Piece of advice

[fukarezg]

I would like to hear your opinion on this one guys:

lets say you manage a club that has only defensive full backs and limited defenders, you have a ball winning midfielders and a few creative ones, wingers that operate as raumdeuters or inside forwards and you have two high towering forwards.

Everyone except the guys from the midfield lacks technique.. you decide to play a 433, and now:

1. do you choose a rigid or fluid style
2. do you choose control or counter
3. what instructions would you use
4. would you maybe use the full backs as wing backs, even though they lack the attributes to settle for a flank game
5. would you try to counter through the middle
6. what would be your gameplan?

I ran a lot of test playing the same match and always changing a thing, squads are levelled and the oppenent preferres a deep counter game!, I find it rather difficult to control or for what its worh, to win the game and would love to hear your opinions to lets say maybe figure out where I am making a mistake..

 

[dakofsta]

1. Rigid - your player roles sound like they're hard to interchange (ball winning midfielder and deep lying playmaker can't suddenly interchange)
2. Counter - low technical quality means control won't work. Tall, towering striker is more suited to direct play
3. Any of go route one, more direct passing, higher tempo, exploit the flanks, run at defence. Depends on what your playing style and mentality are
4. If they can't attack then no
5. If i was to counter I'd try to get knock downs from the striker so a narrow inside forward would be useful. If not, counter down the wings with a ball in to the striker(s) could also work
6. Counter away from home, high tempo attack at home, defensive against big sides

I'm not a tactical mastermind but this is what I like to do with lower premier league sides/promoted championship sides. Usually Crystal Palace or Derby County over the last few years, but just make sure your tactic suits your best players and their preferred moves too

 

[fukarezg]

Thanks for your opinion mate!

 

[Bigpapa42]

So my first thought would be to consider the skill of your players in comparison to the league. you might have poor defenders, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily below the standard of the league. A common mistake is to be unrealistic in your expectations. If you have a side tipped for relegation, survival is a realistic goal. Sure, some might be able to turn that kind of season into to a promotion challenge, but that is overachieving MASSIVELY and not an easy thing.

If you haven't already read it, Rashidi recently made a really nice 12 step guide on the SI forum. Some of the advice might be really helpful.

Another note - playing on the Counter Mentality doesn't necessarily mean you are playing a counter-attacking style. Mentality is more about risk than anything else, so the Counter mentality just means the risk is relatively low. I often use Counter for fairly attacking sides - the roles and duties you select, as well as the Shape, influence this. Counter Attacks are match events that occur regardless of your tactical settings. Your tactical settings for attack are how you will attack when its not a counter-attacking event. To play a counter-attacking style, you want to set up in a fairly conservative way that encourages your opposition to attack. When you win the ball back and they are drawn out, it will trigger a counter-attack event. Two things on that. One is that 4-3-3 isn't really ideal, since you have 3 players forward and not really defending. And two, pace really helps.

To answer -

1. do you choose a rigid or fluid style - I would go more rigid, based on what you have said. Fluid and Very Fluid can still make for sound defensive systems, but I would prefer the player sticking to their duties a bit more, so more structured makes sense.

2. do you choose control or counter - counter, as the low technical skill means I would want to be too risky

3. what instructions would you use - none. I wouldn't add Team Instructions without knowing how the tactic plays without them. I view TIs as modifiers, but I can't effectively modify if I don't know the base approach yet. Unless I am setting up to play a specific way form the onset (such as pressing), I start with none.

4. would you maybe use the full backs as wing backs, even though they lack the attributes to settle for a flank game - if the focus is on being defensively sound, I would keep them as FBs. I've found success on FM17 using players with fairly limited attacking skills as WBs, but that fit the overall approach I was taking. If you want something more conservative, FB makes sense.

5. would you try to counter through the middle - you really can't. As mentioned above, a counter-attacking event isn't something your instructions influence.

6. what would be your gameplan?