Valentino Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 The thinking behind this; I took charge of Everton with a goal to sell all foreign talent and replace them with domestic players in an effort to develop a strong national team for England. I gave myself 2 transfer windows time to complete this transition, and going into my second season in charge, I'm aiming to have a completely English squad. Foundations & available talent: It's quite obvious at this point that im going to have to build a team around the incredible Leighton Baines, the cb pairing of John Stones & Phil Jagielka, the abundantly talented Ross Barkley and an aging Gareth Barry. While looking at potential replacements for my foreign talent, i noticed an abundance of extremely fast paced, top quality English players on the market. Players like Clyne, Owen Wilson, Oxlade-Cbamberlain are all possible signings and I'm trying to work out how to use their pace to my advantage. Shape; One early conclusion is that Gareth Barry needs to sit deep, he's old and slow and i feel like the DLP (d) role is made for him. This way, his lack of pace wont leave him as exposed as it would if i played him higher up the field. I've managed to narrow it down to 2 possible formations; A) 4-4-2 DIAMOND NARROW ----------------Xxxx--------------- Xxxx--Jagielka--Stones--Baines ----------------Barry-------------- ------------Xxxx--Xxxx----------- ---------------Barkley------------- ------------Xxxx--Xxxx----------- B) 4-1-2-3 DM WIDE ----------------Xxxx--------------- Xxxx--Jagielka--Stones--Baines ----------------Barry-------------- -----------Xxxx--Barkley--------- Xxxx-------------------------Xxxx ----------------Xxxx--------------- The style; Play a high tempo game, with off the ball movement and short passes mixed with direct passes into space. I'm not a huge fan of players who run with the ball a lot, as i much prefer off the ball runs to receive a pass in dangerous positions. Want to be able to generate razor sharp counter attacks without giving away too much of the incentive to the opponents As of right now, these are the settings I'm thinking of using; Mentality: Counter, Standard or Attack (undecided) Fluidity: Honestly no idea, would love some input. TI's: shorter passing, pass into space, roam from position, much higher tempo Does anyone have any experience with a similar approach? Would love some help figuring out what TI's, roles and fluidity to use! Cheers! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrKeithSmooth Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I can't help you with the whole thing, but here are a few pointers that will hopefully set you in the right direction. An Attacking mentality will automatically give you a higher tempo. If you pair this with the TI 'Much Higher Tempo' then I think you'll find your team is very rushed and giving too many of their passes away. For me, I would discard the idea of an Attacking mentality, but if you really want to use it then you're going to need to discard the idea of 'Much Higher Tempo'. If you really can't decide on a mentality then you don't have to just yet. Just set it to Standard, and see how your team plays. Utilise the pre-season for little tests like this. Be careful with 'Shorter Passing' as well. You say you want 'short passes mixed with direct passes into space', and you've attempted this by using 'Shorter Passing' and 'Pass Into Space'. However, I think you'll find that the mix isn't quite as mixed as you would like, and shorter passes might be the dominant form of play that you witness. If this is fine, then there's no problem, but if you want a more equal mix then I'd recommend removing 'Shorter Passing' and letting your players decide how far to kick the ball in whatever situation. 'Pass Into Space' can stay regardless. 'Roam From Position' fits the description of what you're after, with lots of off the ball movement, but just be aware of what it can do to your players and their positioning. You might find them out of place sometimes, and this can result in the opposition exploiting that space during a quick counter. It's not something you need to remove (they wouldn't put the TI into the game if it was broken, right?), but just be aware of what it's doing to your defensive shape. Fluidity is something that you should think about once you've nailed down what kind of mentality you want to be using, and what roles you'll be giving your players. I'd come to that last if I were you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valentino Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 I can't help you with the whole thing, but here are a few pointers that will hopefully set you in the right direction.An Attacking mentality will automatically give you a higher tempo. If you pair this with the TI 'Much Higher Tempo' then I think you'll find your team is very rushed and giving too many of their passes away. For me, I would discard the idea of an Attacking mentality, but if you really want to use it then you're going to need to discard the idea of 'Much Higher Tempo'. If you really can't decide on a mentality then you don't have to just yet. Just set it to Standard, and see how your team plays. Utilise the pre-season for little tests like this. Be careful with 'Shorter Passing' as well. You say you want 'short passes mixed with direct passes into space', and you've attempted this by using 'Shorter Passing' and 'Pass Into Space'. However, I think you'll find that the mix isn't quite as mixed as you would like, and shorter passes might be the dominant form of play that you witness. If this is fine, then there's no problem, but if you want a more equal mix then I'd recommend removing 'Shorter Passing' and letting your players decide how far to kick the ball in whatever situation. 