Too much crossing

[Caporegime]

What changes could I make to this tactic that would encourage my players to cross less and attempt more through balls?

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, Caporegime said:

What changes could I make to this tactic that would encourage my players to cross less and attempt more through balls?

Give them more viable passing options, to begin with. For example:

F9

IFat                                 IWsu

APsu   MEZat

HB

WBsu   CDde  BPDde   IWBsu

SKsu

[Caporegime]

13 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Give them more viable passing options, to begin with. For example:

F9

IFat                                 IWsu

APsu   MEZat

HB

WBsu   CDde  BPDde   IWBsu

SKsu

Ok thanks, i'll make those changes and see how it goes. Another question how would hugs line affect the position/movement of the IWB?

[Marassi]

IWB is a little bit tricky, in that they don't necessarily do what you would think all the time, i.e. tuck inside. If there's no player ahead of them, they will play much more like a traditional wingback/fullback. In the above setup, you'll have an inverted winger going outside to in, and a mezzala starting inside and moving wider. I believe Defender's thinking is that the IWB should step into midfield to "replace" the Mez, who will push pretty high with the Attack duty when in possession. I don't have experience using an IWB with hugs line, but it should still work. I'm speculating a little here, but hardcoded behaviors (like a HB dropping between CBs) shouldn't be totally overwritten by PPMs. Try it and watch a match in full or comprehensive, paying attention to the movement and positioning of that player. If he's coming inside to replace the Mez, you're good. If you're worried it's not working, try it with a player who doesn't hug the line and see if they're different

[sammayel666]

Pull back a bit on all of the instructions and simplify it!

You're compressing the opposition and trying to win the ball back in high space and drive to the goal - your players are going to be trying to attack the box and will lump it in.

Lower the defensive line, LOE and pressing and take some intensity out of things. I've also somewhat frustratingly found that WBIB tends to lead to an increase of crossing because they'll pass it round for a bit before getting frustrated and just crossing.

[wixxi]

Can I just ask what is the obsession with everyone having 0 crosses when they have a possession tactic? Of course if you are seeing too many then you may want to change it but I've seen many people complaining that they're getting crosses in a possession tactic (which is ironic considering Man City have put in the most crosses out of any team this season in the Prem ).

Most teams will look to play deep and compact against Barcelona, so the only space is realistically going to be on the flanks. In my opinion the best way to beat this is the same way Pep's sides and most possession oriented sides work - overload one side to drag the defensive block towards that flank, then quickly switch the play to exploit the weak side. In this tactic I think you will need a more attacking RCM than a BBM e.g. a Mezzala-A or CM-A(if you are trying to overload the left) in order to properly exploit the right side, and I would prefer the LB to be on an attack duty to take up the wide space since the IF will be inside most of the time. Personally I'm a fan of using a WB-A since he has 'Cross from Byline' which is an instruction I think can be very strong in possession tactics as I've found it helps create those cutback and square ball situations we see so often with teams like City.

Also I would be wary with the ideas given about having narrow fullbacks along with 2 inside-playing forwards. Width is a crucial element in any possession based side, and again this is a funny trend you see on this forum where sometimes people are a bit obsessed with having everyone coming inside.

I can't remember the exact quote, but I'm sure Johan Cruijff said something along the lines of "Make the pitch as big as possible when we attack, and as small as possible when we defend."

Edit: Also adding the 'Low Crosses' TI can help to encourage players to play cutbacks/square balls instead of floating them in.

Edited June 30, 2020 by wixxi

[Experienced Defender]

16 hours ago, Caporegime said:

Another question how would hugs line affect the position/movement of the IWB?

It should combine his PIs to sit narrower and cut inside with his trait to hug the line, so he will do a bit of both, depending on the situation as well as how other roles are set up (because roles interact with one another). I had an IWB with that trait (hugs line) and he behaved exactly that way. 

