FM20 4-3-3 help

[Spike]

I'm trying to set up a fairly attacking 4-3-3 tactic for my Villa save to mirror how they play irl, but sadly i have always struggled a bit with the tactical side of things on FM.

I am therefore looking for some guidance regarding what base instructions would best suit a 4-3-3 formation.

Looking to use a back four with either fullbacks or wingbacks, three in midfield (including one in a holding role), two wide attacking mids & one striker. 

Any help/advice is appreciated. 

[beverage1982]

As with every year I'm doing a Villa save right now. I'm trying to build two tactics...the one with Jack in central midfield and the one with him out wide. The latter is harder to get success out of.currently only a few games in so will update when I've got deeper but control possession preset is looking good.

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, Spike said:

I'm trying to set up a fairly attacking 4-3-3 tactic for my Villa save to mirror how they play irl

IRL Villa (more often than not) actually plays more of counter-attacking than purely attacking football, although the speed of their counter-attacks might make people think of it as an "attacking" style. 

[beverage1982]

1.  

41 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

IRL Villa (more often than not) actually plays more of counter-attacking than purely attacking football, although the speed of their counter-attacks might make people think of it as an "attacking" style. 

Agree with this. The fluid counter preset is quite a good fit also. Or a counter focussed possession system.

 

Actually @Experienced Defender I was going to pick your brain on a system. I have two for villa (both 4141/41221). One is with Grealish in the middle which is set up fine, but recently IRL we've tried to deploy him wide so we can make things sturdier. I've never deployed a wide playmaker before so am a little lost on how to build it out. Right now my two ideas are:

 

                TM (s)

    AP(a)                    W(s)
          CAR (s) MEZ (a)

                   A(d)

WB (s) BPD (d) CD (d) FB (s)

 

                TM (s)

    AP(s)                    W(s)
          CM (s) MEZ (a)

                   A(d)

FB (a) BPD (d) CD (d) FB (s)

 

However I worry that both feel a little toothless going forward. What I'm trying to do is for Jack to come inside from the left, roam freely and dictate things. Then the fullback overlaps him for width, and the CM / Carr (Hourihane) is a pivot who can also drift wide and put in a ball. The goals I see coming from Mez (a) and hopefully the TM.

The problem is it's just not working. I was thinking either turn the TM into something more attacking, maybe a DLF (a) or the AP into a Treq.

 

Any advice greatly received. 

[IrrelevantLion]

Both of my staple 4-3-3 Gegenpress saves so far in FM 20 have gotten me sacked. I dont think it works as well this year as it did last year 

[GunmaN1905]

I'm currently in the second season of my Villa save, used 4-3-3 with mixed results in first.
Finished 14th and won FA Cup (one of the luckiest runs I've ever had in FM).

But since I got to EL via FA Cup, I got a lot of money and completely overhauled the squad.
Doing great in my second season.

I usually switch to secondary option against top teams, lower defensive line with no offside trap and DLP-s instead of AP.
I used that option during the entirety of the first season, as squad wasn't really that good.
In my first season I had Matić as DLP-d at DM, with B2B and BWM-s in the middle. Trezeguet was W-a on the right.
My defense was really good, but I struggled with scoring. Imo, it's kind of ME's fault.
Wingers are again my worst performers even though they're in plenty of good passing/crossing/shooting situations every game. It's just that there's rarely any end product from them.
I've tried turning overlaps on and off, tried with focusing attack through flanks, but it didn't work.
I think that Jack would work well in the AP-s role at CM.

Current results, I see this as an absolute success.

My defense was

[beverage1982]

Picking up this thread again as I'm still struggling with my recreation of Villa under Dean Smith. It's actually a very interesting challenge as they're a team that plays quite direct, but also enjoys possession. Also Grealish out on the wing now is an intriguing proposition. 

 

This vid has some good analysis. As does WhoScored which picks out the primary stylistic points as attacking down the wings and long balls. 
 

With that in mind I'm not sure quite how to build this out at the moment. Mainly roles for McGinn and Grealish are a struggle. Also what about instructions? A combo of counter with wider width and higher tempo perhaps? 

Any help, chat, ideas greatly appreciated. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by beverage1982

[beverage1982]

So this is my current attempts at recreating Villa, but it doesn't feel right. The two attack duties in midfield is of course weird, but last year Cleon did something similar with devastating effect. You've also got to consider the two players I have there. Hourihane and MCginn both have come deep to get the ball and incredible work rate so it can work.

 

I'm not sure what to do with Grealish. He is an incredible ball carrier but not sure what role best does that. 

