Limited Full-Backs?

[ChivuStoica]

Playing as Universitatea Cluj in the Romanian Second Division. Great team full of young, domestic talent. However, I haven't been blessed with much quality in the full-back department. I only have two first-team full-backs, both of whom are very inexperienced and not yet very well-developed. They're also both Limited Full-Backs, which poses something of a problem for me, because obviously attacking/supporting full-backs are just a part of the way the game is played these days. My general preference is a 4-3-3/4-1-2-3 type system where I can allow my talented left-winger to tuck inside and be a connector between midfield and attack as well as a good shooter. However, since I can't really ask my full-backs to get forward and overlap, this just ends up making my attacking play very narrow and one-dimensional. Any suggestions for how I might adapt to this situation, short of just going out and buying better full-backs (don't really have the money to do that)?

 

[WJ]

If you don't want to use limited fullbacks, don't use limited fullbacks. Just give the players a normal fullback role?

 

[ChivuStoica]

Yeah. That's what I ended up doing. I was afraid that they were gonna just get eaten alive and that teams were gonna break in behind them all day long, but that hasn't been the case. My center backs aren't very fast, but they've done a good enough job covering. The fact that I'm usually playing a high block and my CBs play a good offside trap helps. My FB with a crossing attribute of 1 even set up a goal with a pinpoint far post cross. I guess I was just being risk-averse/not having enough faith in my players. I have given up a couple goals from crosses, but that seems like it's a problem for a lot of people this year and most of those were really more due to poor marking in the box than anything my FBs did defensively.