Chelsea: A set of Rigid 4-5-1 Tactics. Where can I improve please?

[davehanson]

Hi all. First of this is not a release of a set of tactics, but rather I am putting them up here in the hope that some people might help me improve them.

Problems:

Well, I am playing a rigid style of football for all three of my tactics. The issue's I am having is creating good goal-scoring oppurtunities. I realise that as part of my rigid style, the players will not be allowed as much creative freedom, and that full-backs and defensive midfielders won't join in the attacking phases as much as they would do under a balanced or fluid types of styles, but I was hoping to emulate the Chelsea era under Mourinho, in that it would be a precise, methodical, squeeze-the-life out of other teams, rather than the swash-buckling style of, say, Guardiola.

Shape & Formation:

A simple 4-5-1 (4-3-3 or 4-1-2-2-1 if you want to look at it like that - but the game classes it as 4-5-1)

Under Mourinho, Chelsea, to my mind, relied on Terry, Carvalho & Makelele to always be defensive. Cole and Ferreira supported the attacking players. Essien in central midfield was essentially a box-to-box midfielder and alongside him Lampard was allowed every opportunity to get forward and supplement the 'lone' striker. The wide players were inverted and Robben and Duff/Cole came inside more often than not. This also allowed the previously mentioned full-backs to get forward into the space vacated by the wingers. Drogba was the lone striker who had that physical pressence to occupy both central defenders.

How have I tried to replecate this with the current (plus a couple of aditions) playing squad? Well, by and large, the defence is almost as Mourinho left it. Cech, Cole and Terry are all still there. To compliment them Luiz/Cahill are Terry's partners and Ivanovic or Azpilicueta play at RB.

In central midfield Lampard can still operate as the attacking central midfielder and Ramiers can do the Essien role. What I do not have is a Makelele really. Sure, there is Obi Mikel and Romeu that can do the job. However, I would feel that Makelele would have had 'Plays short simple passes, stay's on feet and always stays back' as his preferred moves. Neither Mikel or Romeu have any of these. I am currently training both not to dive into tackles, but it is going to take a while to get them both up to standard. And, as far as I know, you can't train 'always stays back' as a preferred move. To compliment these I have bought in Poli and Maher. I feel that while I can get Mikel and Romeu to learn what I want them to do I can use Poli in central midfield in some games as a DLP S/D as a bit of extra protection of the defense His positioning isn't the greatest, but I am working on that. Lampard will develop Maher into, hopefully, the new Lampard!

In the more advanced positions is where things really differ. I am using a set-up of AP(S) - DLF(S) - IF(A). Chelsea don't have that typical big physical presence of Drogba. What they do have is Torres! At the moment I am asking him to do that DLF role. It is not ideal, but I don't want my Striker getting isolated form the rest of the team, so Torres has to take one for the good of the cause! I am training Hazard and Mata to be a Forward, but again, this will take time. I feel Hazard would be ideal in this role. Rather than a physical presence I can see him being Chelsea's Messi. Coming deep to get the ball and draging at least one central defender with him, or being allowed the time to turn and then run at the defense. Either way I believe it will work. Hopefully. On the left Mata is set as an AP(S). I want to get the ball to his feet and give him options around him. Hopefully Cole bombing up on the outside, Lampard running deep from Midfield, Oscar cutting in form the right or Hazard dragging a defender out and leaving space for Mata himself to run into. Oscar is my IF(A). I want him cutting in from that right hand side. Thats all. Causing defenders issue's.

What I want to acheive:

World domination. Muhahahahaha. I want to try to replicate Mourinho's play, in so far as they were functional rather than entertaining. I would rather win 1-0 or 2-0 than 4-2 or 5-3. I don't want to be conceding stupid goals, but I do want to at least create some clear goalscoring opportunities. Is it too much to ask? In the recent home game against Fulham I drew 1-1. I had no CCC's compared to their 2 CCC's.

This is a bit of unashamed copy and paste from Zonal marking that highlighted why Mourinho's system was perhaps so successful:

Look, if I have a triangle in midfield – Claude Makelele behind and two others just in front – I will always have an advantage against a pure 4-4-2 where the central midfielders are side by side. That’s because I will always have an extra man. It starts with Makelele, who is between the lines. If nobody comes to him he can see the whole pitch and has time. If he gets closed down it means one of the two other central midfielders is open. If they are closed down and the other team’s wingers come inside to help, it means there is space now for us on the flank, either for our own wingers or for our full-backs. There is nothing a pure 4-4-2 can do to stop things’.

