I think this would work really well if you were looking to play on the counter though, and wanted to flood the midfield with bodies when breaking forward. 

[duca015]

I have been playing for 5 season in Italy, starting in Seria C... This kind of formation or defensive block is not something that You will see often in Seria A, but it is almost regular in lower leagues in Italy. I had my share of brainstorming on how to break this defenses and at the same time stay defensively stable. I used 4-1-2-1-2 and variations.

So from my experience, AF role against these opponents is practically unusable. As well as Poacher, and all other roles that are trying to exploit space behind defenses, because, there is no space behind defenses. After much thought, I concluded that I needed to create chain event in order to break this formation down. 

I guess right answer is depending on players you have on your disposal, but my solution was to instead of ENG I was using on AMC position, use SS, or if he is running into crowd to often, AM-sup, with move into channels shout and get further forward, shoot more often shouts. I also used one not particularly good player, but he had good dribbling ability and good long shots ability, so I used him as someone who would come from deeper position at pace and run at defense, and thus unsettle them a bit, and maybe score some goals from distance (CM-sup, dribble more, shoot more often). Then I used one striker out on wide, who would stretch defense a bit as RMD. In this case, I would use only one striker, and he would be usually DLF-ATT. This role because he is still coming into the box, but he is also moving quite a bit outside box and opening out space, so with no real striker, defense can not focus on box so much, and there is bit space that can be exploited. Alternative was to use TM-sup and DLF -att as pair, as they both come at deeper positions at start of attack, and can, together with AMC, use fact that the only time there is actually space behind defense is when they are on attack. The DMC was for me another runner from deep as REG, so I had to compensate this somehow, so one of my CM-s was BWM-def, and fb on side of RMD was on defensive mentality. Finally, I had to be precise about where my FB on other side is centering the ball and when.  When this defense is set, there is no use of moving and trying to break it by moving players and passing the ball, because, there is too many of them. So my FB was crossing early and aiming on far post. The goal was to exploit every possible moment that defense is not settled. 

So , my attacks were something like this: REG would pick up ball deep, run unopposed until half of field, then he would pass it to cm that dribbles, who would be often forced more to the left, where he would interconnect with RMD and AMC, but there is not space for them, so REG would be come into play again, who would send quick pas to rb. RB then centers the ball in area where your RMD and AMC are, if they score, it is good, if they not, defense is pined and usually my Reg, my CM and sometimes even DLF can pick up ball unmarked on edge of area and make something happen.

In case there is no RMD, and striker combination was TM-sup + DLF-att, FB my goal was to try to exploit space as fast as possible by sending quick long ball forward and attack them in space. If this does not work, then fb was crossing on TM again, because, believe me or not, long shots and crosses are your best bet against these kind of defenses. Once you open them, you may return to your normal game.

But, when I remember this save, it was bloody frustrating to try to break defenses game after game after game. It is completely different game in Italian lower leagues then anything else I tried.

[sporadicsmiles]

Break the walls down, version 1. 

As I noted before, breaking down defensive teams can be hard, and I play in Italy where being strong defensively is almost a given! Now I am only 4 games into my new season, and it was this long before I came up against what I see as a typical defensive Italian formation (well, counter formation I suppose); the 343, with 4 players in the DMC strata. This is a formation I did struggle to break down last season (although not as bad as that 541 against Udinese, that was the most defensive team I have ever played). It is not hard to see why.

There is a brick wall in the middle of the park, and this is where I would normally like to play. However, we should note that this formation has 2 central midfielders, and both of them are at DMC. There is an absolute acre of space to exploit in this formation, but as I have noted before, this cannot only promote sterile possession. In the past, we have kept the ball very well in the space provided us, but not created a huge amount with it. We have made some changes too (note this is the formation used, but not the squad, I took this screenie after the fact).

