Breaking teams down

[Blue 4 Life]

I am currently drawing too many games. 95% of the time, I'm the better team with more possession and more efforts on goal, so it's incredible frustrating I'm drawing so many games that I should be winning. I'm playing a 4-1-2-3 wide system. I don't know how to post screen shots anymore, I used to with ImageShack but they charge you now. I will post my current line up, formation, tactics and PPI instructions and hopefully some of you experts can suggest ideas to get me creating more chances. I've gone from a team as the underdog hitting teams on the break to a team who's now the favourite, dominating games but the opponent is 'parking the bus' and although I'm having more shots on goal, they are not clear cut chances, which is why I'm struggling to beat these teams, particularly if they hit me on the break and I go a goal down. My current 4-1-2-3 wide team is as follows, the instructions in bold are instructions I have added myself on top of the default instructions that come with the position:

David Marshall - Goalkeeper (defend) - Pass it shorter, Distribute to full backs, Roll it out

Nemanja Antonov - Full back (Support) - Cross more often, Stay wider, Cross from deep

Enzo Roco - Central defender (Defend) - Shoot less often, Dribble less, Fewer risky passes, Hold position

Michael Keane - Central defender (Defend) - Shoot less often, Dribble less, Fewer risky passes, Hold position

Dominic Iorfa - Full back (Support) - Cross more often, Stay wider, Cross from deep

Ozan Tufan - Anchor man (Defend) - Shoot less often, Dribble less, Fewer risky passes, Hold position

Ivaylo Chochev - Centre midfield (Support) - Shoot less often, Get further forwards

Nemanya Gudelj - Centre midfield (Support) - Shoot less often, Get further forwards

Christian Pavon - Inside forward (Support) - Shoot less often, Close down more, Get further forward, Roam from position, Sit narrower, Dribble more, Cut inside with ball, More risky passes, Cross less often

Martin Odegaard - Inside forward (Support) - Shoot less often, Close down more, Get further forward, Roam from position, Sit narrower, Dribble more, Cut inside with ball, More risky passes, Cross less often

Callum Wilson - Complete forward (Attack) - Shoot less often, Close down more, Hold up ball, Dribble more, More risky passes, Get further forward, Move into channels, Roam from position

My team instructions are:

Team shape - Flexible

Team instructions - Standard if against an equal team, Control if against an inferior team

Tempo - Normal

Width - Balanced

Defensive line - Normal

Closing down - Sometimes

Passing directness - Shorter (as retain possession is selected)

Creative freedom - Be more expressive

Final third - Hit early crosses (whipped crosses)

Dribbling - Dribble less

When pushing for a goal, I usually switch to a more attacking system by taking off my anchor man, put on an extra striker (poacher) to go 4-4-2, switch to overload, select take more risks and pump ball into box, although there are more turnovers with possession as I'm playing longer, more risky passes so the game becomes more of an end to end lottery. I also switch my inside forwards to wingers if I'm struggling to create anything, which occasionally works with more balls into the box. But currently, I am struggling for a plan B system which allows me to turn draws into wins.

So firstly, I would be interested if you think I can make any tweaks to my current 4-1-2-3 wide system to make my system more successful. Secondly, I'm wondering if my system can be tweaked to create a more attacking system capable of breaking down my defensive opponent to turn draws into wins. Thank you all in advance!

[Jambo98]

Not an expert, but a couple of things jump out there...

1) You have a ton of PI - Is that something you consciously made the choice to do? I know that in effect you can opt for lots of PI almost "in place" of TI, but curious as to what your thinking was around having so many. The roles and duties you select already cater for a lot of this. Generally i would only see so many PI where you are trying to "create" a custom role (eg, using a WM as an IF, from the ML/MR slot).

