Looking for tips on a 3421 tactic

[Swaban]

Im relatively new to creating my own tactics, having spent the past few years using plug and play tactics, however ive decided to move away from this &build my own.

This is the tactic ive been using, however it doesn't seem as defensively sound as i'd like give i have 3CBs. Ive tried dropping my wingback back to full back but then i see to create few chances & cant score goals.

Any tips that any of the more experienced tacticians can provide would be greatly appreciated

 

[De Nile]

So your wide and play short passing all the way through the pitch (Work Ball Into Box and Play out of Defence included), it not easy on the players who are closed down yet have to find a short pass to someone who is far and wide, in the end the passes can easily be intercepted or key players can be singled out. The wide centre backs, I'm not sure what you need it for but they cover wingbacks which are not very aggressive so its just going to make ball progression stale. Cover centerback can easily be isolated in transitional counter attacks (because of the change in width and possibly the higher defensive line) and may not react quickly enough if at all.  Your team engages with the opposition much earlier than normal and at the same time you also counter press and man mark so defensively you can easily leave gaps on the pitch, Counter press and man marking is not something that I would do at the same time.

[glengarry224]

This tactic certainly could work, especially if you have the right players.  Defensively, it seems like you'll need good CBs - I'd guess at least two of the three, and in particular the CD(c) - who have good agg/ant/pos/acc in order to play the high line without a DM and without defensive fullbacks, plus a SK who has very good ant/pos/acc to sweep up behind.  A good BWM certainly will be needed to shut down counters up the middle because you might be vulnerable to counter-through-balls because your wingbacks get forwards, you have no DM and two of your three CBs are wide.  As the other poster noted, 'tighter marking' might create problems with this system and allow opponents too much free space, especially up the middle.

I'd play friendlies with it and see how it works.  In particular, look for how your team plays and if your team is good at creating space and good passing outlets for your players. As the other poster noted, you might, or might not, have issues with higher tempo and shorter passing because your players on the ball will need several short-range passing outlets to successfully run this strategy.  If not, and you want to play a vertical tiki-taka system, you might need to switch from 'wide' to 'standard' or even 'narrow'.

As is, playing wide might work to stretch out the defense and create more space up the middle for your players, especially your two AMCs, but also it might just create room on the wings for your wingbacks and encourage your players to play the wide spaces, so you might see your DLP feeding your wingbacks for crosses into the box.  This can work very well as crossing is OP, imnho.  

With three forwards and a higher LOE, I'd consider 'prevent short GK distribution' though to some degree, that depends upon how good your defenders and midfielders are in the air relative to opposition forwards and midfielders.

[Matt_1979]

I experimented with this formation last month. Great defensively but struggled to score. After dropping the CMs back into DMs I scored 10 goals in 4 games. It seemed to give the attacking players more room to manoeuvre. 

[Overmars]

On 09/10/2022 at 04:46, Matt_1979 said:

I experimented with this formation last month. Great defensively but struggled to score. After dropping the CMs back into DMs I scored 10 goals in 4 games. It seemed to give the attacking players more room to manoeuvre. 

I agree about the DMs. It seems to work better for me too, and you can be quite bold with the DM roles (ex. regista, RPM, SV(a)) due to having a back three behind them.

OP, I'm not a fan of playing a higher defensive line in FM22, but especially without playing the offside trap. I don't think you can logically have one without the other. Also, if you are going to do that then you should avoid using a cover duty.

As for finding goals, I am confident that using a 3-4-1-2 will make it much easier to score than sticking with a 3-4-2-1.  Single striker tactics are prone to issues in FM -- usually around that one player needing to be in form and not having an off day. With two strikers in your formation, you can safeguard against that, and they feed each other much better than AMs seem to feed strikers.