Arsenal Possession Tactic

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mwhitehorn07

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So, I've done a good bit of reading on this forum, and the SI forums, and decided to try a possession tactic with arsenal.

What I came up with stutters, it struggles to create CCCs and there are often players running into players in the middle of the pitch. As you can see these screenshots are from early in the season but i've made it through to February with this tactic and gotten poor results.

I'd like to play close to how Arsenal plays these days, which is also to say their shape varies widely based on the personnel.

For instance, with Theo, I want him to stay wide on the right and beat people off the dribble/on deep runs. I want the CAM to float and play behind the striker picking out runs on either wing or playing one-twos w/ a striker or the other two CMs

I want the team to be fluid w/ short and quick passing and attacking. Not taking too many long shots or straight crosses, except from the overlapping FBs.

I tend to keep the same player roles with the "spine" of the side, Giroud, Ozil, the two DMs, and the two CBs, while the roles and duties of the wide players change often. Ideally, since Ox is playing on the left side atm, I would change that to IF-A and switch Gibbs to FB-A to overlap, and so on.

Where am I going wrong? Thanks folks.

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First of all, DLF and AP do not go together. The DLF will drop back and occupy AP's space. This is not ideal. The wingers cannot find a player in the box if no one is forward. Try changing Giroud to a TM or Ozil to an SS. Arsenal do a little more than these instructions. They hassle opponents, play the offside trap, push higher up, look for overlaps. They also retain possession(You may/may not add this).
 
yeah, the AI will chew up those 4-2-3-1 tactics, too much distance from defence to attacking side of the team.
 
Try move move your 2 DM as CM with role CM and BWM and change giroud role as target man. Use push higher up and offside trap in instruction to dominate opponent pitch also if you have speedy GK it will be nice to swap any through ball since space between your GK and defender is huge.

I have do this with dortmund and i could easily gain > 60% posession.
 
based on tips on here and a few more blogs/guides, I've switched to this:

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And here are my poor results on the season. I started using the above tactic on 9/14 against Fulham, so decent results so far, 4-0, 2-4, 4-0. The tactic is far to aggressive to play away against Zenit, they hit a number of through balls in behind my CBs, but we will see how it does against Newcastle away

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Yeah that tactic is too fav aggresive it will be dangerous if you faced speedy striker. maybe you can tweak your tactic againts speedy forward by instruct your cb to drop deeper and play long ball since you have giroud who have good aerial ability.
 
so, I'd rather play a spurs save then tell my players to play the long ball, :).

Anyone have any tips to make the above tactic more defensive for away games? I'd really prefer not to play long balls even on the counter if possible.
 
since you play high defensive line you may suffer much goal from through ball. To anticipate this you have instruct more deeper defensive line and deep defensive line is not suit to play possession football. If you play away against higher reputation team i suggest you to counter attacking style witg deeper defensive line.
 
here is my counter tactic. I should be using this only away and even though only against teams with a higher rep (which pretty much means only away to chelsea, city, and manu?

View attachment 438452
 
play giroud as target man and add Pump ball into box, hit early cross, float cross, play deeper and direct pass
 
are you telling me that in order to be effective on the counter I MUST have my team play a route one"ish" tactic.

Can I instead just set the team to the standard tactic, take off the high line, and the posession tactics and let them go?
 
mini update:

I've switched to liverpool after running a season working on the tactic with arsenal.

Doing pretty well, dropping points away from home against superior opposition, and then a single home draw, but lots of goals and lots of wins. Leaky at the back, but the tactic is very risky, so thats expected.

Here are the results
View attachment 435928
And then my three tactics, a home, a counter tactic (that doesnt seem to work very well, ha), and a less risky attacking tactic (medium)
View attachment 435927View attachment 435926View attachment 435925

And then my squad with their PL stats. Pass rates almost all above 75% and the offense is flowing really well through Eriksen.
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In counter attacking football you want a deep defensive line to encourage their players to stray into your half, so you can release your own behind them. So you really can't play a high line and have tons of people infront of the ball, because then they are marked and there's no opportunity for a counter
 
?????

my counter tactic starts at "counter" and includes the shouts drop deeper and stand off opponents.

We are, as a whole, a possession based side, when playing home or against inferior opposition.
 
"http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2014-tactics/155757-pep-guardiola-possession-style-tactic.html"
 
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