Trying to develop a 4-4-1-1 (Newcastle)

[myrvoldmartin]

Hi everyone! Just took over Newcastle United on my new save and I'm trying to develop a direct style of football using a 4-4-1-1 formation. Struggling in the first few matches, and I would like to get some insight from other people on this tactic.

Brought in Dani Olmo to play in the AM position but we also have Almiron who can play there. Overall we have a team that should be challenging for a mid table finish.

Formation and tactical instructions

I have not added too many tactical instructions.

I want the team to play a direct style of football therefore the More direct passing instruction. When we get the ball I want them to Counter and Distribute to the flanks, where we have good pace, especially on the left hand side with Saint-Maximin. I lowered the LOE to let the oppostition get a bit up the pitch so that we have more space to attack.

The different roles are maybe a bit simplistic, but the general thinking is this; I want Joelinton to drop a bit and receive the ball. When he gets the ball I want the left winger, central midfielder and attacking midfielder to attack the space around him. Joelinton has been great so far, scoring 3 goals in 4 matches.

Goals against

The goals we are conceding comes from easy passes behind our defence. The back four also seems to be making very bad decisions on the ball. In our last game against Brighton Lascelles gets the ball straight after kick-off and gifts it to Maupay who gets a 1-1 against our keeper.

Results

 

Any thoughts?

[rockpie]

33 minutes ago, myrvoldmartin said:

I want Joelinton to drop a bit and receive the ball.

How do you want this to happen? And from who?

If the GK and DEFs should be bypassing midfield with long balls up to Joelinton, maybe setting the distribution to Long Kicks or Distribute to Target Man would make more sense than Distribute to Flanks, since you don't actually want the wide players to receive the ball until you're already in the final third.

If Shelvey is the one who should be making those passes, you might need to remove More Direct Passing as a team instruction and figure out the best way for the ball to reach him, then set a player instruction for him to play More Direct Passes and/or Take More Risks.

Once Joelinton has the ball, should he be looking for More Direct Passes too? If not, maybe that's another argument for removing that team instruction and set specific players to pass more directly instead, allowing the rest of the team to play in a less direct manner once the ball is in the area you want.

Defensively, your back 4 seems a bit exposed since they have no DM sitting in front for protection.

I'm not sure Use Offside Trap is doing you many favours either in combination with Lower LOE, giving the opposition plenty of space to take advantage of between your midfield and back line as well as plenty of time to approach and pick out well-timed runs against a static back 4.

Perhaps you could try out a Stopper / Cover combination of CBs where one steps up to engage that space between defensive line and midfield while the other drops off to pick up any runs from opposing strikers.

Ultimately though, you may need to set the LOE a little higher. Since you're using an AM instead of a DM, it just makes sense to try and press / win the ball back where you have the numeric advantage. Right now that's higher up the pitch.

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by rockpie

[myrvoldmartin]

Thanks for the great tips @rockpie! I'm going to sit down now and try to alter the tactic a bit.

[roquesantacruz]

Your back 4 is exposed, no DM and the fact all your midfielders are set to support or attack would mean absolutely nobody is protecting them.

 

Try Yedlin attacking well, since your WM is on support, Yedlin bombing on could prove a useful outlet, especially having a CM like Shelvey with decent passing and vision. To balance it out, use Dummett on defend, Shelvey on Defend, then Longstaff on support or set as Box to Box, that way he will help out defensively and supplement attacks, he's got the stamina to do it.

 

Good luck

 

 

[Experienced Defender]

6 hours ago, myrvoldmartin said:

This tactic doesn't look too bad overall, so I believe not many tweaks would be needed to improve it. The reason your defense is too exposed is insufficient protection from the midfield (including the fact that Shelvey lacks defensive attributes to be a proper holding CM). 

 

6 hours ago, myrvoldmartin said:

I want the team to play a direct style of football therefore the More direct passing instruction. When we get the ball I want them to Counter and Distribute to the flanks, where we have good pace, especially on the left hand side with Saint-Maximin. I lowered the LOE to let the oppostition get a bit up the pitch so that we have more space to attack

Okay, I see what's your idea here, and it sounds fine. 