'Pass Into Space' can stay regardless. 'Roam From Position' fits the description of what you're after, with lots of off the ball movement, but just be aware of what it can do to your players and their positioning. You might find them out of place sometimes, and this can result in the opposition exploiting that space during a quick counter. It's not something you need to remove (they wouldn't put the TI into the game if it was broken, right?), but just be aware of what it's doing to your defensive shape. Fluidity is something that you should think about once you've nailed down what kind of mentality you want to be using, and what roles you'll be giving your players. I'd come to that last if I were you. Thanks for the reply, just got home from work and it's time to get started with pre-season friendlies and tests. That's a really good point regarding the tempo, I'll definitely take it into consideration. I'll start out with standard mentality, just like you suggested, and take it from there. I'm going to try and push the tempo as high as i can without compromising the build up play and losing possession too often due to 'forced' passes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valentino Posted January 9, 2015 Author Share Posted January 9, 2015 Here's the primary formation and line up i decided to go with for the first part of the season; Mentaliy: Standard Fluidity: Very fluid TI's: shorter passing, pass into space, play out of defense, float crosses, play wider, push higher up, roam from positions, close down more, stay on feet, use offside trap, prevent short gk distribution and finally, much higher tempo. (phew) Had to play with the original squad until January since i always disable the summer window (feels more realistic) and I'm extremely pleased with our results so far. Here's our league table as of 10/2/2015; Winter transfers; Here are the only foreign players i didn't manage to sell or convince to rip up the contract: No offers for Lukaku surprisingly! Hope we can keep performing for the remainder of the season given the overhaul. End of season update: To my great disbelief, we actually ended up winning the league! I honestly expected to crash and burn as 6 out of or 7 winter signings went straight into our first team, but training team cohesion seems to have done wonders for us The player stats; Baines is the MVP of the season with incredible performances throughout! I'm also very excited about the Welbeck/Rodriguez partnership up top which seems to be one for the ages, a love story greater than a twilight/brokeback mountain hybrid. Can't wait to see what they get up to in the Champions League next season! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double0Seven Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 You played with such a high line with no sweeper keeper and the back three with Barry , Jagielka and Alcarez. Not the fastest ones... How did you managed to concede such a low amount of goals? The formation isn't even very suited for a pressing game. Your full backs are the only one who can press fast on wide players. The midfield and strikers also don't seem very good to me. A bit static and no movement. How did you manage to score so much goals? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valentino Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 You played with such a high line with no sweeper keeper and the back three with Barry , Jagielka and Alcarez. Not the fastest ones... How did you managed to concede such a low amount of goals? The formation isn't even very suited for a pressing game. Your full backs are the only one who can press fast on wide players. The midfield and strikers also don't seem very good to me. A bit static and no movement. How did you manage to score so much goals? Decided to use generic roles because i went with a 'very fluid' mentality. I hoped that coupled with the TI's to play wider, roam and pass into space, would create a lot of off the ball movement without the use of specialist roles. As for the slow CB's, i found that they executed the offside trap really well throughout the season, with very few players managing to catch them off guard. I think this is a case of high anticipation etc, compensating for lack of speed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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