A guide to pressing in FM [WIP]

[nugatti]

Hi everyone. Im looking for some tips/examples on different variations of pressing.

The art of pressing is twofold.

Adjective - requiring quick or immediate action or attention

Noun - an act or instance of applying force or weight to something

I feel both definitions are relevant here.

The tactics screen gives us different pressing options, and I'd like here to give everyone an overview and - with your help - map the changes to what they do and do not when changing the team instructions.

So I'm hoping for you to help me out in uncovering how much these settings actually differ, and - perhaps the most important part - when to use the different settings. Pros and cons.

Index:
1. The tactics screen & 'global' pressing
2. The DNA of pressing
3. Pros/cons of low pressing intensity
4. Pro/cons of high pressing intensity
5. Different ways to trigger pressing
6. Questions

@Experienced Defenderhas written about pressing in this thread, but not to the extent of detail that I'd like the topic to be covered.

Starting off, I'm limiting this with a view to detail the core settings for pressing, and how general tactical changes affects it.

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1. The tactics screen

The clean slate tactical screen starts off like this. 

Standard pressing
Screen description: Pressing intensity will be set according to the team mentality.

So here we are already told that pressing intensity (PI) will change according to the team mentality (TME). When reading all of the descriptions from the TME options, none of them explicitly mentions pressing. So, initially we don't know what the settings are.

Until told otherwise my assumption will be that the PI and TME scales are correspondent;
The lowest possible option of PI is set on the TME Very defensive and the highest possible setting is set on very attacking combined with much higher pressing.

Could someone please confirm this?

As we have (5*7) 35 different possible combinations, it would be interesting to find out which PI setting level each combination actually interprets into.

I made a spreadsheet, and to (try to) keep things simple I'll give a score of 1 for the lowest possible setting and 35 in the top end of the scale. Thus BAL/STD PI will be set to 18.

PI / TME VDEF DEF CAU BAL POS ATT VATT MLOW 1             LOW               STD       18       HI               MHI             35

This table is subject to change
LEGEND: MLOW - much lower, STD - standard, MHI - much higher, VDEF - very defensive, VATT - very attacking

The only certainty is that with the balanced mentality the team will perform a standard PI. Where do we go from there, though?

I'd like some information from you guys to determine if changes to TME use the options avaliable to choose manually, or if the changes to PI are smaller when changed through the TME changes.

And of course these values are not correct in any way, and the highest possible PI/TME setting does not mean the pressing will be 35 times more intense than the lowest possible setting, I only put it there to give a numerical indication of which settings are to be looked upon as relatively low and which ones are relatively high.

When setting up tactics, all different options for PI are available, and we do not know *exactly* how much the setting differ from notch to notch on the scale. My table will change based on reports in this thread.

 

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2. The DNA of pressing
Every outfield player will need to judge when and how to press. This is a skill that is universal regardless of most (maybe all) other tactical settings. And as such we can distill a desired DNA players will need to either have or to attain. Also, the PI is universal throughout the team. Depending on role selection, some will press more and some less, but all outfield players will press to some extent. Therefore keep this in mind when selecting player roles.

I have used the scale Low - Medium - High, and only comment skills in relation to being successful in pressing. 

Also remember to view skills in relation to league quality. An M value in a top level league is significantly higher than an M value in lower leagues

*****

Technical skills:
Marking H - makes a player able to keep close to his direct opponent, Essential
Tackling M-H - a bit unsure of how necessary tacking is to press in isolation, but cases of intense pressing will surely lead to tackles being made.

*****

Mental skills:
Aggression M-H - a player would need to be able to assert himself upon an opponent when needed. 
Anticipation H - the higher the better. Anticipation makes a player more able to react to match events. Essential
Composure M-H - makes a player able to make intelligent decisions [sic] without the ball. Sounds great to me!
Concentration M-H - mental focus, attention to detail
Decisions M-H - ability to make correct choices without the ball. Yes, please. (But I often wonder how this differs from Composure, though...)
Determination M-H - reflects player commitment to succeed and do his best on the pitch
Teamwork H - ability to follow tactical instructions. Essential
Work rate H - ability to work to full capacity. Essential

*****

Physical skills:
Acceleration M-H - ability to keep up with opponents over short distances
Agility H - reflects ability to start/change/stop movements off the ball. Essential
Balance M-H - we don't want to see a stumbling, tumbling toddler on the pitch, do we?
Pace M-H - Don't get outrun. Ever.
Stamina H - this makes a player able to perform through the full 90, Essential
Strength M-H - brute force may not be essential, but then again pressing players shouldn't get run past easily either when a physical duel is on

*****
Bonus:
Leadership M-H - ability to influence teammates, a desired knock-on effect

I'll not touch on personality, but some obvious ones labelled the same as some of desired skills mentioned above are surely preferred. Any thoughts?

