5-2-3 - tested in the lower leagues 13.1.3

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Fearthainn

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The tactic

I had been struggling to create CCCs in the new patch, so thought 3 strikers up front would be the way to go, as long as I could keep it tight at the back and down the flanks.

The tactic is neither completely possession based, nor a counter attack direct tactic. It aims to play a short passing game at the back, until the ball reaches the central midfielders, and occasionally the wing backs, who will then look to launch deadly through balls to the front three, who are all moving into channels up front.

When I don't have the ball, my defenders are sitting quite deep and standing off the opponents. It is my front three and central midfielders who do the pressing, hoping to force the opposition into playing a long ball game.

Also, the wing backs join in with some goals, but they're quite defensive, being the only players out wide in my starting XI. It is quite important that you set your pitch to the minimum size. Narrow may work as well, although I haven't tried it yet.

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The players

GK - best you can get

CDs - the more central defender should have good pace as it is set to act as cover; the other two should be strong and have good heading and jumping stats as there should be many long balls coming their way.

WBs - go for solid defenders rather than an attacking wing back.

CMs - preferrably a combination of an intelligent play maker in Pirlo's mould, and another creative player with better physical stats. Let's say Fellaini.

Strikers - the middle one is your poacher, so he should have good finishing, composure, pace. The other two are set as defensive forwards, so they'll need to be stronger.


Screenshots

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The tactic only really had one blip; a 3-0 away defeat to Altrincham. Had as many CCCs as them but they had twice as many shots. The other two defeats came in the first match, away to newly relegated Nuneaton (the tactic wasn't yet fluid), and in a home match in which I went down to 10 men after 50 minutes (still should have won looking at the stats mind).

Instructions

I use no OIs and no shouts. I just plug and play. Team talks are important though, just use common sense and you should be ok.

Download

5-2-3 v1.0.tac


Enjoy and let me know if it is any good for you as well. If it works with Stalybridge I assume it should work with bigger teams as well as it's not a defensive tactic.
 
Forgot to mention it - regarding match preparation I leave it on 40% defensive positioning. Training set to high throughout the season on balanced.
 
looks good mate! i've been trying to develop a 3 striker tactic for the past couple of days too. will give it a try when i get off work!
 
Got Stalybridge promoted with 2 games to spare. I will upload the screenshots with the results and final league table.

Made a couple of small tweaks after the Christmas period when I lost a couple of matches:

1: Moved the centre back that was set to act as cover up to defensive midfield as an anchor man. I noticed that the opposition were exploiting the gap between my defenders and midfielders, and also winning many second balls.

2: I had made the team play through the middle, but I unticked the box so it's set to mixed now. This is because despite playing with a narrow formation and small pitch size, I noticed that the WBs and the 2 defensive forwards were often having a lot of space down the wings and the ball was hardly ever played in to them.
 
nice! what media prediction did stalybridge have? did the defence improve after you changed to two centre-backs? i tried that but it didnt always work. need to find the right balance between player positioning, mentality and closing down
 
I went on a great run of form after the tweaks. Played 8, 6 wins and 2 draws. Both draws were at home. After a great start to the season at home and scoring loads, I started struggling at around December. Perhaps the opposition started playing more defensively. Haven't quite managed to go back to that free scoring form at home, although I have stabilised the defence with those tweaks, but away from home the tactic remains as strong as ever.

They were predicted to finish 8th so not really a massive achievement, but it's the manner in which we've played most of the matches that has been impressive. It's quite enjoyable to watch, which had been quite difficult for me to achieve on this FM.

Did you manage to give it a try?
 
not yet. still at work! lol but i will when i get home. dont you find the wing-backs have to withstand too much pressure because the strikers domt close down the opposing fullbacks? i had that problem before. thats why i tried putting the strikers out wide with man and tight marking, cuting inside, this helped out my full-backs immensely, because they only needed to handle the wingers and the offense wasnt hurt by it!

i was very impressed by the amount of CCC's you showed in your screenshots! were these the games early in the season or do you produce these chances regularly?
 
