Lower league setup

[morol]

Hi,

I started a new game (my first since FM 2009) with a plan to take Colwyn Bay from Conference North all the way to the CL glory. I've read some of the recommended guides and went to work.

Colwyn has an abundance of strikers and only a handful (if any) of useful central defenders, so I recognized it would be a natural choice to go with a 4-4-2 as a basic setup. They have a star striker, Marc Williams - a real speedster with lethal finish, which I decided would be my main scoring option as a poacher on the right side of a two-man attack. There's also Tom Buckley, a quick and technical ML with enough skills to be my second scoring option as an Inverted Winger on Attack. The left forward's job as a Deep Lying Forward on Support would be to drop deep (making room for Buckley to run into), play balls into space to my two guns and occasionaly take a shot himself. I imagined these players would account for 90% of my goals from open play, with roughly 50% comming from the poacher, 30% from the inverted winger and 10% from the second forward.

Strikers would get passes first and foremost from the center. Left-sided DLF should be the main source of short ground passes into space. More direct through balls would come from the MCR plaing as a Deep Lying Playmaker on Defend, as the team have a pretty solid player (Joe Bembo-Leta) simply made for this role. The lesser-used supply from the wings would be provided by the fullbacks. Right FB on Attack duty would provide crosses from the final third, while Left LB on support should be putting in more diagonal, early crosses from midfield.

As for defence, first and foremost I'd like to shut down the middle, hence both CDs and both MCs playing on Defend duty (the right-sided one being a Deep Lying Playmaker). Left flank should be covered by FB on Support, while on the right side we have FB on Attack duty, so the AMR would stay on Support. Both flanks should also be supported, if necessary, by the defensive-minded CMs. I also included some TIs that should help the team keep a compact shape in front of the goal.

All that sounded nice, but it hasn't translated onto the field so far. I'm regularly losing the posession battle, 45-55 on average, taking less than half (!) the shots of the opposition and conceeding at an alarming rate (56 goals in 20 games, more than enough for the worst defence). The most recent games include 0-5 scoreline with 40-60 possesion and 13-35 (!) shots, preceded by a 2-3 loss with 46:54 possesion and 7-30 (!!!) shots. Ocasionally, my strikers hit the mark while the defence leaks no more than two and that's how I get my points, but boy do I feel like I'm only just scraping by. I know I was predicted to finish rock bottom, but still, at this level I expect the differences between teams to be so small that it should take a well-thought tactics to achieve a mid-table safety with anyone.

Please take a look at my setup and point out any obvious errors you can find.

Cheers

View attachment 300692

 

[Chriller95]

Honestly mate it looks like a pretty crappy tactic. Why not try to make you own? My first tip is to use a real life formation, think realistically and experiment. If you have good centerbacks but a lack of midfielders, use a 5-2-3 formation. If you lack wingers, use a narrow formation. Remember to also setup whether it should be high/lower tempo, and if you want more direct passing, or a possession based game if your players are good at passing and first touch etc. Don't just apply this weird looking formation and expect it to work. Just my advice.

 

[morol]

Thanks for your input. To be honest, I think I did pretty much what you said - I started with a basic 4-4-2, which I tweaked just a little bit to better fit my squads' strengths. That's why there's an AML instead of ML and the resulting asymmetry. This is quite life-like, though. For instance, I believe Bayern Munich tends to play in a similar manner: with Lewandowski-Mueller pairing up front, the latter one drops really deep and makes space for Robben playing an ultra-offensive inverted winger on the right. On the left, Ribery plays much more conservatively and often allow space in front of him for Alaba to overlap into.

Anyway, I tried to put my best 3 players (poacher, inverted winger, deep lying playmaker) in the spots they feel the most comfortable and build on that. I have only just ended the season in the relegation zone, conceeding 102 goals in 42 league games 102 effing goals, it's like a game's spit to my face.

Anyone else has an idea what could be so fundamentally wrong with my setup?

 

[WJ]

There seems to be a major disconnect between your front 3 and the rest of the team, both in defence and going forward. That'll be my biggest issue with it, admittedly looking very quickly.

 

[morol]

Thanks, WJ. That's a very interesting thing about lack of connection on defence, which I obviously overlooked. On offence, I wasn't worried that much about both MCs sitting deep on Defend duty and not providing much support for the offensive trio, because my plan was to play direct balls on the counter anyway, so the ball would be played into the box before the midfielder could ever get that far. However, on defence there's tons of room on my 35-40th yard, where the opposition can easily play the keep-ball using centre backs and defensive mids, until they finally suck my CMs in and then simply outnumber my CDs who are left without cover.

I used to coach a lower-league team in real life and I'd never field a team without a central defensive-mid to provide a constant shield for my back two, but in this game and with this particular team it seemed like a bad use of the resources at hand. It's hard to find a reasonable setup with a back four, an Anchormen AND two strikers - it's too thin in the middle, and with the eintre team playing deep, it always leaves people open on the 25th yard. Going with three at the back and using an extra man in the midfield could remedy that, but Colwyn fails to field two decent centre backs, let alone three.

Anyway, I moved to a more conventional, V-shaped 4-5-1 (4-1-2-2-1) with a F9 making room for inside forwards from both wings, switched to control tactics with a higher defensive line to boost my posession (which I was able to do thanks to 3 guys in the middle) and my defence improved dramatically. I conceeded 64, good enough for the 9th best defence in the league, although at the cost of the 8th worst offence with 63 goals scored. Now I have another season to play with my midfield setup and improve my abysmal scoring.