 

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3. Pros/cons of low pressing intensity

This section will be expanded at a later time 

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4. Pros/cons of high pressing intensity

Here is a very useful guide on how to set up a high pressing tactic written by @herne79.

It explains the different factors to consider, and the goal is to get the different settings to work in combination. The sum is greater than it's parts.

 

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5. Different ways to trigger pressing

The match engine also gives us some other ways of getting your players to apply press on an opponent.

This section will be expanded at a later time 

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6. Questions

1. How to determine how much pressing intensity changes per notch when changing around TME?

2. Am I correct in thinking the pressing intensity value goes down when changing TME towards Very defensive?

3. How can match highlights/reports/stats be used to quantify successful pressing?

4. Any changes needed in the DNA section?

- The list in this section will change when Qs have been answered and when new Qs pop up in my head -

Edited June 25, 2021 by nugatti

[gcoard]

On 20/06/2021 at 16:35, nugatti said:

Marking H - makes a player able to keep close to his direct opponent, Essential

Does marking really correspond (correlate?) to being a good presser?  My interpretation of marking has always been "how well you stick to your man while he doesn't have the ball." So basically, if you are marking your man well, he shouldn't be able to get the ball, at least not easily and/or in a good position.  On the other hand, pressing, to me, implies quickly swarming the player with the ball that you aren't already marking. 

As an example, let's say my FW is closer to the RCB and the keeper rolls the ball out to the LCB.  If I was, for example, implementing a high pressing system, I would then expect my FW to press the LCB, even though he wasn't marking him.  On the other hand, if I wasn't implementing a high pressing system, I might expect the FW to stay marking the RCB, so marking is important here.

[nugatti]

18 hours ago, gcoard said:

Does marking really correspond (correlate?) to being a good presser?  My interpretation of marking has always been "how well you stick to your man while he doesn't have the ball." So basically, if you are marking your man well, he shouldn't be able to get the ball, at least not easily and/or in a good position.  On the other hand, pressing, to me, implies quickly swarming the player with the ball that you aren't already marking. 

As an example, let's say my FW is closer to the RCB and the keeper rolls the ball out to the LCB.  If I was, for example, implementing a high pressing system, I would then expect my FW to press the LCB, even though he wasn't marking him.  On the other hand, if I wasn't implementing a high pressing system, I might expect the FW to stay marking the RCB, so marking is important here.

I guess this could be a question of definiton?

In my head I see it as a positive thing if my players always are in a good position to initiate pressing at the right time. And as I read the marking description, a relative high skill should help players being in a good position to do this early on (if needed). Then, when the opposing player eventually receives the ball, my player will judge accordingly whether to actually initiate the press or not. But marking helps him keep a good position also all the time the opposing player keeps the ball.

With a low marking skill, players can/will more often be out of position and will use some time before the pressing is on. So not a good presser as such, but it helps being in a good position to press.

Hopefully some FM experts can clearify in which situations marking is actively used and not

Thank you for your thoughts!

Edited June 24, 2021 by nugatti

[gcoard]

From the tool tip on marking "This ability reflects the player's ability to stick close to his direct opposition in defensive situations."  Also, the pressing forward role doesn't have marking as a key attribute.
 

So my inclination is still that marking would be more useful if you wanted to implement "prevent short gk distribution" or maybe you wanted to man mark the full backs and one of the cbs so that you force a week cb to dribble more.  If you want to implement a high block, you probably don't expect your forward players to be man marking.  You you wanted to implement a low block, then marking is probably an important attribute because you'd expect your defenders to be closer to their players and immediately "press" once they get the ball.

Interested to hear what others think, I'm certainly not an expert!

[herne79]

Yeh Marking and Pressing are two different things.  We can see this when we have a high press, using our more advanced players to press yet their marking skills are invariably low.

Marking - stay close to an opponent to prevent a pass to him.

Pressing - quickly close down an opponent after the ball has been passed to him in order to force an error.

2 hours ago, nugatti said:

With a low marking skill, players can/will more often be out of position and will use some time before the pressing is on. So not a good presser as such, but it helps being in a good position to press.

Players with low marking and positioning skills can absolutely be effective at pressing (forwards typically don't have good Positioning either).  Work rate, Aggression, Determination, Stamina all help with this, anticipation & acceleration also, as does the effective use of player roles, duties and other tactical selections such as formation, Mentality, TIs and PIs.  Thus when you say they "will use some time before the pressing is on" is just not true - unless we use our players in a poor way (and/or the wrong players) to initiate a press.  For example, a high press tends to be much more effective if using a top heavy formation such as the 4231 rather than a deep formation like the 4141 (other tactical settings not withstanding).

