Tactics Advice Wanted

[Nozzer]

Just a quick summary of my situation: Promoted to Championship in my first season with Barnsley and I'm currently holding my own 17 games into the new season, I'm bottom half but have a 10 point cushion between myself and the final relegation place. However my problem is that I am not scoring enough goals / creating enough chances, I'm scoring slightly over 1 per game and over 50% of them have been scored by my lone / loan forward Fraizer Campbell.

There are a lot of people who offer brilliant advice on here so I'm hoping someone can have a look at how I am set up and guide me a little bit so that I can keep being solid but offer a bit more of a goal threat. Apologies for the lack of screenshots as I am currently at work and cannot access my game:

Formation: Team Shape

GK: D

R Full back: S

Limited Defender: D

Limited Defender: D

L Full Back: S

Defensive Midfielder: D

Central Midfielder: A

Ball Winning Midfielder: S

L Inside Forward: A

R Advanced Playmaker: A

Complete Forward: S

I have been experimenting with a Deep Lying Playmaker on defend instead of the Defensive midfielder and a Right Sided Inside Forward instead of the Advanced Playmaker but feel the above team shape offers me more defensive protection whilst still being able to keep the ball

Team Instructions:

Standard - Flexible

Tempo: Higher

Timewasting: Sometimes

Width: Fairly wide

Defensive Line: Normal

Closing Down: Sometimes

Passing: Shorter Passing

I haven't done anything with individual instructions so maybe that is where I could improve. I generally feel at the moment that my current set up is decent for away games (I've won 4 times away this season) but it isn't doing enough in home games as I'm not offering enough of a threat.

Any advice would be would be welcomed, thanks in advance

[RTHerringbone]

First thought is that you have a lot of attacking Duties up front. It feels imbalanced and you're perhaps benefiting from being newly promoted and surprising teams with your approach.

Ordinarily, I would expect you to be having some defensive issues with the way those Duties are distributed, but the fact your full backs are relatively conservative may be helping. Using Limited Defenders tends to make them waste the ball a lot - they'll keep it very simple and launch the ball forwards sometimes, even when a safe, short option is available. Have you seen any issues with them?

The central three in midfield looks fine, it's the front three that bother me. When you say you don't create many chances, have you been able to put a finger on why? It seems to me that you need to reel in the Duties on one or two of the front three as I imagine they operate quite separately from the rest of the team when you have the ball? They'll advance quickly and it might just be hard to get the ball to them in a congested final third.

[Nozzer]

I've made an error in the initial post as the Complete Forward is on support rather than attack

I'm not really having problems defensively, especially since toning down how my side press as no one really runs out of position now. I also think changing the player in front of the back 2 has helped defensively. You are spot on about the Limited Defenders as they can often stop me from starting moves due to launching the ball forward. I think I can change one of them to a central defender but the other one is James Collins ha

I think my main problem is producing quality final passes / crosses. This set up worked quite well last season but obviously I'm playing against higher quality opposition so it's harder

What would you suggest re: the final 3rd? I have been considering changing the Advanced Playmaker to support so he gets the ball deeper and changing to Complete Forward to Attack. Apart from that I think I would have to change the roll of the front man

Finally, thanks for the reply.

[RTHerringbone]

OK - the CF being on Support makes it a lot more viable

Even James Collins will be able to play a simple pass. Don't be afraid of putting them both to DC Defnd. Maybe leave Collins on LD for a while and then see if he keeps hoofing it. You need to work out what is worst - him hoofing it and losing possession now and then, or having him playing a shorter game and potentially giving the ball away in more dangerous areas. You won't know until you try him as a DC.

In the final third you lack a bit of variety. The IF and AP will tend to come narrow and with Full Backs on Support behind, you don't really have an enormous amount of width. You might consider changing one of the AML/R Roles to provide some width / variety as it could be that an advanced player stretching the defence sideways rather that compacting them centrally, gives the space you need to unpick a defence.

