Trouble engaging my striker

[jettreno]

I have a bit of trouble engaging my striker in our offense. We're top of the table with 24 goals after 15 games and with a solid defense but the two strikers I tried rotating between have only created 4 of those goals. In fact it's only one of the strikers that have made the goals. But the big problem is not that they're not getting any goals. The big problem is their poor rating, for a team at the top of the table, of 6.7 and 6.8.

I'm thinking that maybe a Pressing Forward is not the best role for my tactic but I'm not sure which one to use instead. You can se the full standard tactic in the screenshot. Any ideas?

[NabsKebabs]

He's isolated because everyone else is on support, and he's the only one on attack

[westy8chimp]

Average rating doesn't matter if you are winning? 6.8 is fine anyway... That's above average, then if they score I imagine they creep into the 7+....

The setup looks fine to me... But with that setup I would expect solid results.. Not goals galore.

Of course there are striker roles more intent on scoring...or you could use a more positive formation or more attack duties... Or higher team mentality... Or different TI.... 

What is it you want to achieve? 

[pheelf]

If you wish to see a creative contribution from the striker then I'd suggest using one with a support duty that has a creative aspect to his role such as a Deep Lying Forward, False 9 or Complete Forward. That change will unbalance the system so you would then need to give one of your Inside Forwards an Attack duty to maintain a number 10 / number 9 strike partnership.

A few other pointers you might want to look at with this tactic.

- You've selected Shorter Passing and Play Out of Defence but chosen roles which will play more direct passes such as the Ball Playing Defender and occasionally the Sweeper Keeper. You have chosen a formation which isn't particularly suited to controlling possession. Rather than focus on just controlling possession you need to think about where you want to dominate the ball and how you are going to do it. In the system you have posted you will be able to control possession in your backline but will struggle to control the central midfield as you're likely to be outnumbered and your front three are spread as much as is possible making short-range interplay between them difficult.

- You have no holding midfielder to protect your back 3 and are really vulnerable to a quick counter-attack.

- It seems to me that you have a lot of creators and have nobody in your front three which is going to hold up the ball which is an underestimated but vitally important aspect of a possession-based style. You need to give off the ball teammates the time to find space in order to be available to receive a pass. A possession-based style requires patience and players who are good off the ball.

- You've selected Work Ball Into Box which reduces crossing but why would you want this when fielding wingbacks whose only job in the team is getting forward and doing precisely that?

- You have selected to use the offside trap but have split your line of defence with a stopper duty.

- You want your team to press more urgently but you have also selected for them to tightly mark the opposition. The two are incompatible from my perspective, you either want to man mark or mark space you can't do both simultaneously as an instruction you expect to be applied to all your players. You can, however, set up pressing traps. The idea is that you get a more advanced player to press an opposition player forcing them to rush and play a loose pass to a player you have tightly marked resulting in a turnover of possession but this is done with PIs, not global TIs.

- I'm also unsure how you expect your lone striker to be able to carry out your team instruction of Prevent Short GK Distribution. You can't press effectively when you are outnumbered (you run after one player and the other is completely open). As a minimum, you need two strikers to match up with the two opposition central defenders. By doing that when the goalkeeper has to distribute his two closest choices are marked which will then force him to play it to a fullback which is a longer range pass or long unless he wants to take a chance of it being intercepted or putting his central defenders under enormous pressure.

The tactic needs a clear vision and direction of what you're trying to achieve which I think is lacking at the moment.

I hope that I've been helpful.

All the best with this.

[bar333]

7 minutes ago, pheelf said:

If you wish to see a creative contribution from the striker then I'd suggest using one with a support duty that has a creative aspect to his role such as a Deep Lying Forward, False 9 or Complete Forward. That change will unbalance the system so you would then need to give one of your Inside Forwards an Attack duty to maintain a number 10 / number 9 strike partnership.

A few other pointers you might want to look at with this tactic.

- You've selected Shorter Passing and Play Out of Defence but chosen roles which will play more direct passes such as the Ball Playing Defender and occasionally the Sweeper Keeper. You have chosen a formation which isn't particularly suited to controlling possession. Rather than focus on just controlling possession you need to think about where you want to dominate the ball and how you are going to do it. In the system you have posted you will be able to control possession in your backline but will struggle to control the central midfield as you're likely to be outnumbered and your front three are spread as much as is possible making short-range interplay between them difficult.

- You have no holding midfielder to protect your back 3 and are really vulnerable to a quick counter-attack.

- It seems to me that you have a lot of creators and have nobody in your front three which is going to hold up the ball which is an underestimated but vitally important aspect of a possession-based style. You need to give off the ball teammates the time to find space in order to be available to receive a pass. A possession-based style requires patience and players who are good off the ball.

- You've selected Work Ball Into Box which reduces crossing but why would you want this when fielding wingbacks whose only job in the team is getting forward and doing precisely that?

- You have selected to use the offside trap but have split your line of defence with a stopper duty.

