Help Me With My Midfield Please

[Romers]

I'm looking to create a style of play based around the players pressing and closing the ball down and when it's won moving forward with a high tempo and allowing them lots of creative freedom to play passes they deem are on.

So I have most of my roles in place and it's bold but now I need advice on how to fill the midfield 3. So far I'm at this:

                     GK

FB-A    CD-D    CD-D    FB-A

       ???    ???     ???

  TREQ      CF-A       TREQ

I've always had success playing 3 up front, My vision is the full backs bomb on to provide the width and variety to the attack. The two Treq's float around the whole game always on the move looking for space and the CF-A spearheads the whole thing by creating and scoring goals. 

Now my question is how do I provide cover to the spaces left behind by the full backs? Is a DM enough or would that just sure up the middle and still leave me exposed down the wings? If I were to play two Carrilero's for example either side of the midfield 3 would they cover their sides when the full backs have gone past them?

How do I link the play? Is it a Roaming Playmaker in the middle of two Carrilero's to offer cover to the full backs and then a dynamic player in the middle to link things and offer a passing option?

[zlatanera]

Are those Trequartista in the striker position or out wide?

I would suggest starting with a flat 3 midfield of CM-Su - CM-De - CM-Su and then adapt the roles to your players and any weaknesses you notice in how you play. I would definitely not put a RPM in between two Car though as then you have only two defend duties in the whole team in the CBs.

[Experienced Defender]

3 hours ago, Romers said:

GK

FB-A    CD-D    CD-D    FB-A

       ???    ???     ???

  TREQ      CF-A       TREQ

I've always had success playing 3 up front, My vision is the full backs bomb on to provide the width and variety to the attack. The two Treq's float around the whole game always on the move looking for space and the CF-A spearheads the whole thing by creating and scoring goals. 

Now my question is how do I provide cover to the spaces left behind by the full backs? Is a DM enough or would that just sure up the middle and still leave me exposed down the wings? If I were to play two Carrilero's for example either side of the midfield 3 would they cover their sides when the full backs have gone past them?

How do I link the play? Is it a Roaming Playmaker in the middle of two Carrilero's to offer cover to the full backs and then a dynamic player in the middle to link things and offer a passing option?

First, this setup of roles and duties is extremely risky and defensively vulnerable even if your team is a world-class one. You could concede a lot of goals on counter-attacks. Now, I don't know which team you are managing and what's the quality of your players, but if you insist on having all 3 forwards on attack duty plus both fullbacks, then your midfield trio might go this way:

CAR    DLPd    CAR

And very fluid shape to make the team more compact. Mentality should not be higher than Standard. But even so, it's still too risky and honestly, I would never play that way.

[Romers]

35 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

Are those Trequartista in the striker position or out wide?

I would suggest starting with a flat 3 midfield of CM-Su - CM-De - CM-Su and then adapt the roles to your players and any weaknesses you notice in how you play. I would definitely not put a RPM in between two Car though as then you have only two defend duties in the whole team in the CBs.

The Treq's are in the striker positions, I have always tried to outscore opponents and had a lot of success doing it so I like the three strikers. I like the idea of that flat 3, is it a problem to have those less specialised roles or do you think they offer the cover I need?

[Romers]

29 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

First, this setup of roles and duties is extremely risky and defensively vulnerable even if your team is a world-class one. You could concede a lot of goals on counter-attacks. Now, I don't know which team you are managing and what's the quality of your players, but if you insist on having all 3 forwards on attack duty plus both fullbacks, then your midfield trio might go this way:

CAR    DLPd    CAR

And very fluid shape to make the team more compact. Mentality should not be higher than Standard. But even so, it's still too risky and honestly, I would never play that way.

I understand it's risky but like I said I've always been the type to build exciting teams and I'm regularly the top scorer in the league - with the worst defence obviously.

I was leaning towards the idea of two Car's either side of a DLP, I'm about to start with Wolves in the Championship so that would give me Neves as the DLP in his natural role. Would you suggest a flat 3 so the Car's are that little bit wider to cover the full backs? Or drop the DLP into DM?

[Romers]

Here's roughly how I see it playing out...

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, Romers said:

I understand it's risky but like I said I've always been the type to build exciting teams and I'm regularly the top scorer in the league - with the worst defence obviously.

I was leaning towards the idea of two Car's either side of a DLP, I'm about to start with Wolves in the Championship so that would give me Neves as the DLP in his natural role. Would you suggest a flat 3 so the Car's are that little bit wider to cover the full backs? Or drop the DLP into DM?

Well, dropping DLP into DM should make it a bit less risky. In that case you can set the DLP (DM) to support duty (instead of defend). And you can still use the 2 remaining MCs as carrileros.

I understand that you want to play an attractive attacking football and to use TQ because it's a very attractive role in FM. And if I wanted to try such kind of football with a flat narrow 4-3-3 and a TQ, I'd probably set up roles & duties (more or less) in this way:

SWKs

FBs     BPDst    CDc     FBa

MEZs    DLPd    CAR

P       TQ       F9

Standard/Fluid

TIs: play (a bit) wider, play out of defence

Then I would watch the match carefully and make some tweaks if needed.

[zlatanera]

2 hours ago, Romers said:

Here's roughly how I see it playing out...

That actually looks alright. You'll see a slight difference in the opinions of me and @Experienced Defender but that's normal, everyone has different ways of playing. For example, I had a strikerless system very similar to that in terms of the duties - although I used a Half Back and then had Support duty WB in the DM strata to get the HB movement, I guess when they're starting further back Attack full backs might be good for you.

Really the best thing you can do now is just try out your idea and see how it plays.