Please help me create a working 3-5-2

[karanhsingh]

OK, so the background to this is that I have had a LOT of success playing variants of 433, 4231 and 442. However I am just so bored of it now and want to explore new tactics. On the previous patch back in December I had success playing 3-5-2 and I decided to try to revive that again in a new save. Here is the basic framework I have been using.

6 games, 3 defeats & 3 draws in, suffice to say it doesn't seem to be working. BTW I just changed to PF from Targetman, the first 5 games were with that role. 

My issues are -

- the Libero is not stepping into midfield enough for my liking, for which I suppose I could try him on attack duty.
- biggest issue is the AM is completely missing (and is easily the best player in my team). I just do not know how to get this role functioning well. Have tried AP(a) and AM(s) with roam from position, take more risks, etc. The game just passes him by.
- the wing backs do receive the ball a lot but do not create much, which is to be expected as they aren't as skillful as wingers otherwise would be. I guess I need to get better players for this role.
- we are NOT able to dominate the ball and the middle as much as I would hope with a Libero stepping up, two MCs and one AMC. We have not had more than 50% possession in a single game.

I know very well that I could easily switch to a 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 and a lot of these problems would go away, but I really want to make this work! And I really want my AMC to work in this formation. 

I would love any tips on how to turn it around. Thanks!

[Oliver Roland]

Try to change libero to central defender - defend. Give the right wing back support duty and also the deep lying playmaker. Change the attacking midfielder to shadow striker and one of the strikers to deep lying support. Try attacking mentality, play narrow, shorter passing, slightly higher tempo, overlap right. Quit play out of defence and pass into space and tigher marking. Try Much higher defensive line and more urgent pressing.

[karanhsingh]

16 minutes ago, Oliver Roland said:

Try to change libero to central defender - defend. Give the right wing back support duty and also the deep lying playmaker. Change the attacking midfielder to shadow striker and one of the strikers to deep lying support. Try attacking mentality, play narrow, shorter passing, slightly higher tempo, overlap right. Quit play out of defence and pass into space and tigher marking. Try Much higher defensive line and more urgent pressing.

What is the logic behind those changes? Especially getting rid of Libero, the Shadow Striker, and playing narrow?

[Oliver Roland]

Libero is not compatible with offside trap. With both wing backs with attack duty you are too opened on a right side with box to box midfielder. Left side is backed up by deep lying playmaker. If you have deep lying playmaker, you dont need another one on AMC also both attacking strikers is too much. You have to look for balance. Honestly I´m struggling with AMC too but SS with DLFsu is the best for me. Now I´m trying to play with three upfront (DLFsu - AF - PFde) and so far is better.

Playing narrow is important in narrow formation. You´ve got only wing backs. If you want to control the game from the back, you can apply the play out of defence instruction or just tell you goalkeeper to distribute to centre back. Only one instructions is enough.

Also for this tactic and formation you need technical gifted central defenders, wing backs with great stamina and work rate.

 

[Oliver Roland]

 

this thread helped me a lot with this formation 

[karanhsingh]

Thanks 

[Experienced Defender]

5 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

When you use a libero, you basically don't need a playmaker in front of him (especially a deep one in either a CM or DM position). Because what's the point of having a libero if you use another role that is likely to reduce his influence in attack. The attacking AP in AMC is less of an issue. 

Secondly, your style of play looks pretty undefined due to a contradiction between different elements of your tactic. For example, all your front 3 are on attack duties, which essentially suits fast-transition styles of play. But then at the same time, you use in-possession TIs that encourage rather patient build-up play (short pass & PoD). 

Then you are asking your players to make passes into space, but your overly aggressive - and btw too risky - manner of defending is actually reducing that space, thereby making the instruction pretty ineffective (at least in the final third, if not elsewhere). 

In terms of defensive balance, your right flank is potentially too vulnerable, given that you play a very attack-minded WB role (WB on attack) without either a holding or covering CM on his side. 

