how to create depth in your tactic?

[silentventus]

I hear that to create a good tactic or even irl football, you need to make sure your team has good width and depth to create space. With width its kinda easier for me to understand whether that is a winger or wing back being the person to create width or through team instructions. However with depth I'm not quite sure how that is achieved, is it through players making runs and to translate that to fm does it maybe mean having roles and duties that attack space to create space for others?

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thank you

[crusadertsar]

21 minutes ago, silentventus said:

I hear that to create a good tactic or even irl football, you need to make sure your team has good width and depth to create space. With width its kinda easier for me to understand whether that is a winger or wing back being the person to create width or through team instructions. However with depth I'm not quite sure how that is achieved, is it through players making runs and to translate that to fm does it maybe mean having roles and duties that attack space to create space for others?

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thank you

To create depth in a tactic you indeed need players making runs from deep. Roles like SV, IWb, B2B are indeed good for that. And thanks to Positional Play in FM24, you don't even need to use them with Attack duty to get good runs.

[vrig]

20 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

To create depth in a tactic you indeed need players making runs from deep. Roles like SV, IWb, B2B are indeed good for that. And thanks to Positional Play in FM24, you don't even need to use them with Attack duty to get good runs.

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with your understanding of depth. Width is stretching the pitch horizontally, while depth is stretching it vertically - together making the pitch as big as possible.

So an example of a role that creates depth would be an advanced forward in this instance. The roles you've listed are - as I interpret them - ones that exploit depth. They move into the vertical spaces created by the depth of your team's shape.

[crusadertsar]

9 minutes ago, vrig said:

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with your understanding of depth. Width is stretching the pitch horizontally, while depth is stretching it vertically - together making the pitch as big as possible.

So an example of a role that creates depth would be an advanced forward in this instance. The roles you've listed are - as I interpret them - ones that exploit depth. They move into the vertical spaces created by the depth of your team's shape.

Well OPs question was asking about creating depth, which is rather vague. Which I interpreted as having runners in deep positions to exploit space from deep. Anyway, that's how I understood it. But what you are saying is also right.

Edited August 17 by crusadertsar

[vrig]

52 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

Well OPs question was asking about creating depth, which is rather vague. Which I interpreted as having runners in deep positions to exploit space from deep. Anyway, that's how I understood it. But what you are saying is also right.

I'm probably being pedantic about the football theory. Exploiting depth is all you have to really worry about in FM, since the game kind of broadly sorts out the creation aspect for you unless you start doing weird stuff to it. So your answer is the useful one in this context.

[silentventus]

1 hour ago, crusadertsar said:

To create depth in a tactic you indeed need players making runs from deep. Roles like SV, IWb, B2B are indeed good for that. And thanks to Positional Play in FM24, you don't even need to use them with Attack duty to get good runs.

That makes sense to be fair, I'm definitely gonna try some of these roles out, thank you. Will the iwb actually make runs from deep on support duty? 

49 minutes ago, vrig said:

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with your understanding of depth. Width is stretching the pitch horizontally, while depth is stretching it vertically - together making the pitch as big as possible.

So an example of a role that creates depth would be an advanced forward in this instance. The roles you've listed are - as I interpret them - ones that exploit depth. They move into the vertical spaces created by the depth of your team's shape.

This reply and @crusadertsar 's one actually puts it together for me in my head, so just an example to see if I have it right, if the AF is creating depth by pining the CBs other roles like the SV, B2B, CM(a) etc can take advance of the space created. Also would that mean roles like the IF, Poacher and so on would also create depth?  

[GIMN]

It might not be what you're asking, but when I talk about depth, I am thinking of positioning within stratas.  Let's take a 3-2-5 in-possession shape:

If you have all player trying to do the same thing - e.g. the front 5 all attacking, or the midfield strata both focussed on protecting and recycling - then you end up with a very flat shape, and that's really easy for the opposition to defend.

You want depth within your lines to pull defenders out of their shape, create harder to defend passing angles and opportunities for third man runs, something that might look (just as an example) more like this:

This can be achieved by having players who drop deep or are inclined to roam from position.  By mixing up duties so you have some players who look to make those runs from deep that @crusadertsar mentioned whilst others will look to create for them.

