Perfecting a possession-heavy 4-3-3 with Celtic

[zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz]

First off, merry Christmas everyone!

I've been spending the holidays playing as Celtic, which poses an interesting challenge as just about everyone domestically aside from Rangers sit back and play extremely defensively against you, while you more or less have to do the same in Europe to have any hope of getting anywhere.

So far I have not lost a single domestic match, but I still think there might be room for improvement in my tactic. I feel that I have been a bit too reliant on set-pieces and with Ajer and Simunovic having been sold in January and Jullien likely leaving in the summer I don't think I'll be as aerially dominant as I have been this season going forward, which means I have to start creating goals from elsewhere.

This is how I have been lining up domestically:

I switch to a positive mentality in almost all matches, sometimes pushing it even higher on the rare occasion that my opponents give me space to play with. I also switch the DM to defensive duty in matches against Rangers.

I've tried three different roles for the striker, DLF-a, F9 and AF without him doing much, Edouard is a fantastic striker yet he's only managed 2 league goals in 15 appearances, and one of them came when he was playing on the wing. I'm wondering if there is any way to get him to score more or if I should just settle on having the inside forward as my primary goalscorer.

 

I am also looking for suggestions on how to improve my European tactic, which looks like this:

I managed to win my Champions League group with this, with home and away wins against Porto and wins at home against Chelsea and Galatasaray. Good results for an ad hoc tactic, but I think if I want to actually win something in Europe I'll need to improve it.

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

[Champfan10]

1 hour ago, zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz said:

 

I've tried three different roles for the striker, DLF-a, F9 and AF without him doing much, Edouard is a fantastic striker yet he's only managed 2 league goals in 15 appearances, and one of them came when he was playing on the wing. I'm wondering if there is any way to get him to score more or if I should just settle on having the inside forward as my primary goalscorer.

 

 

Does Sinclair bag a lot for you as an inside forward? Scored a lot for me.

Do you have any PI's on the forward 3?

Edouard scores as a pressing froward on attack for me in a similar formation to yours.

 

 

[bowieinspace]

I'd say the reason Edouard is struggling is because you're pushed up super high against very defensive set ups, so the opponent is squashed into their own box and he has no space to play in. You could drop your lines/intensity to draw the opposition out a bit perhaps, aiming to have some space to play in to

[zZzZzZzZzZzZzZz]

On 25/12/2019 at 12:53, Champfan10 said:

Does Sinclair bag a lot for you as an inside forward? Scored a lot for me.

Do you have any PI's on the forward 3?

Edouard scores as a pressing froward on attack for me in a similar formation to yours.

 

 

Sinclair did not play a single minute for me before I sold him in January. Mikey Johnston who played on the left scored 20 goals across all competitions, despite not being ideal as a goalscoring inside forward.