How to improve my attack? Striker troubles

[jens_dewit]

Hi guys,

Some of you might remember me from previous years. I'm still a rookie, mainly because I usually play 3 months and then only return about a year later - blame FMM. It's because of that I'm only slowly making progress towards a better understanding of the game. So forgive me for returning once more.

This year I started with the preset styles the game has to offer. i started with choosing the possession based style and chose a formation the game suggested to me. I didn't quite like how it played, so I made some adjustments, culminating in what you see below. It worked a treat for me: I used KV Mechelen in the Pro League B in Belgium (second division in Belgium that is). My team was quite strong compared to the others in the division, but nonetheless, 24 wins and 4 draws in a total of 28 games... I thought that wasn't too bad. 

But I did get the feeling that not everything was perfect just yet. My goals are spread out pretty nicely. My right WB got 11 goals, my AP 8, my MEZ 8, my striker 9, my support MC 8, my winger 11,... But my striker got through enormous droughts where he couldn't score for extended periods. Not really a problem since we're still scoring, but the ratings for the strikers are pretty consistently bad. Like 6.3. 

I then switched to Liverpool to get a better feel of how good my tactic actually is. I'll admit the players are not truly suited for this tactic, but it's for experimental purposes. This save confirmed my feeling: the tactic is decent, but is still lacking in certain parts. Namely the striker position. I can't seem to decide on which is the best option for this tactic. 

I'm not the best analyst of game footage (yet), but I can recognise that the pitch is congested in the final third, making it hard for the striker to find space. But it gets worse if I remove him as he provide necessary pressure on the opponents' defense. I'm also second guessing my MEZ as the idea was for him to offer support to the WB on the right. In reality, the WB is cutting inside (which is cool) and the MEZ seems to lack some impact.

I'm not looking for a miracle cure, but I would love it if someone could help me understand where the gaps in my logic are. Defensively we're quite solid, currently I'm struggling to get my striker firing - or really having any sort of meaningful impact.

Am I overreacting or am I right in thinking I have some more work to do? I'm mainly holding off on continuing my unbeaten save as we're now going to the first division and I want to be ready!

Thanks in advance.

[Experienced Defender]

Apart from an asymmetric formation (which I personally highly dislike as such), the first thing I've noticed is an overkill created by both short passing and low(er) tempo used at the same time. Especially with a top team like LFC, which can comfortably play on a high tempo and thus make life more difficult for opposition defenses. And even if you insist on a patient possession style at all costs, you still do not need to play on lower tempo. Just shorter passing in combination with normal (default) tempo would suffice in terms of dominating possession. But not necessarily in making your tactic more efficient when it comes to scoring and chance creation in general.

[jens_dewit]

21 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Apart from an asymmetric formation (which I personally highly dislike as such), the first thing I've noticed is an overkill created by both short passing and low(er) tempo used at the same time. Especially with a top team like LFC, which can comfortably play on a high tempo and thus make life more difficult for opposition defenses. And even if you insist on a patient possession style at all costs, you still do not need to play on lower tempo. Just shorter passing in combination with normal (default) tempo would suffice in terms of dominating possession. But not necessarily in making your tactic more efficient when it comes to scoring and chance creation in general.

Thanks for the idea. Tempo is one of the few things I haven't played around with. I'll definitely see what that gives me.

Just out of curiosity, what is it about asymmetrical tactics you dislike? Is it because you can sometimes get double team'ed by teams playing with wingers?

[Experienced Defender]

20 minutes ago, jens_dewit said:

Just out of curiosity, what is it about asymmetrical tactics you dislike? Is it because you can sometimes get double team'ed by teams playing with wingers?

I like to manage teams in FM as I would manage them in real life football. That's the main reason I dislike asymmetric formations. The only asymmetry I can tolerate in my tactics is having the AMC and STC on different sides in 4411 (e.g. AMCR & STCL or vice versa).

[jens_dewit]

On 29/03/2019 at 22:02, Experienced Defender said:

I like to manage teams in FM as I would manage them in real life football. That's the main reason I dislike asymmetric formations. The only asymmetry I can tolerate in my tactics is having the AMC and STC on different sides in 4411 (e.g. AMCR & STCL or vice versa).

But when looking at real life, they're never really symmetric either, are they? Just looking at Hazard, you'll find him all over the place.

[Experienced Defender]

4 hours ago, jens_dewit said:

But when looking at real life, they're never really symmetric either, are they? Just looking at Hazard, you'll find him all over the place.

I am talking about the (a)symmetry of formation, not individual players' roles, duties and instructions. Hazard is all over the place because he is allowed complete freedom of movement and expression, but that has nothing to do with symmetry or asymmetry.