Arsenal team - tactical help or analysis

[liamshaw9]

Ok guys:

I started with Arsenal after never being able to be successful in England (only ever done well in Germany). I have had some inconsistent results since I have started although played some nice things. I can pretty much presume some of the problems I have had are obvious, but I just want to go through what I've done and hopefully get some constructive analysis of why, so here goes.

Here are my results so far:

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Tactic: (I have used this one tactic, home and away, any player.)
I understand I probably should not have just used this tactic away from home (should I go more conservative?) but some of the away games in fairness I still thought I would dominate (eg Palace and Newcastle)

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And here are my stats in the games:

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Any more details I will try to provide a printscreen. From what I can make out, my away form lets me down. Should I perhaps try and counter or being a team like Arsenal should I expect to dominate? I can understand the Chelsea destruction, I am more concerned at the Palace game. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks

 

[vjcsmoke]

Your tactic should definitely change for away matches.

I like the counter mentality in away matches.
I find that when you use a 2-3-1 base, you can field a pretty effective counter tactic, by dropping your CMs to the DM position, play one of them as an anchorman to protect your defense, and play the other as a Regista to supply balls to your forwards.

Here is the problem with expecting to dominate -- the smaller sides will expect it to, and if you are too aggressive, they will 'park the bus' and then hit you on the counter when you become over aggressive.

Watch the game carefully. Against larger sides, counter is quite effective.

If you cannot grab a lead by half time in a low scoring game, switch to the control mentality to attack the 'parked' defense. Also switch to direct passing. Consider exploit the flanks as well, so your wide players can make the defense pay for giving them too much space. When the defense comes out to them, they can whip a cross inside to create scoring chances.

Finally in a tight game with say only a 1 goal lead, switch to contain or defensive with retain possession and waste time. Contain is the safest tactic but you will not really create any offense.

 

[WJ]

You'd be hard pressed to find any real life team playing with an Attacking mentality in FM terms. You could make it work but it's risky. You're asking your players to play high tempo, direct, risky football. Against the better teams, this may not work because they are very good teams and in front of their home crowd, they're even better. The smaller teams will park the bus and you're asking your players to be risky in everything (including forwars runs) so you may well get countered all day.

Also, your TIs are a disaster. Float crosses? To a fast poacher? Why have you selected float crosses anyway, when Retain Possession reduces through balls and crosses? Speaking of, you're playing an attacking, risky game without through balls?? Attacking already has a very high tempo, why are you instructing them to play even higher? Play out of defence is also unnecessary because at the attacking mentalities, defenders have short passing by default.

I mentioned that you'll get countered all day. The other reason for it is that you have a ball-winning midfielder "protecting" your defence. He won't. He's going to go hunting for the ball and in doing so, get dragged out of position often. You need someone more disciplined there.

 

[liamshaw9]

You'd be hard pressed to find any real life team playing with an Attacking mentality in FM terms. You could make it work but it's risky. You're asking your players to play high tempo, direct, risky football. Against the better teams, this may not work because they are very good teams and in front of their home crowd, they're even better. The smaller teams will park the bus and you're asking your players to be risky in everything (including forwars runs) so you may well get countered all day.

Also, your TIs are a disaster. Float crosses? To a fast poacher? Why have you selected float crosses anyway, when Retain Possession reduces through balls and crosses? Speaking of, you're playing an attacking, risky game without through balls?? Attacking already has a very high tempo, why are you instructing them to play even higher? Play out of defence is also unnecessary because at the attacking mentalities, defenders have short passing by default.

I mentioned that you'll get countered all day. The other reason for it is that you have a ball-winning midfielder "protecting" your defence. He won't. He's going to go hunting for the ball and in doing so, get dragged out of position often. You need someone more disciplined there.

Ok, some fair points.

The crossing thing is I forgot to put back Giroud as a target man, that was just a small mistake.

So you think maybe going to control and re-working my TI's? or stick to an attacking formation but re-work your suggestions in.

 

[WJ]

I wouldn't use Attacking as a default mentality.