Help to understand my tactic

[Keyzer Soze]

Hi,

After failing save after save with tactic that i create but don't work, i decided to go back to the basics and start reading some articles around the forum. I came across some great readings from @Rashidi and how he explain the importance of transitions and the importance of choosing the right roles in terms how they combine with each other.

Went back to the game, and desing another tactic, using my favourite formation, the 4123 DM Wide. I end up with something like this:

CF(s)

W(s)                                  W(a)

CM(s)     CM(a)

DM(d)

WB(a)    CD(d)    CD(d)    FB(s)

SK(d)

 

I choose a standard mentality and a flexible team shape. The mentality was choosen to help the more possession type of play that i want. The flexible team shape was choosen simply because i don't understand nothing about team shape, and everytime i choose something different from flexible i don't notice anything different. 

I add some TI's: so that the team would play a more possession football: Play out of defence, work ball into box, close down more, prevent short gk distribution

On top of that i add some PI's to help, or at least i think it will help:

- all 4 defenders are instructed to take fewer risky passes, to help to build up the play from the back

- My CM(s) have the PI to run wide with ball so that he can combine better with the W(s), he also have the hold position PI so that he stays more at the back and by that help to recycle the ball, and have the PI to take more risky passes

- My CM(a) have the PI to run wide with ball to combine better with the W(a) on the right

- Both CM's have the PI to shoot less

 

In my head i'm thiking that these roles combine well with each others: 

- I have a attacking wing back on the left, that can combine with the supporting Winger, and he have the cover from the supporting CM. 

- on the right i have a CM with attack duty that will bomb forward and will overload the right flank with the Winger on attack, while the FB(s) will give the proper cover

- i have a supporting forward that i expect will do a little bit of both: drop deep to help to built the play, and lead the attack

 

But the truth is, after 4 games, and despite i win all of them, my team play really bad, i manage to win all games by 1-0, with a very low shots on target ratio, and my opponent have more ccc's then me in 3 of those games. Because i'm managing a top team from my league, i got the feeling that i only won because i have better players.

So, what went wrong? did i choose the wrong roles/duties for what i'm trying to achieve? Or the TI's and PI's the problem?

I must say also that i play the FMT version of the game, in a IPAD, so i can't watch the full game, and to be honest by only watching highlights i can't identify any problems in terms of some roles being in some kind of conflict with others roles.

So, any help, you be much appreciated.

thks

 

 

 

[herne79]

Try thinking in terms of variety in attack and who's in the box to score.

You have two wingers, both of which are designed to stay wide and cross the ball.  One's just a bit deeper than the other.  And when they do cross, who do they cross to?  A lone striker being double teamed by big strong central defenders.  It's a bit one dimensional.

I'm deliberately exaggerating a bit to be fair to draw attention.  Your CM(attack) should be there or thereabouts near the box when crosses come in, as should the opposite winger, but is "there or thereabouts" good enough - especially for a team of the stature of Benfica?  Bear in mind you've also told your CMs to run wide with the ball, so the number of players getting into the box may be even more restricted.

Two wingers can work but you need bodies in the box to get on the end of crosses.  And a different option on one wing for some variety in attack (eg., an Inside Forward or Raudeuter) can make for nice alternative plays.

[Cleon]

I think this topic might help you, it's one I wrote about how every single role, team instruction, player instruction all links to give you the final product. I think you need to think of your own tactic in the same way. Forget about transitions for now, they'll come naturally once you nail the basics. Focus on the roles you've used and understand what they do and how they link with the rest of the roles/duties you've used.

I also always find it odd when people start off with lots of TI's and PI's straight off the bat. Why not play around first and see how the roles work without any additional settings and then tweak if you feel the role isn't doing what you expected wanted. Sometimes I feel people create tactics the wrong way around, they tend to start at the finish point and work backwards. Rather than having your set vision/philosophy/way of playing as the end goal and working towards it.

[limeee]

I'm actually using a similar tactic. Here are my thoughts without knowing what players you have.

