Tactical Analysis: crooked 4-2-3-1

[germainelol]

Anyone had any success with an inverted WB or a playmaking BPD? Because I've been trying but struggling to get any success or anything close to his article to be honest, so if someone could share a tactic/player settings I'd be very grateful.

 

[penza]

wow you really seem to grasp the key aspects of the game, I will follow your blog attentively.. amazing post! thank you.

 

[Kris]

Nice read but can you upload the tactic please as I don't see the point with the discussion if your not going to let people download it and try it out.

Thanks

Exactly, absolute pointless thread otherwise.

The idea is to pass on insight and personal knowledge, not give people an easy out. He's actually trying to help people gain a greater knowledge of the game. Anything but pointless.

 

[penza]

in terms of playing a season undefeated is that only in the league or in all competitions? what is the best result you have had throughout a whole season (throughout the 8 consecutive championship wins)? what year are you currently playing in?

also did you find it successful to use a right footed left back and vice-versa.. can you list a few players with that feature?

 

[Eds]

Cheers for the feedback.

Eds, its clear that you have at least two specific jobs here, and that roles are the key. How did you end up choosing philosophy? Off the top of my head I would have gone Balanced/Control

Did you ever think about a Defensive mid rather than the Anchorman?

To be honest, considering how much I've thought about the tactic, the amount of time I spent considering my starting philosophy was tiny. Bielsa's teams are famous for their attacking nature so I went with Attacking when at home or away against smaller clubs, and Control in away games against top-half teams.

As for DM vs. Anchorman, this is something I'll discuss in Part 2 of the article so I'll try not to give much away. But really the use of the Anchorman stems from the fact they're basically acting as a third centre-back - they're not a particularly creative player, most of the time.

in terms of playing a season undefeated is that only in the league or in all competitions? what is the best result you have had throughout a whole season (throughout the 8 consecutive championship wins)? what year are you currently playing in?

Well my ultimate goal at Wolves was to win every game and every trophy in a season. Alas, I've since moved on to Ligue 2 in France without achieving the goal, but I created another save file the day before I left so I might return one day. But for now, I'm trying to take Le Mans back to the top - I've spent far too much time in English football over my FM playing history.

 

[united762000]

Anyone had any success with an inverted WB or a playmaking BPD? Because I've been trying but struggling to get any success or anything close to his article to be honest, so if someone could share a tactic/player settings I'd be very grateful.

If you go to the website the article is taken from Eds has posted a couple of pics of the player instructions of the inverse wing back and playmaking BPD. I have had success with the inverted wing back. I have made some tweaks and my wing backs regularly burst forward and have plenty of goalscoring opportunities

 

[germainelol]

Can someone give me some advice....

I've actually got the WBs working quite well for getting forward, my LB is always coming in at the edge of the area and stays up there for attacks. My RB is hugging the touchline more as my RW is more central so hes pushed up. Anyone got any tips for how to prevent any leaked goals? I'm winning games comfortably, but I'm always weary of a counter attack exposing my back line, my DM is very defensive but still.

 

[Eds]

Can someone give me some advice....

I've actually got the WBs working quite well for getting forward, my LB is always coming in at the edge of the area and stays up there for attacks. My RB is hugging the touchline more as my RW is more central so hes pushed up. Anyone got any tips for how to prevent any leaked goals? I'm winning games comfortably, but I'm always weary of a counter attack exposing my back line, my DM is very defensive but still.

Can you upload some videos of the goals you've conceded from counter-attacks? I'll see what I can do.

 

[germainelol]

Can you upload some videos of the goals you've conceded from counter-attacks? I'll see what I can do.

Yeah no problem, will do when I notice any in the next few games.

 

[KazMaras]

Can someone give me some advice....

I've actually got the WBs working quite well for getting forward, my LB is always coming in at the edge of the area and stays up there for attacks. My RB is hugging the touchline more as my RW is more central so hes pushed up. Anyone got any tips for how to prevent any leaked goals? I'm winning games comfortably, but I'm always weary of a counter attack exposing my back line, my DM is very defensive but still.

Yep I get the same, I have my left attacking midfielder -generally Marco Reus- cutting inside and supporting Lewandowski .. then as a knock on affect due to plenty of space for him run into, my left back pushing on a providing an outlet on the left flank ... it means scoring goals isn't too much of a problem, like you say I'm winning games comfortably BUT that said I find myself every now and again conceding stupid goals on the counter, its always in the back of my mind.

