How to get my striker scores ? (4-1-2-2-1)

[alexdbaf]

Hi everyone,

I manage an underdog in italian Serie B , Salernitana. Things went well so far as we are currently topping the table after 27 games (we were predicted 9th) but I'd like to improve my tactic as I seen a recurring problem :

My 3 strikers are quite good for my league but they never score ! They have scored (together) 4 goals in 29 games. All my goals rely on my wingers (respectively 12, 7 and 5 goals) and sometimes midfielders. The problem is that this situation causes me to score very few goals (apart from rare occasion) as you can see on the first screenshot. I generally dominate the games but it happens a lot that I can't score. It's a pity that in those situations I can't rely on my strikers, given that they are very good players. 

 

I would like to exploit more my striker and find a way to involve them more in the game, could you help me with that please :-) ? Here is my main tactic:

 

I used to play with Complete Wing Back but it was too offensive and it let too much spaces. Also, I lowered my defensive line (that used to be higher) because of the counter attack. I have the best defence in my league by far so I guess it worked quite well.

Thank you very much for your help ! 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by alexdbaf

[alexdbaf]

Some additional infos: 

• I used to use "tighter marking" but I noticed it made my defenders go out of position so I stopped
• I still take too much long ball, even if my defensive line is set to "standard"
• I looked at where my striker get the ball in the field, and he appears to receive the ball from short passes on the sides of the pitch only, or in the center but very low (on our own side)

Thanks :-)

[jens_dewit]

Two things I'd look at are your wings and the role you give your striker. If you play two identical wings, you'll have quite a one-dimensional attack. Secondly, I'm guessing your players are overflowing the box? Two IF on attack will both be attacking the box at the same time, while the striker is joining in right behind them. Very shortly after your mezala will arrive and then even the BBM. My guess is there is no space for your striker to exploit. 

This way you're set up for your IF's to score all the goals - is your striker at least giving them assists? Something I'd try is either a F9 (so he drops even deeper and gives up the space he might be taking up otherwise) and enjoy your IF's performance, or make your wings a bit more conservative.

One other thing: are you trying to play a counter tactic or a poss based system? Some of your TI's are working against each other. If you're trying to counter, I wouldn't be playing the striker on DLF(s). But, of course, I'm guessing the counters work out great for your inside forwards?

I'm not an expert (by all means ) but the way I see it, you've built a tactic made for your wingers to score and not for your strikers.

[alexdbaf]

Hi Jens, bedankt voor uw antwoord 😉. 

On 23/01/2020 at 11:49, jens_dewit said:

Two things I'd look at are your wings and the role you give your striker. If you play two identical wings, you'll have quite a one-dimensional attack.

I used to have one IF and one IW but the result weren't very different (I could try it again for some games in order to test). 

On 23/01/2020 at 11:49, jens_dewit said:

Two IF on attack will both be attacking the box at the same time, while the striker is joining in right behind them. Very shortly after your mezala will arrive and then even the BBM. My guess is there is no space for your striker to exploit. 

This remark is very interesting actually. There is indeed a great number of midfielder that are around the box when attacking, and it's true that I sometimes notice that my striker is juste there in front of them, a bit useless. 

On 23/01/2020 at 11:49, jens_dewit said:

his way you're set up for your IF's to score all the goals - is your striker at least giving them assists? Something I'd try is either a F9 (so he drops even deeper and gives up the space he might be taking up otherwise) and enjoy your IF's performance, or make your wings a bit more conservative.

No, the assists mainly come from ... the wingers 😄 , the FBs, and the DLP. Is F9 really different from DLF ? Also when you say make your wings more conservative, you mean playing larger, near the touchline ? Because I want to keep the fact that my wingers are going inside , it's just that I would like them to have more interaction with my striker, and sometimes drop a few crosses.

On 23/01/2020 at 11:49, jens_dewit said:

One other thing: are you trying to play a counter tactic or a poss based system? Some of your TI's are working against each other. If you're trying to counter, I wouldn't be playing the striker on DLF(s). But, of course, I'm guessing the counters work out great for your inside forwards?

Good remark ! I have a possession based system, but I put those TI in order to put more pressure on the opponent and directly regain possession of the ball after having losing it (for the counter-press instruction) , the counter instruction has been helpful with my wingers but it's true that it's a bit contradictory ... What would you suggest ? 

 

I solution I had been suggested is to play with an AF , but I guess that in this case it would be more helpful to have at least one winger on support in order to feed him with more balls ?

 

Thank for the feedback😄

[jens_dewit]

24 minutes ago, alexdbaf said:

Hi Jens, bedankt voor uw antwoord 😉. 

I used to have one IF and one IW but the result weren't very different (I could try it again for some games in order to test). 

This remark is very interesting actually. There is indeed a great number of midfielder that are around the box when attacking, and it's true that I sometimes notice that my striker is juste there in front of them, a bit useless. 

 

Two IF's can certainly work, but then you'd be better off playing one on support. 

25 minutes ago, alexdbaf said:

No, the assists mainly come from ... the wingers 😄 , the FBs, and the DLP. Is F9 really different from DLF ? Also when you say make your wings more conservative, you mean playing larger, near the touchline ? Because I want to keep the fact that my wingers are going inside , it's just that I would like them to have more interaction with my striker, and sometimes drop a few crosses.

I solution I had been suggested is to play with an AF , but I guess that in this case it would be more helpful to have at least one winger on support in order to feed him with more balls ?

