IF and Striker struggling for goals

[tommysvr]

Hi there,

This is something I’ve struggled with on repeated saves, so there’s obviously something wrong with how I set my team up. I create 15-20 chances, dominate possession and keep clean sheets...but just cannot score goals, and average ratings of my attacking 4 are shocking.

I’m currently Anderlecht, with one of the best teams in the league. And though we are doing ok in terms of wins and points, it’s frustrating not to dominate more (and usually my goals come from set pieces or the CM.) Then you get a game like the one I’m posting screenshots from - where I have 20 shots to 5 and lose 2-1.

I’m playing FM20 Touch and would appreciate some help! I want my striker to be scoring 15+ goals with the IF contributing 10 or so themselves.

[TheGoodRebel]

It looks to me like your AML, AMR and AF are a bit too detached from the rest of your team and you've no link between the defence and attack.

They'll all be making forward runs when you get the ball due to their attack duties and they won't be easy to pick out with a pass - especially so as your two DMs are a DM with a defend duty (so he's no good for linking play) and a VOL. There's nothing wrong with the VOL role as such - it's a great role to use - but I think the setup of your other roles and duties are causing your issues.

From personal experience, I'd be inclined to put your AML on a support duty so he links drops back a bit more to link the play and possibly put your WBL on an attack duty. You've got plenty of defensive cover to allow this without causing you any trouble and it should give you a nice link from defence to attack. Also, possibly change your AM to an AP as the AP will roam a bit more and look for the ball. The standard AM is a bit too static for my liking.

[tommysvr]

Thanks for the reply. I’ve tried those suggestions and it seems to have made a bit of a difference, but still struggling for consistency. Wondering if the AM could drop back as a CM - Advanced Playmaker.

[pheelf]

On the screenshot of the game you posted where you lost one thing stands out to me. You didn't create a single CCC, so while you may have dominated the ball and had a load of shots you never really carved the oppositions defence open at any point.

Before anybody can really help you, it's important that you establish in your mind what style of play you're trying to achieve with the tactic as it's not at all clear. You also need to understand why you're making the choices you are. For e.g. playing at the highest possible tempo while trying to play out of defence. Passing into space while instructing the players to sit narrower. It's all rather incoherent at the moment.

I think the biggest problem is that the way your team attacks is really predictable and there isn't really many different ways I can see the team scoring goals. Once the opposition packs the middle and compresses the space in the channels I can see why you would struggle to score. Any width you do have probably arrives too late to help in your attacking moves given your frenetic tempo. Also, when you are one of the best teams in the country why do you need 2 defensive midfielders?

Best Regards

[TheGoodRebel]

7 hours ago, tommysvr said:

Thanks for the reply. I’ve tried those suggestions and it seems to have made a bit of a difference, but still struggling for consistency. Wondering if the AM could drop back as a CM - Advanced Playmaker.

You could try that - or you could try to put your AMR on a support duty so that your AML, AMC and AMR are all linking play and you can keep the shape you intended having. The shape you're using works fine in FM - it's just the selection of roles that affects whether it works well or fails. 

Another thing you could try is to either drop the LOE by a notch or two or increase the DL by a notch to make the team a little more compact and reduce the space between the top and bottom halves of your team. To be honest, I don't think you will need to tweak loads with your team.

[TheGoodRebel]

I actually did a little test with Anderlecht using the changes I'd make without making wholesale changes to your tactic.

Here is the tactic with the changes I made;

As you can see - nothing too drastic - just a couple of duty changes to help the bottom half link with the top half and increasing the DL to make the shape a bit more compact

And here is the league table - as you can see - Anderlecht are the top scorers in the league (so far) using this approach.

It was only a small test but I hope you can see the difference it has made.

Hope this helps a little.

Edited June 22, 2020 by TheGoodRebel

[Experienced Defender]

On 21/06/2020 at 15:34, tommysvr said:

Both your extremely aggressive manner of defending (out of possession TIs) and your extremely fast ("gung-ho") manner of attacking (in-possession TIs) are the most obvious explanation for the problem you are experiencing. The setup of your front 4 roles and duties also contributes vastly to this (with 2 attacking IFs and AF up front).