How to get the most out of a Wide Playmaker / Pass & Move football?

[Wrap God]

Hello everyone,

For the past couple of weeks I've been attempting to build a system with Wide Playmaker being the main creative force in the team.

The idea for this system was heavily inspired by kr10's Modern 442 from FM20 which I loved and tried to somewhat emulate on FM22 with some of my own ideas injected into it.

Some of my tactical assumptions / requirements before I went into tactic building:

• WP(Su) on the right should be the main creator
• Use of an overlaping fullback on the playmaker's side
• Rather patient, passing oriented attacks with players exchanging short passes and moving around the final third to cause confusion (Pass & Move)
• If possible, squeeze in a Roaming Playmaker and Shadow Striker into the system (I just really like these roles)

There are also some questions I've been asking myself and struggled to find answers to:

• How do I want to defend?
  Low block seems like a no-go since it suits counter attacking teams more, and I would probably face issues with transitioning from defence to attack. No idea if I should mark tighter or force opposition either outside or inside (I've been playing this game for 14 years and still haven't figured out when I should use Tight Marking TI).
• What do I want to happen on the left flank?
  I tried all combinations of Wide Midfielder/Winger + Fullback, Inverted Winger + Wingback on different duties and I still have no clue what I want to happen there. Classic Winger seems to direct. I did quite like Wide Midfielder on Attack with a Wingback on Defend behind him.
• What should the midfield pivot look like?
  All I know is I need someone that provides space for WP to move into and covers for overlaping fullback. For him a partner that covers a lot of ground and supports attacks, takes over some playmaking duties if WP is struggling.

So here is what I have right now:

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It's...not great. I often struggle to score goals and I concede a lot. Clean sheets are a very rare sights with better teams being able to put 3 goals into the net with relative ease. Assists in conceded goals come from all directions almost evenly: through balls and crosses.
I originally had the midfield pivot in the CM slots, but considering defensive issues I shifted them back a notch - didn't really help and hindered my goalscoaring ability even further.

As of now I probably tested about 30 different iterations of this tactic, used all possible Out of Possession combinations besides Lower defensive line. I've been using a special testing database and ideal (but still realistic) players for each position. I also did a couple of seasons in Dutch and Portuguese leagues

I'm asking for help since I've been slowly descending into madness trying to figure our why it's so underwhelming.
The only role I'm really hell-bent on keeping is the Wide Playmaker.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Wrap God
Added a question mark to the title

[Johnny Ace]

I like the look of it

If you're getting done on through balls, it makes sense to lose the high lines, unless your backline is elite, I just don't see the need for it and will only make you venerable, it's worth a try. Plus you have Higher + Much Higher which isn't great for compactness

WBIB I always find a goal stunter, great for pretty football but it cuts out a way for your team to score goals, you could try losing that one

Two playmakers in close proximity is never ideal to me, one's enough especially when you want play through the Wide Player

Just remember, playmakers are just that, putting them as a playmaker doesn't turn them into assist kings, quite often they open up play for someone else to get the assist or key pass 

Of course, you may have already tested this stuff but that's my first thoughts  

 

[Wrap God]

I appreciate your suggestion.

I admit I might have forced the RPM onto myself unnecessarily...but I just love that role so much

Will try changing him into a Segundo Volante on Support and see how it performs.

 

I opted for WBIB since I wanted to reduce the number of long passes, but you might be right - I didn't think about it as stiffling attacks.

[Sheyner21]

You could try taking things down a notch instruction wise, i personally when trying to create a possession oriented tactic i try to not overkill my players with too many of them.

Try to see first how the roles interact between them and ask questions about your build up and initial plan like:

How does the ball gets to your playmaker? When it reaches him, does he has options? Can he combine with the SS that should be in the half spaces? Or does he have to recycle with the DM? 

The ask who is going to be your goalscorer and who is going to assist him. The WP(s) is not going to be in the position to make the last decisive pass but he is certainly help your team play and move the ball.

Them, when you find that roles are playing like you want, try using simple instructions.

My take would be to try starting with the base of what you're trying to achieve using:

Mentality: Standard/Positive; You can try both and see depending in how much risk are your players taking and if its enough or is it too much.

In Possession: Play Out of the Defense, Short Passes, Fairly Narrow; Staple Possession instructions without overkill, you can watch your games and see if you need something more but i think this is enough most of the time.

Transition: Counter-Press (If you have the players and the quality relative to the oppossition for it, if you don't you can play without it); Watch your build up and see if your players invite enough pressure or not and choose accordingly if you want to distribute to your defender/fullbacks.

Out of possession: Higher Line of Engament, Higher Defensive Line; You can try this alone with a split block but if you don't want your WP running too much, just use trigger press More Often.

I think that when you're starting to create a new tactic, less is more, because it lets you see what is going wrong and start adjusting with little nudges but with a good foundation you can analyze better what you're seeing.

If you try some of these please show us the progress. 

[Wrap God]

I made some tweaks and watched an entire game on comprehensive highlights.

Here is how the tactic looked like going into the game:

FB(At) has been told to stay wider, since I noticed him often occupying the same space as WP. I might try changing that role to WB on Attack.

We won 4-3.

My team was not a clear favourite before the game, but we played at home.

Goals conceded were:

• Overlaping run and cross from the side of my WP, where all 3 of my WP, FB and DM failed to track properly or cover
• An error from my center back when playing out from the back - he passed it directly into the foot of opposition's PF who then ran past him and scored
• Through ball where my Segundo Volante failed to track a runner from deep, even though he was told to man mark him - I was fuming

So the same defensive issues persist even though I'm playing more compact. For the next game I'll drop the defensive line.