Firstly, I think winger don't partner well with wing back, they were both asked to do the same thing, attacking the same part of the pitch from same angle with same method. Which essentially means that when one of them is doing his job, the other one become useless. You can set one as FB(s) while the other as W(a) or W(s), I think this will work better. In my tactic, I use WB(a) paired with a Raumdeuter, who was a left footed poacher before I retrained him to be a wide player. He really sucks at crossing but has good offball ability and finishing.

secondly, I don't know who your striker is, but I think for this system to work, he needs to be really good. In your tactic he is both the number nine and number ten, he needs to be able to both create chance and take the chance, besides to an extend also dictate play and bring team mate into the game. In my tactic, since I use a wide Raumdeuter as a number nine, the guy I put in as solo CF was a DLF type of guy who mainly play as a number ten. Sometime when I'm playing against strong teams, I will set him as a defensive forward, just to let him focus on doing simple things , so he doesn't loose possession easily.

Thirdly, as to overload right flank, I have a similar approach. I have a winger on support while the right CM was set to Mezzala(a) without extra PIs, it works wonders. anyone of them attract the attention of the enemy fullback, the other one will have space down the flank. I have tried with CM(a) and found out it works differently, the CM(a) will link less with the wide player and focus more on make forward runs into the middle, I think the difference is the run to the channel and roaming PIs. I also have my star player, a fast advance play maker type player to be the Mezzala. Behind them are my right fullback on defend, just to reduce the risk of enemy counter attack. But I think a IW(s) will be a idea role, it's just I don't have the right player for it.

 

And I think the CM(s) don't need the hold position PI, from my observation, he tends to stay outside of the penalty  area act as cover when his partner is inside the enemy box, even when I ask him to "go forward" and "roam from position". 

 

 

[Keyzer Soze]

Thank you very much to all for the replies. 

@herne79, after reading your words, it makes perfect sense, and I see now how one-dimensional my attack was.

@limeee, I actually, and after reading the post from herne, change my tactics to this :

             CF(S) 

W(S)                            RAUM(A) 

       CM(S)           CM(A) 

               DM(D) 

WB(A)   CD(D)    CD(D)   FB(S) 

I will test your suggestion regarding the wingback behind the winger and how they do the same job. 

One question about your tactic, you have a BWM on the left side, to give support to the WB+Raum combo. Is this mandatory? Could it work with a CM(s) or a DLP(s)? 

I ask this because I don't have that type of player in my team, and to be honest is not a role that I like that much. 

[limeee]

It's to compensate the fact that the Raumdeuter don't chase back and defend.

The problem I found when using the tactic at the beginning was that, because the Raumdeuter tends to not chase the enemy WB, even with the man mark PI, my FB often get doubled down. When someone dribble down my left flank, My full back will have to leave his position and close him down too early, and thus left a huge gap behind, which will drag my DM to there to fill the gap, which will in the end left a hole in front of my CBs. I lost several games because of this, so I changed my CM on the left to BWM just to let him help out screening the left, so my FB don't have to run around so much. And it worked, and the player I think has to have quite good speed, workrate, teamwork to sufficiently cover that much ground though. In the end I put my hard-working DM there and my creative playmaker on the DM position.

It's not mandatory though, sometimes I put my DLP there, but I will always manually set the closing down to much more. It does not work at same degree. I feel the behavior and  is much more decided by the player's attribute, rather than instructions.

[Keyzer Soze]

Thks @limeee

[sporadicsmiles]

Your tactic is quite close to mine in terms of the setup, except I use a CM(A) and a BBM(S) as my midfield duo, and a IF(A) instead of the RMD(A) (although I have never used the RDM so I do not know how this will affect anything). I find it to be excellent in the way it plays.

For your team shape, I find the best way to think about it (and it is surely not the only way) is in terms of how much freedom you are giving players to deviate from their initial roles. Very fluid means they will be more willing to do their own thing. Highly structured means they will stick more rigidly to your instructions. This is not the only effect, and other people have written far better about this than I can, but I use this as a guide for myself. So I play standard structured, because I mostly want my team to do what I want. I do often use the "more creative freedom" TI however, which mitigates this somewhat. Standard makes the side less direct, and sit slightly deeper than control, so my players start deeper in general, and are more patient.

