SO:
A. How I want Leeds United to play?
1. Pressing in the opponent half
2.Try and win the ball in the opponent half or at halfline
3. Defenders and midfielders can play at a lower tempo and short passing, I accept backwards and lateral passes from midfield and defence but for my strikers I want them to play fast , do not hold on the ball, play 1~2, rather take a shoot than pass if the situation allows. I don't want my strikers to wait with the ball at their feet until an opponent takes the ball from them.
4. Score one goal more than the opposition mentality but...
5. Do not concede more than 5 goals against any opposition
4 and 5 are opptional.
1. It can be done in this formation, but it requires a lot of tweeking between games, as you face different formation, different players and different styles every game. I would not reccomend it if you do not know, or do not want to make changes every single game.
2. Push higher up and close down less... Make your defence more tighter, by puting one or both your FB-s to sit narrower. For this, you need at least one defender that can defend high balls (tall, good in air).
This will give you compact defensive shape, but it will leave you exposed on side. Against good wingers you will need to change a little your basic setup, but not to much so you would not lose your primary idea of how do you want to play and trough who you want to play.
3. If you do not want back passes, you need to eliminate completly any playmaker roles. If you want your players to be more agressive, you can still do this by applying indvidual shouts, and still play shorter passing, slower game.
4. How do you expect to score goals? Trough middle, or trough crosses from your FBs? OR both?
5. You need to offset opposition game plan. I will expain this latter.
B) What I want from my players? ( at a first glance)
1. GK
- defend/ be safe at back
- in one at one situations I want him to come forward and close down the opposition player, do not wait for him to shoot
maybe a SK on defend duty?
If you follow my advice with high D-line, then SK-def would be better solution.
2. DR
-defend
- offer close support to midfielders
- go forward, offer width down the right flank ( I want the right flank to be more offensive than the left one)
- be one of the star players in the team and an important presence on the right side of the pitch
If you want him to bi your star player, this means you will have to create space for him in attack and cover him in defence. Your last setup (4-4-2 diamond one) is not doing any of these two. DLP on support duty is not providing enough cover for him, and he also tends to come to close and bring extra defender on side. DLP is holding role, but it is not as agressive as you need him to be in order to give cover to Your FB. CM-d or ewen BWM (but I would aviod this role if you are going to play high line ) would give him much more cover, and it will give him enough support without cloghing sideline.
Regarding rolle, if you want him to be your star player, then you have to give him his freedom, so CWB-att is best role wor him. Also, if you want him involved in attack, you need to short field for him, hence, one more reason for high d-line.
3. DL
- defend
- offer deep support to midfielders whitout taking risks in defence
FB is good enogh. You do not need here WB rolle. FB rolle gives you also option (if you see that you need it) of sitting narrower in defence and giving you solid back 3 when your RB fails to come back on time. In attack, he will be visible enogh to give you wide support from left, but will play without risk (less dribling, fewer risky passes).
4. DC
- both on CD defend duty , I think a stopper/cover will work but I want the default offside trap to work better
- defend, be safe at the back
- tackle hard but not in our own box
- not intersted for them to score otherwise then set pieces, not interested to support the more advanced players but I'm very interested from them to help keeping a clean sheet
If you clogh centre of midfield, which will happend if you follow my advice, you will certnaly have occasional runs on side and much more crosses to deal with. High line will mean you will force your defenders to close down earlier, and if you are forcing opponent to play trough wings, you will then have to deal mostly with crosses, so risk of tackling hard in box is minimalized. For other things, pass it shorter is only shouth you will ever need. You may use close down less/ more on occasion, depending on situations and specific games, but that is it.
5. DM
- defend
- helps the CD ( drops back and support defenders)
- close down opposition before getting in our own box
- tackle hard but not in the penalty area
This rolle could be DM-D or A-D, or HB-D, depending on your opponent. DM-D is little bit more involved in attack but still sitting rolle. You can use it when opponent plays narrow formation without wingers or AMC. This will give you more creative rolle and more freedom with ball, but it still give you positional coverage.
The other two rolles are when opponent attack trough AMC (A-D), or when opponent attack trough wings (HB-D), as you want to counter opponent gamplan and provide adequate cover where it is needed.