 

In terms of tactic I based it off of the vertical tiki take as that's what Dean Smith does in the game. I also think it suits Villa. We attack down the flanks a lot, but mainly it's slow build up through the middle then explode wide. Am I right with this?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated. 

 

 

[Experienced Defender]

3 hours ago, beverage1982 said:

 

3 hours ago, beverage1982 said:

So this is my current attempts at recreating Villa, but it doesn't feel right

Both CMs on attack duty - and on top of that, one of them in the mezzala role (which is fairly attack-minded even on support) - is suicidal, to say the least. Would be suicidal even for a top team, let alone Villa. 

But even if we put that aside, the tactic as a whole isn't even close to how Villa play under Dean Smith IRL (except for the formation). 

I apologize if my above remarks may have sounded too rude to you, but I think it's better for you to hear a really honest opinion than a bunch of euphemisms.

[beverage1982]

13 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

 

Both CMs on attack duty - and on top of that, one of them in the mezzala role (which is fairly attack-minded even on support) - is suicidal, to say the least. Would be suicidal even for a top team, let alone Villa. 

But even if we put that aside, the tactic as a whole isn't even close to how Villa play under Dean Smith IRL (except for the formation). 

I apologize if my above remarks may have sounded too rude to you, but I think it's better for you to hear a really honest opinion than a bunch of euphemisms.

No that's fine happy for some hard truths. I have tied myself up in knots thinking and over thinking what it is villa are doing. Any recommendations to get me started? Because literally everything I'm trying is failing. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by beverage1982

[Experienced Defender]

18 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

Any recommendations to get me started? Because literally everything I'm trying is failing

First, Villa certainly does not play slow and boring possession stuff. Quite to the contrary - they play a pretty entertaining fast and direct (not to be confused with the "direct passing" TI) style of football, which I really enjoy watching  Because if they really played any sort of tiki-taka, I would probably get bored as a spectator   

Therefore, lower tempo is clearly not an option. I would go with higher tempo and then experiment with both shorter and standard passing to see which works better. The balanced mentality is okay and should remain IMO.

I also don't think that the "Be more expressive" is an instruction that suits the Villa style. They are neither overly rigid nor overly loose in terms of movement and creative freedom. So I would leave both instructions (BME and BMD) unselected. 

Another TI that does not make much sense IMO is the "Focus through the middle" (and I generally don't like this TI anyway, but that's another story). Actually, Villa likes to use flanks to a considerable degree, but still not to the extent that the "Exploit flanks" TIs would be needed. 

In terms of width, I can agree it's narrower a bit, but I don't think it's very narrow. Therefore, just (slightly) narrower should suffice IMHO.

So these were the in-possession instructions I would either remove or modify. The ones I would consider adding include: pass into space, hit early crosses and perhaps even run at defence. Again, I do not say that I would use all of them, just that I would experiment with a different combinations of these to determine which combo is optimal for Villa's style.

Now, before I offer my ideas about the rest of the tactic (out of possession, transition and roles/duties), I would like to hear your opinion and/or any suggestions you might possibly have 

[beverage1982]

1 minute ago, Experienced Defender said:

First, Villa certainly does not play slow and boring possession stuff. Quite to the contrary - they play a pretty entertaining fast and direct (not to be confused with the "direct passing" TI) style of football, which I really enjoy watching  Because if they really played any sort of tiki-taka, I would probably get bored as a spectator   

Therefore, lower tempo is clearly not an option. I would go with higher tempo and then experiment with both shorter and standard passing to see which works better. The balanced mentality is okay and should remain IMO.

I also don't think that the "Be more expressive" is an instruction that suits the Villa style. They are neither overly rigid nor overly loose in terms of movement and creative freedom. So I would leave both instructions (BME and BMD) unselected. 

Another TI that does not make much sense IMO is the "Focus through the middle" (and I generally don't like this TI anyway, but that's another story). Actually, Villa likes to use flanks to a considerable degree, but still not to the extent that the "Exploit flanks" TIs would be needed. 

In terms of width, I can agree it's narrower a bit, but I don't think it's very narrow. Therefore, just (slightly) narrower should suffice IMHO.

So these were the in-possession instructions I would either remove or modify. The ones I would consider adding include: pass into space, hit early crosses and perhaps even run at defence. Again, I do not say that I would use all of them, just that I would experiment with a different combinations of these to determine which combo is optimal for Villa's style.

