How to use Mohamed Salah effectively?

[tflee83]

For those who are using Liverpool in FM2019, is there any tips to utilise Mohamed Salah effectively? 

I am using the 4-2-3-1 Gegenpressing tactic. The team in general is doing well, on top of the league after 26 games but Salah is not scoring as much, only 12 goals until February 2019.

I am currently playing him on the right as Inside Forward (Attack). 

Would appreciate if anyone can share their experience. 

Thanks. 

[kertiek]

salah and wide forwards in general need space to be efective, with your team high pressing am guessing a lot of times he just cant exploit forward runs or any pocket of space in defense because the opponents cant come out of their half .. i would try lower a little the line of engagement so the opponents advance a little more giving me space to play balls behind the defense to the open space, with salah in IF attack should have "get further forward" ... so he will expecting those through balls to make a run and score a banger... this is how i use auba in my arsenal, works perfect.

[tflee83]

Thanks will give it a try. Was using the default ''Gegenpressing' template. May need to tweak manually. 

[Experienced Defender]

The role I would play Salah in is RMD (AMR). But it's not a question of just how you should use Salah (or any single player). The kind of problem you have usually has to do with the overall tactic. In other words, changing Salah's role/duty alone is unlikely to solve the problem. In that respect, I agree with @kertiek 

[bar333]

You can't turn any wide player into a real goalscorer. In that respect Salah's role in RL can't be replicated and neither can Firmino's for that matter. Attacking play is even worse and more limited in FM19 than last year. If anyone has ever managed to get anything good out of Salah, or Mane, or any Inside Forward in FM19 for that matter, then by all means post a screenshot because I'm dying to see it, and tell us all how you did it because I can't get anything more than consistent 6.6 performances out of them.

[kertiek]

sure, here i have the current stats of both of my AMR inside forwards at arsenal in the season 2020/2021.

felix is my starter but had a injury at the start of the season and trincao started growing at a insane rate when started having more matches.

 

i bet they could score more if i ask them to shoot more, but i prefer to focus mainly the attacks on auba since he is consistenly scoring one goal per game  for the last 3 seasons, cant complain about the assists and goals they have.

[NabsKebabs]

3 hours ago, bar333 said:

You can't turn any wide player into a real goalscorer. In that respect Salah's role in RL can't be replicated and neither can Firmino's for that matter. Attacking play is even worse and more limited in FM19 than last year. If anyone has ever managed to get anything good out of Salah, or Mane, or any Inside Forward in FM19 for that matter, then by all means post a screenshot because I'm dying to see it, and tell us all how you did it because I can't get anything more than consistent 6.6 performances out of them.

On FM18 I played one season with Liverpool and got both Mane and Salah to get double figures in goals and assists in the league. Salah got 20+ for both goals and assists. I'm going to see if I can do similar on FM19.

[bar333]

@kertiek I appreciate the response. Neither of them are goalscorers though but still while the stats aren't hugely impressive it's better than what I've been able to get out of better players like Salah. In my save Salah and Shaqiri also have >7 avg ratings but it is 100% thanks to goals\assists they get from set pieces, take that away and they've done nothing of note. Mane who hasn't been scoring or assisting on set pieces has like 1 goal and 1 assist in >10 apps as an IF(S). Perhaps show us your tactic or explain how you get them to perform?

@NabsKebabs I also got double digits out of IF's in FM18. Back then the problem I had was that you just couldn't get them to be your main goalscorers. No way to replicate what Salah actually does for Liverpool in RL. This year though I can't even get that out of them.

For reference I play a 4-2-3-1 like this:

GK: SK(S)

CB's: BPD(D) and CD(D)

RB: WB(S)

LB: FB(S)

MCR: CM(D)

MCL: BBM

AMC: AP(S)

AML: IF(S)

AMR: IF(A)

ST: CF(A)

Balanced mentality, Higher D-line, Lower line of engagement as I want to create space, shorter passing.

Now, I've had so many different roles and duties combinations other than this, all with the same result. I've had the AM-ST pair on AM(A) and DLF(S), I've tried AM(S) and DLF(A), I've had the fullbacks on different configurations, had a DLP-D in midfield for a while, it all looks the same regardless, there's a real struggle to create chances from open play  and it seems to me like if we want the inside forwards to score goals in FM19 then we don't want a Salah or Mane type but someone tall with great heading and strength because the only chances they get to score is floated crosses aimed at them from the opposite fullback. They can't find scoring positions in the box where their shots aren't blocked (blocks and general congestion in the box is a HUGE grievance I have with FM19's match engine) but I'll be damned if they don't get a good number of far post headers every match.

 

 

[richh200]

I had great success in FM18 with Salah and Liverpool in general. Had him up to 50-60 goals a season. He was playing as a IF attack, with pass into space instruction. Did wonders, especially against teams that came at you and left space in behind. I think his beat offside trait really helped with the tactic.

Haven't tried replicating the tactic in FM19 yet, as focussing on a possession based tactic atm - with very little success so far!

[kertiek]

4 hours ago, bar333 said:

@kertiek I appreciate the response. Neither of them are goalscorers though but still while the stats aren't hugely impressive it's better than what I've been able to get out of better players like Salah. In my save Salah and Shaqiri also have >7 avg ratings but it is 100% thanks to goals\assists they get from set pieces, take that away and they've done nothing of note. Mane who hasn't been scoring or assisting on set pieces has like 1 goal and 1 assist in >10 apps as an IF(S). Perhaps show us your tactic or explain how you get them to perform?