So what is new here? Firstly, we have a SS(A), who hopefully can provide incisive runs and create mismatches in their defence (in theory). I feel we can do this because there are only 2 midfielders in the Genoa side, so I can bet on the 3 CMs I have to dominate the ball without the need for an additional playmaker. I decided to keep a BWM here rather than add a DLP because Genoa have 3 advanced players, and so I could be vulnerable to counters. I want a player to break up play and make interceptions, rather than create play. It is the start of the season, lets remain cautious. You will also note that, as per the discussion the CM(S) and CM(A) have switched sides when playing with the SS, because the CM(A) on the right may overload a single area with players. Finally, the WB and CWB have switched sides to account for the duty change of the two wider midfield players. I am still experimenting with these players as I am not 100% happy with how they are going (we cross way, way too much). We stick to standard and fluid, and add the TI pass into space. The TI work ball into box I have by default at the moment, to try to combat long shots and excessive crossing. The F9 has "roam from position" set, which frees him up to play some lovely stuff.

The preamble out of the way, we ended up winning this match 3-0 (and there is a missed penalty in here, denying Guidetti a deserved hattrick). Job done, you may think. Problems solved. Well, yes and no. Yes because we did manage to break down a stubborn opponent, and we absolutely dominated the match as well (match stats below). No because the changes I made did not directly lead to the goals (at least not in an obvious way).

I think it is too easy in FM to get carried away with a result and assume that everything is working perfectly. Now, looking at the match stats we clearly dominated the game and created chances. More importantly, we took our chances; two of the CCCs were goals, and one was a penalty which we missed at 3-0 up. Some old concerns rear their heads though. We still have a large number of long shots, although it is improved on last season and is below 50%. I would hazard a few of those are from freekicks too. We did have 50 crosses, of which we completed 2... This is actually awful. I do not mind crossing a lot in a match you dominate, and often it is secondary balls from crosses that matter, but clearly I need to do something different to try to get on the end of more crosses. If you look at where are crosses come from, you will see they come exclusively from the WB(A). Now I expect this, but I really want crosses not to happen quite so much, and with quite such inaccuracy. To make it worse poor Mr WB(A), one of the completed crosses was not even by him! Any ideas here?

Before we look at the goals, and think about if they are from my tactics (they are, in a way), I want to show you why the F9 works very nicely. Firstly, Guidetti at F9 scored two goals in the match, and probably should have had a hat trick (missed pen). Looking at the average positions, you can see that he drops deeper than he would have done with the DLF role (see posts above).

This is allowing him to provide a better link between midfield and attack, and also to cause a marking problem for the other side, and possibly create space with his runs. He also will at times attack the ball from deeper. Look at the following clip to see this in action. This does not lead to a goal, but it shows what the F9 can do.

Focus on the movement of the F9, the rightmost forward. When the left fullback gets the ball and (as you always should..) runs across the box with it, he remains high up the pitch. As soon as the ball reaches the right fullback, the F9 drops back to make himself available for the ball. He gets the ball via the SS, and here we start to look dangerous. The Genoa defence has dropped right off, which has given a lot of space to run into. If you pause at 11 seconds, you will see that the F9 can play the ball over the top for the AF, can run at the defence utilising the space they have given him, or play the ball into the space on the left of the pitch, where we have two midfielders awaiting. In the end, he dribbles slowly (possibly waiting for more support, and because I think Guidetti is not the most talented dribbler), beats a man and then eventually passes to the CM(A). The SS at this point is now acting as a striker, and has found space between defenders. He does, unfortunately, not time his run well and has to come back from an offside position, meaning he receives the ball with his back to goal. He has a shot, and it is saved. But this sort of thing is exactly the behaviour I want to see, and a better timed run (or pass) would see the SS through on goal. You cannot score every time, and I am happy with what I saw there. 

So, lets look at the goals. Which are in the following three videos. 