2) If the issue is teams are now parking the bus, then your problem is presumably inability to find space to play / create? The way you are set up, with 2 IF who cut inside already, and are then instructed to sit even narrower, and cut inside more, is possibly not helping with the space issue? You have 2 x CM who are looking to get forward (via the PI). Do you find that at times you will have 5 guys all in the box, in an already crowded area? Your fullbacks are relatively conservative, so there is unlikely to be much width?

I would think about how you create space in the opposition half. Think about width, think about players being less predictable (perhaps a support role for the striker, so he pulls out a DC?). Maybe consider a bit more creativity in the middle (Gudelj could potentially have the attributes to take on a playmaking role).

You have anchor giving you a pretty solid shield, think about whether you can use one of the fullbacks higher up the pitch to help with width. It might be that Antonov does a bit of this with his PPMs, but maybe release him to do even more. Move up his duty or his role one notch?

In addition perhaps think of variety. Not sure how far into the game you are, or how you have developed players, but Odregaard and Pavon have almost identical PPMs to start, you have them in identical roles and duties with identical PI. Maybe its a bit predictable for the opponent?

Those are just some thoughts based on a bit of logic rather than any claim to be an expert As always, the best advice is to watch some games in detail (sometimes best to do it retrospectively - replay a recent game, that way you dont feel the pressure to tweak and can just observe). Write down what you see in terns of your teams movement and positioning. Then take the writing and think about what it tells you in terms of how you might change things. It is somewhat time consuming, but very worth while.

NB - re screenshots, a few options but uploading to imgur (google it) is the easiest probably. If you are on steam then you can also just upload / link direct from there.

[Rashidi]

Several things stand out immediately to me:

1. Assume you want to play standard, its a decent mentality. Always remember that giving individual players an attacking role allows them to take more risks to try and get you a goal. Looking at your roles firstly, I don't see where the goals are coming from. You will get loads of possession, of that I have no doubt, but by the time your team is passing the ball around, the team would have parked the bus.

2. To make things further complicated you have littered your team with get forward as a PI. I don't see the need to do that. A player on attacking mentality will also get forward at every opportunity. And he will take more riskier chances to try and carve out goals

3. Lets see.....

This is how I see your system play...your fullbacks reach somewhere near the halfway line, pass the ball around, sometimes they head down the flanks, but not nearly as often as you would like, those inside forwards do cut inside but sometimes do their own thing.

Like Jambo has said you're PI overloaded.

What can you do?

You can always use the same setup, maybe a slight change to width, mentality and maybe defensive line should suffice if you want to make one system play like 3. Take the one system and then change those 3 TIs. Thats what I do. And it always works. The challenge is creating one tactic that can do that.

Looking at your system you can do this various way. On one flank you could have an overlapping fullback, on another you could have a crazy winger. This way you have alternate attacking patterns. To do this, you don't need to use the overlap shout, in fact its better if you didnt. Set one fullback to attack and another to support. Where the first fullback is on support, turn the AM in front of him into a winger. Now on the other side, set the FB to attack and turn the IF to support. Now get the the CF to adopt a supporting role that way he drops deep to bring both flanks into play.

Have the fullback on the (Attack) role to stay wider and uncheck the crossing instructions.

Have the other fullback cross from deep

In front of them manage the 2 MCs make sure you have a better ball tackler on the flank thats attacking from the fb. You don;'t need an anchorman, though if you wanted to keep him and make sure one of the MCs is a ball carrier of sorts on Attacking mentality.

Basically you can do all this with roles, minimal PIs, use different TIs and you are sorted.

Or you can just watch my videos and see how I do it.

