Sill struggling with counter attack FM2015

[Pendraz]

Hello, first of all I would like to say that I did read Cleon's excellent thread about "the art of counter attacking". It probably was aimed for those who are playing with FM2016, but the principles should apply to FM2015 even if the changes to the ME probably makes it more effective in the latest iteration.

Now, before I show the tactics I am using, I'll try to give a resume of the problem. Well, actually, the many problems.

I watched most of the matches in full or at least comprehensive mode, to see what was going on.

First of all I can say that we didn't have many opportunities to go on a counter at all (and for counter I am not talking about when *I* think it would have been a good situation, but when the ME decides that the counter is *on*).

The few situations when we did start a counter, it would fail HORRIBLY due to some inexplicably bad passing decision.

My team hardly make tackles (neither standing nor sliding), which is reflected on the fouls, we almost don't commit any. This got slightly better after I activated both tighter marking and get stuck in instructions, but still not anywhere near the levels of effectiveness displayed by the AI teams, which seem to be all capable of recovering the ball VERY easily, in a clean and timed fashion.

No matter what team I am against, a bottom table or the first of the class, they all seem to have messi like players sliding through my midfield and defensive lines like it's nothing. I can accept it if the player is indeed as good as messi, but not when the player doing it is actually a very average player.

To sum it up, the defense is shaky at best, we get scored by anyone all the time. Quite annoying when you are sporting a back four with FIVE midfielders sitting behind the ball.

On the ball, when we are not on a counter (which is most of the times), the striker is isolated no matter what role I give him (the DF is the one that has given me best results so far). The passing is wasteful, most of the time we lose the ball without my support duty midfielders having the time go get up the field, because the striker, isolated when he gets the ball, either decides to run for it messi like, or makes a bad pass. The few times we are actually all up and deployed is when I had the work ball into box, and we make a sterile possession based game before losing the ball.

Now the tactics:

I am using a 4-5-1. Counter or defensive strategy, flexible mentality. I tried to keep it very simple as advised on the Cleon's thread, no TI or PI.

Only changes I tried sometimes were from D to S duty for a CM and the striker to see what could work better.

http://oi63.tinypic.com/xnc5zd.jpg

Most of the wins here, as you can see, are just friendlies or victories in europa league/domestic cups, against very low level opponents, where I actually even made a lot of turn over.

When it comes to the premier league, we are doing absolutely horribly, sitting close to relegation zone with a team that was predicted to finish in the europa league spots.

Here you can see the match stats against the team at the bottom of the league, newcastle... they are a horrible team and I just can't figure out how this can be possible.

http://oi66.tinypic.com/2iqj1xk.jpg

My squad is quite good overall. It could obviously be improved upon, but we definitely shouldn't be sitting where we are.

The training is going well, tactics are fluid, have been since the first premier match, all the squad is either happy or content, almost zero injuries through all the season. Squad status are fine, first teams are ok, back up are given some time and hardly complain, the morale started at very high, it dropped because of bad results, but remained between okay/fairly good. The team talks/interviews seem to be fine, I always get positive reactions.

Can someone give me some advice on what I am doing wrong? I am failing miserably here as I am not getting to see the counter attacks as I would like from an enjoyment perspective, and I am not getting the results either. Forget about good results, I am not even getting the minimum results expected from a team such as mine, and I am on the brink of being fired, and rightly so.

And yet I don't really understand what I am doing wrong. Very willing to learn if someone can point out my mistakes.

I should also say that I tried to avoid making changes (a habit of mine) during the matches because I remember reading in many threads how one should have patience and avoid hasty changes and believe in the game plan, and that sometimes you are just going to lose because the opponent was better. So I tried to wait and wait until the end of the first half of the season by sticking with what I made up and that I thought should have worked as a game plan.

Thanks for help to anyone who has read this.

[davidnio_422]

I am no expert so feel free to ignore this entirely.

Personally I wouldn't have a flat midfield 5 if you're looking to counter. The tactics screen iirc is your defensive shape, so what you have in the defensive phase is 5 players strung out in a line, relatively high up the pitch, which is the opposite of what you want. I know you are trying to get the 2 CMs to sit deeper by giving them defend duty, but imo they would be better in the DM strata with a support role. This would encourage the opp to commit more men forward, hopefully make you a bit more defensively solid, but also encourage those

DMs to play more attacking passes. With the defend roles their play will be too cautious.

Similarly I would consider moving one or both wingers higher but also giving them Suport roles so they help defensively. This is so they sit huger in the defensive phase for the quick out ball.

If your players are making bad decisions I would also try Structured or even Very Structured shape, the beauty of counter attaching is it doesn't require clever football, just simple, quick incisive play.

Hope this helps or gives you food for thought

[johnnyyakuza78]

I would say that the major problem would be that your forward will probably get isolated due to the lack of support near him. Your BBM is pretty much the only guy who's going to be situated nearby when he gets the ball. Both your wide players are basically wingers, Trippier and Garcia will both stay wide, although maybe Garcia will pop inside more often he'll still be quite far away.

