Help/ideas creating my tactical system

[AAmanicRON]

I was reading through a few threads on here (mainly cleon’s) and I have been inspired to create a formation based how I want my team to play rather than randomly tinkering with roles and settings hoping to gain results (brought me mixed results). I am looking at creating a system that consists of a very organised back line that holds there position with a midfield in front doing all the pressing, kind of like a split “stand-off opponents” and “press more”.

I was thinking of reducing the pressing instructions of my defenders to own area and increasing that of my midfield to whole pitch? Is there anything else that would help achieve my goal? Maybe play an offside trap? And maybe a narrow system? And a deep line?

In terms of attacking I would like my team to get the ball into the final third quickly but without being too wasteful when they are there. Ideally possession will be mostly in the oppositions half.

For this I was thinking of playing counter, direct passing time wasting often or maybe even control, short passing, time waste rarely with counter attack on?

My preferred shape is a 4-1-2-2-1 but I was considering an asymmetric, something like this

GK(d)

WB (a)

CB (d)

BPD(?) don’t usually toy with this as defenders with for this role are not hugely common but being spurs vertonghen is ideal

FB (s)/(d)

DM/A/DLP – currently undecided

AP(a)

W(s)

AM(a)

IF(a)

Undecided on my striker maybe a DLF?

I have not tested yet as I will not get any game time possibly until the weekend so until then my ideas will replay over and over in my mind, slowly driving me to insanity.

Any ideas/help would be much appreciated

[Noel Gallagher]

Your vision sounds a little bit contradictory in a couple of places. Counter attacking relies on drawing the opposition in and hitting them on the break and exploiting space behind the defence. Whilst this is a perfectly good strategy you probably won't dominate possession in your opponent's half as, to some degree, you need to allow them to play in your half in order to execute the counter attack. If you want to dominate possession in your opponents half you would be better playing control or attacking as these employ high defensive lines so you can squeeze the opposition in their half. Control will give you more possession (not necessarily better) and attacking is a little more direct.If you want to play a counter attacking style you need to be prepared to sacrifice possession in the opposition half. Cleon's counter tactic doesn't rely on possession as such but more on the effectiveness of the possession he does have.

[llama3]

first rule is NEVER touch the sliders unless you are certain of what you are going to achieve. As this is a recent decision to try and learn more, I would say that you don't know enough to do it quite yet (might be wrong, apologies). You seem to have several conflicting ideas (direct counter or control short) so take a look at your squad as a whole and individually within the comparison page, as that will help narrow down your strong and weak areas, and help decide on what style suits your team best.

[AAmanicRON]

I think i have explained it very poorly please ignore the "control, short passing, time waste rarely with counter attack on" i was caught in 2 trail of thought that kinda blended into one. what i want is a team that always plays direct but with purpose, not rushing and aimlessly punting the ball up field... i assume a direct style of passing with time wasting set to sometimes/often. that being said would this take the sting out of a counter attack?

[Noel Gallagher]

Pretty much. Except it would be tempo, as opposed to time wasting, that you'd need to change.