In the end, it all depends what you want to achieve, other than winning? What is the style of football you are aiming to achieve? How can your players help you achieve that? Unless you can answer those questions yourself, it is very hard to set up a side in order to actually achieve a style of play.

For me, I want to press hard to get the ball back, I want to be relatively direct when we do so to exploit space left behind. When this does not work, I want to be a little more patient. In particular, if we are starting with possession from deep, I want to build slightly slower than if we win the ball high up the pitch. Thus, I have an idea of what I want to do, so I could play with roles and duties in order to achieve it. Further, I played a lot with OIs in order to properly achieve the pressing I wanted. In my instance, I wanted to press specific areas of the pitch, rather than have specific players do specific things.

The other thing to remember is that the players you play have a strong influence of what you see, and I think this is sometimes overlooked. So too is how the AI plays against you. For example, against higher rep sides, I tend to play very quick players up front (even if not my best players), because I know that the AI is likely to leave me more room in behind their defence, and fast players are able to exploit it. If, for example, I play against a side who are more defensive, I may play a strong centre forward, because he will be able to receive the ball, hold it up, bring other people into play. A weak but quick player will be less effective in this instance. You do not have to make huge tactical changes to exploit the AI, do not forget this nor overlook it. 

In your tactic, I would consider swapping the support and attack duty in the central midfield. The CM(A) and RMD(A) want to exploit similar areas, after all. I would not worry too much about the attacking fullback on the left, because you have the DM(D) who is also acting as defensive cover at all times. I love the W(S) WB/FB(A) combination too, they link up so well and are excellent for creating overloads. 

[Keyzer Soze]

Hi to all,

So, after all the feedback, in particulary @herne79 and @limeee, i've started testing alot, with variation with my front 3 player and the player from the midfield.

In the tactic from the first post, there were some things i've notice, after reading your feedback:

- lack of support to my center forward,

- my left wingback with minor impact (due to the winger in front of him?)

- my CM(a) with too many long shots

- good solid defence system, conceding few goals

After trying different things, i came up with this:

DLFa)

IF(s)                                  W(a)

CM(s)  CM(d)   CM(s)

WB(a)    CD(d)    CD(d)    FB(s)

SK(d)

The first thing different, it that i went with a flat midfield trio. The reason i decide to try this, is related with the fact that, because i'm playing with winger (or at least on winger) that player always seems a little bit isolated because the center midfielder from that side always stay too central. So, by going with a extra man in the midfield line, this forced to stretch more the team, in terms of width.

I also decided to drop the CM(s)-CM(a) combo, and went with a more conservative CM(s)-CM(s) combination, with some PI's.

My left CM(s), is instructed to shoot less and make more risky passes, my right CM(s) have the same instruction and also the run wide with ball instruction so that he will give a greater support to the right winger.

Up front, the W(s)-CF(s)-W(a) combination gave place to a IF(s)-DLF(a)-W(a) combination, to give more variation to the attack. For what i can see i now have more presence in the box (with the DLF and the right winger), and more players coming late with both CM(s) and the IF(s).

I maintain the standard mentality, but changed the team shape to fluid. The reason for this is related with the fact that i no longer have a player in the DM strata. With fluid, i think my D-Line will be close to the midfield, something that i think will help my defensive process.

After starting testing the tactic in 0 TI's (thks @Cleon), i added 4 TI's after some games: 

- Use offside trap, because with the d-line being a more push up (because of the fluid team shape and because there is no DM player) i think its logical

- close down more, simply because i want to win, and i want to recover the ball as quick as i can

- prevent gk distribuition, for the same reason above

- work ball into box (only use this when i'm getting too much long shots)

After 10 games, with the tactic stabilized and without making more changes, i got a 9wins and 1 draw run, scoring 21 goals and conceding only 4.

