sonnevillejr

Thank you! Yes I saw that you guys were reluctant. On the other hand, we are very sad to see him leave. For the last two 2 seasons, we were one of the most exciting team to watch in the league. Last year, we were even « champion » of Ligue 1 on expected points! We only finished 5th but honestly it was mostly because of the squad limits (Remy Cabella once missed a 0.96 xG shot…) This year, we almost knocked out Aston Villa in Conference League after 2 really good games but we lost on penalties after a late goal from Villa. But even I know Fonseca isn’t perfect. Last year, we had control of almost every game, but we were leaking goals because we didn’t have any balance, especially on our left side with Angel Gomes and Ismaily. This season, we had more balance but finished 4th. We were the best team of the league at home, but we were really different away from home (even against the worst teams). The in-game management from Fonseca would be his worst weakness I guess. Sometimes, we lost total control of games we were winning and that cost us many points… I think we were the team (or one of the team) who lost the most points after scoring the first goal. The best exemple I can give is that game against Lyon at home a few weeks ago : we were winning 2-0 comfortably but we just stopped playing. And then, Fonseca made a change he often made that I hate : he subbed off Edon Zhegrova, the only player who got behind defenders, to bring in Alexsandro, a CB, in the 65th minute, to play a 5221. Of course, we lost that game 4-3 in the last minute. This scenario happened a lot since he’s here. Apart from that, we were still very happy with him, and I think he can do even better with a better squad

Thank you! No I did not use any player instructions 👍

Paulo Fonseca is probably about to become manager of AC Milan in the following days As a Lille fan, I tried to replicate how we played this season, with 3 tactics that (I think) we used depending on the players available. Former manager of AS Roma and Shakhtar Donetsk, he did a video on the CoachVoices Youtube channel a few years ago, to explain how he likes to set up his teams. Paulo Fonseca, like many other managers, aims to have at least one player in each channel in possession, and attack in a 3421 shape from a 4231 defensive shape. During his time in Rome, he had to adapt to the league and start with a 3421 defensive shape since he was facing defending troubles. While positional play is a new feature in FM 24, I don't think it's possible to replicate 100% the way we played with the new rotations. In Lille, it was no different. Here, our double pivot Nabil Bentaleb x Benjamin André was key to both building up our attacks and providing balance to the team. Since most of the time we had two attacking full backs (Ismaily and Tiago Santos), either Bentaleb or André was sometimes dropping in the defensive line to start building our attacks. The width was keeped by our left winger and our right full back (sometimes the other way around depending on the players). The play was mostly taking place in the left hand-side of the pitch in order to isolate our most attacking player Edon Zhegrova on the right HS, supported by the no less attacking Tiago Santos our main right back. In the following picture, I want to show you the average position of Lille players against Aston Villa in the Conference League quarter final. As you can see, this time it's the number five Gabriel Gudmunsson who was in charge of getting behind the defenders while the play was being builded on the right HS, since Edon Zhegrova was injured for this game and was replace by Yusuf Yazici, a more playmaker type of player. To replicate this in FM, here's what I thought : Here, André sometimes drops back between CBs to collect the ball, play with Bentaleb who progresses the ball thanks to Angel Gomes or Gabriel Gudmunsson who keeps the width. Ismaily can overlap or underlap as FB on attack duty, since Bentaleb will not be too adventurous. On the other side, we will then have Jonathan David and Edon Zhegrova unmarked. I just played 2 games with this tactic : one game vs Toulouse at home (very unlucky draw 1-1) and vs Lyon away (4-0 win despite not being favorite). Here's the stats against Toulouse : Control of the game with 62%, 2 clear cut chances and 4 half chances (0 and 0 for Toulouse). But the best result was against Lyon, where we dominated all of the match : We even managed to shut down the 2nd best attack in the league (just behind PSG). Their only shots were following set pieces : Now, IRL, we didn't have a proper replacement for Tiago Santos or for our double pivot. When Santos was unavailable, Bafode Diakite (a CB) used to play there, so it might look like this : Here, Diakite forms a back three and allows Ismaily to attack the left HS, and Haraldsson can be narrower in a inverted winger role. Since Edon Zhegrova keeps the width on the right, Jonathan David, just like IRL, can drop into AM strata to help Angel Gomes, and we now have these two to be at the end of crosses. Last year, and sometimes this season also, Angel Gomes played alongside Benjamin André/Nabil Bentaleb, in a regista role like this : Now, it's the same principle than the previous one, but here, Ismaily is now a wing back on support since Gomes does not provide sufficient defensive cover in a Regista role. Thank you for your reading, let me know what you think of these tactics and what would you change. Note : I did not test the last 2 tactics yet