The thing is however, that besides these three goals the opponents didn't have other clear cut chances... so I guess it might just be my players switching off. Hard to tell.

 

The goals we scored however were pretty good: 2 cutbacks, and 2 beautiful crosses from WP to IW. There was a lot of movement in and around the box. When PF(Su) dropped deep, IW and/or PF(A) were timing runs into the box. Segundo Volante was making runs into the box as well, but very late, after we "camped" their box for a while - this is exactly what I want for him.

 

EDIT:

I decided to get rid of the Shadow Striker and move him up to a Pressing Forward as he was absolutely anonymous in most of the games. Almost 0 impact on games with ratings of 6.6 week-in, week-out.
I have forwards with decent workrate, anticipation and bravery so this combinations seems to suit my team.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Wrap God

[Wrap God]

Another update.

I took some of your advice into consideration @Sheyner21 - thank you!

After doing a full pre-season with this tactic I've made some additional tweaks.

I've noticed on post-match analysis' from the pre-season friendlies that there is often a huge gap between the left and right sides of my team, right in the middle:

I first tried to fix it by setting the width to minimal, but it resulted in the middle being over-congested and players running into each other.

So, the next step was to try leaving the width as 'Fairly Narrow' and adding 'Focus play through the middle'. This sounded counter-intuitive to me at first, since I play with a Wide Playmaker, but it made a huge difference. I'm now able to control the middle much more efficiently:

 

And this is the tactic I'm starting the season with:

Additional notes:

• Right Fullback has been told to Stay Wider
• Wide Midfielder on the left is right-footed, but no specific PI's were given

Edited April 30, 2022 by Wrap God
Replaced screenshot of tactic with fixed instructions

[Johnny Ace]

Good luck! It's a well thought out system and looks really nice 

[DarJ]

I would change the DM to support because if you look closely when you attack or as soon as you lose the ball the distance between the DM and the rest of the attacking players (Vol, WM, PFs) is huge and if one of the opposition player is in that hole you'll get done on the counter.

Another thing is to reduce your pressing, it's going to cause issues for you. If you take the scenario I explained earlier, your DM will step up to close down the player in that hole leaving gaps behind him. I'd just reduce it by one and then use opposition instructions to press the specific players you want 

[Wrap God]

I've made a post with an update earlier today but it got purged during the technical maintenance

Ok so - middle of the season update.

I'm so, so happy

First of all - @DarJI did heed your advice and changed two things: DM role from Defend to Support, and tuned down pressing to only 'More Often'. I added OI's to press wide players while simulatenously marking central midfielders.
 

I'm managing NAC Breda and it's year 2026. We are predicted to finish 6th in the Eredivise.
My only player in the Media Dream Eleven was my starting CB.

This is the tactic I went into the season with:

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The only PI's is for the right Fullback to stay wider.

Here is the table halfway through the season:

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As it stands we are unbeaten - I really couldn't ask for more

Looking at the league stats:

My team scored the most goals:

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We average 56% possession:

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With a very decent pass completion ratio of 91% (I don't really have good passers yet):

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Looking at the Data Hub:

Passing graph:

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Team Attacking:

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Team Defending:

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So it seems that I'm overperforming in both attack and defence, let's see if my team crashes in the second half of the season. Especially that now in January half of the world wants to poach my key players

It's good to see my team is not dribbling that much and tackling - I'm keeping the ball and progressing up the field with passes and not by players carrying the ball.

Here are my results so far:

Spoiler

Some general reflections:

• Wide Playmaker has na average rating of 7.00 in 14 league games. He often is not the player that makes the assits, but plays the pre-assist pass.
• Player with most assists - 7 is my starting Segundo Volante. He's the one that often receives the ball from WP right in front of the box to play a through ball to a striker.
• The Pressing Forward on Attack has the most goals (16). Other sources of goals are: PF(Su): 6, backup striker: 6, Wide Midfielder: 5, backup WM: 5 (I rotate quite a bit)
• We do play the occasional ball over the top bypassing the midfield, but I feel it is always well timed and has lead to goal more often than not. It's nice to see a switch to our usual passing strategy to mix it up a bit.
• What worries me a bit are sequences of 7-10 passes between my CB's and DM's, even if there are open FB's or wingers. But I've noticed this happening a lot in FM22 when playing out from the back, not only to me.
• I'm in love with the Wide Midfielder on Attack. He plays as some sort of an aggressive box-to-box winger. He tracks back regularly to help win possesion, while in attack behaves almost like a Shadow Striker. I play right footed players on the left in that role. Fantastic performances even if I had to play there someone not familiar with the role. I suspect this is highly dependent on work rate, as my wingers have decent Teamwork, Work Rate and Stamina
• I'm not a great tactical tinkerer, so I've been only messing with the mentality for the most part. Against bigger opposition, like Ajax, I set the mentality to Balanced and sometimes take off Play out from the back if the opposition is pressing high
  Against much weaker sides or when chasing a goal I set the mentality to Attacking and if my team is not creating high quality chances I add WBIB. That's all the tweaking I did this season.

I very much appreciate your help, I've been stuck in a loop trying to figure out this system and even though the changes weren't that big, I'm afraid I would not get where I am without asking for advice. Kudos!

If you are interested in a post-season update, let me know

Edited May 1, 2022 by Wrap God
Typos

[bosque]

Nice! I doubt your team will crash in the second half of the season because this is a very balanced tactic and that means it can work well with different mentalities.