[Captain Cabinets]

Cracking advice

[summatsupeer]

I am currently drawing too many games. 95% of the time, I'm the better team with more possession and more efforts on goal, so it's incredible frustrating I'm drawing so many games that I should be winning. I'm playing a 4-1-2-3 wide system. I don't know how to post screen shots anymore, I used to with ImageShack but they charge you now. I will post my current line up, formation, tactics and PPI instructions and hopefully some of you experts can suggest ideas to get me creating more chances. I've gone from a team as the underdog hitting teams on the break to a team who's now the favourite, dominating games but the opponent is 'parking the bus' and although I'm having more shots on goal, they are not clear cut chances, which is why I'm struggling to beat these teams, particularly if they hit me on the break and I go a goal down. My current 4-1-2-3 wide team is as follows, the instructions in bold are instructions I have added myself on top of the default instructions that come with the position:

...

When pushing for a goal, I usually switch to a more attacking system by taking off my anchor man, put on an extra striker (poacher) to go 4-4-2, switch to overload, select take more risks and pump ball into box, although there are more turnovers with possession as I'm playing longer, more risky passes so the game becomes more of an end to end lottery. I also switch my inside forwards to wingers if I'm struggling to create anything, which occasionally works with more balls into the box. But currently, I am struggling for a plan B system which allows me to turn draws into wins.

So firstly, I would be interested if you think I can make any tweaks to my current 4-1-2-3 wide system to make my system more successful. Secondly, I'm wondering if my system can be tweaked to create a more attacking system capable of breaking down my defensive opponent to turn draws into wins. Thank you all in advance!

1. You aren't giving your team a chance to break down the opponent with instructions like Cross Early, Cross From Deep, Cross More Often etc

2. Flexible + More Expression does give a lot of creative freedom, but would you retain the ball better and give time for your better players to create something if you remove that Instruction?

3. Whats wrong with just using Attack duty instead of Support + lots of PI's? Nothing wrong with PI's but it seems like you've just arbitrarily clicked stuff. Duty will affect the players mentality so a Support vs Attack duty with the same PI's will actually play differently and look to occupy different areas of the field, creating more variety and issues for defenders.

4. Your plan b is asking to be counter attacked, its more like something you switch to when a goal down in a cup game and there's 10 minutes left.

5. Whats the style of play your going for? It seems like you've gone for a possession style but then just added more and more PI's?

[Jyuan83]

To be honest, i never really understood the logic of getting inside forwards to sit narrower when they are already getting in narrow due to their hardcoded cut inside PI. Like what others have pointed out, just far too many PIs and in the end you ended up actually helping the opponent to defend against yourself by clogging up the centre of the pitch in front of their defence with all the getting forward from the CMs and inside forwards cutting inside while sitting narrower. For me, i would remove all PIs from players to really see how the roles work before i make my decision on what to add back in. You have a very good squad so based on player quality alone, you will have an edge over most of your opponents so i would go with control and flexible. As for team instructions, i feel that ever since people begin finding out about the crossing and tap-in at far post pattern in the ME, they try very hard to replicate it with hit early crosses. I see it with almost all the tactics at the Fmbase download forums, but you will not end up working the ball around to make that breakthrough. I think you can try out the roles like what you have laid out or you can try out rashidi's suggestions if you still find the play not up to your standards. The most important thing is to play around with the roles to see how they work without the PIs and TIs. Soon you will realise that the roles become even better in the presence of the roles you surround him with. It is the roles around the player that make him stand out, not the PIs or TIs.

[AFCBeer]

If you have wide players with good dribbling then drop them down to the ML/MR strata.

This allows you to get the ball to him quicker and without having to play a more risky longer pass. The AI now has to decide whether to close him down higher up the pitch (from their perspective) which creates more space for you, or allow him an easy dribble into the attacking third.

[dcaine100]

Great advice from posters above, just a quick question what was your thinking behind telling your whole front 5 to shoot less? How is your team going to score goals with no one shooting?

[bdixon]

Several things stand out immediately to me:

1. Assume you want to play standard, its a decent mentality. Always remember that giving individual players an attacking role allows them to take more risks to try and get you a goal. Looking at your roles firstly, I don't see where the goals are coming from. You will get loads of possession, of that I have no doubt, but by the time your team is passing the ball around, the team would have parked the bus.