Below is from a guide I posted a couple of years ago which shows a video of Pressing in action by my more advanced players, none of which have decent marking or positioning skills but they do have relevant other attributes and tactical settings.  Watch how quickly opponents get closed down, ultimately leading to errors, ball turnover and two goals.  The principle hasn't changed since .

 

[NotSoSpecialOne]

Marking is important in low, mid and high blocks imo.

When I'm operating with a high block, my goal with pressing is to force the opposition into low percentage passes (winning the ball back via challenge is a nice bonus though). For this, decent marking (and position) on the most advanced players (four or five maybe, depending on your formation and opposition's) helps as they'll be the ones not just pressing but shutting down or otherwise making higher percentage passes less attractive.

[mikcheck]

1 hora atrás, NotSoSpecialOne disse:

Marking is important in low, mid and high blocks imo.

When I'm operating with a high block, my goal with pressing is to force the opposition into low percentage passes (winning the ball back via challenge is a nice bonus though). For this, decent marking (and position) on the most advanced players (four or five maybe, depending on your formation and opposition's) helps as they'll be the ones not just pressing but shutting down or otherwise making higher percentage passes less attractive.

But it's highly unlikely to find  attacking players with good marking and/or positioning, let alone 4 or 5 

[nugatti]

1 hour ago, herne79 said:

Players with low marking and positioning skills can absolutely be effective at pressing (forwards typically don't have good Positioning either).  Work rate, Aggression, Determination, Stamina all help with this, anticipation & acceleration also, as does the effective use of player roles, duties and other tactical selections such as formation, Mentality, TIs and PIs.  Thus when you say they "will use some time before the pressing is on" is just not true - unless we use our players in a poor way (and/or the wrong players) to initiate a press.

Ok, so it does not matter if a player is positioned relatively far away from and/or not good at marking in any form towards a player he is about to press? The game calculates the pressing 'score' in the same way for all outfield players?

If there are any other skills I have listed in my OP which do not enhance pressing, please inform us all. I'll happily change accordingly 

[herne79]

57 minutes ago, nugatti said:

The game calculates the pressing 'score' in the same way for all outfield players?

No idea .  Just replying to your post about Marking being "essential" for pressing.  If it were, our more advanced players would be useless at pressing when they can actually be very effective at it .

In all honesty I never consider how any of my players rate for "Marking" when setting up a heavy pressing tactic.  Aggression (kind of like a natural press), Determination (the drive to keep going even when the chips are down), Work rate (the mental capacity to keep working hard) and Stamina (the physical capacity to keep working for 90 mins when using a high intensity tactic) are what I value, along with perhaps Anticipation and Acceleration (especially to help more advanced players close down quickly).

1 hour ago, nugatti said:

Ok, so it does not matter if a player is positioned relatively far away from and/or not good at marking in any form towards a player he is about to press?

It does matter because if he's too far away he won't begin to press an opponent.  However, that "positioning" is more a function of formation and tactical instructions.  So for example if you want your more advanced players to press, they'll be better placed to do so if using a top heavy 4231 formation instead of a deep 4141 formation.  Likewise adjusting your Line of Engagement tells your players where you want them to start pressing, so move that to high and combine it with a relevant formation (such as the 4231) and your players are going to be positioned ready to press by default, regardless of their own marking or positioning skills.  And the Counter Press instruction adds icing to the cake.

[CARRERA]

3 hours ago, nugatti said:

Ok, so it does not matter if a player is positioned relatively far away from and/or not good at marking in any form towards a player he is about to press?

A player does not necessarily have to press the same player that he is marking. The player on the ball is being pressed and the players off the ball are being marked (either tight or loose) at any time during defensive phase. There might be situations where those players are in the same area of your defender (at so called overload situations), then another defender needs to take over either the task of marking or pressing to not loose solidity. Also dont mix up "tight marking" with man marking, its also something completely different.

[nugatti]

16 hours ago, herne79 said:

In all honesty I never consider how any of my players rate for "Marking" when setting up a heavy pressing tactic.

This begs the question; Do you consider it when setting up a light pressing tactic (that is, if you ever do that of course  and just for the pressing)

Edited June 25, 2021 by nugatti

[herne79]

47 minutes ago, nugatti said:

This begs the question; Do you consider it when setting up a light pressing tactic (that is, if you ever do that of course  and just for the pressing)

Nope.