Overall, you seem to be using a lot of attack duties overall in the hope that it will make your attacks more potent and dangerous. But that's not how things work in FM (apart from plug'n'play/exploit tactics). 

Therefore, you first need to define your intended style of play and also make sure you have the right type of players to carry it out on the pitch. Once you do that, we can discuss what tactical tweaks could make sense. 

[karanhsingh]

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

When you use a libero, you basically don't need a playmaker in front of him (especially a deep one in either a CM or DM position). Because what's the point of having a libero if you use another role that is likely to reduce his influence in attack. The attacking AP in AMC is less of an issue. 

Secondly, your style of play looks pretty undefined due to a contradiction between different elements of your tactic. For example, all your front 3 are on attack duties, which essentially suits fast-transition styles of play. But then at the same time, you use in-possession TIs that encourage rather patient build-up play (short pass & PoD). 

Then you are asking your players to make passes into space, but your overly aggressive - and btw too risky - manner of defending is actually reducing that space, thereby making the instruction pretty ineffective (at least in the final third, if not elsewhere). 

In terms of defensive balance, your right flank is potentially too vulnerable, given that you play a very attack-minded WB role (WB on attack) without either a holding or covering CM on his side. 

Overall, you seem to be using a lot of attack duties overall in the hope that it will make your attacks more potent and dangerous. But that's not how things work in FM (apart from plug'n'play/exploit tactics). 

Therefore, you first need to define your intended style of play and also make sure you have the right type of players to carry it out on the pitch. Once you do that, we can discuss what tactical tweaks could make sense. 

My team (Villa) is probably in the bottom half of the league in terms of ability. So I guess I am looking for a balanced style of play. However from my experience the ME usually favours attacking, high pressing football so going for that. 

The AM is Grealish who I really want to get more out of. He finally scored his first goal of the season in the last game where I was trying him as a Treq. 

Honestly the TIs of pass into space, run with ball and play out of defence I usually just have them on every tactic. Along with counter, counter press, urgent pressing, etc. 

I am thinking of the following tweaks now - let me know your thoughts. 

- change RWB to support duty 

- change one striker to support duty 

- unsure about best role for the AM

- midfield combination can be BBM and BWM

- alternatively I was thinking of going with two Volantes as my players are also suited for that 

- take off play out of defence and go one notch higher on passing (I don't seem to be having much possession anyway) 

- could also drop the d line back to normal since I have only one pacy CB 

What do you reckon? 

[Experienced Defender]

33 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Honestly the TIs of pass into space, run with ball and play out of defence I usually just have them on every tactic

Sorry, but there is no "run with ball" (run at defence TI, I guess?) in your tactic from the screenshot. 

 

35 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

I am thinking of the following tweaks now - let me know your thoughts. 

- change RWB to support duty 

- change one striker to support duty 

- unsure about best role for the AM

- midfield combination can be BBM and BWM

- alternatively I was thinking of going with two Volantes as my players are also suited for that 

- take off play out of defence and go one notch higher on passing (I don't seem to be having much possession anyway) 

- could also drop the d line back to normal since I have only one pacy CB 

What do you reckon? 

Tactical instructions (including roles and duties) cannot be selected on a random basis. They need to be viewed in the context of your playing style. Which you still have not defined. 

[karanhsingh]

11 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Sorry, but there is no "run with ball" (run at defence TI, I guess?) in your tactic from the screenshot. 

 

Tactical instructions (including roles and duties) cannot be selected on a random basis. They need to be viewed in the context of your playing style. Which you still have not defined. 

Fair enough. Right now I want to create a defensively stable tactic with some attacking threat. Long term I would like to see us dominate teams & games. 

My best players are my midfield trio so I need to bring the best out of them. Which do far I have not managed to do. 

