Is 3 in centre midfield a viable option?

[Ryan377]

Desperately needing some tactical advice from people a lot smarter than myself when it comes to this stuff.

I currently have a save going with Brentford FC. First season we comfortably won the Championship, second season we finished 8th in the PL (massively overachieved) and third season we finished 6th (again overachieving) thus ensuring we qualified for Europe. Our sole tactic up until this point had been 4-1-2-2-1 (defenders-DM-2 CM's-AMR-AML-ST). We really started to slump towards the end of the third season, from February onwards, and were pretty lucky to scrape 6th with a relatively poor points tally. We ended up around 19-20 points off 5th from what I can remember. 

I have never been massively understanding of tactics despite reading hundreds of various guides online. I decided at the start of the season to look at incorporating 3 CM's rather than 1 DM and 2 CM's to see if this would resolve our issue but out start to the season has been massively inconsistent and we have been very lucky in a few games to even scrape a point. I attach a screenshot of my tactic below. A lot of goals we have scored have came from set pieces (direct FK's or corners). 

Initially, I employed a fast tempo game which appeared to work although towards the end of last season when our form dipped, our attacking players just stopped contributing and thought this may have been due to us trying to rush the ball forward and ultimately losing possession before it could reach the attacking front 3. I have sinced slowed the tempo down slightly but with no luck and we are regularly being dominated in games without creating many clear cut chances.

Are there any glaring issues with the tactic I am employing at the moment which a novice like myself can't spot? I realise I have a very youthful squad and that possibly contributes towards the incosistency but this never seemed to be a case during the first 2 and a half seasons. 

Any help would be massively appreciated.

Results so far

Squad list

 

[3LionsFM]

1) You do not have a defend duty in midfield. The BWM(s) will be a bit too aggressive in his approach in the centre and will push up trying to win the ball and leave a hole between midfield and defence.

2) Your DLP(s) makes more sense to be in the middle as he will hold his position. I would recommend you swap your DLP(s) and BWM(s) around. I also strongly suggest that if you decide to do this put the DLP on defend. He will be more conservative and offer just that bit more protection to the defence. You can still add the "Take More Risks" under the Plauser Instructions menu. 

Edited March 26, 2020 by 3LionsFM
Added more detail

[Fflow]

Yes it definitly is a viable option. 3LionsFM is right, 3 players with support duty is too much, You'll need one with defense duty.

Your options are DLP/De or CM/De where your BWM is or simply give your BWM a defense duty (but as said above, BWM will have a tendancy to press higher up so swap him with your DLP)

Same thing with your forwards BTW. As a rule, you'll always need at least one forward with a support duty

The other issue I see is that you play in 4-3-3, which is the only formation with only one striker and no central attacking midfield, so there's a big gap between your striker and your midfields. An AF will push as high up as he can so he'll do nothing to bridge that gap, so I would recommand using him as you support duty (DLF/Su for example).

You can anso use an attack duty in your midfield to bridge that gap (or make do with your BBM but not sure it will be enough). Ideally, do both.

 

Here's an example of viable option, haven't played with it much yet but I've won my first 4 or 5 games with it.

Edit: sorry my game is if French, the roles are:

Po/At

SS/At      AM/Su (works best with an Engenache)

Car/Su  DLP/De  Mez/At

WB/At BPD/De BPD/De WB/Su

SK/Su

 

As you play with wingers, you don't need the Mezzela not the Carrillero so you can just replace them with a AP/At and a BBM or a BWM if you want a more defensive (and probably wiser if you use 2 playmakers) option, it should work

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by Fflow

[Experienced Defender]

6 hours ago, Ryan377 said:

 

6 hours ago, Ryan377 said:

Desperately needing some tactical advice

I would start with your defensive (out-of-possession) instructions:

1. tight marking is not a good idea in this system, both due to the nature of this particular formation and because your compactness in defense is not sufficient for using more aggressive defensive TIs

2. the same applies to the get stuck in instruction

3. Prevent short GKD is a bit less problematic, but I would be careful as well 

4. counter-press is always potentially risky instruction, so you better think twice before turning it on

Let's now take a look at roles and duties:

1. you play without a DM and your only holding CM (DLP) is played on support duty (yet another defensively risky part of your tactic)

2. playing all forward players on attack duties does not make your attacks more dangerous (assuming that was your intention). It only additionally increases the defensive instability of your tactic, making the tactic as a whole even more unbalanced

Before making any further comments (and potentially offering tactical advice), I have to ask you what actually do you want to achieve with this tactic in terms of playing style? 

[Ryan377]

Thanks @3LionsFM @Fflow and @Experienced Defender! All very helpful.

I have done some tweaks in line with your suggestions and also amended the formation, pushing one of the CM's up into an CAM spot to negate the large gap between central midfield and the strikers. I've also reduced down the number of team instructions as well. Hopefully this will allow me to assess in game which small tweaks are needed. I think I'm gonna go with this for the next few games but again, is there anything glaringly obvious that is a big no-no? 