Interesting facts:

- 15, from the 21 goals i've scored, came from the player(s) playing in the DLF(a) position

- my right attacking winger only score 3 goals, and my left inside forward only 1 goal.

- My right attacking winger is the king of assists, getting 9 untill now. My midfield players only contributed to 3 assists.

 

To be honest i was expecting more goals from my right winger, but it seems (untill now) that the combination W(a)-DLF(a) is working great together.

From the numbers, it seems both CM(s) aren't giving much to the game. I was expecting more, mainly because i have both with the instruction to make more risky passes. I'm relucted to change things, because i'm winning, but it's something i will look in the future.

Well, just like to share with you guys the result of your feedback. Thks once again-

 

 

[alanschu14]

17 minutes ago, Keyzer Soze said:

To be honest i was expecting more goals from my right winger, but it seems (untill now) that the combination W(a)-DLF(a) is working great together.

Attacking wingers will often look to be wide and cross from the byline so unless the play is building up on the other side of the pitch, I don't find that my wingers get too close to the net too often.

That said, sounds like he's doing an excellent job of crossing into the box for goals and I'd say he's behaving as I would expect from his role!  So good job!

Your CMs and IF might not be getting on the stat sheet, but it is also possible that they're ensuring that defenders can't crowd your striker too much giving them greater opportunities to score by facing fewer defenders.  In any case, getting Ws so it's hard to complain to much

[herne79]

Well done, glad your results are improving.

1 hour ago, Keyzer Soze said:

My left CM(s), is instructed to shoot less and make more risky passes, my right CM(s) have the same instruction and also the run wide with ball instruction so that he will give a greater support to the right winger.

Just to pick up on this, if your right CM(s) has the instruction to run wide with the ball, it isn't your winger who needs the support, it's the right CM(s).  He's the one with the ball, not your winger.  Perhaps that's what you mean and it's just getting a little lost in translation?

1 hour ago, Keyzer Soze said:

From the numbers, it seems both CM(s) aren't giving much to the game. I was expecting more, mainly because i have both with the instruction to make more risky passes. I'm relucted to change things, because i'm winning, but it's something i will look in the future.

Yeh, don't fix things unless they're broken.  However perhaps something to consider for the future is the possible lack of a runner from midfield.  Options here could be: change a CM(s) to a CM(a); give one of the CM(s) the PI to get further forward; use a player with a PPM such as gets forward often, gets into opposition area or arrives late in penalty area.  So consider different options, you don't always have to rely on changing player role or duty to have different players play in a different way.

[Keyzer Soze]

@herne79

About the MC with run wide with ball, the idea was, to have the player closer to the right channel so that when the winger make a forward run he would have someone closer. Perhaps I should have chosen the move into channels instruction for this. What do you think? 

 

I haven't try give any of my MC a attack duty or the instruction to get further forward. I a couple of matches I did change the left MC to a AP(a). This happens in games that I was getting difficulty to score, and I thought that perhaps a more creative player in the midfield might help. In both cases I scored minutes later. Could be luck, but could also be my brilliant manager skills. 

[herne79]

@Keyzer Soze

2 hours ago, herne79 said:

don't fix things unless they're broken.

I'm only commenting to give you ideas as you said it's something you might look at in the future .

[Tyrinko]

4 hours ago, Keyzer Soze said:

Hi to all,

So, after all the feedback, in particulary @herne79 and @limeee, i've started testing alot, with variation with my front 3 player and the player from the midfield.

In the tactic from the first post, there were some things i've notice, after reading your feedback:

- lack of support to my center forward,

- my left wingback with minor impact (due to the winger in front of him?)

- my CM(a) with too many long shots

- good solid defence system, conceding few goals

After trying different things, i came up with this:

DLFa)

IF(s)                                  W(a)

CM(s)  CM(d)   CM(s)

WB(a)    CD(d)    CD(d)    FB(s)

SK(d)

The first thing different, it that i went with a flat midfield trio. The reason i decide to try this, is related with the fact that, because i'm playing with winger (or at least on winger) that player always seems a little bit isolated because the center midfielder from that side always stay too central. So, by going with a extra man in the midfield line, this forced to stretch more the team, in terms of width.

