West Brom Inspiration

[Oakland Stomper]

Open for discussion.

How would one emulate West Brom/Pulis tactic. Specifically, what mentality and shape produce what was on display v. Bournemouth which had extremely low possession (29%!) yet produced 16 shots and limiting the opponent to 9 of which only 2 were on target. This was at home against a like opponent and not one of the big teams.

I tend to lean toward standard/structured with TI's/PI's to do the rest. I know that counter will produce to slow/indirect a style. Would attacking or control be too adventurous?

Formation doesn't seem overly relevant. He began 2016/17 with a 4-4-1-1 and moved to 4-1-4-1 as the season went along. What West Brom does seem different from both Stoke and Palace.

Once again, open for opinions, so have at it.

[bowieinspace]

Not too many people wanting to emulate Tony Pulis!

If he holding you hostage make a deliberate typo in your next post and we can alert the authorities

[westy8chimp]

Structured with direct or route one football, attacking wingers and striker to keep the shot count high.

Deeper line with perhaps a double pivot infront to keep the defence solid.

[Jean0987654321]

They have been a few attempts on emulating Pulis-ball

 

[Oakland Stomper]

21 hours ago, bowieinspace said:

Not too many people wanting to emulate Tony Pulis!

If he holding you hostage make a deliberate typo in your next post and we can alert the authorities

LOL, I thought about naming this low possession-high shot or similar, but figured that now one would look at it.

Pulis' West Brom side seems to like him and they sure do play according to script.

[bowieinspace]

1 minute ago, Oakland Stomper said:

LOL, I thought about naming this low possession-high shot or similar, but figured that now one would look at it.

Pulis' West Brom side seems to like him and they sure do play according to script.

If there's one thing to say about Tony Pulis, it's that he can get a team to play the way he wants and do it effectively. He may not be the most expansive or exciting manager, but you know you're going to get a solid team from him.

[Oakland Stomper]

10 hours ago, westy8chimp said:

Structured with direct or route one football, attacking wingers and striker to keep the shot count high.

Deeper line with perhaps a double pivot infront to keep the defence solid.

After tinkering a bit, I think that control or even attacking with a drop deeper/much deeper TI and only the wingers on attack.

[Oakland Stomper]

4 hours ago, Jean0987654321 said:

They have been a fee attempts on emulating Pulis-ball

 

Thanks Jean. I've looked these over and no one seems to get it completely right which of course may not be possible with the match engine. I also think that each of Pulis' teams is a bit more nuanced than he is given credit for. Palace were very different from Stoke and WBA are different from both of those.

I don't think that WBA is really all that negative unless they're playing one of the top side. They do seem intent on two things.

1.) Creating space behind the opposition defense into which they attack

2.) Being ruthlessly brutal on each set piece opportunity.

 

[Oakland Stomper]

17 minutes ago, bowieinspace said:

If there's one thing to say about Tony Pulis, it's that he can get a team to play the way he wants and do it effectively. He may not be the most expansive or exciting manager, but you know you're going to get a solid team from him.

He seems to like keep his roster small (size not stature) and build a really tight team. I've heard him speak about how a troublesome player can be of value but that you need to to ship him out when his job is done; he said something along the lines of in less than a season.

[johnnyyakuza78]

I made those 2 threads on Pulis style football, seems rather unfashionable but its always been my ambition to make it work. 

The thing about Tony is that the style of football he's famous for is very good for getting you a 0-0 draw or maybe scraping a win here and there, but its pretty difficult to get it to work in terms of winning you the league without adjusting quite heavily. You saw it last year when he had his best spell and they were slightly more attacking due to the form of Phillps on the right. 

I think its definitely possible to get his style of play to work defensively against larger sides who come at you because it requires that they leave space in behind and you don't have to do anything clever to create that space.

You're right that Pulis isn't a rigid 442 man or a 451 man, he is good at adapting formation to fit the players he has to work with, at palace for example he focussed far more on dribbling and pace because he had Zaha and Puncheon. But his sides are usually built on the core tenants of:

- Strong defence. Usually 4 centre backs filling all 4 back positions. Fullbacks rarely contribute to attacks. They stay narrow and allow crosses a bit more because they have the height to counter them.

- A deepish defensive position.

- Concede possession - They often have the worst possession stats each year.

- Long balls - Not always but he's fairly agricultural when it comes to passing.

- Reliance on Set Pieces.

- A big target man holding up the ball for onrunning pacey attackers.

I'm considering doing something similar for FM17, but the matches can be a bit dull!

