I don't quite understand my tactic

[Gærning]

I am playing a save with Valencia and having some success, after 18 matches I am on the same points as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Athletic Madrid which is perfectly fine except I was planning to play possession football and have the lowest average possession in the league.

I have tried a lot of different teams in a lot of different leagues and a lot of different formations but somehow I always end up with a team that concede very few goals, have a very clean disciplinary record, score somewhere between a decent amount of goals and a lot of goals and have very low average possession. And I don't really know why.

I started the save at the beginning of the Norwegian 2016 season and took over Valencia after the 15/16 in the first season they qualified for the EURO cup. No mayor transfers.

After some trial and error I came up with this tactic which I have used for the last 5-10 matches. 4-5-1

GK: SK(S)

DR: WB(At)

DCR: CD(St)

DCL: CD(St)

DL: WB(S)

MR: W(S) Feghuli/ Robert

MCR: DPL(D) Parejo/Gomes

MCC: CM(A) Perez/Gomes

MCL: CM(D) Danilo/Fuego

ML: W(At) Cartabia/Piatti/Bakkali. on occasion WM(At) with cuts inside and dribble more.

SC: DLF(S)

Flexible

TI: Play wider

Approach to matches is mainly to go out in Standard or Control and drop back one step when ahead and counter.

I have pretty much given up on the possession football for now but I would like to add a different approach to protecting a lead by slowing down th match and keeping the ball a bit more against weaker opposition.

Also setup on the right doesn't seem optimal and the deep-lying playmaker doesn't seem to do much.

[Dr. Hook]

I think it does well because it is a fairly well-balanced tactic. You have mostly sensible roles/duties that cover a lot of the pitch, and you are letting the players play and not bogging them down with gobs of instructions. I quite like it on paper, and you are doing well with it.

You don't want to tinker with much as it is working well, but I would suggest to defend a lead late, you might drop the play wider- though it is an offense instruction, players still will have a little further to track back into position after a turnover- and add a retain possession. With a narrower setup, and if you aren't looking to score, that is a good shout to use as it kills through ball attempts and shortens your passing. You could also just drop tempo a notch to emphasize the ball-retention in the last few minutes.

The DLP might do more if you move him to a support duty. With a defend duty he is pretty deep, and you already have a holding midfielder playing alongside. Pushing him up just a bit and increasing his mentality might see him get more involved. Give it a try, as I think you'll find that the support duty won't have him too far upfield that it destroys your shape.

What are you noticing on the right side- what is happening or not happening that makes you think it isn't optimal?

[summatsupeer]

The roles and duties you've selected look balanced. You have two wingbacks but also have two holding midfielders who will cover for them. You haven't gone overboard on attack duties and have runners from different depth. Your forward will be dropping deep to link up play so shouldn't be isolated or running into dead ends. Flexible will give some creative freedom for players to try something different. Thats a good base to build on. Your letting your players play as per the mentality without dictating a specific style. This is where people can go wrong and end up limiting there players too much or trying to apply a style that doesn't fit the roles, duties, formation and/or mentality.

With a WB-A on the right I would consider a WM-S instead of W-S, this should see him playing a bit narrower and creating space for the WB-A on the wing.

DLP-D might not have a lot of assists due to being defend duty so playing deeper, but check how many key passes he has compared to the CM-D. If he doesn't look to be doing much what is he capable of doing as a player and what options do you have with the players around him? Could he tackle harder to offer more defensively? Would swapping the CM-D and DLP-D work better?

[Blinklys]

GK: SK(S)

DR: WB(At)

DCR: CD(St)

DCL: CD(St)

DL: WB(S)

MR: W(S) Feghuli/ Robert

MCR: DPL(D) Parejo/Gomes

MCC: CM(A) Perez/Gomes

MCL: CM(D) Danilo/Fuego

ML: W(At) Cartabia/Piatti/Bakkali. on occasion WM(At) with cuts inside and dribble more.

SC: DLF(S)

Also setup on the right doesn't seem optimal and the deep-lying playmaker doesn't seem to do much.

I would put the DLP in the MC position to give him more angles and options in the centre. With a 451 you can also afford to have one MCR/MCL on support and the other on attack. Having two central midfielders on defend duty is a bit too conservative (one holding, one supporting and one attacking is usually my preferred setup with three central midfielders). If your right flank doesnt seem to be working as you want, the combination of a wingback and a winger might be a bit reduntant. Maybe a FBA / WS or a WBA / WMS would provide a better partnership? Something to investigate I think.

[Gærning]

I added the play wider shout shout because I lacked penetration, it would probably slow down the match to remove it. Due to an combination of letting unhappy players go an injury crisis and the Africa championship taking me by surprise I am currently more or less without wide players for the moment and are using a narrow diamond formation. So I am not able to test these Ideas right now but I looked through some old matches a bit.

For my DLP he seem to get a lot of attention by the opposition in the final third so the CM(at) is the main creator for the team, but by staying deep he creates a lot of space for him so I think i'm going to keep him on defense duty. He also seems to be playing a key role in playing out from the back.

On the right I notice the winger and the wingback is sometimes getting in each others way and I concede most of my goals the right while creating about the same amount down both sides. But when I look a bit further this was worse in the beginning of the season when I used a less balanced central midfield set up. At the same time Feghuli is leading in assists and Cancelo in average rating.

[yau]

For my DLP (...) He also seems to be playing a key role in playing out from the back.

this!

DLP(D) is great at transition ball from the defenders to midfielders. Why do you think he doesn't do much?

And why do you think your possesion will be high, when you play control/standard mentality? they will play mixed/direct and mixed/risky passing, so you can't expect to have high possesion percentage. You can achieve it with short, less risky passing with slow tempo, but I don't think you want to play this way.

[Gærning]

this!

DLP(D) is great at transition ball from the defenders to midfielders. Why do you think he doesn't do much?

What I really mean is that when the opposition defense gets compressed my attacking players get very isolated.

And why do you think your possesion will be high, when you play control/standard mentality? they will play mixed/direct and mixed/risky passing, so you can't expect to have high possesion percentage. You can achieve it with short, less risky passing with slow tempo, but I don't think you want to play this way.

I don't necessarily believe that but I struggle to set up a defensive structure on defensive mentalities so this is what I ended up with to win, but it is very much a counterattacking tactic.