This goal is very nice actually, it is a well worked throw-in routine which leads to a cross where 3 players at the back post have chance to score. Pleasing to see? Oh yes. The result of my tactics? Well, yes, I set up the throw in regime. Are the changes I made here responsible? Probably not. What this tells me is that (a) set pieces are important against stubborn sides - something you know from real life football - and (b) you have to take your chances however they come. Here, Benassi smashes it home. 

This goal has more than a little fortune about it. The corner is not cleared (and I like to have players near the edge of the box to pick up clearances like that anyway), and makes its way to Guidetti. His first shot is well saved, but the rebound goes directly to him, and he shoots again. The ball takes a deflection and trickles into the corner. A result of my tactic? Again, I set up the corner routines. A result of the specific tactical changes? Not a chance. Lucky as hell? Yes, luck happens in football.

The final goal comes from a defensive error and the wonderful vision and passing of Benassi. The Genoa player (I forget who it was, Cardona I think) runs into Benassi and loses the ball. Benassi sees space behind the defence and launches the ball forward for Guidetti to chase. Now, this ball should probably have been dealt with by the defender, but he misses the header, allowing Guidetti a free run on goal, where he slots home. Now, this one I am happier to take tactical credit for. Benassi has close down more in order to defend exactly in the channel he is there. I also bought him specifically to improve the vision and passing in my midfield, in order to have players better able to spot a pass. However, it was again not the perfect example of specific changes I made paying off. 

So, in conclusion, we managed to ease to a 3-0 win against a team with a defensive setup. This is of course positive. However, we had more than a little fortune in two of our goals, and two of the goals were a direct consequence of set plays. Now, there is a reason you should spend time thinking about set pieces and setting them up how you want (I have not documented this, I can if people want), and it is matches like this. The first goal in particular was an example of setting up sensibly. The main conclusion must be that it is too early to tell if the changes I have made will help break sides down. From a sample size of one, I cannot draw any firmer conclusion. If we keep winning these kind of matches, then it is all looking rosy.

Up next in this save is Sevilla away in the UCL. This could possibly give me a serious challenge where things go wrong (I do kinda want to see what happens when things go badly).

[craiigman]

This is a really good thread. Thanks for keep updating with your progress. Breaking down defences is what I'm struggling with in my Celtic save at the moment as they tend to all sit back against me. Be using your thread as a good overview of things to look for and what I can change.

[sporadicsmiles]

1 hour ago, craiigman said:

This is a really good thread. Thanks for keep updating with your progress. Breaking down defences is what I'm struggling with in my Celtic save at the moment as they tend to all sit back against me. Be using your thread as a good overview of things to look for and what I can change.

I am glad you like it. I am playing this save alongside a poor chilled out journeyman save (where I pay a lot less attention to all this analysis except when trying out new things), so progress is a little slow. Breaking down defensive sides seems to be all about making players get out of position and chase someone they should not. Currently, the F9 with roam from position is doing this wonderfully at the moment. Also, getting players with the correct attributes in the correct places. You want people with good vision and passing to be in the space to be able to pick out a pass. It does not often show in the stats, but my creative players are usually the ones who unlock defences by assisting the assist, if that makes sense? 

[sporadicsmiles]

The 30 game progress report.

I have reached 30 games at Milan after starting this thread (including preseason friendlies, because it is a nice round number that way). So lets have a general look at how things are going, and what we can try to improve. This time, we are not going to focus on a single match, but rather the general stats about chances, assist and goal locations and types. This can give you a lot of information if you know how to use it correctly. Sorry for the small images, but this seems to be the way it makes me post using the upload tool on the forum. If you click on them, you should be able to see them full sized.

