[Replicating Arsenals pressing]

 

So i went onto FM 22 to try, and in my second game using a bit of both the mark position and mark player instruction i got a goal from the setup nearly perfect, incredibly happy with it. So essentially  Saka, Tomiyasu and Ben White have the mark specific player, and all the others only have mark specific position. I tried the exact same thing on FM 23 and it didn't work at all. Might make me just play FM 22 instead.

[Replicating Arsenals pressing]

So i decided to try the most extreme solution to the problem, which was man marking indidual players all over the pitch, so essentially everyone is told to man mark in the manner described in the first post. Of course it's not perfect, but we actually got a nice little sequence i wanted to share.

First this is the initial position from their GK, couple issues still, Martinelli i would still like wider. Nketiah more towards the Rcb. And Xhaka closer to his man.
But i still like this better.
Now their keeper pass to the Lcb, who Saka immediately press, while somewhat keeping the Lb in his cover shadow, not perfect, but not horrendous. Also see how both Nketiah and Martinelli are now in much better positions, only issue here is Xhaka not being tight on number 7

The cdm receives a pass above, and since Ødegaard is so tight, he's forced back to the keeper, who Nketiah then jumps to press. Would've liked him to keep his cover shadow better, but the keeper doesn't see the option and ends up going long, where White wins the ball.

I will keep trying to achieve it, honestly makes the rest of the defence a shambles, but i am enjoying tinkering around with this idea.

[Replicating Arsenals pressing]

I wasn't expecting it to be possible, but wanted to ask anyway.
Thanks for the answers, good to know i'm not just completely useless at the game

[Replicating Arsenals pressing]

2 hours ago, The3points said:

Hm perhaps get wingers to mark the FBs, with press more triggered on the centre-halves. Then for the RB issue, maybe give them extremely high trigger press (PI) along side with press more on FBs.

Should've mentioned ive tried this too, the only thing that i've been able to somewhat get the proper position of th full back to jump the press is play him in the wing back slot instead, that just ruins the offensive dynamic and when we defend in our own half, and he usually doesn't press immediately on the opposing fullback and gets tight enough. Thanks for the reply though

[Replicating Arsenals pressing]

Just found this video from the first game of the season v palace. At the time the video should start he explains the dynamic i'm talking about, just on the opposite side.

[Replicating Arsenals pressing]

Hi everyone

So i'm an Arsenal fan and we are doing a bit alright at this football thing. So i decided to try and replicate how we play, while not perfect of course it's FM, i've gotten alot of the offensive movement that i've been looking for, so i'm happy with that. 

My question is about pressing. More specifically about if there is a way to make my team engage a press in a very specific way. I've tried quite a few things, and none of it seem to work, so i'm just throwing this question out, knowing there quite possibly isn't a way to do it in FM.

So this is how my tactic looks, not quite spot on of course, but i do think i've got mostly the right roles for the kind of movement we get, apart from the poacher, but that is just because i find Jesus drops far too much if he plays anything other than P or AF.

So my question about pressing is if i can get certain player to trigger the press in a specific way Illustrated below.

So i will try to explain what i mean with this picture. When we press IRL, Nketiah or Jesus engage either CB and tries to move them to one side. Here they engage the opponents Rcb and try to get them left. Here Saka will be waiting between the Lcb and Lb, keeping the Lb in his cover shadow. When the ball gets played to the Lcb Saka jumps the press, and Ben white who is not initially marking comes tight on the Lb if the ball would be played towards him.
It could be vice versa in the other side with Zinchenko and Martinelli having the same dynamic.
This is what it often looks like when the press has happened

Usually we will have forced the opposition into a long ball from here, or even better recover the ball high up the pitch. How the midfield three move obviously depend on how the opposition player move, but above is what it would resemble if the opponent build in a 4-3-3. If the opponent build with a double pivot Ødegaard and Xhaka mark up high while Partey and the 3 other defenders that haven't joined the press high man mark.

So now that i've described, in hopefully understandable language since english isn't my first, i will say what i've tried so far. I have tried to use OIs in hopes of showing onto certain foot to block passing lanes, an example would be lcb shown onto right foot, in attempt to get saka to cover the lb in his covershadow. I've also tried the trap inside in hopes of achieving the same cover of passing lane to fb. And while both sometimes kinda did it, it just wasn't very consistent.

Now comes the second problem i encounter, and that's the positioning of Ben White.

I would also want Martinelli wider, but its usually fine because he moves wider later usually. And the position Saka is in, is perfect. Midfield far too deep aswell, another issue. But the most annoying thing here is my RB, he's way too far back. Here i would want him in line with where Ødegaard is, ready to jump the press.
What happens because of this often, is Saka presses the Lcb, Lcb passes their left sided cm, who has no issue doing a first time pass to the Lb because Ødegaard isn't tight, and then the Lb has loads of space in front of him, because my Rb hasn't pushed up to be ready to press.

Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers

 

 

[Hold position]

24 minutes ago, vkastanas said:

Still in FM21 so no trigger press, but he is not instructed anything! So just standard!

It's not like it's really that different, just a different name for it, have you tried having it on less than standard?

[Hold position]

I've skimmed through all the posts here quickly so i might have missed it, but how high is his trigger press setting? couldn't it be something as simple as dropping that down a tad?

[Pep's Barcelona (Very Fluid)]

On 17/02/2022 at 12:50, poobington said:

Rather than start an entirely new thread and rehash a lot of the good information that is contained in the OP, I thought I would post my attempt a Guardiola recreation in FM 2022.