Now, before I offer my ideas about the rest of the tactic (out of possession, transition and roles/duties), I would like to hear your opinion and/or any suggestions you might possibly have 

Some good advice to aid my insanity thanks. 

In terms of out of possession we haven't been pressing as much this year as we did in the Championship, in fact we've been playing a low block which I for the life of me can't recreate. The tactical presets seem too low, but something that has Standard DL and Slightly Lower LOE seems to be around where I'm looking. Transition would be regroup / counter I believe.

 

It's the roles that do me. McGinn is every inch the B2B but that never translates to his goals or lungbursting runs on Balanced. Same with Grealish wide. If (s) suits his traits / attributes but if you watched the Newcastle game he was more of a playmaker. Then there's Wesley who is for all intents and purposes a targetman but that has never worked in FM.

As I say I've built a lot of good tactcs in my time but this has done me, probably because I',m too close to it.  

 

[Experienced Defender]

20 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

In terms of out of possession we haven't been pressing as much this year as we did in the Championship, in fact we've been playing a low block which I for the life of me can't recreate

I absolutely agree. But why then have you opted to use:

- higher DL and higher LOE

- more urgent pressing

- prevent short GKD

all of which are pretty aggressive defensive instructions and totally run counter to the low-block approach??? 

23 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

something that has Standard DL and Slightly Lower LOE seems to be around where I'm looking

Yes, that's exactly the DL/LOE combo I would look for  The alternative one would be standard DL / standard LOE (if you notice players being too passive when defending). You can also experiment with a split block. 

 

27 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

Transition would be regroup / counter I believe

Counter for sure. Not 100% sure about the regroup though. Again, a bit of experimenting would be needed (either regroup or none, because counter-press is not a good idea in this particular case, except in specific situations when you desperately need a goal in a certain match). 

 

31 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

It's the roles that do me. McGinn is every inch the B2B but that never translates to his goals or lungbursting runs on Balanced

Yes, McGInn is a prime example of a real BBM. Unfortunately, you cannot replicate each single segment of one's real-life playing style in FM. Of course, you can play him as a CM on attack, but then the other CM (Hourihane) needs to be a bit more of a covering player. I think a carrilero would be the most suitable option in that case. So - Hourihane as CAR in MCL, and McGinn as CMat in MCR would be my preferred combo in the central midfield. With a stronger team, you might try some more adventurous and risky combinations - such as BBM & MEZ - but I fear that Villa is not strong enough at the moment to play that way. 

 

43 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

Same with Grealish wide. If (s) suits his traits / attributes but if you watched the Newcastle game he was more of a playmaker

Once again I fully agree with you (and not only in the Newcaste game). AP on attack duty would be my choice for Grealish's role in AML. Because I've noticed that teammates usually look to find him as soon as possible in most cases when the team is in possession. Otherwise, he could also play as an IW or IF on support. After all, I think that Smith - like most managers btw - makes (slight occasional) tweaks to his basic tactic to adapt it to a particular type of opposition or situation in a match, so any attempt at a replication should take that into account as well. 

 

52 minutes ago, beverage1982 said:

Then there's Wesley who is for all intents and purposes a targetman but that has never worked in FM

If I played Grealish as a wide AP on attack, then my preferred choice for Wesley's role would be PF on attack duty. AMR would be a winger on support - just like he already is in your setup. Which leads us to a potential setup of the front five:

PFat

APat                                      Wsu

CAR     CMat

Now remains the setup of the back 5. Mine would likely be this:

A/DMde

WBsu      CDde    CDde     FBsu/WBsu

GK

If I played with a FBsu on the right flank, then the DM would be a standard DM on defend. However, if I wanted to be more adventurous and employ a WBsu, then the DM would play in the anchor role, so as to be more focused on protecting the defense. 

The presence of a carrilero on the left side should allow the left back to be more attack-minded anyway - plus, to offer more support and occasional natural overlaps to Grealish - hence Targett as a WB on support.

So... does all/any of this make sense to you? 

1 hour ago, beverage1982 said:

As I say I've built a lot of good tactcs in my time but this has done me, probably because I',m too close to it

If I remember correctly, it was the very YOU who created a great tactic for Villa in FM19 a few months ago (or so). The tactic was an example of logical and sensible thinking, and I was one of the many who praised you for that. Am I right, or perhaps I've confused you with somebody else? 

[beverage1982]

4 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

I absolutely agree. But why then have you opted to use:

- higher DL and higher LOE

- more urgent pressing

- prevent short GKD

all of which are pretty aggressive defensive instructions and totally run counter to the low-block approach??? 