Lets look at scoring chances first. Now I am not sure if this is defined as all chances (CCC and half chances) or just CCC, but I guess it gives you an indication of how well you are attacking and defending. You can see that whilst playing this tactic we have had double the number of chances that the opposition has managed to create. More importantly, we have created on average at least one chance per match, whilst are almost at a 1 chance every 3 matches for our opposition. That is fantastic. I will put a downer on this however by nothing that given the way chances are recorded in the ME, this has to be taken with a pinch of salt. But lets assume that this can be used to indicate that you are doing the right thing. Note that against small teams we absolutely suffocate them and they cannot create chances at all, and this is reflected both in the results and watching matches. The other thing we do not have here is a conversion rate, and mine is quite poor. This is one reason I have struggled against smaller teams. Against teams of the same stature (that pretty much means Juventus, Inter, Roma, Napoli and probably Lazio) we create less chances and concede more. This makes sense, better teams are better able to stop us suffocating their midfield. Still, clearly we are doing something right here.

Goal times and goal types. Now, goal times I guess is interesting to see if there is any particular time when you score, or do not score. As you can see, I score pretty consistently throughout the game. We tend to start games well, scoring most goals early. This is great, because it really settles a team down to score an early goal. I am happy with that. We tend to tail off and score fewer goals at the end of matches. This is linked to the fact I score a lot of my goals before this, I am usually not chasing the game and often am just making sure we are defensively solid and not likely to lose a match. I do not score late in games because I do not need to. You can also see the AI tends to score more as the game goes on. This is again because they are chasing the game and have made changes to go more aggressive at this point. This is something to keep an eye on, I need to make sure that I am properly prepared for the final quarter for an AI onslaught. In total, we have 81 goals scored to 15 conceded.

Like I said, there are friendlies in here, and they amazingly account for 44 of those goals (I like to play a couple of friendlies against local sides, it is my roleplaying way of supporting football in the local area, and they were 17-0 and 10-0 wins). So we make that 37 goals scored in 22 competitive games. That is a hugely impressive return, 1.6 goals a game. In fairness, we shall also subtract the goals conceded during friendlies, which was only 4. This, however, gives the massively pleasing total of 11 goals in 22 games, 0.5 goals per game, or we will keep a clean sheet in half of our games. If you do not concede, you do not lose games. Goal types is less interesting to me, we score more with out feet than our heads, and that is most likely down to the fact that my team is not that great in the air. 

So, on to assist types and their locations. Once again you can see we have a pleasing mixture of different assist types. We score mostly from crosses (this is not surprising since we cross so goddamn much!) but passing and through balls are really not that far behind. This shows we are clearly not one dimensional in our build up play. This is further supported by looking at the location of assists. We have roughly equal numbers from the left and the middle. The right we have a lot fewer on the right hand side, but this is where I play the supporting fullback, and we see less crosses from there, much of the play down the right is turned back into midfield. One thing to think about here is looking at the opposition and seeing which side they are most likely to be weaker on and to switch my duties to exploit this. In terms of goals we concede, there are few crosses on there (Donarumma is excellent in commanding the area) and we get caught out by passes and set pieces. Unsurprisingly, most of the assists are down our flanks, where we have a numerical disadvantage. Only two goals have come from assists in the centre. There is nothing to worry about here, as the tactic is clearly defensively very sound.

Finally, look at the number of goals I am scoring from corners and free kicks. I cannot stress enough how much of a reward you can get from taking the time to set up these things properly. And I do not just mean to try to get your tall players on the end of the initial cross. It is the secondary balls that are deadly in corners, because play is completely broken. By making sure I have players in the correct places to collect poorly cleared balls, I am reaping the benefits. In my last game against Chievo, which finished 3-2, I scored a goal where the ball was only half cleared, fell to Benassi on the edge of the area who teed up Locatelli to open the scoring. It takes 10 minutes at most to think about where to put players, but it can give you 15+ goals a year, and that is not to be sniffed at.

[jc577]

Still actively following this thread, I think everyone should read this when creating a narrow tactic. Are you still playing with the original set of roles/duties and standard/fluid with work ball into box?

[sporadicsmiles]

8 hours ago, jc577 said:

Still actively following this thread, I think everyone should read this when creating a narrow tactic. Are you still playing with the original set of roles/duties and standard/fluid with work ball into box?

