Help with understanding what I am seeing...

[olivermain83]

I've read through Cleon's thread a few times now about creating a tactic and how he spots flaws in matches and adjusts to fix them. I've been trying very hard to this myself and learn to be more reactive in matches but i'm struggling and would like some help.

I think I can spot the things that can cost me goals but i'm struggling to find the solutions to fix them. I've taken quite a few screenshots of my last match and i'll say what I think I saw and what I tried to do to counter it and hopefully more tactically astute people can tell me where I went right/wrong and offer suggestions.

Tactic

I should point out that I started the match with 'Rigid' fluidity but changed it to 'Fluid' at half time which i'll explain why later.

Match Stats

Junior 0-1 Rionegro

An away win and a deserved one. They were kept to long shots and we frustrated them and hit them on the counter a few times and should have scored more.

However, it was clear very early on in the match that their wingers had the better of my WB's and they dominated possession despite being 2v3 in the middle. I watch in more detail to try and understand why this was happening and then try to react with mixed success. I'll try to explain what I did...

1st Half Winger Problems

This is very early in the match and it's clear to see the winger has an ocean of space to recieve a pass but then no real option but to head to the byline which is exactly what he does...

He makes it all the way to the byline with my RB tracking his run (pretty poorly). The DM(D) comes over to help but ends up on top of the RB, yes there are three players in the white circle. They both take up a poor and strange position with no one trying to block the cross. Cross is poor though and we survive.

1st Half Possession Troubles

So it seems pretty obvious to me that the opponents two CM's are in far too much space and are allowed to dictate the play. My 2 DM's are positioned as DM's and preventing easy balls into the strikers. My AP(A), marked in red, worries me though. I don't like the fact he's marking a CB when I think he should be pressuring the man on the ball or at least marking the other CM.

This is moments later as the ball is moved from their LCM to their RCM it draws my two DM's of position to close them down. The problem is the closing down is very half hearted and with both coming out it leaves a gap for a striker to drop deep into (which he does). Now I don't mind them closing down. I've asked them to after all. It's just that I'd rather the DM(D) had covered for the DLP(S) and sat in the space i've marked. Again though, I think the real issue is the AP(A), Catano, who is STILL marking a CB.

Changes

So trying to take on board what I saw and come up with an action plan I came to the following conclusions:

a) The AP(A) is not contributing enough defensively leaving my DM's isolated

b) The opp wingers are being given far too much time and space on the ball being allowed to get up to full speed and glide past my WB's.

With this in mind I changed from Rigid to Fluid to try and get my AP(A) to contribute more to the defensive phase and I added the 'Push Higher Up' shout to hopefully get my WB's closer to their wingers and also reduce the time the Opp CM's had on the ball.

2nd Half Observations

So here we see us after the changes. On the plus side we look more of unit and the AP(A) in red is much better positioned. There is some huge space on the opposite flank though for both their FB and Winger. This could be because it's a throw-in to them and so my team are all dragged over there. The ball is quickly moved across the back 4 to play in the winger on the right who crosses but luckily its a poor cross. I'm not sure if this is good play or a tactical issue for me. What am I doing to leave myself exposed to this?

Here we see their right winger about to recieve a pass again. I'm really not sure if there's anything wrong here or not. It results in another cross which comes to nothing but is anyone at fault here? To me the DLP(S) is covering the pass to striker, the IF(A) is kind of covering the FB and the WB(S) is doing the right thing, if he goes tight to the winger then he leaves a huge gap for an easy though-ball. The position he's in means the winger has to run past him, which he does.

This final shot show that the wingers are still giving my WB's a torrid time. I've highlighted the run he made. He just ran around my RB and crossed but thankfully again it was wasteful. The wingers just had so much time on the ball I was at a loss as to what to do to stop them. Against better wingers or a team with a target man I could really get punished.

This picture will show just how many crosses they attempted...

Conclusion

So sorry that this is quite a big post but I wanted to give as much info as I could so I can get better help.

Did I do the right things or not then? Were there other things that I could have done to neutralise their attacks better? Am I identifying the issues correctly or am I missing something?

I guess I won the match, created the better chances and kept them to long shots and endless failed crosses so something went right.

I really felt the change to Fluid helped but I'm not sure I noticed if the Push Higher Up shout made a drastic difference to be honest. It didn't change the way they dominated the ball but they didn't ever look like scoring either other than if they got on the end of one those crosses.

Any feedback or help would be appreciated as i'm really trying to be better at reading the games but quite often I lack confidence in my decision making and feel like i'm guessing what to do to fix thing rather than knowing.

