Trying To Develop The Hoofy-Taka Philosophy

[FMunderachiever]

Hello everyone

Im on my long term save that will carry me into FM21 having done all the short term stuff I want to do.

Im Albion Rovers in Scottish League 2. We are predicted to finish bottom of league 2, bad stadium, finances etc.

Im trying to implement an idea in my head........"hoofy-taka".

 

What im trying to implement is this:

• I want to defend as two banks of 4 by being compact and rigid. I dont want to press hard and disrupt the shape, but cut off the passing lanes.
• In TRANSITION, because of the hoof style, i want us to pick up the second ball, as a lot of our passing is low percentage stuff
• I want the two strikers to defend from the front by pressing a little harder, and be the source of the goals
• I want my players as soon as they receive the ball, one thought in their mind......bang it over the top for the strikers to use their pace
• I want a relentless focus on attacking set pieces as a source of goals

With that in mind my tactical idea currently looks like this:

Where im looking for opinions is:

1) Id like my players to hoof more if possible. They do hoof, but i really want them to continuously look for the front two with direct balls. Id chosen the attacking mentality, and raised the directness of the passing and tempo, to give us maximum hoofability, is there any way of further raising the hoofage?

2) Im contemplating the use of the "counter press" instruction. I want us to be first to the 2nd ball when possession breaks down. I dont want us using a defensive strategy based on urgent pressing, but i do want us to make effort to get hold of loose balls. Would counter press be a good addition?

3) Can the balance of the team be improved? there are quite a few PI's in use. The full backs are told to cross from deep and more often. The central midfield pair, left sided CM is told to hold position whilst right sided is told to get further forward and shoot less often, both set to take more risks. The wide midfielders are set to take more risks and get further forward.

 

So far, so good.

Despite being predicted to finish bottom, we sit top of the table, albeit after only 8 games:

 

 

 

 

Training wise, it couldnt be more simple, we work on fitness and attacking set pieces. thats literally it.

 

I really want to make a success of a real basic hoofing system to lead this team to improvement, i have a huge soft spot for them.

Any feedback would be welcomed to help build the tactic

 

thank you

[Experienced Defender]

22 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

Id chosen the attacking mentality, and raised the directness of the passing and tempo, to give us maximum hoofability, is there any way of further raising the hoofage?

There is. To up the mentality to the Very Attacking and change the FBs into NFBs (I guess so  ). And to Hit early crosses of course, as well as the Counter in transition 

 

22 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

I want a relentless focus on attacking set pieces as a source of goals

Why then don't you use the Play for set pieces TI? 

 

22 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

So far, so good.

Despite being predicted to finish bottom, we sit top of the table, albeit after only 8 games

So it obviously works. Therefore - keep it up (as long as it does) 

[FMunderachiever]

@Experienced Defender

Hi there thanks for following the thread.

I'm absolutely gutted, ive wanted to achieve success with this club for so many years, I follow their results and have a huge affection for them, but yet again I have been sacked.

I'm trying to understand what happened, and I simply cant. was hoping for some feedback.

We were sat on 19 points after 11 games which was a lovely start given we are predicted to finish bottom.

 

Then I cant quite understand it. We were "in" every game, yet on the wrong side of the result and we started to concede goals that I couldn't put down to one aspect of our play. Long shots, through balls, mistakes, set pieces.

We dropped to 7th in the table (which I still felt was good given we were predicted 10th) but the board say get 8 points from 5 games, and I didn't.

 

I checked back into the save, and I see that the AI now has them bottom of the league.

 

Do you think training was the issue? I think fundamentally the tactic is quite good, but maybe it isn't? I really don't know.

 

The idea is to defend with a compact block of 8 players who never go ahead of the ball, and they feed constant through balls to the front 2 to get the goals (ideally). only time the others join in is from a set piece.

Training wise, we only did 4 sessions a week, and I split these up as 1 fitness, 1 match preparation, 2 attacking corners sessions.

 

I don't know whether to start again (which makes me feel really dirty), or try this philosophy with someone else in the Scottish league 2.

 

Its the one club on the game I am desperate to have success with though. I actually feel sad at work today

 

Any advice?

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, FMunderachiever said:

I'm absolutely gutted, ive wanted to achieve success with this club for so many years, I follow their results and have a huge affection for them, but yet again I have been sacked.

I'm trying to understand what happened, and I simply cant. was hoping for some feedback.

