Half way through second season with Bournemouth using 3-4-3.
A poor start to the season culminating in a lot of draws left me with points to make up in pursuit of a very consistent man u team who invested very heavily pre-season. However, my team rediscovered their goal scoring touch and we are undefeated after 19 games.
Debut CL campaign got off to a dreadful start, 2 draws and 2 defeats after 4 games left me staring at an unceremonious exit. An absolute drubbing of Wolfsburg followed leaving only a win over CSKA Moscow needed in final game to qualify. Cue DeFoe 93rd min and Callum Wilson 95th min goals for a 2-0 victory. Literally fell out my chair when that went in!
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Last season I very much plug and played the 3-4-3. However this season after a bit of frustration with consistently drawing I implement the following tweaks if needed:
If still drawing after 30 mins and what I'm seeing isnt giving me a warm feeling I switch to attacking mentality and Overload on about 70 mins.
If I want to protect a lead I switch my wingbacks to support duty.
OIs: I leave to *** Man as OP states.
Teamtalks: I leave to *** Man
Match Prep: I've tinkered around with this and the best consistency I've found is to leave it on Match Prep all season. Player training I left on Team work for the first couple of months before switching back to balanced.
Individual player training Ive set to the role they are playing as for each player. For players like Callum Wilson who may play either AF or CF or Lewis Cook who plays both the BWM and MEZ rols, I've set what I thought they'd play the most as.
I've had 2 games that have had "red cards" that could have resulted in a devastating loss.
Chelsea: Michael Keane off on 17 mins, was 1-0 up.
Took off STCR and switched wingbacks to support. Didnt see one chelsea attack in the highlights but had wave after wave of bournemouth assaults. Won 3-0
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Tottenham: Lucas Romero CMCR off 85th min. 3-0 up. Left the midfield space blank, changed wingbacks to defensive. Won 5-1
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I found in both those games once my player was sent off the opponents went all out. By putting my wingbacks to def/support it helped ensure defensive solidarity at the expense of my wingbacks being deeper and forced to ping "early crosses from deep" into the box. As the teams playing direct my strikers were expecting this and as the opponent was pressing so high up the pitch these early crosses were literally catching them with their pants down for every single attack. It was hilarious watching wave after wave of my 3 strikers vs 1 defender or 1 on 1 with the keeper despite being the team down to 10 men and being expected to have shut up shop and be camping in my own box.
Can not understate how good this 3-4-3 is. To be unbeaten with a mediocre Bournemouth team half way through the season is really something. Thanks PAV for such an amazing tactic. Lets hope the inevitable updates dont break this one! The unsung hero position of this tactic? In my opinion the BPD Stopper in the centre of the back 3. He always sweeps forward from his line with the other 2 and destroys opponent attacks, then launches a devastating counter attack either to the wingbacks or directly to one of the 3 strikers. So good to watch