No, I never use them I prefer to stick to the roles

Thank you both for your answers @Cloud9 @HanziZoloman I just finished the season : During the second part of the season, I tried different role combinations without finding the solution. For my last games however (just after the defeat against Fenerbahçe), I slightly adjusted the second tactic I showed you and came up with this : As you can see, I changed the left WBsu for him to become a simple FBsu as I felt the attacking phase was too crowded. On the right, Tiago Santos is an incredible youngster so I let him be a WBat. With this tactic, I saw some improvements as I had more shots and I dominated all the matches (notably against Lyon and OGC Nice who are 3rd in the table), finishing 2nd confortably, just 2 pts behind PSG. Unfortunately I lost to them on penalties in the French Cup final, but I dominated them in some parts of the match, and my start striker Jonathan David and the captain Benjamin André were both injured and couldn't play. Now I'll see on pre season if this adjustement was really the solution or not.

Yes I agree that my unbeaten run is great, Lille are a good team in Ligue 1 (predicted to be 5th at the start of the season), but the thing is, most of my wins are lucky, even against smaller teams... I hardly shoot 10 times in a game. To give you an example, in my last game against Clermont, I scored 4 goals : 2 following corner kicks, 1 long shot, and 1 following an individual feat. I even got dominated almost all of the second half, that's why I'm thinking my tactic is not that great at the moment despite the (lucky) results

Hi, I've started a new save after a long pause and I'm running a 4231 (screenshots down below with my 2 tactics and the results) I'm doing good defensively but I'm really struggling to be dangerous and I'm not scoring enough. That last result against Clermont is not representative since I didn't even get 1 xG... What would you do to improve this ?

Simple 433

I know it has already been said, but there's really too many high scoring games... I feel there's too many highlights from throw-ins and GKs aren't efficient enough. It's too easy to score, even with a balanced tactic.

Il joue aux côtés de Benjamin André dans cette position depuis le début de saison dernière, pas que sur 1 match, mais bon c'est pas grave, je l'entrainerai de nouveau à ce poste comme je l'avais fait sur FM23 Bon jeu

Salut, Comme tu le sais, l'année dernière ils ont changé le fonctionnement du double pivot donc ils restent pas campés devant la défense puisque dans la vraie vie, un 4231 se joue avec 2 MDC. Je te joins le placement moyen des joueurs du LOSC pendant le derby : On voit bien le double pivot Benjamin André (21) et Angel Gomes (8). Au moins on est d'accord sur le fait qu'Angel Gomes organise le jeu assez bas, mais si on prend le meneur de jeu en retrait il va rester en place alors que Gomes décroche souvent et se retrouve même parfois aux abords de la surface (exemple : passe décisive face à Lorient), et il laisse plus ou moins les tâches défensives à Benjamin André qui se charge de récupérer les ballons. Là je te mets le placement moyen de mes joueurs et une pass map de mon dernier match en amical : Je joue bien avec 2 MDC mais on voit qu'au niveau du double pivot, le placement est pas différent du derby IRL. En phase de possession, le regista (mon numéro 6) hésite pas à décrocher et monter, et se retrouve parfois en position de frappe (la stat de tirs de loin est surlignée en bleu quand on regarde les attributs importants pour le rôle sur le profil d'un joueur, ça montre bien qu'il reste pas cantonné devant la défense).

Encore concernant le LOSC, Angel Gomes n’a toujours pas le poste MDC de base alors qu’il a été excellent l’année dernière (et en ce debut de saison) dans un rôle de Regista

The Regista is not in that list?

After our dreadful performance against Lorient today IRL (4-1 defeat....), I decided to avenge myself against Monaco to win 4-1 as well, using the first tactic that I posted with a few tweaks. I thought it was a nice pass map since we can clearly see the 4231 morphing in possession. It's just a shame we can't make the AMC only drift to the right to form a real box midfield, unless messing with the defensive formation.

I'm curious, what is your set up with the BWM on defend and the Regista?