AFC Bournemouth - 442 & Beyond

[stoneyafcb]

AFC BOURNEMOUTH

The class of 442 & beyond

As a beloved Cherry and a club which seems to neglected this FM, despite being new comers to the premier league with a unique style of play. As a casual FM player, it's beyond me how I would attempt to achieve Eddie Howe's style in FM but I will try drip feed it in over a slow process along with help from the wonderful FM Community.

I have no idea what formation Eddie Howe throws out apart from the basic setup of the formation being 442 the majority of his Bournemouth career. In an interview I saw a while a back Eddie Howe says "I don't like to call it 442". so where we do we go from here?

The basic 442 formation.

The only change I made in pre season was CM to support from defend and DLF to DF-S but still unsure on this position.

Team Instructions:

The instructions here are what I believe in most Bournemouth teams as the basics even if they were terrible at them!

Retain Possession

Exploit The Flanks

Play Out Of Defence

Work Ball Into Box

Fairly Narrow (more so under Eddie Howe and without the ball)

Close down more (essential in a EH team)

The only player instructions so far are close down more on strikers & less on CB'S

Squad:

Transfers:

Transfer activity was minimal, selling is difficult at the moment and the budget I had was needed for a couple of quality players rather than a heap of okay players. As for getting Mammana over other top clubs... I just offered a little more in what he asked for. As I stated, I'm a casual fm player but time & time again I will see the same mistake of people totally dismantling a squad from day 1 or thinking your good enough and buying a whole heap of new players and expecting the same the outcome. Buy your necessities, improve gradually and dismantle over time is the way I have chosen.

Pre-Season:

[stoneyafcb]

Oh Bugger! I meant to click preview again it's nowhere finished yet. Apologies for the bad writing.

Any screen shots, questions welcome and any advice on first glances of the tactic?

PS: The pictures are rubbish as well, what's the best way to upload them?

[stoneyafcb]

Reserved

[Vizzini]

Good opening post. I do see some potensial issues in your setup, that you May want to take a look at when viewing your game.

At default you do not have one player who plays more risky passes, which is fine considering you want to play with a patient build-up, but adding retain possession now means that all of your players will play less risky passing, increasing the chance for sterile possession.

The 4-4-2 with such a "flat" role-setup does not lend itself to possession football either.

Play out of defence shortens the passing even further for your defence, which in all likelyhood will Just see them punt it up the field after a while because their passing range is to short to connect with your midfield.

I would maybe look at removing the possession shouts and Just add shorter passing, as this shortens passing, lowers tempo and narrows your width in one instruction. Change around some of the roles to make your team more compact.

As of now your roles lends itself perfectly to play direct attacking football, and does not correlate with what you are trying to achieve with your shouts.

Apologies if this seems really negative, it really is not! I like how you presented it, it is Just that I think you need to be aware of some of the potensial issues within your setup when watching the matches unfold.

[AFCBeer]

Well as an AFCB fan for many years I feel I can add something to this thread!

The reason Eddie said "I don't like to call it 4-4-2" is because in reality it is not. I think as a lot of our fanbase comes from the lower league days, we see any football tactic as a default 4-4-2. The key feature of Eddies teams has been a pacy striker running the channels with a deeper forward playing behind. There is also 2 relatively solid midfielders playing alongside 2 more attacking wide midfielders. In real life its probably a 4-2-3-1 but in FM it would be a 4-4-1-1.

The main problem I have with your set up is the winger roles with a play narrower team instruction. As said above that is not condusive to the passing football we try to play. My set up would be:

Gk - Defend

FB - Attack CB - Defend CB - Defend WB - Support

WM - Support CM - Defend RPM - Support WM - Attack

SS - Attack

AF - Attack

You are fairly restricted with AFCB at start of the game with the injuries to Arter and Gradel. However, for me Gradel was an absolute monster in the second season, scoring 22 goals from his WM - Attack (sometimes played as an IF - Attack)