In terms of what I want to achieve, it would be a posession based tactic which retains the ball as well as possible whist also utilising the wings where possible where we have maybe dragged opposition full backs out of position; a lot of our goals in earlier seasons seem to come from wing play with a cross into the box being converted. Unsure whether a standard tempo would achieve this or whether we may need to look at slightly increasing the tempo once the players start to familarise themselves with the tactic. I have chosen the counter press option so we can hopefully look at winning the ball back asap. Previously, we were very poor without the ball and I always felt that if the opposition did get possession, it would likely result in a very good chance for them. Not sure if counter press and higher lines possibly even contribute to this as if we don't win the ball within the first few seconds of losing it, we are then in trouble? 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Ryan377

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, Ryan377 said:

In terms of what I want to achieve, it would be a posession based tactic which retains the ball as well as possible whist also utilising the wings where possible where we have maybe dragged opposition full backs out of position

If you want a possession-oriented tactic, then you need to amend your setup of roles and duties in the first place. Although this particular setup of roles and duties would likely require some tweaking regardless of your desired tactical style.

On top of that, you changed your initial (433 wide) formation into one that is more tricky to set up properly and inherently more vulnerable defense-wise (the top-heavy 4231). I don't think that's a good idea. Instead, you should have kept the original 433 formation and just tweaked the tactic within that formation so as to make it better balanced and more sensible.

[Meraklija Vujevic]

3 in mid is viable but wingers are bad for smaller teams.

I highly suggest not to use wingers if you want to win title instantly.

I sugest to use Belingham as striker or Mezzala.

I won Championship then Premiership instantly using Belingham as striker.

Just train on him shot with power.

here my Levante team who won La Liga in first season

Edited March 27, 2020 by Meraklija Vujevic

[Fflow]

2 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

If you want a possession-oriented tactic, then you need to amend your setup of roles and duties in the first place. Although this particular setup of roles and duties would likely require some tweaking regardless of your desired tactical style.

On top of that, you changed your initial (433 wide) formation into one that is more tricky to set up properly and inherently more vulnerable defense-wise (the top-heavy 4231). I don't think that's a good idea. Instead, you should have kept the original 433 formation and just tweaked the tactic within that formation so as to make it better balanced and more sensible.

I second that, different formation implies different issues. When I said you'd need at least 1 support duty on your front line, I ment 1/2 or 1/3. If you play with 4 offensive players you'll need at least two support duties. One winger and one axial player (I read that somewhere on this forum and it matches what I experimented with 4-2-3-1)

But if you want to go into details @Experienced Defender  seems to have a deeper understanding of the ME than I do

Edited March 27, 2020 by Fflow

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, Fflow said:

If you play with 4 offensive players you'll need at least two support duties. One winger and one axial player (I read that somewhere on this forum and it matches what I experimented with 4-2-3-1)

As of FM19, it's not necessarily a "rule" anymore. You can even go with 3 attack duties among the front 4 (in the 4231), although I personally would use such setup only if I manage a strong team (and even then - not in every single match). But more important is how exactly you will distribute these duties and to which roles you are going to assign them, as well as how you set up those behind them. 

 

1 hour ago, Fflow said:

@Experienced Defender  seems to have a deeper understanding of the ME than I do

Actually, my tactics have very little (if anything) to do with the ME (or my understanding of it). My tactical approach is pretty simple and applies to any ME. All I do is make sure my tactic has a proper balance between defensive solidity and attacking penetration and that it optimally suits my players. Keep it simple and logical - that's my motto 

[Fflow]

21 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Actually, my tactics have very little (if anything) to do with the ME (or my understanding of it). My tactical approach is pretty simple and applies to any ME. All I do is make sure my tactic has a proper balance between defensive solidity and attacking penetration and that it optimally suits my players. Keep it simple and logical - that's my motto 

I see what you mean but still. I'm terrible at chosing between stuff like "get stuck in" , "tighter marking" or "pass into space"

[Hunter T]

On 26/03/2020 at 22:25, Fflow said:

Yes it definitly is a viable option. 3LionsFM is right, 3 players with support duty is too much, You'll need one with defense duty.

 

It is definetly a viable option.  But i think that when it comes to duties depends on what roles the players have and what is the general idea of  a tactic. 

For example, i am playing with a 4-3-3 formation with  good results:

(1st in League One with AFC Wimbledon after 20 games 2019-20 season)

Now, this is how i start the games, in order to be quite aggressive and trying to establish an early lead. 

These are two examples of how this tactic works in terms of goal scoring.

Right side:

 

 

Left side:

 

Please note how far up my two wings backs are.

The three mids in support duty, give the ataacking balance we need and basically we defend by applying pressure. We are vulnerable when we loose the ball, but we try to compensate that by regrouping when the ball is lost and applying constant pressure with the three men upfront and recycling possession with the three supporting mids.