My tactic stopped working - should it actually work at all?

[Karnack]

I'm absolutely useless when it comes to putting together tactics and I rarely know why anyhing works or not works, but I try to put out something that in my mind looks fairly balanced. So I was absolutely stunned when this tactic brought me 3 CLs, 3 PLs and a multitde of small trophies with Liverpool in three seasons. Feeling I had taken Liverpool as far as I could I went to Italy. Won Serie A first season with Fiorentina and had a good second season, despite losing in the group stages of CL, until now.

We were 1st in january when this dry spell came. We don't create anthing anymore and even when we do we never score. Our conversion rate is the worst in the league at 6% and none of my strikers has scored in the last 9 games.

I get that AI goes more defensive against me and I had that in Liverpool as well, I had no issues breaking down defences and was constantly scoring 100+ goals every season. This squad is weaker of course, but not by extremely much.

My tactic wants to keep possession and work for those chances, thats why my players also have high flair, vision, decision and passing attributes. Raphinha is worst at those with only 14 vision, 17 flair and 15 passing but he is a good finisher and IF(At) has been the role that scores the most. 

Not sure where to go from here? From one day to the next it just stopped working.

[Tom8983]

Even if there was no difference in the quality of your Liverpool team and this one, using the same tactic for both could always cause problems because the players are different and bring different styles to the game with different PPMs etc. You have to adapt to the new players strengths and weaknesses. As it is, maybe your current players just don't have either the quality or traits to match your Liverpool team.

Specifically for the tactic, I'm not sure so many attacking duties are desirable for a team looking to keep possession, even on a balanced team mentality. Most quality possession tactics seem to have one or two (or even zero) attacking duties.

I've not used a Treq or Seg Vol in a long long time so can't really give advice on how they'd play, but when teams park the bus they usually have at least one DM, which is exactly where your playmaker is, so he's not going to be very effective if the opposition are vaguely decent. Maybe it would be worth having your playmaker role in the AML slot and just have an AM-S in the AMC slot.

[Karnack]

11 minutes ago, Tom8983 said:

Even if there was no difference in the quality of your Liverpool team and this one, using the same tactic for both could always cause problems because the players are different and bring different styles to the game with different PPMs etc. You have to adapt to the new players strengths and weaknesses. As it is, maybe your current players just don't have either the quality or traits to match your Liverpool team.

Specifically for the tactic, I'm not sure so many attacking duties are desirable for a team looking to keep possession, even on a balanced team mentality. Most quality possession tactics seem to have one or two (or even zero) attacking duties.

I've not used a Treq or Seg Vol in a long long time so can't really give advice on how they'd play, but when teams park the bus they usually have at least one DM, which is exactly where your playmaker is, so he's not going to be very effective if the opposition are vaguely decent. Maybe it would be worth having your playmaker role in the AML slot and just have an AM-S in the AMC slot.

True, but I actually believe the players I have here are more fit to play this way (of course what I believe is usually wrong :P). I managed to get Bernardo Silva who in my mind is a better player than Firmino in that Treq position, for example. But quality might of course be a big deal here.

I actually only have two attacking duties, the AF was only temporary, forgot to change him back to CF(S) or DLF(S) which have been my main roles up front and the Segundo has been on support as well. 

I will definitely look into changing the AMC role but I was so pleased to finally get the AMC to work and especially as a Treq, Firmino scored over 60 goals and 30+ assists over three seasons in that role. 

Will try your suggestions, thanks!

[summatsupeer]

31 minutes ago, Karnack said:

From one day to the next it just stopped working.

Looking at your results it looks like your goals dried up so will focus on that.

I would not describe that tactic as a "keep possession and work for those chances".  You have 4 attack duties being risky and taking chances with the ball, especially the Treq. Plus they're all in a similar area of the field, I'd say your brute forcing it which can work when you have individual quality and are strong enough defensively to cover.

I think with that front 4 it could get a bit too congested in the middle.  No one is really pulling central players out of position as its all vertical and inside movement. Your going to be relying on one of the IF or TQ beating multiple opponents to create something.  Against high lines this vertical attack could exploit space quickly but how does it create space itself without an individual doing something special?

Ignoring the "keep possession" bit you mentioned, I think a simple change is making the AMR a W-At to keep width for the TQ and IF-Su to use.  I'd probably also make the SV a Support duty and the DR more focused on holding+covering as WB-De.  I'd then consider if we need to move the ball quicker or take more risks as a team to use the early attacking runs sooner in attacks.

If want to create a possession style I can point you in that direction if you'd like.

[pheelf]

The styles of football played in Italy and England are completely different and you need to take that into account. English football is hell for leather high tempo and physical where as Italian football is more patient and technical. Therefore once you get sussed out your form will suffer as a consequence given that the Italian way is a far stronger counter to your style of play. I echo the sentiments others have expressed that the tactic isn't particularly possession oriented. Given the formation and your allocation of roles and duties your tactic looks like a counter attacking tactic. Therefore I'd seek to remove instructions which conflict with this style of play as a starting point if trying to improve the tactic.