[vrig]

22 minutes ago, silentventus said:

That makes sense to be fair, I'm definitely gonna try some of these roles out, thank you. Will the iwb actually make runs from deep on support duty? 

This reply and @crusadertsar 's one actually puts it together for me in my head, so just an example to see if I have it right, if the AF is creating depth by pining the CBs other roles like the SV, B2B, CM(a) etc can take advance of the space created. Also would that mean roles like the IF, Poacher and so on would also create depth?  

Yeah when you have the ball you generally just want to make the pitch as big as possible (ie width and depth) so that the defending team has more work to do. You don't need a CB-pinner to do this although sometimes it helps.

But within your own attacking structure you can then take advantage of all that lovely space by having players make runs that are difficult to deal with, like the vertical runs from deep of a midfielder, or the lateral runs infield of an inverted wingback. 

Attacking football is asking a series of questions that need to be answered. You ask a good variety of good questions and eventually the defending team gets one wrong.

[Cloud9]

5 hours ago, silentventus said:

I hear that to create a good tactic or even irl football, you need to make sure your team has good width and depth to create space. With width its kinda easier for me to understand whether that is a winger or wing back being the person to create width or through team instructions. However with depth I'm not quite sure how that is achieved, is it through players making runs and to translate that to fm does it maybe mean having roles and duties that attack space to create space for others?

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thank you

You may also wish to take into account Jumping Reach on key positions as another way of controlling the pitch (preventing or enabling a long ball) like we see from a modern tall 6 or 9. 

In most situations width + vertically are important boxes to check. However just take into consideration that there are also plenty of modern approaches that play in alternative manners! For example:

• Nagelsmann Germany is an almost entirely vertical approach.
  • They will want to play extremely narrow to help force turnovers instead of creating a big pitch where it would be easier to play through the press. 

Edited August 17 by Cloud9

[silentventus]

4 hours ago, GIMN said:

It might not be what you're asking, but when I talk about depth, I am thinking of positioning within stratas.  Let's take a 3-2-5 in-possession shape:

If you have all player trying to do the same thing - e.g. the front 5 all attacking, or the midfield strata both focussed on protecting and recycling - then you end up with a very flat shape, and that's really easy for the opposition to defend.

You want depth within your lines to pull defenders out of their shape, create harder to defend passing angles and opportunities for third man runs, something that might look (just as an example) more like this:

This can be achieved by having players who drop deep or are inclined to roam from position.  By mixing up duties so you have some players who look to make those runs from deep that @crusadertsar mentioned whilst others will look to create for them.

This really gives a different perspective to this, so thank you. I actually come across a tweet on X about having players on different heights, I guess your view on it would be on to implement that on FM

heres the link to that tweet : https://x.com/tom_skeath/status/1799339326683361786

[GIMN]

1 hour ago, silentventus said:

This really gives a different perspective to this, so thank you. I actually come across a tweet on X about having players on different heights, I guess your view on it would be on to implement that on FM

heres the link to that tweet : https://x.com/tom_skeath/status/1799339326683361786

Yes.  Defences want to be flat.  They want to stay in line and keep play in front of them.  If the attacking players are also flat, this makes it super easy to mark and cut out passing lanes.  Depth within your lines allows you to progress the ball, and put the opposition in situations where they need to make decisions.  Do you step up, creating gaps in your defensive structure, or do you stay in line and allow your opponent to receive the ball and potentially create overlaods.

I would argue that this is depth.  The gap between your defensive line and attacking line is merely distance.

[skyzekaizo]

Creating depth in FM, the eistance between your defensive line and your front line, depends on your opposition's pressing engagement because it sets where your defenders are going to sit during build up, and their defensive line because it sets where your front line will sit during build up. In order to open that space you need to create a threat which they can't cover for with their defensive shape. If they play high press/high def line, switch to a more direct style of play with more attacking duties, early crosses and forget about playing out of defense. If they play a mid block with high def line lower the tempo and consider using a HB to get them to commit to the press and open up their defensive shape (also becsuse of the high line you still need to consistently threaten them with direct pings). Against standard or lower defensive lines you generally should not struggle in creating depth unless all your players are crashing the box simultaneously