Their best, most suited roles would ordinarily be - 

Grealish AP or Mez 

McGinn Mez or BBM

Douglas Luiz BBM or DLP or VOL

[Experienced Defender]

6 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Right now I want to create a defensively stable tactic with some attacking threat

Okay, but then you need to know that neither defensive stability is likely to be achieved with overly aggressive defensive TIs nor is attacking threat necessarily created with (too) many attack duties within a setup. As I always emphasize, the key to both defensive stability and attacking potency is balance. I appreciate that you may have looked at plug'n'play tactics and noticed that they are extremely successful despite being terribly unbalanced and extreme in every possible way, which has possibly gotten you on the wrong track. But if you want to create a normal working tactic, then you need to follow principles that are entirely different (and even opposite) from those applied to P'n'P tactics. 

[karanhsingh]

26 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Okay, but then you need to know that neither defensive stability is likely to be achieved with overly aggressive defensive TIs nor is attacking threat necessarily created with (too) many attack duties within a setup. As I always emphasize, the key to both defensive stability and attacking potency is balance. I appreciate that you may have looked at plug'n'play tactics and noticed that they are extremely successful despite being terribly unbalanced and extreme in every possible way, which has possibly gotten you on the wrong track. But if you want to create a normal working tactic, then you need to follow principles that are entirely different (and even opposite) from those applied to P'n'P tactics. 

So do you think in that content my suggested tweaks make sense?

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

So do you think in that content my suggested tweaks make sense?

Post a screenshot of that new (tweaked) tactic first. I cannot comment on something I don't have any definite info about. 

And keep in mind when creating/tweaking the tactic that you manage Villa, which is pretty much an underdog. 

[karanhsingh]

24 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

Post a screenshot of that new (tweaked) tactic first. I cannot comment on something I don't have any definite info about. 

And keep in mind when creating/tweaking the tactic that you manage Villa, which is pretty much an underdog. 

This is what I am currently on. Yes definitely have that in mind, and tempering my expectations accordingly.

One tweak already is that I plan to switch around the CAR & AP.

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Okay, let's see:

- CWB on attack behind an AP on attack looks like a recipe for disaster defense-wise

- on the other hand, a carrilero covering for CWB on the other flank is a good combo 

- you are still using a playmaker in front of the libero (and even 2 of them now), which means you've completely ignored my earlier advice

- 2 BPDs alongside a libero also looks like an overkill to me

- while you have somewhat toned down defensive instructions, they still look a bit too aggressive for a team of Villa's reputation and strength

Anyway, test the tactic and see what happens. Maybe it will work in spite of the above. 

[karanhsingh]

On 05/09/2020 at 22:51, Experienced Defender said:

Okay, let's see:

- CWB on attack behind an AP on attack looks like a recipe for disaster defense-wise

- on the other hand, a carrilero covering for CWB on the other flank is a good combo 

- you are still using a playmaker in front of the libero (and even 2 of them now), which means you've completely ignored my earlier advice

- 2 BPDs alongside a libero also looks like an overkill to me

- while you have somewhat toned down defensive instructions, they still look a bit too aggressive for a team of Villa's reputation and strength

Anyway, test the tactic and see what happens. Maybe it will work in spite of the above. 

I switched to 2 CARs on either side of an AP(a). The tactic worked very well and I came in 4th place, also winning the Carabao Cup.

Second season the tactic seems to not be doing as well, I noticed a lot of games us having under 40% possession as teams going more cautious against us. I have made the following tweaks which seems to have improved matters:

- reduced passing to short which seems to have a knock on effect on tempo too

- added play out of defense 

- increased D line to higher from standard 

- added tighter marking

- added offside trap

- my two strikers man-mark the two opposition CBs to prevent them from passing the ball around endlessly 

So far it definitely seems to have improved things, was curious as to what your (and anyone else's) feedback is. Thanks!

[karanhsingh]

Sorry, McGinn is wrongly showing as a DLP there, he plays either BBM or CAR.

[Experienced Defender]

3 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

So far it definitely seems to have improved things, was curious as to what your (and anyone else's) feedback is

If it has improved things, then stick with it (as long as it works)