Great success with tactic, but now struggling to kill off weaker sides.

[smp20]

As the title suggests, I've been struggling to kill off weaker sides with my tactic. I'm not here to talk about my successes, it's been great as an underdog approach, but more so why I just can't seem to turn dominance into results. Overall I'm very happy with my season, but these results are really bugging me. I will start by going over the tactic and my players:

The only player instructions I have used are ''Shoot Less Often'' for all players and "More Risky Passes" for the Box-to-Box Midfielder and Advanced Forward.

Sweeper Keeper (De) - Tim Krul

Right FB (Su) - Lukas Klostermann

Left FB (At) - Baba Rahman

Centre Back ® - Joel Matip

Centre Back (L) - Kevin Wimmer

Defensive Mid (Su) - Riechedly Bazoer

Box-to-Box Mid - Nathaniel Chalobah

Right Winger (At) - Agustin Guinazu

Left Wide Mid (Su) - Eugene Konoplyanka

Advanced Playmaker (Su) - Jack Grealish

Advanced Forward - Luiz Alberto

Other First-teamers - Kalas, Ilori, Kara, Romero, Fortounis, Lingard, Augusto, Selke







I'm certainly not complaining with the season, I'm very happy with a 4th place finish. Here's the cup results and European results too. However, we have really struggled in some of our games against weaker opposition. E.g:

0-1 Fulham Home ~ 0-1 Forest Away ~ 0-1 Blackburn Home ~ 1-2 Fulham Away ~ 1-2 Forest Home ~ 2-3 Swansea Away ~ 0-2 Shakhtar Home

Looking at the goals conceded in the above games: 0-1 Fulham Home was a counter goal (won it in their own box) coupled with an error from Matip. 0-1 Forest Away was from a switch to play to a marauding full back who put in a pin-point cross. 0-1 Blackburn Home was ball given away in sloppy pass (Grealish playing WML). 1-2 Fulham away first goal high tempo and good movement beat the defensive line, 2nd goal was a penalty. 1-2 Forest first goal defensive line all over the place, 2nd goal was a deep counter. 2-3 Swansea Chicarito tore us a new one. One from meeting a whipped cross, one with a long ball over the top and another was a short through ball where he beat the defensive line. Lastly, 0-2 Shakhtar, long ball counter and a long shot that Krul should have saved.

In terms of our attacking side, we don't seem to be getting enough shots on target. Sometimes we have a few too many long shots (Konoplyanka and Carlos Augusto have PPM :/) but more often than not it's because our shots are blocked, mainly due to teams sitting back deep. When we play against sides that come out to attack us, we can tear them apart (e.g. 6-0 Arsenal, 5-1 Newcastle). I think I'm in need of a true holding midfielder to help with some of these counter attacks against us, but I am reluctant to change because everything has worked so well thus far. I also find that I'm not getting the most out of players such as Konoplyanka, who should really be playing higher up the pitch, but I don't want to ruin my team shape.

What do you think I should change? Thank you very much for reading.

[smp20]

Just as a bit of background info, this tactic started out as 'Arrigo Sacchi' style, hence the high fluidity, pressing and high line and to a certain extent the roles.