- You want your team to press more urgently but you have also selected for them to tightly mark the opposition. The two are incompatible from my perspective, you either want to man mark or mark space you can't do both simultaneously as an instruction you expect to be applied to all your players. You can, however, set up pressing traps. The idea is that you get a more advanced player to press an opposition player forcing them to rush and play a loose pass to a player you have tightly marked resulting in a turnover of possession but this is done with PIs, not global TIs.

- I'm also unsure how you expect your lone striker to be able to carry out your team instruction of Prevent Short GK Distribution. You can't press effectively when you are outnumbered (you run after one player and the other is completely open). As a minimum, you need two strikers to match up with the two opposition central defenders. By doing that when the goalkeeper has to distribute his two closest choices are marked which will then force him to play it to a fullback which is a longer range pass or long unless he wants to take a chance of it being intercepted or putting his central defenders under enormous pressure.

The tactic needs a clear vision and direction of what you're trying to achieve which I think is lacking at the moment.

I hope that I've been helpful.

All the best with this.

I think most of this is really solid advice but I wonder about the BPD\SK one. The SK even on support in my experience does not make too many risky passes but more importantly the BPD, wouldn't using Play out of Defence with a BPD ensure that only he tries through balls and risky passes while telling your GK\other defenders to pass it short? Which may be something you want (or it may not and then it conflicts as you say). It also in my experience changes the positioning of your defenders when the GK has the ball.

[NabsKebabs]

I think SK(S) and BPD(D) can work with play out of defence. The play out of defence can allow you to draw the opposition press, then your BPD or SK can look to hit them over the top.

[pheelf]

Based on what the UI of the tactical creator shows (which I know has issues but is the only thing I have to go on).

On Balanced mentality,

When Play Out of Defence is not selected:

CD (D) Passing directness default has bar 1/2 full (Standard)

BPD (D) Passing directness default has bar 2/3 full (Standard)

When Play Out of Defence is selected:

CD (D) Passing directness default has bar 1/3 full (Shorter Passing)

BPD (D) Passing directness default has bar 1/2 full (Shorter Passing)

So the thing to take away from that is that the BPD will always play more direct passes than a CD regardless of whether the Play Out Of Defence instruction is selected or not.

As for the Sweeper Keeper on Support, again I'm basing what I'm saying on the information that the game is providing this time with respect to the description.

I sympathize with the tactic creator designer in this case as to how to get this right in the UI. How do you visually display something which only occurs sometimes (direct passes when counter-attacking opportunities arise) while simultaneously displaying what instructions you have given for the in-transition goalkeeping instructions? 

I didn't know about the effect on the defenders positioning, I would be interested to see examples of this if you have any.

Best Regards

[Experienced Defender]

I would look to add a couple more attack duties to make the lone striker less isolated. Personally, in this wide 541 system, I'd go with the left WB on attack and the AMR also on attack, but as a winger (rather than IF), in order to make the attacking play more diversified. I would also avoid having more than one BPD (if any), but if two work well for you, then fine.

As for team instructions, my suggestion would be to drop the LOE slightly (to standard) to encourage the opposition to play the ball more in their half, so that more space is left for (counter)attacks once you win the ball back. Also would add the counter option in the in-transition section (and possibly remove the counter-press). Wouldn't insist on the Work ball into box, nor the lower tempo (could use these as in-match adjustments occasionally, rather than part of the primary tactic). 

[jettreno]

Thank you all for the great suggestions on how to tweak the tactic. You've given me much more feedback than I could ever hoped for and I really appreciate it!

I have tried some of the suggestions and gradually changed the tactic so the change wouldn't be too big from one match to another. The thing that have been the best has been to change the roles of the left wingback and right inside forward to attacking. This together with losing the instruction "work ball into box" has helped a a lot with creating chances. I have also ditched "tighter marking" but can't really say what difference it's made.

Even though I've seen great improvements the initial problem with my striker remains. I have tried changing the role to Deep lying forward, False nine as well as a Pressing forward on support. None has made any significant difference in creating more chances for the striker. The team as a whole still performs but in the long run it might be tough having a lone striker who only scores every fifth game or so.

So, anymore ideas?

The attached file shows the team as it looks right now. Let me know if you would like any additional screenshots.

[pheelf]

You're top of the league and scoring an average of 1.6 goals per game which combined with a tight defense will mean that you are likely to win most games. You'll find that being successful will make teams play more defensively against you and begin to restrict space for your front players but as long as somebody is scoring I don't see the problem.

In my opinion, I actually prefer to have my goal scorers spread out a bit and to not be ultra dependent on my lone striker for goals provided he is still contributing in some way such as making distracting runs or holding up the ball and bringing other teammates into play. If your strikers are getting ratings of 6.7 and 6.8 without scoring that is actually pretty good.

As for further alterations to the tactic, I'd seriously look at the central midfield pair. It may not be causing you problems now but against stronger opposition, defensively it is vulnerable and I can see it being exploited. Also, what was the reason behind upping the mentality? 

All the best