6. CM (Cook)
- offer dynamic support in the midfield
- helps the defence
- support the more advanced players
- be one of my star players, score a few goals per season, be a leader in midfield, build the team around him
As I said in first part, you do not have adequate support for yor RB star player in defence, so you should consider moving Cook (your other star player) on the other side of midfield. Here you should have little more defensive oriented player. If you still want him to be more agressive with ball, then more risky passes, are better option then giving player on this possition more creative rolle. So create player rolle that you want with shouts rather then with rolle selection. For example, if you use CM-d, he will still sit deep and provide you option of backpass and safe pass, but if you want him to be more DLP like player, you can give him shout of more risky passes, more direct passes, or even be more creative shout (I am not shore for this last shout if it is possible).
7. CM ( Mowatt)
- drop back and support the defenders when the team is under pressure
- offer advanced support in midfield
- run forward and support the more advanced players in the offensive phase
8. AM Adryan
- get forward and support the strikers - offer advanced support in the midfield
- maybe score afew goals by himself
With these roles you have to decide which one should be link player, and which one should be player that will be more involved in goal scoring. Depending on this, you should choose rolle for them. CM(supp or att duty)-T or RPM-T combination is not that good, as they operate in same space, and if you add here your supporting striker, there is too much players here that are cloghing middle and forcing your players to slow down plays and even backpass. So If your aim is to give Cook that playmaker rolle, give him more freedom of movement, give him more creative freedom, give him even more aggresive passing shout, or even more driblling shouth, but leave him on support duty, as he will look to occupy space between lines. Your right striker will also occesanly drop between lines, sometimes will help out your RB and support him, so you can easily give Adryan more agressive rolle in your team and look to go directly to goal, as there will be space for him. Treq rolle will not give you this. AP-a migth, but you will have much more backpassing and looking for him, so I would avoid this rolle. AM-A is your best bet, and if you notice that he is not as active as You would like, then give him shouts like -move into chanells, driblle more, roam from position etc...
Vice versa, if you expect from Cook to be goal treath and from Adryan to be main facilitator, you reverse these mentalities and reverse shouts that you are giving them.
9. ST Sharp
- score goals
10. ST Antenucci
- helps Sharp scores goals
-score goals
From the squad depth I think I can play only a 442 diamond narrow and a 4132/4312 narrow.
I think I'll choose the 442 diamond narrow.
Now I have to setup a tactic.
Regarding striker rolles, it depends... I havent played english league, so I cant say that I know what type of defences you are facing, are they sitting deep, or do they pushing forward, are they fast or strong, etc...
From my expiriance in Italian Seria A, where almost every opponet had defences sitting deep, I found that best combination is two DLF-a/s, or TM-A/DLF-s rolles. I found that Advance forward is not usable in Seria A, as well as Poacher. I used these rolles to draw opponent defences and create space. f9 could work too, but I did not liked that this rolle is making player too selfish. Treq is also one of solutions if you have rigth player for this rolle.
In any case, avoid team shout "work ball into box" as it will slow your attack too much, and it will leave you offensively thin. If you face difficulties to break opponent or to retain possesion, play wider is good one also. If you use high line and close down less, takle harder and offside traps are two good ones. But none of these are as important as your team shape and your defensive form, or attacking gameplan. These ones are things that you should look to preserve at any cost. Also, mentality, for me personaly, is just situational thing. If I need to break oppoent, I will try and change mentality, but I will keep almost everything else same. This does not mean that you will change to attack if you need a goal, it all depend on situation. You may have more luck scoring with counter mentality...
Point of this formation is two way attack, fast attacks trough middle, or bombing fullbacks. If you slowdown your attacking too much, you will not have option of attacking trough middle, and lack of wingers will not give you enough width in attack... This is why you avoid backpassing and playmaker roles, as they tend to be main pass target of all other players. So idea is to shorten field that you have to attack, drow opponent as much as possible, make compact defensive shape, deny space in middle, force opponet to live free space in middle and try to force quick counters trough middle, or if this does not go, slow down play, play more patient and create opportunity for your RB to come on side and create something from there.
And, BTW, this is just one oppinion based on expiriance of playing Cremonese in Italia for 5 seasons, and while most of this might be true there, it does not mean it is true in Championship or PL. You may want to adopt some changes to suit your player better, but most of basic advices are correct.