As most of the teams in England still use a 4-4-2 (at least of sorts), this statement by Mourinho should still ring true.

Screenshot:

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That is just obviously my basic shape. The shape is the same for all 3 tactics within the set. The players roles differ slightly as I have said, but not by a massive amount.

The Tactics:

There are 3 versions in my set. An Attacking mentality version. A control mentality version and a standard mentality version.

Attack Version:

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Control Version:

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Standard Version:

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I guess I should add here that the ONLY individual instruction I have changed for any player is for Peter Cech (GK). All I have altered for him is his distrubution. On the attack & control tactic I have set it to 'defender collect' and on the standard I have set it to 'long kick' and set it to distribute to my AML. The reason I have done this is because I feel that I will use the standard tactic against equal (or better) sides as me, and perhaps I can launch a quick counter if we have been pinned back for a while.

Conclusion:

As I have said I would like your help to make the tactics better, particularly in creating good chances. I feel the team is lacking a pattern of play somehow. I can't quite put my finger on it if I am honest. Perhaps I am stifling them a little too much, is rigid too much for the creative players, am I asking them to play to much to my blueprint and not giving them the creative freedom they require?

I don't feel the defense is too far away from where I need it to be. I seem to be doing okay there. I know the weakness defensively in this shape is possibly down the flanks, with the full backs getting outnumbered, and especially with pushing our LB to attack in all the tactics. To be honest I haven't found it so far. Perhaps Ashley Cole is just good enough to make up that gap. But, I certainly have not seen us getting hit down the flanks.

Thanks for your time.

[Cleon]

I wish more people put effort into threads asking for help that you have. Makes it much easier to be able to assist

Problems:

Well, I am playing a rigid style of football for all three of my tactics. The issue's I am having is creating good goal-scoring oppurtunities. I realise that as part of my rigid style, the players will not be allowed as much creative freedom, and that full-backs and defensive midfielders won't join in the attacking phases as much as they would do under a balanced or fluid types of styles, but I was hoping to emulate the Chelsea era under Mourinho, in that it would be a precise, methodical, squeeze-the-life out of other teams, rather than the swash-buckling style of, say, Guardiola.

I'm going to reply as I go along so I'm sorry if I repeat something or you've explained them further down.

But have you used the analysis tab to see what kind of positions players are getting into and so on? It's a great tool for when used right and tells you so much info. Also have you paused the game at random times to have a look around at your players positioning and to see what passing options they have? You'll also see what space they have to work in and see who is marking them etc.

Under Mourinho, Chelsea, to my mind, relied on Terry, Carvalho & Makelele to always be defensive. Cole and Ferreira supported the attacking players. Essien in central midfield was essentially a box-to-box midfielder and alongside him Lampard was allowed every opportunity to get forward and supplement the 'lone' striker. The wide players were inverted and Robben and Duff/Cole came inside more often than not. This also allowed the previously mentioned full-backs to get forward into the space vacated by the wingers. Drogba was the lone striker who had that physical pressence to occupy both central defenders.

How have I tried to replecate this with the current (plus a couple of aditions) playing squad? Well, by and large, the defence is almost as Mourinho left it. Cech, Cole and Terry are all still there. To compliment them Luiz/Cahill are Terry's partners and Ivanovic or Azpilicueta play at RB.

In central midfield Lampard can still operate as the attacking central midfielder and Ramiers can do the Essien role. What I do not have is a Makelele really. Sure, there is Obi Mikel and Romeu that can do the job. However, I would feel that Makelele would have had 'Plays short simple passes, stay's on feet and always stays back' as his preferred moves. Neither Mikel or Romeu have any of these. I am currently training both not to dive into tackles, but it is going to take a while to get them both up to standard. And, as far as I know, you can't train 'always stays back' as a preferred move. To compliment these I have bought in Poli and Maher. I feel that while I can get Mikel and Romeu to learn what I want them to do I can use Poli in central midfield in some games as a DLP S/D as a bit of extra protection of the defense His positioning isn't the greatest, but I am working on that. Lampard will develop Maher into, hopefully, the new Lampard!

The Makelele role is vital for what you want to achieve. I actually think in terms of FM he could be suited to the DLP defend role. He'll stay back and do everything a DMC will but he'll also keep things simple and he'll do the little short passes etc.