[Nozzer]

OK - the CF being on Support makes it a lot more viable

Even James Collins will be able to play a simple pass. Don't be afraid of putting them both to DC Defnd. Maybe leave Collins on LD for a while and then see if he keeps hoofing it. You need to work out what is worst - him hoofing it and losing possession now and then, or having him playing a shorter game and potentially giving the ball away in more dangerous areas. You won't know until you try him as a DC.

In the final third you lack a bit of variety. The IF and AP will tend to come narrow and with Full Backs on Support behind, you don't really have an enormous amount of width. You might consider changing one of the AML/R Roles to provide some width / variety as it could be that an advanced player stretching the defence sideways rather that compacting them centrally, gives the space you need to unpick a defence.

Alfie Mawson should be able to deal with changing to a CD quite easily I would have thought, as you suggest I'll change that for a few games then change James Collins as I think the giving the ball away in my defending 3rd occasionally will be a lot better than belting the ball up the pitch

It's also a good point you make about my lack of width, I have considered it before and tried to address it by changing to a TI of fairly wide. The wide Advanced Playmaker is fairly new to me as I usually use AP centrally so I'm going to have to see exactly where he operates on the pitch. I'm a big fan of the Inside Forward (inverted) but I think that may be the position to make way so I have more width

To summarise my thinking from your posts: Change my 2 Limited Defenders to CD. Change my Advanced Playmaker to support and change my Left Inside Forward to an attacking winger. As you mention I do have conservative full backs which I would like to change (one of them anyway), however I am a bit reluctant to do so as I'm one of the poorer sides in the league

What do you think?

[RTHerringbone]

Regarding the final third, just think about who you want and where you want them when you attack. The CM (A) is as good as it gets from MC so you have a solid supporting cast centrally. If you change the wide men in the way you suggest, you risk losing goal threat from those areas. Wingers do move in field so mightn't be consistently wide, but he may not offer enough goal threat. The AP (S) should tend to hang back a little so you potentially would only have the CF and CM as consistent presence in and around the box.

Try what you are thinking and just keep an eye on what the Winger and AP contribute. It may be in your favour to do what you have suggested, because the ball will tend to gravitate towards the AP which may prompt the winger to move infield anyway.

[Nozzer]

Regarding the final third, just think about who you want and where you want them when you attack. The CM (A) is as good as it gets from MC so you have a solid supporting cast centrally. If you change the wide men in the way you suggest, you risk losing goal threat from those areas. Wingers do move in field so mightn't be consistently wide, but he may not offer enough goal threat. The AP (S) should tend to hang back a little so you potentially would only have the CF and CM as consistent presence in and around the box.

Try what you are thinking and just keep an eye on what the Winger and AP contribute. It may be in your favour to do what you have suggested, because the ball will tend to gravitate towards the AP which may prompt the winger to move infield anyway.

Thanks mate, you have been a big help. Looking forward to finishing work, making these changes and seeing how I get on

One final question though. I'm a big fan of inverted players in the AML / AMR positions. Changing to winger will mean my preference switches to non inverted. I don't actually have a player I'd like to play as a winger on the left so I would have to change the right hand side meaning my advanced playmaker would switch to the left. Does it make any difference what foot he is? My preference would be to have a right footed player on the left hand side playing as an advanced playmaker, but the above changes would mean he would be left footed

Again, thanks for the help

[RTHerringbone]

One final question though. I'm a big fan of inverted players in the AML / AMR positions. Changing to winger will mean my preference switches to non inverted. I don't actually have a player I'd like to play as a winger on the left so I would have to change the right hand side meaning my advanced playmaker would switch to the left. Does it make any difference what foot he is?

I've never really been too hung up with footedness. The AP will tend to be a little narrow so realistically he'll have a bit more room to operate in - he won't be pinned to the touchline - so that means you could "get away" with either foot on either side in my opinion. Some people swear by footedness and they could well be right, it just isn't something I worry much about. For me, having a player who is able to play in that position of the field is the main factor.