Help Me Rebuild Marbella

[Ciderarmy]

So after staying up on the last day of the season again I feel I need to change direction and play the football I want and to hell if I get relegated doing it as im not enjoying the save at the moment and if I use my own way of playing I hope the love will come back.

So this is the tactic im using and need you advice and help.

[Ciderarmy]

Im using my fave formation and I normally play possession football but as the 2 strikers are pretty good and that is where we are strongest I thought we could sit deep and play on the counter with direct balls to the attacking 3.

Im using a back 3 with 2 dms acting as a screen of 5 forcing the opponents to play wide and hit crosses as my 3 defenders are tall with good heading skills.

In transition the idea is to hit long balls in the channels for my front 3.

The problems I have is playing a dm a good idea when im playing counter attacking football and im not sure of the front 3 roles and duties.

Also my lwb is more attacking where my rwb is a bit more conservative and im still not sure if I should go for a low block or a high block.

Any feed back would be helpful.

[Experienced Defender]

6 hours ago, Ciderarmy said:

My first question for you - are both your strikers right-footed or left-footed or have different stronger feet? If the last is the case, which one is left, and which one is right-footed? 

 

6 hours ago, Ciderarmy said:

In transition the idea is to hit long balls in the channels for my front 3

Given that you play on balanced mentality, I would suggest upping tempo a notch (to higher). Also, I don't think it's necessary to use wider attacking width. Standard (default) should be quite okay. 

6 hours ago, Ciderarmy said:

The problems I have is playing a dm a good idea when im playing counter attacking football

Using a DM - or even two, as in your tactic - absolutely makes sense for counter-attacking football, especially as counter-attacking football is primarily based on strong and solid defending. A better question is which DM roles would be more or less advisable to use. A DLP on support can be used in a counter-attacking style, though it may slow your attacks a bit. However, having a DLP (on support) may not be a bad idea, because in addition to counter-attacks (which will anyway be triggered by the Counter TI when an opportunity arises), you can also build some attacks in a more regular way. In fact, even in the most counter-attacking tactic, not every single attack will be a counter-attack. I guess you understand what I mean.

 

6 hours ago, Ciderarmy said:

and im not sure of the front 3 roles and duties

The front 3 roles and duties are okay IMO. And given that you want to play counter-attacking football, you may even consider having both strikers on attack and AM on support (with PIs roam from position and take more risks, so as to make him a quasi-PM). If you decide to go with both strikers on attack duty, a possible combo can be DLFat/AF. Other combinations that make sense - depending on what type your strikers are - include: DLFat/PO, CFat/PO, TQ/PO, TQ/PFat, CFat/TMat, TMat/AF, TMat/PO. 

 

7 hours ago, Ciderarmy said:

Also my lwb is more attacking where my rwb is a bit more conservative

In this particular system, I would go with both WBs on support duty, but with an Overlap TI on the side of the more defense-minded DM (in your current tactic, that would be overlap left). And even if you want one of them on attack duty, the right one would make more sense because your support-duty striker (F9) is on the right side. Or you can swap around the strikers, so that F9 moves to the left and AF to the right.

 

7 hours ago, Ciderarmy said:

im still not sure if I should go for a low block or a high block

If you want counter-attacking football, use either low or medium block. I think your current setting of DL (standard) and LOE (lower) is quite logical for this style of play. You can also consider the Use tighter marking TI (or telling both DMs to mark tighter in their PIs). 

A split block - i.e. telling the front 3 to close down more - might also be worth considering, in order to avoid being too passive defensively.

As for the narrow defensive width - in addition to being good in the air, your defenders also need good positioning and marking (along with decent bravery and strength). Otherwise, play with standard def width.

And one last word (for now) - two out of three CBs on stopper duty is a very bad idea. In fact, when you play with 2 DMs, you don't need even a single CB on stopper duty, much less 2 of them. So either play all 3 CBs on defend, or the central one on cover and the outer 2 on defend. A stopper makes sense when you don't use a DM, otherwise not. Sometimes though it can be used in a single-DM system (like 4141dm wide) with the other one on cover duty. 

[Experienced Defender]

And one more thing - if the DLP is on the right side, then the more attacking striker (AF) should also be on the right side in a counter-attacking tactic. In a possession-based style, this does not have to be the case.

[Ciderarmy]

Hi Experienced Defender many thanks for your advice I will input that into my tactic later

With the cb is it best to leave there closing down on standard 

[herne79]

1 hour ago, Ciderarmy said:

With the cb is it best to leave there closing down on standard 

Try it, watch how it behaves, adjust if you think there is a need .

That's the same with most things in the game - we can think and theorise all we like but until we actually try something we can't know for sure.