@NabsKebabs I also got double digits out of IF's in FM18. Back then the problem I had was that you just couldn't get them to be your main goalscorers. No way to replicate what Salah actually does for Liverpool in RL. This year though I can't even get that out of them.

For reference I play a 4-2-3-1 like this:

GK: SK(S)

CB's: BPD(D) and CD(D)

RB: WB(S)

LB: FB(S)

MCR: CM(D)

MCL: BBM

AMC: AP(S)

AML: IF(S)

AMR: IF(A)

ST: CF(A)

Balanced mentality, Higher D-line, Lower line of engagement as I want to create space, shorter passing.

Now, I've had so many different roles and duties combinations other than this, all with the same result. I've had the AM-ST pair on AM(A) and DLF(S), I've tried AM(S) and DLF(A), I've had the fullbacks on different configurations, had a DLP-D in midfield for a while, it all looks the same regardless, there's a real struggle to create chances from open play  and it seems to me like if we want the inside forwards to score goals in FM19 then we don't want a Salah or Mane type but someone tall with great heading and strength because the only chances they get to score is floated crosses aimed at them from the opposite fullback. They can't find scoring positions in the box where their shots aren't blocked (blocks and general congestion in the box is a HUGE grievance I have with FM19's match engine) but I'll be damned if they don't get a good number of far post headers every match.

 

 

its true that neither of them are goalscoring or assist gods, but with the attributes they have they are doing more than enough,  felix needs to grow a lot to be more consistent, in one or two seasons we could have a more fair comparison, now he needs speed and more finishing.

 

i play with a 4-1-4-1 dm wide

my fullbacks always trackback and stay close of their wingers, also both of my wingers have tight marking ... i want them to stay close of the opponent fullbacks, since my fullbacks are marking their wingers, ithe opposite team is forced to look  in the middle for  unmarked players, but there i have more or equal players than them (3 players)  ... this forces the opponents to play long balls ... since i expect this, both of my CBs have close down less, i want them to stay always in the back and ready to intercept any long ball or crosses they throw at us ... its like playing with a double libero where the whole team pushes for the ball and both of my CBs focus in sweeping the ball and recycle it to start an attack building from the back.

 

gk sk(d) ... leno cant distribute very well and i prefer to take no risks and start building up from the back so he always looks for the fullbacks, defend is the only role with take fewer risks

cb: bpd(d) cd(d) both with close down less

rb: wb(s) with tight mark and positional mark AML/ML

lb: wb(s) with tight mark and positional mark AMR/MR

dmc:dpl(s)

mcr:ap(a) more direct passes

mcl:ap(a)  more direct passes

amr:ap(s) tight mark

aml:if(a) tight mark

st: pf(a)

 

mentality attacking:

team instructions

in posession: tempo higher, short passing, pass into space, play out of defense, low crosses, run at defense, work ball into box,  focus play through the middle, wide

in transition: distribute to full backs, counter, counter press

out of posession: much lower line of engagement, more urgent, prevent short gk distribution, use tighter marking

 

why i play with much lower line of engagement and more urgent pressing? .. i want my team to be very compact and also let  the opposition come out of their half and give me space because as soon as i get the ball back am going to exploit all that sweet space with killer passes and really fast players.

here is better explained the idea of how i like to defend: https://youtu.be/lUPKD-jjn7M?t=35

 

after my last post felix scored 3 and asisted 1  against chelsea (we won 7 - 2)

 

 

[diimaan]

May be a bit unorthodox, but I retrained Salah as a Mez in my FM18 save and he was very good. A flat 3-5-2, sort of a modified Ö-zil to the Arsenal! tactics.

[Tyrinko]

If you want Salah to score goals like last season you must use him like a Forward, where he play mostly at the second part of season and this season too.

[jcw163]

I'd had a really hard time getting a lot of goals out of individuals in general in FM19, but last night (small sample size I know), I reverted to a tactic I used in FM18 which is described here:-

 

 

Since I've gone back to this set up Salah has started to score and assist in greater numbers again, admittedly he's still only got 15 goals by mid January but 6 of them have come since the tactical switch which was only in mid-December. Before this I'd tried him as an IFs and this was working ok-ish because he would pick the ball up in space in front of the defenders but this wasn't really what I was looking for.

[jakem016]

He's played as an IF-a in a 4-3-3 and is scoring a goal like every 110 minutes for me so far.

 

[md6511]

I signed Neymar for Liverpool and played him AML. Had to sell half the squad to generate one payment of £250m and £600k pw wage space.

I used the default tactics, no tweaking with Gegenpress and the 4-3-2-1 tactic.

He went to score over 60 goals in the season and I won all 4 trophies easy, didn't sign any other players. He was unreal. Salah didn't score half as much but weighed in with plenty of cross field assists to him.

On other saves, I've found Mane and Salah score more goals with the Gegenpress if you have an AMC playing, Dybala is great for £90m. Cheaper options are Fekir and Joao Felix. I've also sold Mane for £90m and signed Memphis Depay for half the price and he had a great season.

Can I ask who your midfielders are please? I assume the fullbacks are Trent and Robbo?

[crusadertsar]

Umm.... Good for you @md6511 I guess. But how is signing an aging primaDonna/diving specialist, bankrupting the the club in the process and severely reducing the quality depth of the rest of the squad for years to come help the original poster? How does it even answer the original question of how to get the best out Salah? Maybe if Neymar is supposed to come in as morale booster and some kind of friend with benefits for Salah. Like giving him steamy Brazilian massages before game to help him loosen up maybe.