It's like Rafa Benitez at Liverpool from say 2006 to 2008 time frame, his teams never attacked in numbers - short passing, possession football for 90 minutes but rather 15 minute to 20 minute periods .... the rest of the time it was more a defensive minded, tactical pressing, counter attacking approach... Liverpool fans will get what I mean. That kinda what I'm looking to have, the option of switching my approach/mentality without messing with my formation too much - I mean do I need to change my formation to change my approach/mentality anyways?

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Anyways Eds can I ask you a question? ... or anybody else who has experience with tactical and the match engine.

Say for example if you are playing away against a top four team, you are 2-0 up with 10 minutes to go and they have just gone 4-2-4, do you change formations to say 4-4-1-1 or if 4-1-4-1 -withdrawing the wide attackers/turning your advanced wide attacker defensive wingers, giving your wider areas more defensive strength in numbers? ... dropping mentality of your wide attackers so they drop deeper, providing more support for your fullbacks? .. your central mids more defensive minded ..... for example..




... rather than changing to 4-4-1-1 plus your team instructions - width, defensive line and players instructions - mentality etc etc...

I suppose I'm not to sure weather I should change the formation or just the players individual instructions - i.e. mentality, closing down, type of marking, zonal, man/passing -short/direct, creativity etc etc and team instructions - i.e. defensive line, width -narrow/wide, time wasting, counter attacking etc etc ......... to get the desired results, do I need to alter the formation as well? (it goes without saying that if I want to go from playing 4-2-3-1 to 3 at the back -say 3-3-3-1, I will need to change formations...)

I dunno but changing formations, even from 4-2-3-1 to 4-4-1-1 or 4-1-4-1 doesn't help at all when it comes to defensive strength, making tighter at the back etc etc....... as I said above I tend to leak stupid goals as well, I'd prefer to win 1-0 or 2-0 rather than 2-1 or 3-2 - trading late on, late on regardless of the quality of the opposition.

 

[Arvind K]

@Eds Absolutely class opening post mate. One of the best in-depth tactical analysis I've seen for a FM tactic. I'm a huge fan of asymmetric shapes because of the amount of space you can create with them. I made myself a decent asymmetric tactic for my Bayern Munich save and it worked quite well, I won all trophies and drew about 5 games in the season, winning the rest.

I'm also quite impressed by the inverse wing back - I had a read of the article about it - and I think it's an excellent idea! I have Davide Santon in my current save and I think I might try to get him to play it (although his finishing is a poor 8)

Also, this thread is just an in-depth analysis. Don't hate on it just because there is no download link. It's a superb write-up, and most of us can learn a lot from it.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

 

[Eds]

Anyways Eds can I ask you a question? ... or anybody else who has experience with tactical and the match engine.

Say for example if you are playing away against a top four team, you are 2-0 up with 10 minutes to go and they have just gone 4-2-4, do you change formations to say 4-4-1-1 or if 4-1-4-1 -withdrawing the wide attackers/turning your advanced wide attacker defensive wingers, giving your wider areas more defensive strength in numbers? ... dropping mentality of your wide attackers so they drop deeper, providing more support for your fullbacks? .. your central mids more defensive minded ..... for example..

Hiya, mate. Going ahead in a game is something I do fairly often (particularly when I was at Wolves) - but there's certainly no formula or strict rule in terms of what to do. As I've said, it depends quite a lot on what the opposition is doing. You've got to think about the strengths of each tactic you're up against - there'll be a second part released to the article in the first post which does go over this, however 4-2-4 isn't one of the formations I cover so I'll try and give you a brief idea.

First things first you want to set your strategy to Counter. If they're behind with 10 minutes to go it's likely they'll be very attacking, and so you want to compensate by being more defensive. Simple stuff. But you also want to think about where you'll counter. If your full-backs push up as much as they usually do in this tactic, then you'll be exposed on the counter yourself. So I set the full-backs to defensive duties (changing personnel if necessary).

As well as this, you've got to consider the opposition's attacking threat - they're likely to have four forwards staying up at [almost] all times, which would leave 4v4 at the back, which is never ideal. I usually drop the DM (my DM started off as a CB anyway) back to CB, as well as dropping the CM back to the DM slot, and the CAM back to CM. I also change it so the RCAM moves to RAM, and is an Inside Forward - Support. This means he'll track the opposition right-back when they're bombing forward - if you prefer to use a Defensive Winger then that's fine too.

