[FM19] The Raumdeuter and The Wide Target Man: Trying to Expose Narrow Defending

[targetthyself]

Lately in FM, Narrow Defending has become the standard for basically every defensive shape. The idea is sound, make pitch as small as possible to create easy trapping angles and deny the player with the ball time and space. Lately, I've been trying to figure out ways to exploit this. And I think I've thought up an interesting counter. The Wide Target Man. What the Wide Target Man allows me to do is exploit how teams set themselves up to put one of my stronger players wide and offer him as many runners to create a heavy overload on the oppositions left side to force the narrow defensive shape to over commit and leave space on the other side of the field for the Raumdeuter to attack into. 

The goal is to win the ball in our own half and have our SK(D), CM(Sup) or our DL(Sup) hit an early diagonal ball into the WTM(sup) so he can hold it up and invite our CWB(A) to overlap and our Mezzala(A) to offer him multiple passing options to force defenses to drag as far to the corner flag as possible. With as few touches as possible. Having a F9 dragging a CB out of the box to create the most possible space for the RMD(A) to fill up the scoresheet with the CM(S) offering a long shot option from just outside the box. Defensively I've decided to use a HB(D) to fill the gap left by our CWB and offer our defense a less static screener. 

I wanted to know if anybody has tried something like this before? If they have any advice for Worldie options for this tactic besides Mario and Muller? Are there any good WTM or RMD wonderkids out of the box or should I retrain young TM?  Will I need a top-drawer RB or can I get away with a burner like Yedlin or Bellerin? Should I go with a mid or low block? Am I forced to use Attacking Mentality to get the passing options I want? Appreciate any advice.

 

Rough Mock Up of the idea.

Edited February 19, 2020 by targetthyself

[zlatanera]

Interesting idea. For a WTM might I suggest Romelu Lukaku? He's got both the target man's aerial dominance but also is quite pacy so won't get completely outmanoeuvred by his marker if he has to play it on the floor. 

Thinking about it more, Inter would probably be a decent team for your idea - you have Lukaku as WTM, Martínez as your support striker, and although I don't know what he's like in FM20 perhaps Sánchez would be a good Raumdeuter? In FM19 he certainly had the attributes, including the Work Rate and I'm just assuming they won't have dropped him down too much given how players tend to excel upon leaving United. I know Conte's system is a 3-5-2 but I don't think there's so much depth at CD that you'd run into problems going for a back 4 instead. 

I'm not sure if you want a Half Back though. It drops between the centre backs in possession, out of possession he's still going to step up into DM and the centre backs might be caught out half-way-split, if that makes sense? Maybe just an ordinary DM-De would do. 

[llama3]

You certainly need enough space for the runners to break into and for the Raumdeuter to exploit, so I wouldn't push that defensive line or line of engagement too high up the pitch. You need to let the opponent breathe to give you space. I'd say roles like a CM(a), BBM(s), WB/CWB(s/a) are the kind of deep, penetration runners you need. I think a role like a DLP would be good for distribution and recirculating the ball in and round the WTM and attacking full back.

[permanentquandary]

If you want to play with a half back, another midfielder should hold position.

[BMNJohn]

On 19/02/2020 at 16:11, zlatanera said:

I'm not sure if you want a Half Back though. It drops between the centre backs in possession, out of possession he's still going to step up into DM and the centre backs might be caught out half-way-split, if that makes sense? Maybe just an ordinary DM-De would do. 

And even then, the CB spread accordingly only with players in the WB strata, not with FBs; which obviously creates huge amounts of space behind the FBs/WBs when you use a 4 man defence. It's been signalled to SI more than once, so I suppose it's how SI wants the role to work. I haven't seen much of a difference in its behaviour in FM20: the CBs spread if you use the WB strata, but they don't if you use the FB strata. I could be wrong though, but as a result I usually prefer an Anchor Man or a simple DM(D) to act as the holding midfielder in a midfield trio. Bummer as per the recommended attributes, the HB would fit the role of a DM that's a bit better on the ball than the other holding options but with more interesting movement and defensively safer than the DLP(D).