I was concerned about too much pressure being put on the WBs as well, which is why I went with a narrow formation and pitch. Seems to work well enough, most of the danger created by the opposition was down the centre before I put the anchor man there - I conceded a few from shots taken just outside the box. Right now I can't identify a particular area where they cause me more problems.

I still produce that kind of CCCs away from home regularly (well not 8 every time! - but 4, 5). At home though as I said these days I can't seem to create much. 2-3 usually, although I have plenty of shots. It's usually still enough to win though, especially as the opposition very rarely create more than 1-2.
 
looks good. do you change from standard to attacking or counter when you play home or away?
 
Nope always on standard. Perhaps I should take more risks sometimes but it has worked quite well so far so haven't really needed to.

The BSP will be an interesting challenge now.
 
Fearthainn said:
Nope always on standard. Perhaps I should take more risks sometimes but it has worked quite well so far so haven't really needed to.

The BSP will be an interesting challenge now.
Click to expand...

try going control if you need to break down a heavily manned defese, it works for me!
 
First game I tried this with Cambridge, got them promoted to League 2 and played Portsmouth in the League Cup, 3-1 win and 6 CCC, without the tweaks mentioned! So a good start
 
Excellent!

So far in the BSP played 9, won 7 lost 2. Not bad, predicted to finish 21st.
 
hey mate! tested your tactic at home yesterday, and a little bit in the morning today. I'm playing wolves in my 4th season, came 2nd last year and won all cups and europa league, so i need to challenge for 1st this year and do well in champions league! I came to the conclusion that playing with that deep a d-line and standing off so much, with only 2 CB's doesnt work very well against high calibre opponents. so i performed an overhaul of your tactic to better fit my squad and my ambitions. i hope you dont mind.

i havent played too many games. I did some initial testing in my wolves pre-season, up to the community shield against man utd (with your tactic) and had mixed results (poor against very strong opponents). went back and repeated the pre-season with some tweaks, and even created a counter tactic to play away against strong teams. this is working out very nicely. Beat most of my pre-season opponents by 5 or more goals, creating a lot o CCC's. Just played community shield against united this morning on the train, winning 3-0 at about 60 minutes using the counter tactic. they played 433 with wingers. man-marked their striker and their wingers to great effect. even came up with an idea to shut up shop when you want to defend a result against a team playing with 2 strikers (united changed to 3-1-3-1-2 in second half). i droped the DMC to sweeper position and man marked both strikers with my CB's. put both CM's as DLP defend and it seems to be holding out. still have 30 mins to go though :P hopefully i'll finish that at lunch time. so if this works, it's a set of 3 tactics in the making! :)

but it seems to be going very well, although, as always, further testing is needed! i hope you dont mind i altered your tactic so much, but it gave me some really good ideas! i can go through some of the other changes i made if you want, mostly in attack, because it needed to be more offensive against weeker opponents. let me know if you want me to go into more detail about the changes, otherwise, if it proves to work after further testing, i'll post it on a different thread, and mention you as my mentor ofcourse! :)

glad to know its doing good for you in the lower leagues!

thanks!
 
Interesting start so far, my computer crashed so I had to play the portsmouth game again, this time winning 4-1 (Away). Drew 0-0 at home to Torquay, won 3-1 away to Cheltenham, lost 2-0 at home to Crewe and most recently lost 2-1 away to Newcastle, but deserved something as created 3 CCC to their 2 and having good possession.

No where near fluid yet and some promising signs. A bit worried about the home games so far though.

Veez, will be interesting to see what you've added to it.
 
Veez sounds great mate, and of course I don't mind. Looking forward to trying them out :)

A better home tactic in particular would be very exciting, and yeah I would like to know what changes you made! I have been trying to create a more effective tactic against weaker opposition as well but without much success.

Sean yeah some tweaking is definitely needed for home games. I still manage to win most matches but it's not nearly as emphatic as when playing away from home. In my BSN season I had by far the best away record in the league, but my home record was the same as that of the 2nd placed team.
 
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