[wixxi]

25 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

It should combine his PIs to sit narrower and cut inside with his trait to hug the line, so he will do a bit of both, depending on the situation as well as how other roles are set up (because roles interact with one another). I had an IWB with that trait (hugs line) and he behaved exactly that way. 

To build on this, an important thing to note about the IWB-S is that it has the 'roam from position' PI built in to it which I actually hadn't noticed until recently. So if you want them to be more like an out-and-out inverted fullback I think IWB-D serves better.

[wixxi]

2 minutes ago, rossenori said:

 

the main problem is players not the weighing their options no matter how low you've set the tempo. work ball and PIs also don't make as much of a difference as it should. you get the ball out to your LB/RB on the flank and you're praying, begging to god your LB/RB does one of the following - hold up the ball, or play a through ball to your IF thats making a run, or cut it back to an open midfielder, but instead they whack it against the first defender and it goes out for a corner or worse case scenario it bounces off the defender in favour of the opposition team and now they're on the counter while you're pushed way up trying to break the bus.

whats even worse is when your LB/RB is played in to space and they still somehow manage to whack the ball in to the defender because they mis-controlled the ball in the first which let the opposition defender catch up, or for once they held the ball up when they should've crossed it before the defender caught up - (my theory, they did this so there wouldn't be as many successful crosses like in previous games. I put over +1500 hours in to FM15 and skipped everything in-between till 2019. whenever a cross made it past the first defender, there was high probability it would be scored) 

city has the 2nd highest amount of crosses per game in the premier league at an average of 24.3 crosses. sevilla has the highest average in the la liga at 18.6 per game, while barca on the other hand with the least amount in the la liga with 7 crosses a game. Barca also attempted a total of 59 crosses in 7 games this season in the champions league, thats around 8 crosses a game with 16 crosses completed, a success rate of 27. im not sure if the 27 corners are accounted into the total crosses though. 

 

 I will have to admit I haven't watched much of barca this season so I can't comment on the crossing stats, but I can say that I have experienced what you're saying about the fullback constantly hitting the cross straight into the first man when they get the ball out wide. Something I'm having some pretty good success with currently is using the PI 'cross from byline' - I've noticed that the wide player almost goes for those crosses mentioned previously before, and in conjuction with the 'low crosses' TI I'm seeing a fair few square balls and cutbacks. I do play without 'work ball into box' in the tactic by default, but when I add it in I've noticed the cutbacks are even more frequent.

I have noticed too that in the situations you mentioned where the fullback is played into space and they try to turn back with the first touch and it ends up being a super heavy touch that allows the defender to recover, since adding using the 'cross from byline' PI the fullback drives with the ball all the way to the byline when given that situation. I suppose it also helps to have the fullback on a 'Positive' mentality or higher so that they are more inclined to drive to the byline rather than sit deep and cross.

[FMSD0]

2 hours ago, wixxi said:

Can I just ask what is the obsession with everyone having 0 crosses when they have a possession tactic? Of course if you are seeing too many then you may want to change it but I've seen many people complaining that they're getting crosses in a possession tactic (which is ironic considering Man City have put in the most crosses out of any team this season in the Prem ).

Once again apples and oranges are compared. Playing shares should always be judged in relation to possession of the ball. It is logical that a team that has a lot of possession carries out an action more often than a team that has less possession. If the picture is put into perspective, Manchester City is one of the six teams with the least amount of crosses in relation to possession. The team with the fewest crosses is Norwich, the ones with the highest Sheffield United and Burnley; as a side note.

Ball possession-oriented teams tend to avoid crosses for the most part, as they could often result in the loss of the ball. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that somebody wants to reduce the high percentage of crosses performed in the ME.