[Cleon]

So trying to take on board what I saw and come up with an action plan I came to the following conclusions:

a) The AP(A) is not contributing enough defensively leaving my DM's isolated

b) The opp wingers are being given far too much time and space on the ball being allowed to get up to full speed and glide past my WB's.

With this in mind I changed from Rigid to Fluid to try and get my AP(A) to contribute more to the defensive phase and I added the 'Push Higher Up' shout to hopefully get my WB's closer to their wingers and also reduce the time the Opp CM's had on the ball.

Changing from rigid to fluid won't suddenly make the AP defend, so not sure why you think that? He's on an attacking duty and he's not actually marking the CB he's taking up his position that you've instructed him to do and the CB is marking him not the other way around. You really should give this a read to understand philosophy more;

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/374515-Philosophy-a-debate.

If you want him to defend more then you either need to change his duty to a support role or find a more appropriate role which does defensive things. An AP on attack does not defend. I know you've posted 1 screen after thinking its made it better but it hasn't really because that screen shows him in your own half doing nothing plus it was a deadball situation. Not sure how why that's a good thing? I'd be more worried about the 3 players just behind him all bunched up and letting the player at the side of the AP wander free. That's much more of a problem in my eyes.

So here we see us after the changes. On the plus side we look more of unit and the AP(A) in red is much better positioned. There is some huge space on the opposite flank though for both their FB and Winger. This could be because it's a throw-in to them and so my team are all dragged over there. The ball is quickly moved across the back 4 to play in the winger on the right who crosses but luckily its a poor cross. I'm not sure if this is good play or a tactical issue for me. What am I doing to leave myself exposed to this?

It's good use of width by the opposition. Your AP still isn't doing anything in this screen either btw.

Here we see their right winger about to recieve a pass again. I'm really not sure if there's anything wrong here or not. It results in another cross which comes to nothing but is anyone at fault here? To me the DLP(S) is covering the pass to striker, the IF(A) is kind of covering the FB and the WB(S) is doing the right thing, if he goes tight to the winger then he leaves a huge gap for an easy though-ball. The position he's in means the winger has to run past him, which he does

You have 7 or 8 players in this screenshot doing nothing and marking no-one. Your DLP/WB/IF should be trying to mark someone and winning the ball back. If you have no-one pressing the opposition for the ball back then you'll always have these issues because you can't win the ball back if no-one is going to the player.

This final shot show that the wingers are still giving my WB's a torrid time. I've highlighted the run he made. He just ran around my RB and crossed but thankfully again it was wasteful. The wingers just had so much time on the ball I was at a loss as to what to do to stop them. Against better wingers or a team with a target man I could really get punished.

Exact same issue as above but from the left side this time.

So sorry that this is quite a big post but I wanted to give as much info as I could so I can get better help.

Did I do the right things or not then? Were there other things that I could have done to neutralise their attacks better? Am I identifying the issues correctly or am I missing something?

Well your front 4 all play in similar space when attacking and this won't help you out defensively because when you lose the ball you'll have 4 players up front all in a central area meaning the oppositions full backs can push forward quite easy with no-one tracking them. This will allow overlaps and allow the opposition to have a spare player against your own wingback. One simple pass after you lose the ball in the oppositions half and they take out 4 of your players with it.

9 shots with 5 on target is good but remember 3 of those are long shots too.

Your pass conversion is bad at only 65% I'd have looked at who was giving the ball away and why. This is probably one of the reasons the opposition was all over you because you was giving the ball back to them very easy. Why didn't you look at this or try changing it? It' a pretty big issue because if you haven't got the ball it means the opposition has it.

[olivermain83]

Thanks for the reply Cleon. I noticed that the AP(A) was doing the same thing again moving forward when I wanted him to drop deeper and maybe pressure the CM's in the next match I played. I changed him to a AP(S) which seemed to reduce this roaming forward but it still occassionally happened where he would wander forward and position himself next to a CB. Perhaps I need to find a different role here.

I see what you're saying about the 7 or 8 players not marking up or pressuring the ball. I had hassle opp shout on though. I guess my team looks a little deep to me still despite telling them to push higher up. Should I have been pushing even higher or would it have been a better idea to change to a Normal or even Control strategy?

With regards to the passing, I did have a look after the match as i didn't notice it as an issue during the game as much until I saw the stats. The SK was giving the ball away a lot even though being told to pass short and distibute to defenders. He got changed to a GK. And a lot of the misplaced 'passes' seemed to be from defenders heading the ball clear and their CM's picking up the pieces. There were times when this cycled and we would be penned into our own half quite often.

I chose the attacking roles as I often find crossing to a bit wasteful and irritating but I admit that I didn't consider the defensive repercussions of choosing 2 IF's rather than having a winger on one side maybe. I'll changed one to a winger and see how that changes things.