In the more advanced positions is where things really differ. I am using a set-up of AP(S) - DLF(S) - IF(A). Chelsea don't have that typical big physical presence of Drogba. What they do have is Torres! At the moment I am asking him to do that DLF role. It is not ideal, but I don't want my Striker getting isolated form the rest of the team, so Torres has to take one for the good of the cause! I am training Hazard and Mata to be a Forward, but again, this will take time. I feel Hazard would be ideal in this role. Rather than a physical presence I can see him being Chelsea's Messi. Coming deep to get the ball and draging at least one central defender with him, or being allowed the time to turn and then run at the defense. Either way I believe it will work. Hopefully. On the left Mata is set as an AP(S). I want to get the ball to his feet and give him options around him. Hopefully Cole bombing up on the outside, Lampard running deep from Midfield, Oscar cutting in form the right or Hazard dragging a defender out and leaving space for Mata himself to run into. Oscar is my IF(A). I want him cutting in from that right hand side. Thats all. Causing defenders issue's.

On FM12 I was playing as Santos and I retrained Ganso to be my main striker for the main reasons you've highlighted in the above post. It worked out great and then Neymar playing the inside forward role from the left would run into the space he created and cause them all sort of issues. It worked really well the other way around too.

I'll show you a few examples (altho it's a different shape to you the movement is still the same between the DLF and IF);

Movement is key for any player to gain that extra half of yard or to lose his marker. Here are a few screenshots of how Ganso’s movement works allowing him to score.

On that screenshot he is just jockeying just outside the area. This is one of the reasons I gave him the Deep Lying Forward role to ensure he wasn’t always advanced. It can pay to have players more cautious and reserved; there is no need to always be attacking. I could have achieved this with the Treq role as well but by altering the mentality individually. Something I didn’t really want to do.

That screenshot is of him making the run into the box as late as possible and losing his marker by checking back and going round the back of him. He then slots the ball home.

The next screenshot is from the same game but the build up to his second goal. Again he is not that attacking in his movement but he is been clever and reading the game well.

By the time we look at the next screenshot Ganso is screaming (well I imagine with the hand gestures) for the ball and timely advancing forward ready for the pass.

Then in the last screenshot you can see his timely run into the box and he just has to tap the ball into the net. Just look at the space he has because he made the run from deep and wasn’t too deep to begin with. As did the Right sided forward but we’ll touch upon him later. By running from deep late, the player is actually unmark able for most parts as the defence has to go back to follow Neymar. So technically Neymar creates the space and Ganso exploits it.

Bringing Others into Play

Now we’ve seen what a threat he can by the type of goals he scored, I thought it be best we look at how he performs with build up play. I can and will show more varied goals that he has scored but I want to talk about what he offers the team in more detail first, other than just his goal tally.

Ganso doesn’t get as many assists as you think he would judge by his stats. But that’s only half the picture so doesn’t show the full story. Sometimes he is the start of a 10 pass move, or 5 pass move. So he doesn’t get the credit he deserves.

In the above screenshot that is him playing with his back to goal. Neymar passes the ball to him and immediately he is looking to turn and run into the channels (this is why forwards should have move into channels set).

As you can see he has acres and acres of space to run into and exploit. If you take a look at the goal above what Neymar provided for Ganso, this is almost the reversible happening as Ganso is turning provider this time as Neymar as cut inside.

He just puts the ball across the box and Neymar lets it run across him and then fires it into the right corner.

You see this happening time and time again. Ganso offers so much upfront, he is more than just goals and assists he is almost the engine room for all attacks. I know in the examples I’ve show above it seems to favour the left side, but it doesn’t as you’ll see a little later on when we look at the right sided striker.

Hopefully this will give you a little insight into how Ganso performs. It will get more detailed about his role and look at things in even greater detail. But I want to discuss the rest of the squad first to give you a better outline of how things work.

That's the kind of play you are hoping Mata/Hazard/Torres can do? Hazard will be great playing the creative forward role. He should create loads and still score a fair amount too.

I can't really advise you on much else though because you've not posted much about what kind of things are going wrong in a game and provided any stats or anything. Any chance of seeing any highlights or anything that you've uploaded to youtube?

[davehanson]

Thanks for the reply Cleon. I am not going to quote as it will take up the rest of the page, but I will try to go through things as you have asked them.