Edited June 30, 2020 by FMSD0

[Caporegime]

39 minutes ago, rossenori said:

 

the main problem is players not the weighing their options no matter how low you've set the tempo. work ball and PIs also don't make as much of a difference as it should. you get the ball out to your LB/RB on the flank and you're praying, begging to god your LB/RB does one of the following - hold up the ball, or play a through ball to your IF thats making a run, or cut it back to an open midfielder, but instead they whack it against the first defender and it goes out for a corner or worse case scenario it bounces off the defender in favour of the opposition team and now they're on the counter while you're pushed way up trying to break the bus.

whats even worse is when your LB/RB is played in to space and they still somehow manage to whack the ball in to the defender because they mis-controlled the ball in the first which let the opposition defender catch up, or for once they held the ball up when they should've crossed it before the defender caught up - (my theory, they did this so there wouldn't be as many successful crosses like in previous games. I put over +1500 hours in to FM15 and skipped everything in-between till 2019. whenever a cross made it past the first defender, there was high probability it would be scored) 

city has the 2nd highest amount of crosses per game in the premier league at an average of 24.3 crosses. sevilla has the highest average in the la liga at 18.6 per game, while barca on the other hand with the least amount in the la liga with 7 crosses a game. Barca also attempted a total of 59 crosses in 7 games this season in the champions league, thats around 8 crosses a game with 16 crosses completed, a success rate of 27. im not sure if the 27 corners are accounted into the total crosses though. 

 

This is exactly what happens to me, I'll just keep experimenting until I find the right formula that works for me.

[wixxi]

4 minutes ago, gonefading said:

Once again apples and oranges are compared. Playing shares should always be judged in relation to possession of the ball. It is logical that a team that has a lot of possession carries out an action more often than a team that has less possession. If the picture is put into perspective, Manchester City is one of the six teams with the least amount of crosses in relation to possession. The team with the fewest crosses is Norwich, as a side note.

Ball possession-oriented teams tend to avoid crosses for the most part, as they could often result in the loss of the ball. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that somebody wants to reduce the high percentage of crosses performed in the ME.

The post was more aimed at those people who don't want to see any crosses from their team when trying to play a possession style rather than just wanting to reduce the unnecessary events where a player had options but still chose to cross it. I will admit that was naive usage of stats there on my part and I understand your point.

I think the issue with the crossing people are having is more to do with the position where the cross is being played - as rossenori mentioned an event that I'm sure many people have had in the game is where their wide player is on the corner of the 18 yard box and plays a cross straight into a defender. I think the solution is to ensure he has adequate support from players near to him and use 'work ball into box', and I've found it helps to have a role that will drive to the touchline to ensure possession isn't too sterile in the final third - otherwise I've found the team will just constantly play around the outside of the box without penetrating. For me atleast this massively reduced this issue.

[wixxi]

16 minutes ago, rossenori said:

i haven't thought about cross from byline to avoid the first touch issue. i'll try it but the other issue is if he gets that far forward and his cross gets blocked, now he has a longer distance to track back if the block results in a counter, but its a very low possibility cause most blocks just go out for a corner. (thats another reason why i refrain from playing attack LB/RB aside from the fact that they cross way more on attacking mentality). and we all know how a park the bus side only requires half a chance to score 1 while you've been trying to break their bus down the entire game lol 

I know it can be frustrating sometimes just sharing what's worked for me

[Overmars]

On 30/06/2020 at 13:25, rossenori said:

my biggest gripe isn't even with the amount of crosses, its the amount of blocked crosses that can't even make it past the first defender due to reasons i posted earlier. (btw almost all of the blocked crosses also go out for corners which then skews the total crosses stats)

My biggest gripe is the amount. I had a crucial match in my current save that could have won me a title, playing at home against an inferior team. We dominated the match and ended up crossing 65 times. We completed 16 of them and ended up with 17 corners. And after all of that, the match ended up 0-0 and we finished second place by one point.

This happens often against weaker teams. I had a similar match a month earlier where we completed 21 of 55 crosses and still ended up scoreless. We completed more crosses than most teams attempt in real life, and yet we still didn't score.

It's the inevitability of it. You know your high-vision central midfielders are going to pass it to your wide men, and then you know they'll either screw up the cross or complete it to a forward who can't find the target. The only crosses that seem to work are from indirect free kicks to the far post or winger to winger.