If it were me I'd go with a 4141 have both my CMs on a support role of some sort and get my forward as a DLF / DF .

Possibly some of your issues are to do with your players however, maybe their stats aren't suited to that sort of game, do they have good positioning and marking and mental skills, will they actually be able to hold out without having the ball for long. Will your forward be able to hold up the ball long enough for others to come to him.

Plus there is the issue of PPMs, are your fullbacks playing with more attacking PPMs which might pull them out of position?

[Pendraz]

First of all thanks to you both.

You made both very good points, in fact about the DMs, I had exactly the same idea as davidnio, even if I didn't go as far as pushing my wingers forward in support role. I actually kept them as wide midfielders, but in a support role, indeed (so atm the formation is 4-2DM-3-1 wide). The BBM actually became a BWM in support duty, that also made a bigger difference than I thought, because with the space behind him well covered by 2 DMs, he could run wild to harass anyone in possession both up and deep.

I wasn't comfortable with keeping the ball anymore, because with so many men committed to defense, and a lone striker, we just weren't going to create chances anyway when in possession.

That's why I decided to increase the tempo and tell my player to pass into space.

I don't aim anymore to keep the ball at all, but at the same time I don't want to bring the ball to the final third to fast either, without giving time to my few support players to get up-field. That's why I didn't use direct passing nor short passing, I just want them to try as many risky passes as possible, in the hope of unlocking a CCC without exposing myself.

Once I lose possession it's when I hope they will rush forward and leave space behind to exploit.

So far it worked so and so.

At the beginning I was surprised by some sudden amazing results, like beating arsenal 2-0, after that a 5-0... we ended up winning the capital one cup, we are currently in the europe league semi finals after beating dortmund 4-2 on aggregate... (1st in the bundesliga at that moment)... and yet in between after those first two amazing victories, we struggled, hard, in premier.

In fact we are sitting on 13th place... the board is not happy at all, stating that they don't care about the cup (errr.. they wanted the europe league qualification, I got it by winning the cup, so who cares if I don't finish in 6th place anyways), I am actually on the brink of being fired despite having actually a decent chance at going forward in europe league as well (the remaining teams are not that impressive actually... OM which is not doing so well in my save, the other is aston villa (which ironically enough, was my previous team), and the last one is the most dangerous, As Roma (which even more ironically, is actually my IRL team, and I can just wish we would actually ever get to a european semi final these days...)

Anyways, to sum it up, I keep struggling, and unfortunately, I think that johnny is spot on about the attributes... I overestimated my players... their mental attributes in some cases are quite lacking... they all have good to great technical attributes, both in game construction and destruction, but when it comes to mental, almost all of them are lacking in something... mostly bravery, an attribute I always undervalued...

Still, overall, I think we should be doing a bit better in premier, there are really some horrible teams out there, and the kind of goal we seem to receive the most, is the "hits the crossbar/post+tap in", which irritates me to no end because I actually have a hard time remembering the last time I have seen one happening in all the matches I have watched recently IRL (and yes, I know it does happen, more often than we may believe, but to be fair, here in FM I think it happens a tad too often).

I also feel that against some formations we have a really bad time, especially against a back three... being dynamic and making adjustments is probably what keeps the game fresh for me, and makes watching the matches at lest for a bit on full, worth it. But at the same time I have the feeling that is way too hard to find a tactic that with a few adjustments is effective against anything... and yet on so many great threads by Cleon, rashidi and other experts, it seems that they have no such need to change formation, at most they change a couple roles/instruction, or switch mentality by 1 step and that's it.

Anyways for now I'll try to finish the season as best as I can hoping to not be fired. At the end of it, if I am still their manager, I'll have to basically rebuild half squad from scratch... I tried already to put my scouts in motion and geez, are players with ALL the important mental attributes with at least 12 AND at least decent in the technical side hard to find... not to mention the crazy amount of money they ask for them...

[Pendraz]

Well, against a way stronger opponent they gave it all, can't really fault their effort, defensively they did great. Unfortunately both my first eleven striker as well as the winger (the corner and free kick specialist, meh) were out for injury. A heavy blow but oh well, hopefully the next season will be better, although I am still not sure simply improving the squad is going to cut it.

As you can see we did horribly in premier league, and yet we reached two finals (we were eliminated in FA cup by chelsea for just one goal, and they won the double premier/FA cup), I either have all players that perform to their best during high stress matches, or I just can't understand such a big difference in performance, since we actually fought it off with some pretty good teams.

The crazy schedule didn't really help though, I hope they way it's "calculated" has been improved in FM16.

I add a screenshot of my setup just before the final, as a recap (even if I'd tweak a couple of things If I could turn back time ), just in case someone drops by in this thread and wants to offer some very welcome feedback