All the best

[Experienced Defender]

3 hours ago, Karnack said:

First, defense-wise - do you realize how vulnerable your right flank is with both IF and VOL on attack and WB on support (who will bomb forward despite the support duty)? On the other hand, the opposite (flank) is pretty much conservative. Which combined makes your system rather unbalanced. 

Counter-press can also expose your defense to more risk than it can handle if your players aren't capable of executing the CP in a proper manner. 

Next thing, your formation (as well as the front 4's roles and duties) is more suited to counter-attacking football, but your in-possession instructions - short pass, PoD and WBiB - are possession-based, making the tactic as a whole fairly inconsistent.

[Karnack]

First of all, apologies, I accidently screenshotted a slightly different tactic than the one I've mainly used. The one you saw earlier was a desperate attempt to break down two of the bottom teams. Unsuccesfully of course. 

Secondly, as you can see by the OPs updated screenshot, I got fired and is now in a completely different league with much lower quality.

4 hours ago, summatsupeer said:

Looking at your results it looks like your goals dried up so will focus on that.

I would not describe that tactic as a "keep possession and work for those chances".  You have 4 attack duties being risky and taking chances with the ball, especially the Treq. Plus they're all in a similar area of the field, I'd say your brute forcing it which can work when you have individual quality and are strong enough defensively to cover.

I think with that front 4 it could get a bit too congested in the middle.  No one is really pulling central players out of position as its all vertical and inside movement. Your going to be relying on one of the IF or TQ beating multiple opponents to create something.  Against high lines this vertical attack could exploit space quickly but how does it create space itself without an individual doing something special?

Ignoring the "keep possession" bit you mentioned, I think a simple change is making the AMR a W-At to keep width for the TQ and IF-Su to use.  I'd probably also make the SV a Support duty and the DR more focused on holding+covering as WB-De.  I'd then consider if we need to move the ball quicker or take more risks as a team to use the early attacking runs sooner in attacks.

If want to create a possession style I can point you in that direction if you'd like.

I started to test a few changes according to your suggestions, unfortunately I got fired so things have taken a slightly different turn. But I will move forward with some of your changes. The DRs in this team are all below 9 in crossing, so going defensive seems like a perfect choice.

The interesting thing is that style-wise I have been very pleased with our play, it's been nice looking at (especially during the Liverpool seasons) and I mainly based my possession claim on our stats rarely being below 60%. It's not a specific style I looked for, as I mentioned above I'm worthless at tactics and throw "stuff" at a wall and see what sticks is unfortunately often my only approach.

2 hours ago, pheelf said:

The styles of football played in Italy and England are completely different and you need to take that into account. English football is hell for leather high tempo and physical where as Italian football is more patient and technical. Therefore once you get sussed out your form will suffer as a consequence given that the Italian way is a far stronger counter to your style of play. I echo the sentiments others have expressed that the tactic isn't particularly possession oriented. Given the formation and your allocation of roles and duties your tactic looks like a counter attacking tactic. Therefore I'd seek to remove instructions which conflict with this style of play as a starting point if trying to improve the tactic.

All the best

I had no idea there was actually different styles between countries in FM. Good to know!

2 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

First, defense-wise - do you realize how vulnerable your right flank is with both IF and VOL on attack and WB on support (who will bomb forward despite the support duty)? On the other hand, the opposite (flank) is pretty much conservative. Which combined makes your system rather unbalanced. 

Counter-press can also expose your defense to more risk than it can handle if your players aren't capable of executing the CP in a proper manner. 

Next thing, your formation (as well as the front 4's roles and duties) is more suited to counter-attacking football, but your in-possession instructions - short pass, PoD and WBiB - are possession-based, making the tactic as a whole fairly inconsistent.

I agree, and as stated above it didn't work well  My "normal" approach have been really good defensively but Liverpools quality might have masked most of my poor choices.

I will start to test a more counter-attacking style of play to see if it suits my new team better.

 

[Experienced Defender]

6 minutes ago, Karnack said:

My "normal" approach have been really good defensively but Liverpools quality might have masked most of my poor choices

Very much likely.

 

7 minutes ago, Karnack said:

I will start to test a more counter-attacking style of play to see if it suits my new team better

You better first analyze the team, to see what style should optimally suit them. And also bear in mind that each formation is not equally suited to different styles of play.

[summatsupeer]

2 hours ago, Karnack said:

 The interesting thing is that style-wise I have been very pleased with our play, it's been nice looking at (especially during the Liverpool seasons) and I mainly based my possession claim on our stats rarely being below 60%. It's not a specific style I looked for, as I mentioned above I'm worthless at tactics and throw "stuff" at a wall and see what sticks is unfortunately often my only approach.

If generally your happy with whats happening, you might need to provide specific examples (screenshots of the match) of when things are breaking down so can suggest specific changes.

Just looking at the updated tactic the thing that stands out is the TQ + DLF-Su.  TQ typically is a creator, dropping to collect the ball then driving forward with urgency to try and create a chance.  But then the ST is a link player, dropping to try and help progress the ball.  Is this causing the TQ to lack options and end up with pot shots?  Is the IF-At running into dead ends maybe?