I've had some pretty decent results with this tactic. I've been alternating between this and another tactic because I have a couple poachers, which clearly do not fit into this tactic. this was my best result. all pictures are from the 2015-2016 season. so, lucas played at left CM and he scored the first two goals (the third was a pen rebound). he hardly ever scores for me, let alone a hat-trick, but for some reason today was his day.
View attachment 308503View attachment 308508View attachment 308510
the most impressive part of the match is clearly the number of key passes from a number of my players. these led to 5 clear cut chances. moreover, you can see from the 2 CMs, shelvey and lucas, that they have a massive box-to-box presence: 5 key passes, 12 tackles, 8 headers, 3 assists, and 4 goals between them. this was lucas's heatmap. shelvey's was almost a mirror image.
View attachment 308515 both have high workrate and stamina which explains how they were able to cover such ground. they're also both pretty decent at creating as they are at destroying:
View attachment 308512
this particular match showed how effective the CMs could be, but the tactic is all the team' passing. i won't post as many pictures for this next match, just my team's stats page:
View attachment 308516
wow, 22 key passes (which led to 4 CCCs, 0 to chelsea). some other stats of note are the 9 dribbles by the players in the forward positions (cavani, gotze, suarez, oxlade-chamberlain, and oscar). the center midfield trio are lucas, buiu (regen), and joe allen, who attempted a total of 34 tackles and made 19 total interceptions. players with high aggression are usually the only ones who attempt tackles in that magnitude, but lucas has an aggression of 11, allen of 13, and buiu of 15 (their positioning and tackling is a bit more), yet they were able to attempt nearly 3 dozen all said and done. pretty impressive if i do say so myself. i rarely see this level of defending from my CBs, so to see it from 3 CMs is really awesome. elsewhere, dede and shawcross's headers aren't that impressive because they each have near-max jumping, heading.
i typed a lot more than i thought i would but i hope i've been able to give you a good idea of what this tactic can do. obviously my squad is
stacked but i haven't been able to win 8-1 against arsenal with other tactics. moreover, players like oscar, cavani, and suarez were at surprisingly low attribute levels due to long-term injuries, so they're not as good as you think. the standouts in both matches are definitely the CMs and DM though. excellent results from only slightly above-average players (shelvey, joe allen, lucas, though the regen is a world-class all-rounder). absolutely loving their defensive and offensive performances. truly box-to-box player roles.