The leason I learned from this is that it's tough to achieve anything with two in the middle, especially in lower leagues, where players lack the athleticism to cover enough space in the midfield simply with their movement.

 

[WJ]

Just remember (as it often gets overlooked or forgotten) that the formation you set, is how they'll line up in defence. You made the gap even bigger by giving the Inside Forward an Attack duty.

As a counter tactic, it had promise, but defensively (as you found out) it was weak because too many players were left up field.

Have you considered a 4-4-2 (4-1-2-1-2) diamond or the 4-1-3-2? You'd need good fullbacks though, both on the ball to create width and defensively.

 

[morol]

Diamond formations in the middle would leave one my two top guys out of the squad, so it's a no-go. Plus, my fullbacks would run out of steam come halftime. It's a 6th division, so stamina is usualy single-digit. 4-1-3-2 Wide leaves me too thin in the middle I'm afraid, with too much space in front of my box, unless I play a higher line... hmm, maybe that's the way to go, as I'm already playing a high line and it seems to work, although I'm still a bit scared to go back to 2 in the middle after the 102-goals-conceeded fiasco.

Another idea is to go shopping, find a third centre back and re-create my formation from real life, that brought me some unexpected success. The only problem is, in FM I cannot find a set of instructions that would force my players to obey the cardinal rule that is the cornerstone of my defensive mindset. Maybe you guys could help me with that.

I used to have my real-life team play 3-1-4-2, with very wide and very offensive wingers. The cardinal rule I wrote about is that CDs, DM and CMs only play within the width of the penalty box, never-ever drifting to the wide areas. Combined with offensive wingers, it means that we have absolutely no cover of wide areas in our third, we give away free crosses and that's exactly what we want. The logic behind it is:

1. Open-play high crosses from wide areas are probably the most ineffective play there is (like, 1-goal-from-94-crosses kind of ineffective)
2. They get even worse against three centre-backs packing the box
3. They get much worse in super-low leagues, where a decent delivery is hard to come by

Whether you agree with that logic or not, it worked miracles for my team and I'd love to give it a go in FM. However, no matter which buttons I push, when the opposition breaks out wide my wide CD and CM get pulled out to the wing and that's basically a game over. I tried "Play narrower", "Stick to positions", "Close much less" and "Be more disciplined", all to no avail. Plus, for some TIs nad PIs I'd like to have a different setting on defence and different on attack, or maybe even a different setting depending on the position of the ball in relation to the player. For instance, I only want to play narrow on defence and spread super-wide on offense. Or, I want my back three to push higher up all the way to the mid-line when we're in posession, but drop back all the way to the box once we lose the ball and park the bus there. I also want to implement contain-pressure philosophy, which means that the defender between the ball and the goal is responsible for containing the attacker and slowing him down, while the ball-winning tackle should come from the line higher up the field. So, if the ball is between my forwards and midfielders, CMs only containt the opposition and prevent them from going through, while the forwards aggresively try to win the ball back from behind. However, if it get's past my midfield, my defensive line should slow the opposition down without taking a risk of missing a tackle, while the midifled should now push from behind and try to win the ball back. I'm looking for a set of instructions that would help me achieve at least some of that, so I can see if that tactics and it's success translates in any way into the game.

 

[WJ]

Play Narrower and Stick to Positions are "with ball" instructions, so is only in effect when you have the ball. Defensive width is automatic and based on your mentality, mostly.

Close much less may work, but that'll instruct all your players to close down less, which you may not want. I'd recommend you use OIs on the opposition wide men to never close down and tight mark. The more defensive mentalities will have deeper lines and less closing down anyway and will have them take fewer risks in the tackling department. Whether that's what you're after, is up to you.

 

[morol]

I forgot to mention I'm playing Classic, so no OIs for me That's a real bummer, I'd expect FCM to take some load off my shoulders when it comes to day-to-day running of the club, but still give me all the tactical options on the matchday.

Anyway, thanks for all your help.

 

[WJ]

No problem. It's refreshing to have a civil discussion, for a change. I can only think that PIs of close down less etc, but that's going to affect closing down wide players as well as central players, so it may not do what you want it to.

 

[Ar9yle]

Some opinions on your tactic (I have created an account specifically because I was intrigued!)

in defence:
You mentioned your CBs were very limited, yet in my opinion you're asking a lot of them; drop deeper, stand off and mark tighter? I hope they have very high marking, strength and concentration (relative to your league), because I suspect you're having a lot of passes played through your defence from 25ish yards out, and your CBs are losing their man in the area? Stand off probably means your midfield are allowing this to happen. This may be worsened by the absentee RB bombing forwards, meaning you are open to angled passes from that flank.

in attack:
Are your inside forward and DLF constantly in each other's way? It seems to me they might be. To balance that attack, I would try setting the inside forward to support so that he operates between the lines. With the DLF that could result in some interplay that works angles for your poacher, and there's probably a lot of space there with your 2 CMs set to defend. To provide options if it gets congested, have the right midfielder/winger set to attack - out ball on one side. RB to support to balance this. Then you can have your LB attack, maybe even as a WB, to provide width on the left. I recommend WB - support for an overlapping full back supplementing an inside forward. Pass into space also requires good anticipation, and will usually result in low possession unless your players are technically sound.

These are just my musings, so judge them as you will. I don't know your players' abilities. I normally manage in league 2, but in my experience of lower leagues (Truro in the conference) it's best to keep things simple because your players will be dunces.