2. To make things further complicated you have littered your team with get forward as a PI. I don't see the need to do that. A player on attacking mentality will also get forward at every opportunity. And he will take more riskier chances to try and carve out goals

3. Lets see.....

This is how I see your system play...your fullbacks reach somewhere near the halfway line, pass the ball around, sometimes they head down the flanks, but not nearly as often as you would like, those inside forwards do cut inside but sometimes do their own thing.

Like Jambo has said you're PI overloaded.

What can you do?

You can always use the same setup, maybe a slight change to width, mentality and maybe defensive line should suffice if you want to make one system play like 3. Take the one system and then change those 3 TIs. Thats what I do. And it always works. The challenge is creating one tactic that can do that.

Looking at your system you can do this various way. On one flank you could have an overlapping fullback, on another you could have a crazy winger. This way you have alternate attacking patterns. To do this, you don't need to use the overlap shout, in fact its better if you didnt. Set one fullback to attack and another to support. Where the first fullback is on support, turn the AM in front of him into a winger. Now on the other side, set the FB to attack and turn the IF to support. Now get the the CF to adopt a supporting role that way he drops deep to bring both flanks into play.

Have the fullback on the (Attack) role to stay wider and uncheck the crossing instructions.

Have the other fullback cross from deep

In front of them manage the 2 MCs make sure you have a better ball tackler on the flank thats attacking from the fb. You don;'t need an anchorman, though if you wanted to keep him and make sure one of the MCs is a ball carrier of sorts on Attacking mentality.

Basically you can do all this with roles, minimal PIs, use different TIs and you are sorted.

Or you can just watch my videos and see how I do it.

This helped me a lot, where can I find these videos?

[Dr. Hook]

This helped me a lot, where can I find these videos?

Start here: in the thread there are links to Rashidi's youtube channel http://community.sigames.com/showthr...anager-Tactics

[Blue 4 Life]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I believe I have no cracked it. I have changed the following:

 

Retain possession was giving instructions to play non risk passes. Therefore, I was not playing any risky through balls to try penetrating their defence.

 

Full backs are no longer crossing more often. I used to concede loads of goals from crosses so I thought telling my full backs to cross more often would lead to more goals. That was wrong, I only play with 1 up front and crossing more often when there is nobody in the box is simply conceding possession.

 

Centre midfielders are no longer getting further forwards. I selected this instruction because my lone striker was isolated and I thought my centre midfielders getting further forwards would give my striker more options to link up play and create. As you've all said, switching my striker to support duty is a much better alternative, as this allows the team to pass and move forwards together as a unit and get forwards in numbers.

 

I have kept my inside forwards the same, sitting narrower allows them to link up with the striker and this give space for my full backs to get forwards and overlap. I have started playing with one inside forward and one winger now to vary my attack. Wingers obviously provide more width and get more balls into the box, which I'm getting a lot of joy from. Playing with 2 wingers leaves me a bit too open though. I like at least one inside forward tucking in to restrict the opposition and not leave me so open.

 

Against equal or superior teams, I play a normal tempo and retain possession, simply because this allows me to not give possession away to my dangerous opponent (I've lost count the number of times a loose pass has fallen to Hazard and he punishes me. Using retain possession reduces the risk of that happening as it has recently been instructed to me retain possession means there are no 'non risk' passes. It's almost a time wasting tactic to just keep the ball and time waste. But when dominating possession with this tactic, you still create enough chances to win the game; and when yu've tired the opponent out by making them chase the ball, you can then be more adventurous late on to try winning the game.

 

Against inferior teams, I remove retain possession and increase the tempo to higher. I don't mind taking more risks and playing a game where there will be more turnovers of possession against an inferior opponent who are less likely to punish you. No retain possession equals more risky passes and a higher tempo will unsettle the opposition, dragging their players out of position and create the openings to allow me to break down an opponent 'parking the bus'.