Struggling with emulating Sarri's Napoli as Tottenham

[fejkens]

Hi, I've recently started a new save and I wanted to recreate the Napoli tactic as Tottenham. I'm still pretty new to this so there's probably a couple of obvious mistakes that I've made and I'm just simply not aware of them. I was able to recreate the shape fairly well and I'm happy with the way the team is playing. They are keeping the ball very well, easily recycle and almost always find a passing option which is a huge improvement from my previous tactics where they would just run into nothing and lose possession.

I've been using those two links to learn more about the tactic:

http://spielverlagerung.com/2016/04/08/team-analysis-napoli/

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/11/16/tactics-of-napoli-under-maurizio-sarri/

However, I'm still not completely satisfied with it. I'm still in my first season and I'm aware that I lack players in certain areas that would make the tactic work very well. I'd like some tips on how to improve my attack. It works pretty well overall, but maybe there's two instructions that make no sense when used together and I just don't see it.

I've had a good pre-season where I managed to draw with Juventus in a close match and beat Schalke and Real Sociedad comfortably, but in the PL I'm struggling with the big teams and the wins against smaller teams are not very convincing. I've tried moving my wingers to WM positions against bigger teams but that just makes the opponent's attacks less frequent whilst completely killing us going forward. I seem to be particularly vulnerable from crosses and high balls into the box and I don't know how to fix that without switching my full backs to defend/support, but again, this seems to kill my attack. Anyway, here's the tactic that I came up with:

Player instructions:

GK - Distribute to FB

FB - Dribble less, Fewer risky passes, Stay wider

CB - Hold position, Pass it shorter

DM - Close down less, more risky passes

Front three - Close down much more with Move into channels on the striker

Appreciate any tips, thanks

[s1111]

Napoli are the most possession based, short passing team in Italy, so if you're emulating them why are you using direct passing? Also why use Spurs instead of Napoli themselves?

Also I would say that using Look for Overlap and Exploit the Middle is going to heavily limit the AMR/L because of the restrictions they place on passing focus, forwards runs and dribbling for those positions. They're also simply completely unnecessary TIs most of the time anyway. You have natural overlaps from attacking fullbacks and the DLP ball magnet will ensure build up play in the middle with forward runs coming from the CM-A.

[jc577]

Any update on this? Looking to do something similar myself.