Help with thoughts/suggestions to tweak an incredibly stout defensively tactic

[horned frog 94]

Hi everyone! I was wanting your thoughts/suggestions on this tactic that I somewhat fell into almost accidentally that has become amazingly stout defensively for me. My main quibble is that I feel I haven't maximized the roles up top. I've tried two SS and in the image it's on two AM-As at the moment but I just wonder what some of your thoughts might be.

I ran a regular 4-4-2 and then a 4-3-3 and switched that to a 4-1-3-2 and I liked them but got tired of my strikers being a bit woeful at times so I switched to striker-less in this 4-1-3-2 and suddenly, I became near impenetrable. I switched to this current tactic for the Schalke game.  Now, my team is STACKED...The average CA is probably around 170. And I do score, lots actually, but my goals are over-expressed since many are from set piece maximization and whatnot.

I also know it's probably not wise to have a Mezz next to a CM-A but that CM position is awesome in this with the right player. That's actually what got me here...I did not like the inability of any of my strikers to move the way I wanted and to drop back the way I wanted to confuse the opposition so I just pushed him down and made him a CM-A and wow! Bangs in goals pretty regularly and puts in assists like he's a milk man helping wives in the 1950s!

Oh, in the image it says force opposition inside...normally I have that standard, just used it for a certain game and forgot to change it but may keep that for most games, just depends. Also, it says Attacking for the mentality, but usually I play in Positive, especially once I've scored the first goal. Anyway, my Mezz is very active, the BBM gets goals and disrupts play at times, the HB usually seems to be in the right place to stop some play, the FBs are very active up the flanks, and the CM-A is super active and direct but the two up top...I just feel could be just a bit better. I'm not very good with tactics and that's why I'm hoping some of you have some thoughts on this.

One last thing, I'm getting good ratings and scoring so I'm not complaining, just openly wanting some thoughts and ideas as to how to possibly tweak this in any way. I'm shocked at how good it's performing. Oh, this is in FM21 by the way, hence why the Mezz and CM-A may be performing so well and why I went striker-less. Thanks in advance!

Edit: Apologies on the size of the images, I didn't know how to change that really.

 

Edited June 8 by horned frog 94
Wanted the images visible.

[Cloud9]

7 hours ago, horned frog 94 said:

Hi everyone! I was wanting your thoughts/suggestions on this tactic that I somewhat fell into almost accidentally that has become amazingly stout defensively for me. My main quibble is that I feel I haven't maximized the roles up top. I've tried two SS and in the image it's on two AM-As at the moment but I just wonder what some of your thoughts might be.

I ran a regular 4-4-2 and then a 4-3-3 and switched that to a 4-1-3-2 and I liked them but got tired of my strikers being a bit woeful at times so I switched to striker-less in this 4-1-3-2 and suddenly, I became near impenetrable. I switched to this current tactic for the Schalke game.  Now, my team is STACKED...The average CA is probably around 170. And I do score, lots actually, but my goals are over-expressed since many are from set piece maximization and whatnot.

I also know it's probably not wise to have a Mezz next to a CM-A but that CM position is awesome in this with the right player. That's actually what got me here...I did not like the inability of any of my strikers to move the way I wanted and to drop back the way I wanted to confuse the opposition so I just pushed him down and made him a CM-A and wow! Bangs in goals pretty regularly and puts in assists like he's a milk man helping wives in the 1950s!

Oh, in the image it says force opposition inside...normally I have that standard, just used it for a certain game and forgot to change it but may keep that for most games, just depends. Also, it says Attacking for the mentality, but usually I play in Positive, especially once I've scored the first goal. Anyway, my Mezz is very active, the BBM gets goals and disrupts play at times, the HB usually seems to be in the right place to stop some play, the FBs are very active up the flanks, and the CM-A is super active and direct but the two up top...I just feel could be just a bit better. I'm not very good with tactics and that's why I'm hoping some of you have some thoughts on this.

One last thing, I'm getting good ratings and scoring so I'm not complaining, just openly wanting some thoughts and ideas as to how to possibly tweak this in any way. I'm shocked at how good it's performing. Oh, this is in FM21 by the way, hence why the Mezz and CM-A may be performing so well and why I went striker-less. Thanks in advance!

Edit: Apologies on the size of the images, I didn't know how to change that really.

 

Looks like you don't need to change anything, based on those results.

I would just keep in mind that the AI is not really capable of handling strikerless formations in its current form.

[horned frog 94]

12 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

Looks like you don't need to change anything, based on those results.

I would just keep in mind that the AI is not really capable of handling strikerless formations in its current form.

True, I was just wondering in general what some thoughts might be to better it but you're right, can't complain nor need to change anything given the results! Yeah, I was reluctant to use the striker-less way of things for that reason.

Thank you for responding!