I do look at the analysis tab. I use it primarly for:

1. Average positioning. When I can see I have a player playing where I want him to play I know I have that part right. However, at the moment I have to be careful that I don't change something unnecassarly. By that I mean this:

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See, when I look at that I feel that my striker, despite playing as a DLF(S) is far too high up the pitch and isolated. However, as I said in my opening post, I am using Torres in this role at the moment, and Torres's natural tendencies is to push further forward (he has move into channels as a preferred move).

The other thing(s) I want to see different is that I would like to see Oscar (IF/A) and Hazard (AP/S) infield a little more. Especially Oscar. I want him to cut in from that right hand side. When I check his movement tab:

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He, in the entire game, has not cut inside with the ball once. Perhaps that could be explained by Torres not dropping deep and the infield being too crowded for him to cut inside.

The rest of the team, I am fairly happy with. Lampard is pushed up a little more than Poli. Mikel has sat where he needed to be, perhaps a little higher up than I would of liked, when Romeu came on he tended to sit a little deeper.

The Makelele role, as you have pointed out, is quite vital to me. As Mourinho said he is the one that can dictate how a game will go almost. He is not only the first line of defence, but also the starting point of an attack:

It starts with Makelele, who is between the lines. If nobody comes to him he can see the whole pitch and has time. If he gets closed down it means one of the two other central midfielders is open. If they are closed down and the other team’s wingers come inside to help, it means there is space now for us on the flank, either for our own wingers or for our full-backs.

I don't have that Makelele player. I haven't tried either Mikel or Romeu as a DLP, I will try that. If I can get Poli's positioning up a little he might be quite useful in that position as well.

The screenshot's you have higlighted are what I would like to see! Ultimately I plan on shipping Torres out as I feel he is too one dimensional. In his prime he was a wonderful player, but a little like Van Nistelrooy/Owen, he just isn't right for this kind of set-up where you need that forward to be more than just an 'end product'. I need the CF to be a creator, for himself and others. Hazard is going to be that man. I have trained him to come deep to get the ball, so he now has 'Tries killer ball's often, comes deep to get balls, runs with the ball often and plays one two's'.

I will upload the highlights of the Fulham game, which was probably my most disappointing game:

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And, as you will see from the average positioning tab, we were just very disjointed:

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To be fair, I was trying out an option of 'swapping' players (Mata swapped with Hazard for instance) to try and get some more movement out of the front three. It didn't really work!

Here is the pkm of the Fulham game:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/askdxm

And the pkm of the West Brom game (my last game):

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vgd88j

[Cleon]

I don't have time for a proper reply tonight so I'll just be quick for now until tomorrow.

The one thing that stands out from the screenshot is 12 long shots. That's excessive. You should use the analysis tab and watch the clips of all the shots back and see if it happened because of;

Lack of options to pass to.

Been closed down to fast

No movement from the more advanced players

Panic shots

Is the player just been wasteful

and so on. Then you'll be able to fix the issue and try and work on it.

[wwfan]

That first player position screenshot is interesting. Thus far, Torres has never played well in for a truly top team. At Atletico Madrid, he, and then he and Aguirro, ranged in front of a workmanlike side that relied on getting the ball forward to them quickly so they could exploit open space with their pace and incisive movement. At Liverpool, he also played in front of a relatively workmanlike team that sat deep, relying on the hollywood passes of Gerrard to get him into open space. At Chelsea, he's playing in a talented team that tries to control final third play or counters by breaking past the lone forward.

He's never been comfortable in either role. Although he's beginning to offer more all round play when the team is trying to control a match, this has come at the cost of goals. He's never been able to play the Drogba hold up ball, bring others into play role and ends up getting isolated. It might be that FM researchers have produced a very accurate Torres, which means he is totally unsuited to playing a DLF/S role in the Mourinho 4-3-3. He gets caught too high and doesn't offer enough to all round play.

If so, the solution isn't necessary tactical. One option would be to sell Torres and bring in somebody who can do the lone forward job. A second option is to build a team around Torres, which is difficult with no second forward. Di Matteo's solution was to play a 4-2-3-1, so at least the ranging central AMC can keep in touch with Torres and stop him from being so isolated. At first this worked, but as the Autumn weather and heavy pitches are rolling in, it is beginning to suffer.

Ultimately, Torres seems to be the problem. Given no Chelsea manager has solved it yet, it is a tough ask for you to do so.

