FM14 Defensive help for Crewe Alex

[Andy J 82]

Hi,

I've started a game as Crewe after getting the hang of things with a quick game as Arsenal. We're tipped for lower mid-table and have a lot of good potential in the squad. In terms of the first team - Clayton is the young centre forward most know but Colclough is a good right-footed left winger and I bought Boa Morte for tutoring and he's playing as the left footer on the right.

I had a decent pre-season and have continued to be able to score goals in matches, particularly the two difficult cup games so far. Conceding is my problem - it's happening a lot and I don't think it's my players (although my keeper was injured in pre-season and my loanee isn't the best). My results so far are:

My formation is:

I'm basically wanting push higher-up, hassle the opposition and work the ball in where the forward drops back and the two inside wingers cut in and move in on goal. Getting there going forwards, ropey at the back though!

Some stats on my team are:

And the last thing on my setup is my training:

So I was recently hammered by Leyton Orient. Admittedly a good team but I had a load of possession but they just rampaged through and Lisbie tore me to bits. I've put some of the info from that match here:

I've been playing since CM2 and admittedly often relied on downloaded tactics. Starting with FM13 I really tried to develop my own system and read up as much as I could find on here. I watch the team maintain high levels of possession and looking strong going forwards so I think I'm getting somewhere close now but really could do with some advice on how I could sort this out defensively?

Thanks in advance!

Andrew

[janeka]

I'm training Crewe too. But I'm using a 4231 for easy games and 451 for games I expect to loose. In beggining of December I'm sitting top with one point ahead of Wolves. My major problem is the defence, agains't Preston at half-time the score was 3-0 to me. In second half they pulled back and score 4 goals. I don't think I will be able to win the league, because my exhibitions are very inconsistent, but will never know. I hope I'll learn something with this thread too.

[Cleon]

Judging by the assists what the sides get against you the lack of a real DMC is badly hurting you. The same can be said about crosses from the left too (your right side). I think the reason for this is the right side of your attacking is attacking from a midfield stand point. You have an IF and AP all on attack, so chances are they are being caught out high up the pitch and not providing any cover down this side like you'd expect.

I'd suggest 2 simple changes, I'd have the central MC set up as a DLP defend to offer extra protection for the back 4. Then I'd chance the outer right sided MC to a CM support to sure up that side a little bit. You could also change the IF to a support role too.

[Andy J 82]

Hi Cleon,

Thanks for the tips. I adjusted the central midfielder to DLP (D) and the right-centre midfielder to CM (S). My next match was at home and a game I really should've won but I started badly - again overrun. I checked the headmap and I was:

Whilst they were:

As their system seemed to be particularly exposing my central gap between defense and midfield, I pulled the central DLP down to the defensive midfield position and changed him to DM (D) and things tightened up quite a bit in the second half.

To help my understanding of the tactics here - do you think my system (with your two midfield role changes) could work but I just don't have the talent needed (particularly for the central role to be able to track and win the ball) or is the system simply too attacking?

Many thanks,

[Cleon]

Hi Cleon,

Thanks for the tips. I adjusted the central midfielder to DLP (D) and the right-centre midfielder to CM (S). My next match was at home and a game I really should've won but I started badly - again overrun. I checked the headmap and I was:

Whilst they were:

As their system seemed to be particularly exposing my central gap between defense and midfield, I pulled the central DLP down to the defensive midfield position and changed him to DM (D) and things tightened up quite a bit in the second half.

To help my understanding of the tactics here - do you think my system (with your two midfield role changes) could work but I just don't have the talent needed (particularly for the central role to be able to track and win the ball) or is the system simply too attacking?

Many thanks,

The formation the opposition used with 3 central AMC's is really hard to play against. It's easy to rip open if done right but it's always going to be hard to defend against due to the 3 AMC's. Take the changes into the next game and see what you think.

The issue is, when the opposition use a AMC you don't really have a defensive midfielder picking him up so he could be unmarked at times if the MC's are dropping back and helping.

[Andy J 82]

Hi,

So I stuck with it… I swapped the sides for the midfield as Boa Morte is better suited to remaining the direct attacking threat I think:

I had an easy game away against 2nd-bottom Oldham and won 3-0. Played really well, looked solid and created a lot of chances. Conscious that this was only against weak opposition the next match was more interesting - home to mid-table Gillingham who came lining up 41DM3 (all central)2. Really compact and tight I expected I could expose the wings so added that shout.

First half didn't go well - I had decent possession but they seemed to have the better chances and I was lucky it was 0-0 at half time. I added play-narrower to the instructions but the second half continued as before. I dropped the player-narrower and exploit flanks with about 10 minutes to go but I was still seeing them have good chances. A free kick bobbled about before my winger smashed it in in injury time and I got a 1-0 win. Stats show I held the ball well but their chances seemed to be coming from direct balls where their two men were breaking behind my centre-backs.

Here's some of the match stats:

And here's their passing from the match:

Given their 'sit deep and then knock balls forward on the break' approach should I have perhaps dropped deeper to combat the speed of their attack do you think?

Also, with their lack of width I also considered swapping my wingers around and turning them into traditional wingers and maybe making the striker a target man - ie. my thinking was to exploit the space and rather than running back into their team keep it out wide and whip balls in where the midfield should be supporting - does that seem logical?

