Struggling away from home

[eupheus]

Here's my away form from the previous season as Manchester United.
View attachment 190386
So this season, I'm trying to improve it.
I went back and forth between these 2 formations in the previous season:
View attachment 190385 and View attachment 190384

So now I'm trying this formation while still tinkering around with the TIs and PRs.
View attachment 190383

I'm looking for a possession tactic so I thought Retain Possession should be included as well as control mentality in a flexible team shape.
This would ideally be a tactic I'd use against pretty much any team with little to no changes in different circumstances.

And a separate issue, I got so frustrated at this result.
View attachment 190379
A team that hadn't won in 9 games and lost 8 of those managed to beat me while having a 75% shot conversion ratio, which in my opinion is absolutely ridiculous.
While my team had plenty of shots but only could score 2.
It is arguable that maybe their players were in better positions than mine, but only having 8 out of 25 on target is completely unacceptable. The players I had were of Manchester United standard, and should be doing better.
Yet this happens far too often where my team has plenty of shots but very few on target.

 

[WJ]

Tbh, I don't see how you think that it's a possession tactic? You have an aggressive/attacking mentality and 3 attack duties. It's not possession focused at all. You're better off reading this: The Art of Possession Football

A lot of your shots are getting blocked as well, so you're not doing very well in creating space.

 

[eupheus]

Tbh, I don't see how you think that it's a possession tactic? You have an aggressive/attacking mentality and 3 attack duties. It's not possession focused at all. You're better off reading this: The Art of Possession Football

A lot of your shots are getting blocked as well, so you're not doing very well in creating space.

So I suppose I should change their roles to support then ?
The reason why I set their roles to attack was to have more attacking options going forward while maintaining possession.

I forgot to mention that using the new tactic, my team struggles to create chances.

So how could I make my team create space to get better shots ?
That was a shot at the AI though, having a 75% shot conversion ratio.

 

[WJ]

Attack duties will bomb forward AHEAD of possesion. They won't help with it because it's not their job to SUPPORT play. If you read Cleon's piece or looked yourself, you would see that Support duty players do make rubs still, they're just more selective about when to do it and make these runs later into a move.

You create space by pulling defenders up field or wide and having others run into that space. You have 3 who will bomb forward and sit there only. No one dropping deep. No movement between lines.

 

[eupheus]

Attack duties will bomb forward AHEAD of possesion. They won't help with it because it's not their job to SUPPORT play. If you read Cleon's piece or looked yourself, you would see that Support duty players do make rubs still, they're just more selective about when to do it and make these runs later into a move.

You create space by pulling defenders up field or wide and having others run into that space. You have 3 who will bomb forward and sit there only. No one dropping deep. No movement between lines.

So I will change both my wingers to support roles, or would 1 be enough ?
And so I should add work ball into box and play slightly wider ? In order to be patient and wait for spaces.

What about pass into space ? I never fully grasped the concept of that TI. In what situations should I use pass into space ?
You mentioned no movement between the lines, so should I give PIs to my attackers to roam from positions ?

 

[WJ]

It surely depends what you want to create. You're asking me questions that you should be asking yourself. Have you read Cleon's thread? The concepts to create possession football is in there. You can obviously do it the old school way of a cautious mentality but slightly more aggressive duties.

Work Ball Into Box reduces long shots and crosses... to better work the ball into the box.

Pass into space encourages more passes into space. You're giving them more passing options and the expense of there being a bigger chance of an intercept.

 

[eupheus]

It surely depends what you want to create. You're asking me questions that you should be asking yourself. Have you read Cleon's thread? The concepts to create possession football is in there. You can obviously do it the old school way of a cautious mentality but slightly more aggressive duties.

Work Ball Into Box reduces long shots and crosses... to better work the ball into the box.

Pass into space encourages more passes into space. You're giving them more passing options and the expense of there being a bigger chance of an intercept.

I will give it a read then.