Thanks, it is nice to know people are reading and enjoying this. It has been very interesting to do, it is the first time I have really attempted anything like this. 

I still play standard and fluid yes. The main (and only) change I have made to the base tactic is to change from a DLF to a F9 with roams from position. This I found links up nicer with the midfield and was better at creating and utilising space. Also, Guidetti has scored more goals from this role than he did as a DLF (he could just be more settled after his move though).

[Thyra13]

I'm also still using this formation due to the large number of excellent central midfielders at my disposal - I've gone with an SS(a) with PI "roam from position" and it's working really well.

it might very wel be the player - I have ozil who has great movement and PPM "come's deep to get ball" so he drops into midfield  to help build up and then bombs forward into space - it's a joy to behold - got me 20 goals and ~15 assists.

I am now trying to toy with the DLF being a F9 with roam as well - theory being solid core of 3 central mids - an AF(a) and two talented players in between roaming around and trying to cause havoc

[Harpoon76]

Very interesting thread and similar to what I'm trying to build at the moment.  Thank you for taking the time to put up the captures of all the average positions with the different player roles.

@sporadicsmiles - do you ever find the F9 shoots from distance too much?  It's odd given the role doesn't seem to push long shots and my first choice player in that slot doesn't have a PPM to encourage long shots.

Edit to provide an example of the F9...

Rogers CF(A) plays the ball in Lam F9(S)

I would want Lam to play in Fernandes CM(A) who is steaming through the gap in the area but Lam smashes one into row-Z instead.

 

[sporadicsmiles]

7 hours ago, Harpoon76 said:

Very interesting thread and similar to what I'm trying to build at the moment.  Thank you for taking the time to put up the captures of all the average positions with the different player roles.

@sporadicsmiles - do you ever find the F9 shoots from distance too much?  It's odd given the role doesn't seem to push long shots and my first choice player in that slot doesn't have a PPM to encourage long shots.

Edit to provide an example of the F9...

Rogers CF(A) plays the ball in Lam F9(S)

I would want Lam to play in Fernandes CM(A) who is steaming through the gap in the area but Lam smashes one into row-Z instead.

 

Honestly at the moment, I cannot recall. As a general rule I was happy to let my side shoot from range because I had a number of players with excellent long shot attributes. I have not played in a good month and a bit because I am in the middle of a move and do not have my computer with me for the moment. In this situation it looks like he may have been pressured into making a bad choice - there are two players closing him down quickly and I would guess that if his decisions and creativity stats are not very high, he will often make a choice to shoot when a pass in on.

This is something I think people do not often pick up on; sometimes the attributes of players can have a huge influence on situations like this. This is, ultimately, why the best players are so good, they spot these chances and can execute the pass under pressure. So I guess the key would be to try to take the pressure of the player. This is what I try to do with my AP(S) in my tactic. I use support because it drops him into space away from the defence, gives him more time. My advice if you are seeing this often is to check if he always does so in similar situations, and then work out how to avoid of mitigate the negative aspects of that situation. Check also if he has "shoots from distance" as a PPM.

[alanschu14]

This thread has been very helpful for me. I have eventually transitioned to more of a 4-4-2 Diamond Narrow from my 4-1-2-3 DM in part because I evidently have a fascination with having an abundance of strong midfielders.

This formation has helped me put Norway on the map in Europe and our club coefficient puts us at 8th right now which is pretty spectacular.  I keep to short passes with the fullbacks sliding up to support/attack on the sides and as we get closer to the box, I find it makes the defense collapse pretty well and my diamond of midfielders work with strikers cutting in and out of the box.  Width comes as the defense must collapse on my numbers along the border of the box that my fullbacks are often able to get open for crosses or on some occasions even straight on drives to the net for goals!

I'm digging it!

[Ji-Sung Park]

Great thread, must've missed this!

