Opinions needed on how to set up a 'Mourinho winger'

[Enzo_Francescoli]

A Mourinho winger is a player that's key to the teams transitions, both attacking and  defensive. When the team recovers the ball, they bomb forward immediately and serve as the main catalysts of the counter attack. Upon losing the ball, they retreat and make life a living hell for the opposing full-back. Think Duff, Pandev, Eto'o.

Now, the first question is do you put the to AM strata or the midfield strata? You have to consider that FM19 treats the former as wide forwards essentially and that your formation is first and foremost your defensive shape, beacause you have much more freedom to influence in-possesion movement via TI's and PI's.

If you opt for the AM strata they will position higher up the pitch, helping your attacking transitions. Still, the question of duty remains. Attack duty will ensure the requirement of bombing forward on the counter.  Do you do that and let teamwork and work rate take care of the defensive transitions, or choose a support duty, perhaps with the get further forward PI ? Will they be too vanilla for the ruthless counters you're aiming for and cross into the opposing full-back twenty times per game?

If you go with the midfield strata, they will help more on defense, because it's less likely they get caught out of position. This time around, an attack duty is likely a no-brainer to achieve the style of play you want. But what's their ideal role? Wide midfielder for added defensive responsibilities? Winger or inverted winger to make them more of a goalscoring threat?

In terms of PI's do you tell them to close down more or to mark tighter? Do they man-mark the full-back on their side of the pitch? Tackle harder?

Any opinions are appreciated.

[sporadicsmiles]

I play my wide players in the AM strata, and tell them to close down more and tackle harder. In addition to that, I tell them to mark the opposition full back. That way they will harry players, but they tend to fall back down the pitch to help defend. You can also make them press less if you want them to focus on keeping the wing backs out of the game. Otherwise they will also close down nearby players. In an offensive transition, they will get forward quickly because they are far from their desired position. If they are faster than the FB who has gone forward, they can even get into space before the AI has time to get back into position. I use this kinda thing to deadly effect when I am counter attacking.

[Strikerir1]

10 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

I play my wide players in the AM strata, and tell them to close down more and tackle harder. In addition to that, I tell them to mark the opposition full back. That way they will harry players, but they tend to fall back down the pitch to help defend. You can also make them press less if you want them to focus on keeping the wing backs out of the game. Otherwise they will also close down nearby players. In an offensive transition, they will get forward quickly because they are far from their desired position. If they are faster than the FB who has gone forward, they can even get into space before the AI has time to get back into position. I use this kinda thing to deadly effect when I am counter attacking.

Do you play them on attack or support duty? 

[Enzo_Francescoli]

11 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

I play my wide players in the AM strata, and tell them to close down more and tackle harder. In addition to that, I tell them to mark the opposition full back. That way they will harry players, but they tend to fall back down the pitch to help defend. You can also make them press less if you want them to focus on keeping the wing backs out of the game. Otherwise they will also close down nearby players. In an offensive transition, they will get forward quickly because they are far from their desired position. If they are faster than the FB who has gone forward, they can even get into space before the AI has time to get back into position. I use this kinda thing to deadly effect when I am counter attacking.

Some sound advice there, thanks. It looks like close down less + man-mark + good teamwork and work rate will make those wide forwards quite the defensively responsible. They can take opposing wing-backs out of the game. At least the quick testing I've done implies so. One step closer to my Mourinho Chelsea tactical replication, a pet-project of mine.

[Strikerir1]

5 minutes ago, Enzo_Francescoli said:

Some sound advice there, thanks. It looks like close down less + man-mark + good teamwork and work rate will make those wide forwards quite the defensively responsible. They can take opposing wing-backs out of the game. At least the quick testing I've done implies so. One step closer to my Mourinho Chelsea tactical replication, a pet-project of mine.

And you? Are you gonna do support or attack duty? 

[herne79]

Don't just think about the role/duty/position.  Think about the player as well.

Leaving role/duty/position to one side for a moment, who's more likely to be able to produce the movement the opening poster is after regardless of role/duty/position: a player with little work rate, determination and stamina; or a player with work rate, determination and stamina to spare?

Once you've got that, then factor in Mentality as well because Mentality will further adjust player behaviour.

Don't isolate things, consider everything together in combination.

[Enzo_Francescoli]

4 minutes ago, herne79 said:

Don't just think about the role/duty/position.  Think about the player as well.

Leaving role/duty/position to one side for a moment, who's more likely to be able to produce the movement the opening poster is after regardless of role/duty/position: a player with little work rate, determination and stamina; or a player with work rate, determination and stamina to spare?

Once you've got that, then factor in Mentality as well because Mentality will further adjust player behaviour.

Don't isolate things, consider everything together in combination.

