Getting a Target Man (Support) and Poacher (Attack) partnership to work. (Championship)

[acdmackay]

Hi,

I am currently Sheffield Wednesday but I'm having trouble with my formation.

I have a 4-4-2 formation. I'll outline it below

---------------TM (Support)-----Poacher(Attack)--------------------

Winger (A)----------DLP (D)----AdvPlaymaker(attack)-------Winger (S)

Full back(A)-------CB (Stopper)------CB(Cover)-----------Full back (S)

I play a Rigid strategy and counter attacking philosophy. The settings are short passing style, default creative freedom, closing down set to press more, tackling default, marking zonal, crossing set to float crosses and more roaming.

My playmaker is set to the advanced playmaker. My target man is currently ticked and his supply is mixed. The poacher is getting plenty goals but my target man is getting less satisfactory ratings and I'm not sure why. I am underperforming in the main. I think with our squad we could be doing better. Does anybody have any suggestions? I've done some tinkering but have not been able to find anything that works yet.

Also one question regarding the target man. Does it matter if you have the box ticked. Will this affect the play? My advanced playmaker is Rhys McCabe and that is also ticked. He generally seems to be getting good ratings. My DLP gets good ratings too. Do you think I should maybe changed the playmaker to the DLP instead?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[MichaelBrown]

Hi,

I am currently Sheffield Wednesday but I'm having trouble with my formation.

I have a 4-4-2 formation. I'll outline it below

---------------TM (Support)-----Poacher(Attack)--------------------

Winger (A)----------DLP (D)----AdvPlaymaker(attack)-------Winger (S)

Full back(A)-------CB (Stopper)------CB(Cover)-----------Full back (S)

I play a Rigid strategy and counter attacking philosophy. The settings are short passing style, default creative freedom, closing down set to press more, tackling default, marking zonal, crossing set to float crosses and more roaming.

My playmaker is set to the advanced playmaker. My target man is currently ticked and his supply is mixed. The poacher is getting plenty goals but my target man is getting less satisfactory ratings and I'm not sure why. I am underperforming in the main. I think with our squad we could be doing better. Does anybody have any suggestions? I've done some tinkering but have not been able to find anything that works yet.

Also one question regarding the target man. Does it matter if you have the box ticked. Will this affect the play? My advanced playmaker is Rhys McCabe and that is also ticked. He generally seems to be getting good ratings. My DLP gets good ratings too. Do you think I should maybe changed the playmaker to the DLP instead?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have reservations about the 4-4-2 anyway, but I'll stick to the questions. I use a target man (I'm Fleetwood in League 2, so it's Jon Parkin) and either a poacher (Stephen Gillespie) or a AF (Mpenza). Anyway, have you tried pushing the AP into the attacking midfield position? I also play with Litmanen and he usually picks up the loose balls. As he's very good technically, he can spread it to the other forward or wide. I think there could be a gap between your forwards and the midfield which means the target man has nobody to support him when he is using his physical presence. Let me know what you think.

[goat101010]

i played with a 4-4-2 for years in sweden and it worked fine

my suggestion is set the crosses to targetman, if its on float thnt just aims more to the middle of the box so if the targetman is slow getting there he will miss out

looks like you are trying to play two ways at once with wingers and a playmaker, so decide what you really want to do. do you want to focus on through balls to the poacher or use the targetman as the focus.

finally what do you want the targetman to be, the scorer or a provider for the poacher. against a physical and not very quick back four i set him to support and let him try to flick on for the poacher to out pace them. for weaker defenders id set him to attack and let him rough them up and basically try to force it in.

in about 10 seasons i used pretty much the same formation and style

fullback s centre back d centre back d fullback s

winger a dentre mid d ball winner s winger a roam from position off for both wingers

targetman a deep striker s or target s poacher a

also used exploit the flanks and play wider shouts

won the league every season, but the first two or three my players were not great but i got away with it with a big striker the defenders couldnt handle

[gechal]

Maybe try using the target man in the deep lying forward role, with him ticked as target man, with supply as "to head".

He might be a little deeper when receiving the ball to head, and therefore under less pressure from the centre backs. Could result in better ratings perhaps.

Also take a deeper look at your target man to see what exactly is going wrong. Is he getting enough touches, is it his passing, shooting or headers won? See what it is that might be causing that poor rating, and then you can set about fixing it.

[jonomagloneo]

I'd change passing to more direct or at least mixed. Short passing won't help open up space for your target man to work in. Would be interested to hear how many times he contests headers in a mach, and how many he wins.

I don't mind wingers and the DLP/AP combo - the midfield 4 is a good balance, I'd say.

[acdmackay]

Maybe try using the target man in the deep lying forward role, with him ticked as target man, with supply as "to head".

He might be a little deeper when receiving the ball to head, and therefore under less pressure from the centre backs. Could result in better ratings perhaps.

Also take a deeper look at your target man to see what exactly is going wrong. Is he getting enough touches, is it his passing, shooting or headers won? See what it is that might be causing that poor rating, and then you can set about fixing it.

I'm going to try using this suggestion because I don't want to sacrifice my short passing game. I want to try to incorporate the TM into that.

[acdmackay]

I should probably ask. Is it possible to incorporate a TM into a short passing game. By that I mean, he can drop deep and play almost like a DLF. My guy has the stats for TM but not for DLF. I still want him to be scoring headers though and for the threat he offers in the box.

[acdmackay]

i played with a 4-4-2 for years in sweden and it worked fine

my suggestion is set the crosses to targetman, if its on float thnt just aims more to the middle of the box so if the targetman is slow getting there he will miss out

looks like you are trying to play two ways at once with wingers and a playmaker, so decide what you really want to do. do you want to focus on through balls to the poacher or use the targetman as the focus.

finally what do you want the targetman to be, the scorer or a provider for the poacher. against a physical and not very quick back four i set him to support and let him try to flick on for the poacher to out pace them. for weaker defenders id set him to attack and let him rough them up and basically try to force it in.

in about 10 seasons i used pretty much the same formation and style

fullback s centre back d centre back d fullback s

winger a dentre mid d ball winner s winger a roam from position off for both wingers

targetman a deep striker s or target s poacher a

also used exploit the flanks and play wider shouts

won the league every season, but the first two or three my players were not great but i got away with it with a big striker the defenders couldnt handle

Does your striker get a lot of goals? I really want to learn to play with a TM so I may try this. The only thing is my two central midfielders are absolutely spot on perfect for the Deep lying playmaker and advanced playmaker role so I guess I've got a bit of a dilemma.

[goat101010]

ok, here are the stats from my targetmen