[Andy J 82]

Just a quick update on this - I think it's mainly the patch but possibly also just the team getting used to the system - suddenly all started to click very well.

[RTHerringbone]

Just a quick update on this - I think it's mainly the patch but possibly also just the team getting used to the system - suddenly all started to click very well.

The patch has made defensive play far more assertive now - there's a lot less namby-pamby standing off, particularly out wide, and the midfielders track back a lot quicker too.

Nice thread by the way, I love it when people take the trouble to post a few screen to demonstrate different elements of the game.

[Andy J 82]

Cheers.. but I appear to have spoken too soon!!... Well, slightly.

After a decent run:

Where only really table-topping Wolves did much damage to me, I had Colchester away. They were similarly placed in the league and lined up with a similar formation to me so I decided to take the game to them and try to win. I started well, 1-0 up after 6 minutes but they quickly equalised and then took the lead. I started to chase the game, pushing more, playing wider and not to feet any more and they totally carved me opening. It was 3-1 with 10 minutes left when I started to have a good few chances so went overload and they scored two more, 5-1 defeat.

I put part of it down to bad luck - conceding whilst chasing. Reviewing the match though and they exploited what Cleon was highlighting earlier but in a different way. Their centre forward was dropping very deep and linking up all the play, I included some of his passing below.

Me:

Them:

I think I probably should've dropped the centre midfielder back to the defensive midfield position to help with this - I guess I could've even stuck him there purely to deal with their striker, hopefully freeing up the 4 defenders to cope primarily with just the two wide players.

One thing I am still noticing is that I can easily maintain very high levels of possession but am still struggling with really turning that into goals in a lot of games. Still trying to tinker around to get that working a bit better.

[llama3]

Impressed at how quickly you learn Andy. Good thread, I love seeing things like this, always helps everyone learn.

[Cleon]

Andy in the games what you've struggled in, can you tell me what the weather was like please?

[Andy J 82]

Hi Cleon,

I'd not even really given that much thought!.. Main poor performances have had the following weather:

Dry 4c

Dry 6c

Dry 8c

Wet 6c

Dry 19c

Drizzle 18c

Looking at some of my good performances:

Breezy, hail 2c

Hail 1c

Drizzle 4c

Drizzle 14c

Gusty 6c

I tend to keep it on the floor so the conditions in the poor performances should've helped out really shouldn't they?

So I started playing around with how I could make more of my possession and decided tactically I should really try pushing one of the central three up to the AM position. Given my defensive weaknesses I figured I needed to test a slightly different approach to do this though. My thinking was that if I just stuck a playmaker in there I'd be simply stretching my midfield upwards even more, essentially then with 3 strikers.

I decided I needed to adjust the system a little but wasn't going to try and fix attack and worry too much about defence for the first few games. I left the the other midfield two as they were, and the defence 4. At the same time I finally had to give up on keeping Max Clayton - I agreed to sell to Liverpool in January with a loan-back to the end of the season. This meant I only had 6 more months with him and thought it an opportune time to build for the future.

My thinking then was to really allow the DLF to be more about bringing the others into play. I decided to try a shadow striker role behind the striker and to alter the two inside forwards to support. The logic being that the team should move the ball through fairly short passes from defence to midfield where it can then go wide to a closer player than before or run before given to the DLF who would hopefully play through to the SS.

I was all set to go with this when I read the great "Pairs and Combinations" threads 1-3. Notably:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/366560-Pairs-amp-Combinations-Part-3-Strike-Partnerships

I then had a look through the forum and really thought that I was actually trying to get a DLF to do a false 9 role anyway so would give it a go. I was a little unsure as that meant in SS and F9 roles I had two positions I really wasn't sure of the workings. Despite my earlier point on the defence, I read up about the centre-backs and decided to just have a test with a cover and stopper approach at centre back to try and reduce the gap behind the midfield (and I play with a high line anyway).

First game a really solid 2-1 away win where they scored from a set piece and otherwise I completely dominated. Signs looked good that the system was actually working as intended and the inter-play between the two forwards seemed good. Next game would be tougher - Leyton Orient who had battered me early in the season. I was going to just go back to the old system and drop the midfielder down to cope with Lisbie but decided to go for it and keep this system. First half was unbelievable, 3-0 up at half time, could've easily been 5. They didn't really get going at all and the forward play was amazing. Here's the possession info for the first half:

Patted everyone on the back, made a few subs for fitness and sent the lads back out to concede two goals and have a nervy final 10 minutes! Overall match stats were:

From watching the game their passing seemed to be very direct, just as it had been in the first match. I had basically let them do exactly what they'd done the first time - this time my forward play was much better so I kept them on the back foot in the first half but the second half, probably setup more attacking to try and get something, they came straight at me. I should've adjusted the midfield at half time and tightened everything up - I got a bit carried away with the first half performance and was enjoying the show!!

A quick check after the match shows a few things I'm happy with about the adjusted formation though.

1. No negative impact on passing. It has actually managed to get shorter but still positive with the adjusted space between the rows:

2. The false 9 really was dropping back and creating lots of the play:

3. The shadow striker was getting past the false 9, into the box and getting shots away (rather than just having to shoot from distance after receiving the ball too early):

Gonna play with this for a bit longer now and see if it continues!

[Andy J 82]

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