I have drawn heavily on the materials used by Ozil in the opening post and believe I have achieved a pretty faithful recreation so far, although I am alway open to tweaks to make it perform better within the match engine.

TACTIC:

DISCLAIMER: This tactic is in my opinion a project style tactic, where squad building and training are of equal importance to the tactic itself. A great squad may play well but without the PPMs that Ozil has mentioned in the OP especially for the key positions, (DM, MCL,MCR and F9) then this tactic will not play like Guardiola's Dream Team. This is most definitely not a plug and play tactic. 

Results: Possession and lots of it, defensively very sound. Scoring primarily from the wide players but if you have a world class False 9, they will also get on the end of chances and score plenty to. In my test with Leeds, Patrick Bamford was fantastic. Unfortunately I don't have the full game so the majority of my tests have been limited to games up to the Christmas Break, but in all of the teams (Leeds, Barcelona, Villarreal, Swansea) possession was high.

The thing I like most was that it was so simple to do, so I hope I can just explain what my thought process was.

Step 1 - Formation - simple 4-3-3 which was a mainstay of the side

Step 2 - Mentality and Team Instructions - Here I decided to start with these as these are effectively what governed the general philosophy of the side. Mentality wise I went with positive, as Guardiola expected to dominate teams and effectively suffocate them with probing play. I did consider attacking, but felt this was going into Bielsa territory and so opted against it. I have not tried this tactic with any other mentality so perhaps it might be even better with an Attacking one, who knows.

For the Team instructions, they are pretty self explanatory if you watched the Guardiola team:

In Possession:

• Much Shorter Passing - I want to see the short "Tiki Taka" passes
• Play Out of Defence - I want to see my defenders try to play out from the back, and the first line of the oppositions press, or carry the ball against deeper defenses.
• Low Crosses - I want to see cutbacks
• Slightly Higher Tempo - I want the tempo to be high to make my opponents run around and disrupt their shape

In Transition:

• Take Short Kicks - again I want to play out from the back
• Distribute to Centre Backs - same as above
• Counter-Press - if we lose the ball I want to win it back "6 second rule" Having said this I don't want to counter every time, but rather if the opportunity is on hence why counter is not ticked and neither is regroup( I want the players with their intelligence to decide when is the best chance to do so.

Out of Possession:

• Higher Defensive Line  - I want to peg back my opposition in their own half and these high pressing instructions achieve this.
• Much Higher Line of Engagement
• Much More Often

Step 3 Player Roles

The key to this tactic was getting the central diamond to work, this being the DM, MCL, MCR and F9. Initially  the MEZa was an APa, but their ended up being too much ball hogging and not enough penetration. 

In terms of wing play I wanted one attacking full back and one more reserved to mimic the Abidal and Alves relationship they had. My wingers are both told to stay wide to maintain width, but also to Roam from position allowing them to come inside when the opportunity allows. So far the most important thing for these positions is pace and a desire to run in behind. I have been experimenting with some PIs in my Swansea save and "Tries to beat offside trap" seems to be a great fit for the winger slots:

Player Instructions:

GK: Sweeper Keeper (Support): 
DCR: Ball-Playing Defender (Defend): (I wanted this guy to be able to consistently bring the ball out from defence and BPDs in this iteration of FM do this on a consistent basis is great
DCL: CD (Defend): N/A
FBR: Full Back (Support): N/A
DMC: Half-Back Defend (Defend): N/A
FBL: Wing Back Left (Support): N/A
MCL: Deep-Lying Playmaker (Support): N/A
MCR: Mezalla (Attack): Dribble More (I envisioned this player being my Iniesta beating men, getting into the box, overlapping the winger)
AMR: Inverted Winger (Attack): Roam From Position & Stay Wider
ST: False Nine (Support): Roam From Position & Shoot More Often ( a common problem is that False Nines don't score enough in FM so that's the reason for the shoot more)
AML: Inverted Winger (Attack): Roam From Position & Stay Wider

PPMs - I would just refer to the OP, but this definitely creates the style of play. Don't underestimate these.

Stats

Below are some stats I am currently achieving with Swansea.

Not sure if it's intentional, but i think this actually looks more like the current Arsenal role distribution, than peps team back then. obvs aside from the fact arsenal mostly defend in a 4-4-2 shape

[(FM22) A Balanced 4-3-3 Mid Block: Propelling Parma to the Top?]

Could you possibly upload a full match of your team playing in that mid-block, would be interested to see it in action

[Uefa Euro tactics]

23 minutes ago, jeerinho said:

Interesting. So Christensen was moving back and forth between DCR and DM. I don't think that's possible in FM. In FM, the libero must be the DC in the middle.

Yea probably not completely replicable, but could maybe do something with a IWB-d. What i think is very interesting aswell would be to replicate how Mæhle plays as a LWB, kind like a withdrawn winger waiting to get the ball wide isolated to take on a defender in a 1v1, kind like how pep sets up situations for his wingers

[Uefa Euro tactics]

@jeerinho
Don't think you have watched Denmark closely if thats your assessment of how our shape has been.
Against Belgium we did indeed use a 3-back, but against Russia the majority of the game was played in 4-3-3 with AC pushed into the holding midfield role, after the 3-back not proving too good.
And against Wales the switch from 3-back to 4-3-3 came even faster than against Russia, only the last 15 mins or so was defending in the 3-back but AC still pushed into midfield when we had the ball