what am i doing wrong?

[the SLC]

where do i begin?? im playing as man united (1st season)

done all the basic stuff like new staff, some player additions and sales etc.now the tactic

im not very good tactically but i do try every year to make a tactic.

i opted for a 4411 that i can turn into a 442.

this is just an example of my 1-0 victory over QPR at old trafford.

this is the tactic and team selection that i used against QPR along with team instruction. after reading that cleon leaves the individual instructions alone i decided to do the same (plus i dont know what to do)

the idea behind it was a basic back 4 with 2 central midfielders keeping it tight in the middle while also being able to pick a pass and start an attack. the 2 two wide player would run up and down the flank delivering crosses to the striker. with the AMC there to pick up loose balls, knock downs and passes from striker along with being able to feed the striker the through balls needed to score.

this is how it played out

passes in the right half but not many down the wing in those dangerous areas

average shape throughout the game. massive gaps between midfield and attack. prob the main reason im not scoring enough

what the hell do i do????

[THOG]

If you look at your passing map, you can see that you're not actually delivering a lot of crosses from dangerous areas. A couple of things are contributing to this. First, support duty wingers will tend to cross from deeper, and second, work ball into box now reduces crosses as well as long shots.

You're also passing really short and instructing no one to make off the ball runs from deep, so Falcao will tend to be isolated up front with the deeper players inclined to keep circulating the ball waiting for runs that aren't happening. This can actually work well if you're trying to kill a game by controlling possession (as you can see, you attempted an enormous number of passes), but it's going to massively reduce your ability to create decent chances. To create chances, you need to create space in the final third, and to create space, you need to break from your basic shape and encourage movement, both horizontal (that is, players moving to and from the sides) and vertical (that is, players dropping off from the front or moving up from deep). The easiest way to get that is to set one winger and one fullback to an attack duty (probably Young and Rafael would be your best bets). This will make them get forward, forcing defenders to track their movement and giving your support players more options for a forward pass into dangerous areas.

You might also try telling Mata to "Move Into Channels" so he's more likely to pull wide and drag midfielders out of position. I also think Di Maria is a bit wasted as a deep player. You might experiment with using him as a Box-to-Box Midfielder when you're not trying to dominate possession and see if that gives you more options around the area.

[the SLC]

If you look at your passing map, you can see that you're not actually delivering a lot of crosses from dangerous areas. A couple of things are contributing to this. First, support duty wingers will tend to cross from deeper, and second, work ball into box now reduces crosses as well as long shots.

You're also passing really short and instructing no one to make off the ball runs from deep, so Falcao will tend to be isolated up front with the deeper players inclined to keep circulating the ball waiting for runs that aren't happening. This can actually work well if you're trying to kill a game by controlling possession (as you can see, you attempted an enormous number of passes), but it's going to massively reduce your ability to create decent chances. To create chances, you need to create space in the final third, and to create space, you need to break from your basic shape and encourage movement, both horizontal (that is, players moving to and from the sides) and vertical (that is, players dropping off from the front or moving up from deep). The easiest way to get that is to set one winger and one fullback to an attack duty (probably Young and Rafael would be your best bets). This will make them get forward, forcing defenders to track their movement and giving your support players more options for a forward pass into dangerous areas.

You might also try telling Mata to "Move Into Channels" so he's more likely to pull wide and drag midfielders out of position. I also think Di Maria is a bit wasted as a deep player. You might experiment with using him as a Box-to-Box Midfielder when you're not trying to dominate possession and see if that gives you more options around the area.

cheers for that, im going to start again. really try and put some thought into it. can i post it up here for you to have a look at? i really struggle to understand the game!!