Make sure you've got a big-guy up front today. Make him a target man - support, so he'll track back, but also make him the teams key target man, with supply to head. Tell him to hold the ball up, and he gives your team a much needed outlet when you do have the ball.

So the shape is as follows:

You remain defensively solid through the extra man, plus you have the potential to burst forward on the counter and score yourself.

 

[Arvind K]

Length of transitions from defence to attack would be kept to a minimum.
Players should be expected to contribute to a variety of different phases of play.
The tactic must be assymetric with different sides of the pitch creating different styles of attack.

I guess that this means you opted to go with a "Very Fluid" style?

 

[Eds]

I guess that this means you opted to go with a "Very Fluid" style?

I actually went with Fluid. Although, again, I didn't really think about it much. Perhaps I should have gone with Very Fluid, but I'm not sure I trust it entirely. Something to experiment with.

 

[KazMaras]

Ahh cheers for that, it makes a lot of sense and also funny cos I was bored earlier and re-read the last chapter of ''Inverting The Pyramid'' by Johnathan Wilson ..... he was talking about football systems and with the shift from 4-4-2, 4-3-1-2 to 4-2-3-1 - 3 at the back died a sorry death..... I'm guessing you read that great book, your 'Coffee House' reference gives it away - hahahaha ........ I pm'd this to you but wasn't whether you got it, dodgy interenet all .... anyway back to FM 2013, I'm starting to feel that what I'm not fully getting is the marking aspect... I say that because to me marking has either been totally zonal or totally man marking until recently, I've got my wide attacking mids set to man mark .... its been successful so far but its got me thinking..... as this guy said in 2010, is there any truth to it in the 2013 edition?

Which Is "Harder" To Pull Off?

This is the common question. The answer is... there is no answer. No, bare with me, that isn't a cop out.
The reason is because there should never be an instance where you mark with one philosophy exclusively.

Bare in mind I said defending is a team issue. So now, a general rule:

Zonal Marking is suited to attacking players.

Man Marking is suited to defensive players.

I don't mean this in terms of position on the pitch - I mean in terms of mentality. A Wing Back, for example, could/perhaps should be used with a Zonal marking mentality even if in a flat line of four.

It's obvious why. Attackers look to find space to exploit. They want to lose their man and be in space at the drop of a hat. As such, patrolling a zone means they can defensively put pressure on high up the pitch but still keep enough distance to turn and think forward in a flash.

That rule doesn't always apply - a Target Man can often be used as a Man Marker, as he'll attach himself to a defender, win flick ons for other attackers which basically takes one defender out of the defensive phase.

Similarly, a defensive midfielder can patrol a zone if you have a packed midfield (although commonly they're man markers watching the runner from midfield.)

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...nal-marking-vs-man-marking-making-choice.html

 

[Arvind K]

Another thing, you mentioned something about a powerful forward like Drogba as the striker, so are you basically trying to have a Target Man/Advanced Forward type player leading the line and holding up the ball for others?

 

[Mike.]

Another thing, you mentioned something about a powerful forward like Drogba as the striker, so are you basically trying to have a Target Man/Advanced Forward type player leading the line and holding up the ball for others?

Your ideal forward would be someone like Lewandowski/Rooney/Cavani/Falcao type forwards, going down a level, Benteke/Lukaku.

 

[germainelol]

Your ideal forward would be someone like Lewandowski/Rooney/Cavani/Falcao type forwards, going down a level, Benteke/Lukaku.

Off topic completely, but I actually chose to play with Barca and replicate their style, so that in 3-4 seasons time when I start thinking about a Messi replacement, I will most likely have to adapt my formation and style

 

[Eds]

Follow-up article here:

Reactionary Tactical Analysis: crooked 4-2-3-1 with Manchester United | The Coffeehouse: FM Discussion

Details on how to get the tactic itself found here, if you must have it.

 

[united762000]

Another excllent post Eds. I have created a tactic based on your ideas of the inverse wing back, playmaking defender and crooked 4-2-3-1. I was gonna post it online if that is ok Eds? Would anyone be interested in giving it a go? It is built around attacking football from a variety of angles and it has some excellent counter attack play involved.

Follow-up article here:

Reactionary Tactical Analysis: crooked 4-2-3-1 with Manchester United | The Coffeehouse: FM Discussion

Details on how to get the tactic itself found here, if you must have it.