Trying to rip off Barca/Spain's art project but the wingers make me want to slit my wrists.

[Vicente14]

I'm United and I was looking at the side and noticed they're super well set up to play like Spain/Barca with no striker. Thought I'd give it a whirl.

Everything is great. We suffocate through relentless posession and get on the edge of the box then it all just turns into Arsenal-esque nonsense of endlessly passing the ball around the edge of the area until someone takes a long shot. It can result in goals and does, we smashed Arsenal 5-0, was a joke game, wiped out Norwich like a training match... however what I want is for RvP and Kagawa to get me goals. They're out wide, right and left respectively with Rooney as the AMC. The idea is we do the tiki-taka around the area but that the wingers, obviously, work the channels and made darts and get onto slips from the midfield of Rooney, Carrick and Cleverly or Scholes or Powell or Fletcher or Young or Giggs... like Henry in his pomp or Villa at Barca. This never ever happens. They usually just stand basically next to the fullback really far out wide and do not at all work the channels, so I think, lets move them to AMC's along side Waz but still as IFs. Cool, they're more central now when we get to the final third. Now they just stand about passing the ball around. I can see the gaps for them to run into.... nothing. Eventually someone might force a ball through but it's... not the same and is usually just... sort of as a result of the whole team slowly rolling forward like an glacier.

What am I doing wrong? Kagawa and RvP have their wide play set to 'moves into channels' Kagawa has it as a PPM... yet they just don't do it.

I tried putting them higher up, right into those corner positions and that did nothing.

All I want is a sweeping Scholes diagonal to a surging Kagawa between the FB and the CB left with nothing but a sidefooter past the keeper. It happens so rarely.

I've changed tempo, creativity, runs and stuff from deep, cut inside (then they just run down the touchline and cut in at the byeline, wtf?) all sorts. How do I make them be not stupid useless stand-about-ers?

[Jeztah]

I have similar problems (Playing with Milan) and I've pretty much come to the conclusion that it can not be done regularly on the current version of the match engine. The problem is that basically no one makes runs from the deep in to the space behind oppositions DL and even if someone does, there is rarely any supply. This just results to that pointless moving the ball around near the box.

Sure, sometimes you see those defense splitting passes but not often.

[KrisL]

Make the wide players wingers on attack, although not the same formation but when I play a 4-2-3-1 the wide always make runs in alongside the strikers so my midfielders have 3 to aim at

[llama3]

maybe play a false nine instead of no striker. a forward dropping deep is more likely to draw defenders out - DLF (S) or Treq - both roles that rooney and van persie can play

[horseman_Plague]

I'm playing a 41221 with my foward set as target man that comes deep to get the ball. My wingers are set to normal wide play and play on the side of there good foot. Player role is winger on attack.

I often see my forward coming deep for the ball > pass back to 1 of the mc's > they launch one of the wingers that runs into the sspace left by the forward.

maybe this will help

[vanpablo the 3rd]

have you tried playing them in the RCF and LCF positions set to hug touchline with your AMC with a complete free role?

[mojojojo101]

I had some success getting Nani to play in a similair role in a lopsided 3-4-1-2 back in FM12. I basically put him in the STL position, set as an IF (support), only change I made was to set him to man mark the oppositions DCr which stopped him staying too wide for too long, both with and without the ball.