[Jean0987654321]

7 hours ago, johnnyyakuza78 said:

I made those 2 threads on Pulis style football, seems rather unfashionable but its always been my ambition to make it work. 

The thing about Tony is that the style of football he's famous for is very good for getting you a 0-0 draw or maybe scraping a win here and there, but its pretty difficult to get it to work in terms of winning you the league without adjusting quite heavily. You saw it last year when he had his best spell and they were slightly more attacking due to the form of Phillps on the right. 

I think its definitely possible to get his style of play to work defensively against larger sides who come at you because it requires that they leave space in behind and you don't have to do anything clever to create that space.

You're right that Pulis isn't a rigid 442 man or a 451 man, he is good at adapting formation to fit the players he has to work with, at palace for example he focussed far more on dribbling and pace because he had Zaha and Puncheon. But his sides are usually built on the core tenants of:

- Strong defence. Usually 4 centre backs filling all 4 back positions. Fullbacks rarely contribute to attacks. They stay narrow and allow crosses a bit more because they have the height to counter them.

- A deepish defensive position.

- Concede possession - They often have the worst possession stats each year.

- Long balls - Not always but he's fairly agricultural when it comes to passing.

- Reliance on Set Pieces.

- A big target man holding up the ball for onrunning pacey attackers.

I'm considering doing something similar for FM17, but the matches can be a bit dull!

At WBA, he seemed to change a bit now. Both Nyom and Chris Brunt tends to attack often. Only Craig Dawson and Jonny Evans are the full backs who dont attack

[johnnyyakuza78]

12 hours ago, Jean0987654321 said:

At WBA, he seemed to change a bit now. Both Nyom and Chris Brunt tends to attack often. Only Craig Dawson and Jonny Evans are the full backs who dont attack

Well sort of. Brunt played a few times at left back but also across the midfield. I think when he was at left back usually it was with Craig Dawson at right back, and he is much more defensive. I also think Pulis plays more conservative midfielders to compensate too. Nyom is not really that much of a wingback type of player either, I'm pretty sure he used to be a centre back and is certainly not a small lad.

Anyway I'd love to see someone take a pure Route One tactic and make it work in FM17, win some silverware with it. That would be my dream.

[Oakland Stomper]

19 hours ago, johnnyyakuza78 said:

I made those 2 threads on Pulis style football, seems rather unfashionable but its always been my ambition to make it work. 

The thing about Tony is that the style of football he's famous for is very good for getting you a 0-0 draw or maybe scraping a win here and there, but its pretty difficult to get it to work in terms of winning you the league without adjusting quite heavily. You saw it last year when he had his best spell and they were slightly more attacking due to the form of Phillps on the right. 

I think its definitely possible to get his style of play to work defensively against larger sides who come at you because it requires that they leave space in behind and you don't have to do anything clever to create that space.

You're right that Pulis isn't a rigid 442 man or a 451 man, he is good at adapting formation to fit the players he has to work with, at palace for example he focussed far more on dribbling and pace because he had Zaha and Puncheon. But his sides are usually built on the core tenants of:

- Strong defence. Usually 4 centre backs filling all 4 back positions. Fullbacks rarely contribute to attacks. They stay narrow and allow crosses a bit more because they have the height to counter them.

- A deepish defensive position.

- Concede possession - They often have the worst possession stats each year.

- Long balls - Not always but he's fairly agricultural when it comes to passing.

- Reliance on Set Pieces.

- A big target man holding up the ball for onrunning pacey attackers.

I'm considering doing something similar for FM17, but the matches can be a bit dull!

Clubs like WBA under Pulis, Leicester under Ranieri and Rubin Kazan/Rostov under Berdyev do tend to make for a dull match. To me at least I find the sudden and ruthless attacks to be more fun to watch than the endless build up lay that for most teams lead nowhere. Last season I found myself anticipating each and every corner kick that WBA took because they were so powerful.

People who know the game hold Pulis in high regard. Its only the press and other managers who can't out manage him.

There have been some key changes since Pulis left Stoke.

- I don't see nearly as many long balls being played out of the back. While still direct, most now seem to be played into space for an onrushing forward or wing.

- The outside backs now push up more, Evans included, only he isn't as comfortable doing so because he's naturally a center back. The still overlap much though.

- They seem to use width much more with Phillips, McLean and Chadli all being wingers who like the ball played into space ahead of them so that they can run at defenders. This may or may not be to the same degree as when he was at Palace, but do think that it has become a key part of Pulis' game.