We were sat on 19 points after 11 games which was a lovely start given we are predicted to finish bottom.

 

Then I cant quite understand it. We were "in" every game, yet on the wrong side of the result and we started to concede goals that I couldn't put down to one aspect of our play. Long shots, through balls, mistakes, set pieces.

We dropped to 7th in the table (which I still felt was good given we were predicted 10th) but the board say get 8 points from 5 games, and I didn't.

 

I checked back into the save, and I see that the AI now has them bottom of the league.

 

Do you think training was the issue? I think fundamentally the tactic is quite good, but maybe it isn't? I really don't know

I don't play your save (nor do I know your team), so take my assumption(s) with a pinch of salt. 

I think you encountered the same type of problem that has already happened to a lot of people in this forum. Even though your team was predicted to finish bottom, you decided to play in a very aggressive and adventurous manner. That probably caught other teams (AI) by surprise, because they logically expected that you would play in a completely different way, so they were not prepared for you playing such a risky gung-ho style of football. Which is the most likely reason for your initial (huge) overachievement. But then - just as it always happens in such situations - the AI started to adapt to your unexpected success, and your once "great" tactic suddenly stopped producing results. Because - at the end of the day - it was built on quite unrealistic/unstable foundations. 

[FMunderachiever]

22 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

I don't play your save (nor do I know your team), so take my assumption(s) with a pinch of salt. 

I think you encountered the same type of problem that has already happened to a lot of people in this forum. Even though your team was predicted to finish bottom, you decided to play in a very aggressive and adventurous manner. That probably caught other teams (AI) by surprise, because they logically expected that you would play in a completely different way, so they were not prepared for you playing such a risky gung-ho style of football. Which is the most likely reason for your initial (huge) overachievement. But then - just as it always happens in such situations - the AI started to adapt to your unexpected success, and your once "great" tactic suddenly stopped producing results. Because - at the end of the day - it was built on quite unrealistic/unstable foundations. 

Whilst I totally take on board what youre saying, what I cant understand is how there isn't a gradual "lessening" of the effectiveness, and a gradual need to find a new approach, if that was the case.

Because every team plays differently. some are 442, some 4-1-4-1 DM wide. Some play a back 3.

Its the way that youre cruising along doing brilliantly and then BAMMMM, lose lose lose lose lose that leaves me scratching my head.

Theres no kind of warning sign. No tricky but scrape a win games that make you think we got away with one there.

 

Also, what also puzzles me is the fact that we were "in" the games. it wasn't like all of a sudden we looked terrible, but we would always find a way to lose. I just don't understand it even though I totally understand your point.

 

I'm going to try the same sort of approach with a different team and see how it goes

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, FMunderachiever said:

Its the way that youre cruising along doing brilliantly and then BAMMMM, lose lose lose lose lose that leaves me scratching my head

Well, you have real-life examples of that as well. Do you remember when Blackpool was promoted to the EPL under Ian Holloway? They had a fantastic start of the season playing an extremely attractive and adventurous brand of attacking football for their reputation, only to get relegated that same season. People loved them for being brave, but the end result was relegation anyway. 

[FMunderachiever]

7 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Well, you have real-life examples of that as well. Do you remember when Blackpool was promoted to the EPL under Ian Holloway? They had a fantastic start of the season playing an extremely attractive and adventurous brand of attacking football for their reputation, only to get relegated that same season. People loved them for being brave, but the end result was relegation anyway. 

True. But they lost games along the way.

They didnt go win win win win lovely then lose lose lose lose sack.

Thats borderline unprecidented. ive hardly ever seen that in actual football

[Experienced Defender]

6 minutes ago, FMunderachiever said:

True. But they lost games along the way.

They didnt go win win win win lovely then lose lose lose lose sack

As far as I remember, they did win win win (occasionally draw) at the start of the season, and that great streak lasted longer than anyone could have imagined. But then came the terrific lose lose lose period, which costed them dearly. 

[FMunderachiever]

9 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

As far as I remember, they did win win win (occasionally draw) at the start of the season, and that great streak lasted longer than anyone could have imagined. But then came the terrific lose lose lose period, which costed them dearly. 

No im afraid, not true. You can check their results on wikipedia.

They won more games in the first half of the season which is true, but they never at any point had good form

[Experienced Defender]

Maybe.

[Pattric_b]

Don’t you think you’re missing his point? He’s saying honeymoon periods happen and they’re a reality. Even more recently when ole took over United.