Getting more out of midfielders in a 4-2-3-1

[zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz]

I am currently playing as Aston Villa using a 4-2-3-1 formation and getting pretty good results, I won the Championship in the first season and with 8 games left to play I am currently in 7th place in my first Premier League season, so so far so good.

One area where I know there is room for improvement though is in my midfield, I am not getting much of anything out of my two central midfielders and I am looking for suggestions on how to get them to contribute more and perform better.

How we are lining up currently:

The BBM has the "take more risks" instruction, while the DLP has both the "take more risks" and the "more direct passes" instructions. 

Given the defensive responsibilities of the DLP I am not expecting that much in terms of attacking play from that position, the BBM on the other hand is entirely underwhelming, besides one lucky wondergoal from distance I have gotten virtually nothing from that position all season and the players playing there routinely end each match with the worst rating in the entire team, regardless of the result. Any suggestions on ways I could potentially improve that?

[summatsupeer]

You have 3 attacking midfielders and a ST ahead of your BBM and a WB-Su overlapping outside, what can he really offer attack wise? A run he could make could be already done or no space for. A pass he might try could of been done by a riskier role like the TQ whom he is likely to feed the ball to when told to focus on much shorter passing, even on attacking mentality.

Even if your telling the central players to be riskier with focus through middle, your also telling team to focus on looking for overlaps making the AML&AMR play safer to wait and look for overlaps rather than central run.  With a PF-At and TQ the central attacking areas are already likely occupied by time the BBM looks to make attacking off the ball runs. 

Unless your trying to brute force defensive teams he should really be more focused on winning the ball back and giving the ball to the better attacking players.

[Fosse]

48 minutes ago, zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz said:

I am currently playing as Aston Villa using a 4-2-3-1 formation and getting pretty good results, I won the Championship in the first season and with 8 games left to play I am currently in 7th place in my first Premier League season, so so far so good.

One area where I know there is room for improvement though is in my midfield, I am not getting much of anything out of my two central midfielders and I am looking for suggestions on how to get them to contribute more and perform better.

How we are lining up currently:

The BBM has the "take more risks" instruction, while the DLP has both the "take more risks" and the "more direct passes" instructions. 

Given the defensive responsibilities of the DLP I am not expecting that much in terms of attacking play from that position, the BBM on the other hand is entirely underwhelming, besides one lucky wondergoal from distance I have gotten virtually nothing from that position all season and the players playing there routinely end each match with the worst rating in the entire team, regardless of the result. Any suggestions on ways I could potentially improve that?

You're already overachieving is it realistic to expect more?

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz said:

There are a number of things I would change in this tactic, but given that your results are surprisingly good, I'll rather refrain from any further comment: 

 

1 hour ago, zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz said:

I won the Championship in the first season and with 8 games left to play I am currently in 7th place in my first Premier League season, so so far so good

 

17 minutes ago, Fosse said:

You're already overachieving is it realistic to expect more?

[Falahk]

You really should not care that much about ratings, what you should look at is how they contribute to your tactical setup

For example I had a save with athletic where the job of my midfield duo was to recycle possession and they did there job perfectly, but they always got crap ratings 

While on an other save with stoke my midfielders got good ratings since they made loads of interceptions and successful tackles and then just kicked the ball out of play

In both cases my midfielders did exactly what I wanted them to do, and that to me is the important part

[enigmatic]

Yeah, central midfielders often get low ratings in FM, and then you look and they've completed 90% of their passes and you've dominated possession.

And the whole point of having four forward players and attacking wingbacks is for your CMs to not have to do much more than recycle possession. If you're expecting them to do magnificent things in attack, I'd be really worried for your defence (plus neither of them really have the skillset to do magnificent things in attack anyway)

[CARRERA]

Well in a 4231 both CM are usually not used to support your attack or get into the box but rather provide defensive solidity. I would look to improve their defensive play and see if i can get more out of that, properbly use one as more pressing / ball winning one with higher pressing an tackling TI or use them as tight markers. you can test on this.

 

 

[zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz]

2 hours ago, Fosse said:

You're already overachieving is it realistic to expect more?

Settling because we're doing well would not be very kaizen now would it? 

[zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz]

3 hours ago, summatsupeer said:

You have 3 attacking midfielders and a ST ahead of your BBM and a WB-Su overlapping outside, what can he really offer attack wise? A run he could make could be already done or no space for. A pass he might try could of been done by a riskier role like the TQ whom he is likely to feed the ball to when told to focus on much shorter passing, even on attacking mentality.

Even if your telling the central players to be riskier with focus through middle, your also telling team to focus on looking for overlaps making the AML&AMR play safer to wait and look for overlaps rather than central run.  With a PF-At and TQ the central attacking areas are already likely occupied by time the BBM looks to make attacking off the ball runs. 

Unless your trying to brute force defensive teams he should really be more focused on winning the ball back and giving the ball to the better attacking players.

Thanks for this, I think I was staring myself blind on having an attacking output from my midfield as a result of the type of players I have available, should have been obvious to me that a more defensive role is the smarter choice.

I think I'll head into the summer with buying a couple of ball-winning midfielders as my top priority.

[wixxi]

26 minutes ago, zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz said:

Settling because we're doing well would not be very kaizen now would it? 

While settling would not be very kaizen offsetting the balance of the team in pursuit of individual performance improvement wouldn't be very kaizen either would it? From what it looks like the tactic is doing very well, and in a 4231 the 2 are mainly for screening the defensive line, so while having increased attack output would be nice this should overall be first priority. This is assuming you're looking at improving their attacking output anyway