6 hours ago, myrvoldmartin said:

I want Joelinton to drop a bit and receive the ball. When he gets the ball I want the left winger, central midfielder and attacking midfielder to attack the space around him

I would prefer him as a PF on attack duty, but you obviously don't want that. So, taking all of the above into account - plus my knowledge about your players - this is how I would (basically) set roles and duties up in a 4411:

TMsu

SS

Wat      BBM     DLPsu     WMsu

 

IWBde     CDde   CDde    WBsu

GK/SKde

Where Longstaff would be the BBM and Shelvey DLPsu. But again, bear in mind Shelvey's relatively poor defensive attributes (that's why I here opted to put him beside Ritchie instead of Maximin)

In terms of instructions, I would slightly lower the mentality - to Balanced (to reduce the defensive risk caused by the lack of DM in your system).

Your other instructions look okay. You can also try a combination of standard (default) passing and higher tempo to see if that maybe works better for your team (a bit of experimenting won't hurt anyway).

Offside trap might be risky with a standard DL, so be careful.

The combination of standard DL and lower LOE makes sense for what you want to achieve, so it should be okay.

NOTE: For this particular Newcastle side, I personally would prefer a system with a DM (4141dm wide first comes to mind, not least because it's the formation I use in my NC save on FM19). So if you notice that your defense is still vulnerable even after the tweaks, maybe you should consider changing the formation altogether.

[myrvoldmartin]

Thanks @Experienced Defender! Changing the mentality makes a lot of sense. Will try to incorporate some of your ideas into my 4-4-1-1 formation.

Regarding the 4-1-4-1 DM. I saw that my assistant manager recommended a 4-1-4-1 DM Wide using the gegenpress style. To add some flexibility I decided to build something with that formation.

This is what I came up with for starters

Joelinton will play up top, with both of the wingers and central midfielder attacking the space behind him. I change the LOE depending on the opposition, but it's usually set to standard. The higher LOE was used against Brighton in our last home game.

The right fullback is sat to defend since our right winger keeps the width. On the left hand side I want Dummett to give some support and width in the attack, since our left winger cuts inside.

The problem is that we don't seem to be able to convert our chances in the final third. Here's to games where we create a good amount of chances, but struggle to find the goal.

Any tips on how to improve this?

 

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, myrvoldmartin said:

Regarding the 4-1-4-1 DM. I saw that my assistant manager recommended a 4-1-4-1 DM Wide using the gegenpress style

I would definitely look to avoid any type of gegenpress(ish) style with a team like NC. So I am glad you accepted only the AssMan's suggestion about the formation, but not the style of play  

 

3 hours ago, myrvoldmartin said:

This is what I came up with for starters

 

3 hours ago, myrvoldmartin said:

The problem is that we don't seem to be able to convert our chances in the final third. Here's to games where we create a good amount of chances, but struggle to find the goal.

Any tips on how to improve this?

Given that I use this same formation (4123 wide) in my Newcastle save (albeit on FM19), I already see a few potential issues.

First, the Focus through the middle is a TI I have never ever used, because it forces play through the most densely packed are of opposition defenses. I might only consider employing it if I wanted to play a pure direct counter-attacking style against a team that is clearly vulnerable in the middle (central) areas. Otherwise, it makes very little (if any) sense and only limits your options in attack (in addition to making you more vulnerable defensively by increasing the mentalities of CBs, DMs and defend-duty CMs). Therefore, I would strongly suggest you remove it. 

A combination of standard DL and high LOE reduces your vertical compactness, which means your players will have to cover more ground when defending. While in an omni-strata system such as 4141dmw that may not necessarily be too big an issue, I fear that Newcastle players are simply not good enough. I use the standard DL/standard LOE combo as the one I've found works best for my NC side. In fact, all my defensive TIs are set to default. 

In terms of your roles and duties, a midfield pair of BBM and CM on attack duty might leave your defense more exposed than it can handle, and again for the same reason - the (insufficient) quality of your players. Another reason why I would avoid the BBM/CMattack combo is a degree of similarity between these two roles in that they are both so-called runners from deep.