Yes, that's exactly the DL/LOE combo I would look for  The alternative one would be standard DL / standard LOE (if you notice players being too passive when defending). You can also experiment with a split block. 

 

Counter for sure. Not 100% sure about the regroup though. Again, a bit of experimenting would be needed (either regroup or none, because counter-press is not a good idea in this particular case, except in specific situations when you desperately need a goal in a certain match). 

 

Yes, McGInn is a prime example of a real BBM. Unfortunately, you cannot replicate each single segment of one's real-life playing style in FM. Of course, you can play him as a CM on attack, but then the other CM (Hourihane) needs to be a bit more of a covering player. I think a carrilero would be the most suitable option in that case. So - Hourihane as CAR in MCL, and McGinn as CMat in MCR would be my preferred combo in the central midfield. With a stronger team, you might try some more adventurous and risky combinations - such as BBM & MEZ - but I fear that Villa is not strong enough at the moment to play that way. 

 

Once again I fully agree with you (and not only in the Newcaste game). AP on attack duty would be my choice for Grealish's role in AML. Because I've noticed that teammates usually look to find him as soon as possible in most cases when the team is in possession. Otherwise, he could also play as an IW or IF on support. After all, I think that Smith - like most managers btw - makes (slight occasional) tweaks to his basic tactic to adapt it to a particular type of opposition or situation in a match, so any attempt at a replication should take that into account as well. 

 

If I played Grealish as a wide AP on attack, then my preferred choice for Wesley's role would be PF on attack duty. AMR would be a winger on support - just like he already is in your setup. Which leads us to a potential setup of the front five:

PFat

APat                                      Wsu

CAR     CMat

Now remains the setup of the back 5. Mine would likely be this:

A/DMde

WBsu      CDde    CDde     FBsu/WBsu

GK

If I played with a FBsu on the right flank, then the DM would be a standard DM on defend. However, if I wanted to be more adventurous and employ a WBsu, then the DM would play in the anchor role, so as to be more focused on protecting the defense. 

The presence of a carrilero on the left side should allow the left back to be more attack-minded anyway - plus, to offer more support and occasional natural overlaps to Grealish - hence Targett as a WB on support.

So... does all/any of this make sense to you? 

If I remember correctly, it was the very YOU who created a great tactic for Villa in FM19 a few months ago (or so). The tactic was an example of logical and sensible thinking, and I was one of the many who praised you for that. Am I right, or perhaps I've confused you with somebody else? 

Thank you SOOO much for this. It's a start and that's what I've lacked this year.

 

Yup that other thread was me. I think the problem is that last year I approached it logically and it was easier as I could easily spot the difference between SMith and Bruce's approach. But this year I've been more emotional about it if that makes sense and it's harder looking in to strip out the excitement of being back in the big leagues with a likeable manager and analyse what he's done. There's also been a lot elss written about it which doesn't help. 

[Angsjuma]

@Experienced Defender

would like to have suggestion on team & player instructions for starting a team on 4-3-3 formation.

My squad details are mentioned below 

GK- Alban Lafont

CB- Laporte, Sakho, Bouboukar Kamara,

RB- Zeki Celik

LB- Marvin Plattenhardt, Thiago Carleto

CM- Rabiot, Artiz Elustondo, Carloz Guerzo, Dominik Szoboszlai, Jordan Veratout

Attack: Douglas Costa, Marco Reus, Bernardo Silva, Dele Alli

Striker: Benzema

 

We're participating in a draft mode league in FM20 where teams are selected to play on simulation.

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, Angsjuma said:

@Experienced Defender

would like to have suggestion on team & player instructions for starting a team on 4-3-3 formation.

My squad details are mentioned below 

GK- Alban Lafont

CB- Laporte, Sakho, Bouboukar Kamara,

RB- Zeki Celik

LB- Marvin Plattenhardt, Thiago Carleto

CM- Rabiot, Artiz Elustondo, Carloz Guerzo, Dominik Szoboszlai, Jordan Veratout

Attack: Douglas Costa, Marco Reus, Bernardo Silva, Dele Alli

Striker: Benzema

 

We're participating in a draft mode league in FM20 where teams are selected to play on simulation.

If you have a tactic you want to hear an opinion about or get some advice, you'll need to start your own separate thread, post a screenshot of the tactic there (or describe/sketch out it in full detail) and you'll get help and advice.

But if you want someone to create a plug'n'play tactic for you, you can find plenty of those here. 

I'll now close this thread, given that the OP has not posted a single comment in the meantime.