[sporadicsmiles]

On 08/09/2017 at 00:45, alanschu14 said:

This thread has been very helpful for me. I have eventually transitioned to more of a 4-4-2 Diamond Narrow from my 4-1-2-3 DM in part because I evidently have a fascination with having an abundance of strong midfielders.

This formation has helped me put Norway on the map in Europe and our club coefficient puts us at 8th right now which is pretty spectacular.  I keep to short passes with the fullbacks sliding up to support/attack on the sides and as we get closer to the box, I find it makes the defense collapse pretty well and my diamond of midfielders work with strikers cutting in and out of the box.  Width comes as the defense must collapse on my numbers along the border of the box that my fullbacks are often able to get open for crosses or on some occasions even straight on drives to the net for goals!

I'm digging it!

Glad it is has been helpful for you! You are correct to note that having a lot of players inside forces the other side to leave space on the flanks, and automatically generates width to exploit. When it works, it usually works spectacularly! Congratulations on Norway by the way, that is a pretty awesome achievement! 

[sporadicsmiles]

On 08/09/2017 at 02:52, Ji-Sung Park said:

Great thread, must've missed this!

Thanks! I started it in July because I had some time of work to finally spend on doing something like this. It was very worthwhile, because it forced me to think about things and to articulate them in a way I normally do not. Sadly, I am back at work and isolated from my computer at the moment so I have not been able to spend any more time expanding on this. I am glad you found it interesting!

[alanschu14]

1 minute ago, sporadicsmiles said:

Glad it is has been helpful for you! You are correct to note that having a lot of players inside forces the other side to leave space on the flanks, and automatically generates width to exploit. When it works, it usually works spectacularly! Congratulations on Norway by the way, that is a pretty awesome achievement! 

I've found against some of the bigger clubs pulling a striker back to AM strata and going 4-1-2-2-1 works a bit better.  My team has gotten better so I don't need to go strikerless but sometimes I did that by going 4-1-3-2-0.

(Also realize I mispoke, my nation coefficient is 8. Which is still amazing and I'll take guaranteed Group Stage any day!).

I bought into it well enough with my current allotment of players that I actually don't have many players that have positional familiarity in attacking wing positions anymore.  I also learned that telling my AM/ST to move into channels can create some width there as well.

[sporadicsmiles]

4 hours ago, alanschu14 said:

I've found against some of the bigger clubs pulling a striker back to AM strata and going 4-1-2-2-1 works a bit better.  My team has gotten better so I don't need to go strikerless but sometimes I did that by going 4-1-3-2-0.

(Also realize I mispoke, my nation coefficient is 8. Which is still amazing and I'll take guaranteed Group Stage any day!).

I bought into it well enough with my current allotment of players that I actually don't have many players that have positional familiarity in attacking wing positions anymore.  I also learned that telling my AM/ST to move into channels can create some width there as well.

Dropping players back a strata is something I want to play with as well (when I get the chance), and it is interesting to see that you have had some success with doing so. You will often see players piling up against a deep defence in a match you are dominating, and breaking live waves against the shore. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and I always had the impression the best way to deal with this may be to drop further back and force them to come and get you.

[alanschu14]

5 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

Dropping players back a strata is something I want to play with as well (when I get the chance), and it is interesting to see that you have had some success with doing so. You will often see players piling up against a deep defence in a match you are dominating, and breaking live waves against the shore. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and I always had the impression the best way to deal with this may be to drop further back and force them to come and get you.

It does seem to work a bit against bigger clubs (who aren't really the ones I'm worrying about dominating haha). But when I did that I found myself getting a couple more clear cut counter chances because their defenders were a bit more confident sliding forward without having a striker on their hips.

[Vizzini]

Just logged in to say how impressed I was with this this thread, really great work! You should send this to the people working on the deep lying podcast, as they have a weekly shout-out for pieces they want to promote, and this fits in really well with that.