Everything else seems to have held true.

[Oakland Stomper]

So back to the fundamental question, in FM, what form, shape, TI's and PI's do we use to create an overall tactic that has relatively little possession, yet creates an high number of shots + chances?

[johnnyyakuza78]

1 minute ago, Oakland Stomper said:

So back to the fundamental question, in FM, what form, shape, TI's and PI's do we use to create an overall tactic that has relatively little possession, yet creates an high number of shots + chances?

Well to answer that my personal opinion is that it depends. It depends quite heavily on what the opposition is doing and where the space is. The way I would go about it would be to have a basic set up that you can adjust depending on where the opposition weakness is. That is however if you wanted to go down the West Brom / Pulis route and aren't actually looking to create a direct attacking tactic, which would be something that could create a lot of chances but might sacrifice possession?



This was the tactic I had by the end of my game last year. I would definitely play around with it however. I've seen the AI used a similar tactic this year with both wide players in the AMLR zone, which might work better. I think you'll need players with a ton of pace to make it work if you want to create chances though.. as well as big strong blokes.

TI's were:

Defensive
Highly Structured
More Direct
Harder tackling
Stick to Position
More Disciplined
Narrower.


 

[Jean0987654321]

4 hours ago, johnnyyakuza78 said:

Well sort of. Brunt played a few times at left back but also across the midfield. I think when he was at left back usually it was with Craig Dawson at right back, and he is much more defensive. I also think Pulis plays more conservative midfielders to compensate too. Nyom is not really that much of a wingback type of player either, I'm pretty sure he used to be a centre back and is certainly not a small lad.

Anyway I'd love to see someone take a pure Route One tactic and make it work in FM17, win some silverware with it. That would be my dream.

Nyom was a wingback back at Granada and Watford so yes he attacks

[johnnyyakuza78]

1 hour ago, Jean0987654321 said:

Nyom was a wingback back at Granada and Watford so yes he attacks

What would be your interpretation of the more defensive side of Pulis' tactics?

[Oakland Stomper]

9 hours ago, johnnyyakuza78 said:

Well to answer that my personal opinion is that it depends. It depends quite heavily on what the opposition is doing and where the space is. The way I would go about it would be to have a basic set up that you can adjust depending on where the opposition weakness is. That is however if you wanted to go down the West Brom / Pulis route and aren't actually looking to create a direct attacking tactic, which would be something that could create a lot of chances but might sacrifice possession?



This was the tactic I had by the end of my game last year. I would definitely play around with it however. I've seen the AI used a similar tactic this year with both wide players in the AMLR zone, which might work better. I think you'll need players with a ton of pace to make it work if you want to create chances though.. as well as big strong blokes.

TI's were:

Defensive
Highly Structured
More Direct
Harder tackling
Stick to Position
More Disciplined
Narrower.


 

Johnny, 

I understand the tendency to want to play with a defensive or counter mentality, but that won't get to where we're trying to go. Bear in mind that I'm looking to replicate a style, as coached by Pulis and some others who I've mentioned that will not have much possession. When you do this vs. a like opponent, you will dominate the ball. 

Pulis does play VERY defensively on the road vs the big teams, and I would say that defensive is correct in these situations. 

I also think that he's mostly ditched the double pivot since the mid-point of last season, though they lined up in a really narrow formation in the last match of 2016/17 if memory serves. I that case the outside backs joined in the attack much more. 

In most situations I'd say that they act as FB(s) now. 

Back to mentality/shape/TI's/PI's, I won't have much chance to tinker until the weekend, but I'm leaning toward Control/Structured, with a PI's of much deeper d-line, stay on feet for tackling, a narrower setting, with possibly exploit the flanks. No direct passing because that will hopefully happen anyway with Control/Structured and correct player roles. 

[Jean0987654321]

9 hours ago, johnnyyakuza78 said:

What would be your interpretation of the more defensive side of Pulis' tactics?

For WBA, something like this

Standard/Ridgid

GK

FB (a)-CD-CD-FB(a)

A(d)

W (a)-DLP (d)-CM (a)-W (s)

DLF (a)

TIs

Play Narrower

Float Crosses

More Direct

Pass Into Space

Hit Early Crosses

 

Let the default zonal marking do its thing rather than command the team to do hacksaw jobs (unless you like a lot of cards :D)

PIs

GK - Distribute to ST, Kick it Long

W (a) - Roam from Position

 

If Craig Dawson plays, then he is a FB (d).