Help me play better attacking football

[Erith22]

2027-2028 season in La Liga. I routinely finish 2nd or 3rd in the league. I usually have one of the best defenses. I usually have a top-5 offense, but roughly %20-25 of my goals are scored from corners.

I want to figure out how I can use my players more effectively to create better attacking football and score more.

I typically end up using drop deeper and mark tighter with control. Against very strong opponents I push up more and play narrow.

I have experimented with different tempo and passing instructions to mixed effect. I sometimes start hassling opponents but it creates a lot of penalties.

I usually average only around %50 possession.

[Erith22]

I do a lot of squad rotation but these are my primary non-DC/GK players:

[ZdlR]

I think some of your roles and general formational decisions are a bit off.

Firstly, you have a Regista and an Advanced Playmaker. I'm not sure this is such a great idea, because I prefer to stick to one playmaking role for the team, if any, but it's possibly not that bad in principle. The problem is that the players selected for those roles are totally unsuited to them. Look at both Carnero's and Dominquez's creativity. It's far too low for a top-level playmaker. They just don't have the vision to play incisive passes - and they barely have the technical ability, too.

The half-back role is best suited to a lone DMC operating in the centre of the pitch. This allows him to drop back in between the centrebacks when mounting attacks. It is another very specialized role and, without seeing Malagon's attributes, I have no idea if he is suited to it.

Your front three of Silva, Rossi and Sosa are in decent roles, but adding Carnero in behind them on an attack duty is going to put an awful lot of pressure on your regista to pick out long passes - which we've already seen that he can't do.

No idea what your centrebacks are like, but I tend to find that Stopper and Cover does not go very well together. It creates a large disconnect between the pairing. I prefer to have one on Cover, one on Defend or one on Stopper and one on Defend - or just both on Defend.

Finally, your playing style is determined largely by your players and their roles. Playing rigid and standard without any team instructions at all means you are deferring to the roles and duties and how your players interpret them. As illustrated, some of your choices are suboptimal so you are hoping for inspiration from players that aren't particularly inspirational. Rossi is your most creative player and even he isn't at the very top level with just 15 creativity and 16 flair. His support winger role is a good call, but he needs people to aim at with his primary weapon of crossing. Carnero and Guedes are both capable of providing an aerial threat, in addition to your striker. But, Carnero is not concentrating on getting into the box and scoring: he is told to be a playmaker. Try him as an AM(a)? Guedes might be best left staying back, although his attributes aren't as good as the rest of the team. While you don't have individual players who excel at creating chances, everyone has some ability at picking out passes, so I would favour a Fluid philosophy to spread the creative duty around the team. It helps that none of your team are particularly lazy, so the forward players will contribute a bit to defending when playing Fluid, too.

My advice would be to look much closer at the players you have available. Use the button under their attributes to 'Highlight key attributes for role' and find what they are most capable of, what emphasizes their strengths and limits their weaknesses. Then put together a simple, sensible plan to get it all working in harmony. Even if you had an excellent Regista and Advanced Playmaker and Half-Back, it doesn't mean that these three roles will definitely work together well.