The first thing you should consider for yourself if whether you really want your striker to be your main goalscoring outlet. If the answer is yes, than it doesn't make sense to play 2 IF's on attack. One IW on support would be better, combined with (eg) a DLF on attack I think. 

A F9 is different from a DLF in that he drops even deeper, acting a lot more like a creator than a striker. He creates spaces by dropping back, hopefully dragging a defender with him and then playing that pass for the IF to run onto. A F9 can still score of course, but he'll mainly be a kind of playmaker on top.

It starts by making clear what you want to achieve and then puzzling the pieces together.

My idea for scoring wingers would be something like this:

DLF(s)

IF(a)              IW(s)

Mez(s)  DLP(s)

DM(d)

FB(s) CD CD FB(a)

You could try experimenting with a WB(d) on the left or a WB(s) or even WB(a) on the right, but I have to say I don't have a lot of experience in this system. This is what I'd do based on the tips I found here.

[alexdbaf]

Hi everyone,

I finally put my striker on (AF) , with one of the winger in IW(s) instead of IF(a) , and I also deselected "counter-press", in transition.
My results for the last 11 games of the season : 6V 3X 2D , 64% of the points won. Way better than the 8 first games of the 2d part of the season (13/24, 54%) but under the first part of the season (38/57, 66%). I did notice however that my strikers were more involved in the game, scoring more goals and giving more assists. Also, I took less counter-attack thanks to the deletion of the "counter-press" consign. 

The good thing is that... I won the Serie B 😄 !

I am now in Serie A and need to create a whole team, as I had a looot of player on loan last season ... Also, I will need to adapt my tactic to a league where I will play as an outsider in every game. I will have more spaces, that's sure, but the opponents will also be quite stronger than my team. So I'm still working on my tactic. Should I emphasize the counter-attack and let the opponent play in my side ? And play long ball instead of short ? That's not my football 🤔

[Experienced Defender]

19 hours ago, alexdbaf said:

I am now in Serie A and need to create a whole team, as I had a looot of player on loan last season ... Also, I will need to adapt my tactic to a league where I will play as an outsider in every game. I will have more spaces, that's sure, but the opponents will also be quite stronger than my team. So I'm still working on my tactic. Should I emphasize the counter-attack and let the opponent play in my side ? And play long ball instead of short ?

Create a tactic you believe would suit your team's strength and reputation relative to the league and post a screenshot here for people to analyze and tell you if there are potential issues and how you could fix them 

[alexdbaf]

Hi everyone !

Well, it seems like I need to better tweak my tactif to fit my underdog team :-(

The friendlies went well and we had a great debut in Tim Cup, then, Serie A started ...

Our defence is quite OK actually. We only took 1 goal in the 3 first games, 2 of them against teams that were way superior (Napoli, Fiorentina)

I updated the ME for the last version just after those 2 games.

Then we had this game against a relegation spot challenger, and we didn't manage to score (only 3 shots on target) , followed by those 2 last games were we barely had 1 occasion in 2 games...

It seems like our scoring problem only emphasized this year. The opponent being generally waaaaay stronger than us (I took a goal from Asensio against Milan, I looked at him and WTF he'll eat my entire team for breakfast) , the scoring problem is even worst, I can't barely have 2 or 3 chances per game ...

I know that I will never play for the european spot this season with my team, but still I think that we should be able to stay in Serie A !

How could I modify my tactic to be more dangerous ? Defensively we are not that bad.

 

Thank you !

[Experienced Defender]

45 minutes ago, alexdbaf said:

 

45 minutes ago, alexdbaf said:

How could I modify my tactic to be more dangerous ?

You should modify the tactic to be more sensible in the first place. You are newly promoted to the Seria A, so you need a tactical style that suits your team's reputation and strength relative to the league.

You are using too many instructions, most of which are totally needless. Cutting them down is the first thing you should do IMHO. Because best tactics are pretty simple and logical - without overkill. 

Honestly, I don't see what's your idea in terms of playing style. The setup of roles and duties seems to favor some sort of counter-attacking football (except for having 2 PMs in close vicinity). But instructions suggest otherwise and the tactic overall therefore looks pretty much undefined. 

Seems like you are asking too much of your players. I would keep it far more simple, both in defense and attack. 

 

[Kingofcm03]

This makes me very nervous and also very sorry for the DLP because hes the only 1 that there to help defend the middle. Hes going to get dominated. 

You have too many players (5) going forward, all those players are going to attack the box, if you are newly promoted then your players are going be worse than most and these nothing the more guy playing DLP can do to stop anybody running through the middle.

I would do this and see how it looks after 5 games, it should at least keep the middle 3 together and able to provide some protection

• AP > DLP-S
• BBM > CM-S
• DLP > DM
• Remove the underlap on both sides.

If you have your heart set on the AP-A then you need to play some protection, so the DLP and BBM need to be supporting/protection roles and remember MORE players in the box does not mean MORE goals. You need to make space and space is the key to goals. All those 5 players are just going to get into a jumbled mess.

 

 

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[alexdbaf]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the advices. I changed my tactic style in order to reflect more the status of my team. So I chose a fluid counter-attack system, keeping the short passes style that I like but with a lower defensive line and a more defensive mentality, allowing my team to wait for the opponent to attack and then counter.

I also chose to keep my 4-1-4-1because I build this team based on it.

 

When I play against lower team, I put the mentality on "balanced" , my DLP on Support  and my AP in Attack.

 

The result ? 13/21 , 62% ! Quite good for a newcomer 😁.