True, that.

And to answer the previous question, I'm, for now, settling on attack duty on one side and support duty on the other, the latter of which also features and FB(a) and a CAR. I believe that's faithful to Chelsea's Robben-Duff/Cole partnership.

Team mentality is indeed important. If any of these wide forwards' individual mentality is  attacking/very attacking, they simply won't play like I established in the original post. Not to mention, Mourinho wouldn't approve, for sure.

[mc22]

The biggest risk here is asking the FM community for an opinion, instead of something they've proven

[sporadicsmiles]

10 hours ago, herne79 said:

Don't just think about the role/duty/position.  Think about the player as well.

 

Indeed. The things I described are not going to work if you tried to make Balotelli do it, for instance. Mourinho had teams where everyone worked extremely hard in defence. 

[Rashidi]

On 05/10/2019 at 05:18, Enzo_Francescoli said:

Team mentality is indeed important. If any of these wide forwards' individual mentality is  attacking/very attacking, they simply won't play like I established in the original post. Not to mention, Mourinho wouldn't approve, for sure.

Why not? Mourinho's blocks like the one you are specifically referring to is the low block, the one he set up against Barcelona with Milan.

He had Pandev drop into a midfield 3 when they had to defend, and he also needed the players to do disciplined pressing, When they attacked he wanted a quick fire one two with around 4 in attack and he didn't care about the ball possession. You can do this on positive or attacking mentality, Your low block will come from the LOE. Finally you need to look at the players themselves, they need high work rate, determination and team work.  So there is plenty at play here, and finally their duty...its going to be support only.

[Robson 07]

6 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Why not? 

...its going to be support only.

@Rashidi you may have inadvertently agreed with Enzo's post which mentioned 'individual' (not team) mentality.

I might be wrong but I don't think roles with a support duty reach attacking or very attacking individual mentality levels.

[Jean0987654321]

If you want a Mourinho winger, you have to play him in the midfield strata. Tracking back is key to a Mourinho winger. And speaking of attributes, I would begin with these.

- High Teamwork

- High Pace

- High Workrate

- High Determination

- Low Flair

[Enzo_Francescoli]

On 12/10/2019 at 23:55, Robson 07 said:

@Rashidi you may have inadvertently agreed with Enzo's post which mentioned 'individual' (not team) mentality.

I might be wrong but I don't think roles with a support duty reach attacking or very attacking individual mentality levels.

Yes. So far, I've found that on Attacking or Very Attacking individual mentality, they'll more often than not neglect their strict defensive responsibilities which I'm trying to inflict on them. Simply because they can't get back in time. And that means, like the previous commenter suggested, you either play them on a support duty or lower your team mentality. The problem with the latter is that on FM19 it's real hard to create something consistent with Cautious or Defensive team mentality. The problem with the former is that on high team mentalities my defense-first approach suffers, beacuse of the increased collective risk-taking that comes with it. I believe it's a deliquate balancing act which, honestly, I haven't quite mastered yet.

[lferreira]

6 hours ago, Enzo_Francescoli said:

Yes. So far, I've found that on Attacking or Very Attacking individual mentality, they'll more often than not neglect their strict defensive responsibilities which I'm trying to inflict on them. Simply because they can't get back in time. And that means, like the previous commenter suggested, you either play them on a support duty or lower your team mentality. The problem with the latter is that on FM19 it's real hard to create something consistent with Cautious or Defensive team mentality. The problem with the former is that on high team mentalities my defense-first approach suffers, beacuse of the increased collective risk-taking that comes with it. I believe it's a deliquate balancing act which, honestly, I haven't quite mastered yet.

Why not play on standard then and mess with tempo? Even a DLF-Su had a Cautious mentality on standard, so I believe you might get away with attacking duties on balanced - I could be wrong, but some roles go up to positive at best when given an attacking duty.

[Enzo_Francescoli]

1 hour ago, lferreira said:

Why not play on standard then and mess with tempo? Even a DLF-Su had a Cautious mentality on standard, so I believe you might get away with attacking duties on balanced - I could be wrong, but some roles go up to positive at best when given an attacking duty.

I want exclusively my striker to play on an attacking individual mentality. That would mean that on balanced team mentality I couldn't have any more attack duties - which would greatly reduce my counter-attacks. 

However, it seems that you can't be consistently successful on a Cautious mentality in FM19, unfortunately. I have been browsing through the forums and took my time to watch some of  @Rashidi 's videos - which are simply riveting by the way - and no one seems to bother setting up their base tactic on anything lower than balanced. Whereas, Positive or Attacking are probably some of the last words that come to mind when describing Mourinho's general approach, he kept his teams cautious even against lesser sides, and only took risks when desperately chasing a goal.