[Kamil-S]

Torres with a little positional retraining will be good poacher from wing (however left isn't his strong foot). I've played him as AMR with Mata upfront.

[davehanson]

That first player position screenshot is interesting. Thus far, Torres has never payer well in for a truly top team. At Atletico Madrid, he, and then he and Aguirro, ranged in front of a workmanlike side that relied on getting the ball forward to them quickly so they could exploit open space with their pace and incisive movement. At Liverpool, he also played in front of a relatively workmanlike team that sat deep, relying on the hollywood passes of Gerrard to get him into open space. At Chelsea, he's playing in a talented team that tries to control final third play or counters by breaking past the lone forward.

He's never been comfortable in either roles. Although he's beginning to offer more all round play when the team is trying to control a match, this has come at the cost of goals. He's never been able to play the Drogba hold up ball, bring others into play role and ends up getting isolated. It might be that FM researchers have produced a very accurate Torres, which means he is totally unsuited to playing a DLF/S role in the Mourinho 4-3-3. He gets caught too high and doesn't offer enough to all round play.

If so, the solution isn't necessary tactical. One option would be to sell Torres and bring in somebody who can do the lone forward job. A second option is to build a team around Torres, which is difficult with no second forward. Di Matteo's solution was to play a 4-2-3-1, so at least the ranging central AMC can keep in touch with Torres and stop him from being so isolated. At first this worked, but as the Autumn weather and heavy pitches are rolling in, it is beginning to suffer.

Ultimately, Torres seems to be the problem. Given no Chelsea manager has solved it yet, it is a tough ask for you to do so.

I totally agree with you. Liverpool fans probably won't like it, but I remember reading an article quite some time ago, when Torres was still at Liverpool and on fire, from a journalist who said he didn't believe Torres was, or would ever be, world class. He pointed out that his all round play wasn't that of a world class forward, but that his goal-scoring record couldn't be compared to the best either, and when you took his supply line out he couldn't create for himself. I remember the journalist getting a torrent of abuse from various Liverpool fans, but the words stuck with me.

And, your right, the only option open to me is to sell Torres (if I can). I am not prepared to build the attacking part of the team around one man, or at least the focus of every attacking move towards one man. Manchester United did it with Van Nistelrooy, and whilst it was relativly successful it wasn't like Cole/Yorke, Cantona/Hughes etc.

I want that top man to be almost Messi like (ain't asking for much eh?). I want him to drop deep into the 'hole', to give defenders the problem of going with him or staying where they are. By dropping into that space it either opens up a big gap if the defender has followed him that Oscar/Lampard & Mata can exploit. Or if the defender doesn't go with him, this happens:

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Late in the game, 3-1 down to Arsenal (we are down to 10 men as well). Arsenal are not playing a defensive midfielder and Poli wins the header. Hazard has dropped off and none of the defenders have gone with him. This gives him time to turn and run at the 2 center-backs:

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What happens next is obvious:

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Torres simply would not have been there to have done that. He would have been right up top with the center-backs, on the shoulder. Sure, that has advantages, but not in this system.

[yifanwang99]

There's a few things I'd like to comment:

1. I agree with wwfan about Torres. He's not really suited as the lone forward especially in a 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation. As he needs to hold the ball up and wait for the support from the MCa and wingers to catch up with play from defensive positions. His attributes has gone lower and lower ever since FM11 and he also does not have the required pref moves. I might get some sticks for this but I think even Bendtner will be a better lone forward than torres in your system. He has better height, better off the ball, and the 'come deep to get ball' attribute. If you have the money (you should do with Chelsea), you can try to grab a better all-around forward as he's the focal point, an incredibly important piece of your attacking play. I was also trying to set up a lone forward formation for Arsenal (to incorperate Carzola) but you can imagine how much I miss Van Persie. Van Persie is probably the best all-around DLF in the game.

2. I find that you play a 'rigid' system but by definition, that system give players small creative freedom and roaming. To get better attacking play, you can give your forward players (2 wingers, forward, and the attacking midfielder) more creative freedom and more roaming. They don't contribute that much to defensive play anyway.

3. I think Ramires is more of a BBM where Lampard is the MC/a. At this age Lampard is no longer the all-action midfielder he used to be but he's still more useful forward running into the box than Ramires. I think Lampard scores more goal in 1 season than Rameris can do in 5.