I also decided to drop the CM(s)-CM(a) combo, and went with a more conservative CM(s)-CM(s) combination, with some PI's.

My left CM(s), is instructed to shoot less and make more risky passes, my right CM(s) have the same instruction and also the run wide with ball instruction so that he will give a greater support to the right winger.

Up front, the W(s)-CF(s)-W(a) combination gave place to a IF(s)-DLF(a)-W(a) combination, to give more variation to the attack. For what i can see i now have more presence in the box (with the DLF and the right winger), and more players coming late with both CM(s) and the IF(s).

I maintain the standard mentality, but changed the team shape to fluid. The reason for this is related with the fact that i no longer have a player in the DM strata. With fluid, i think my D-Line will be close to the midfield, something that i think will help my defensive process.

After starting testing the tactic in 0 TI's (thks @Cleon), i added 4 TI's after some games: 

- Use offside trap, because with the d-line being a more push up (because of the fluid team shape and because there is no DM player) i think its logical

- close down more, simply because i want to win, and i want to recover the ball as quick as i can

- prevent gk distribuition, for the same reason above

- work ball into box (only use this when i'm getting too much long shots)

After 10 games, with the tactic stabilized and without making more changes, i got a 9wins and 1 draw run, scoring 21 goals and conceding only 4.

Interesting facts:

- 15, from the 21 goals i've scored, came from the player(s) playing in the DLF(a) position

- my right attacking winger only score 3 goals, and my left inside forward only 1 goal.

- My right attacking winger is the king of assists, getting 9 untill now. My midfield players only contributed to 3 assists.

 

To be honest i was expecting more goals from my right winger, but it seems (untill now) that the combination W(a)-DLF(a) is working great together.

From the numbers, it seems both CM(s) aren't giving much to the game. I was expecting more, mainly because i have both with the instruction to make more risky passes. I'm relucted to change things, because i'm winning, but it's something i will look in the future.

Well, just like to share with you guys the result of your feedback. Thks once again-

 

 

I would try to switch W(a) to Raumdeuter. In my opinion it would be acting like Salah for Liverpool this season. 

[Keyzer Soze]

11 hours ago, Tyrinko said:

I would try to switch W(a) to Raumdeuter. In my opinion it would be acting like Salah for Liverpool this season. 

i did try the Raum on the right wing in previous tests, but didn't like the result. Could be related with the fact that i don't have the right kind of player to do the role.

For now, i'm messing with some roles... just testing to see the impact on the team, in 30 minutes of 45 minutes of play:

- MC(d) to DLP(d). Didn't see much difference in the team perfomance, apart from a small increase of possession

- MC(s), on the left, to AP(a). It help me got a first goal in games that were 0-0 at half time. The midfield got less positional, with the AP(a) making forward runs all over the opponent half. I like the result, but got me more exposed in the left side to counter attacks. In the future gonna try change the right MC(s) to AP(a). That way will have a more attacking side (the right one) with the Winger(a) and AP(a), but with the cover from the FB(s), that i could change to FB(d). Must try, and then will give some feedback.

- On my last match, against Belenenses at home, i was winning 2-0. With 20 minutes to go, decided to bring Raul Jimenez to replace Jonas. Raul is natural as a Defensive Forward, so decided to change the role of my forward from DLF(a) to DF(s) with the PI to move into channels. In 20 minutes score 3 goals, one from Raul, one from my right winger, and the other from my right MC(s). for what i could see, the impact the attack was huge. The gameplay got much more simple and direct. Defenitly a solution that i want to try from the star, because the 3 goals i scored could also be related with the fact that the opponent was trying to score to bring themselfs back into the game.

 

It's been a fun save untill now. making these small changes once in a while, and seeing the impact on the team.