Underdog 4-4-2 (Work in progress, need helpers & testers!)

[Kyanite]

Hey guys,

Been messing around with trying to create a 4-4-2 that scores lots of goals.
Normally I'm quite a defensively minded coach who prefers to play on the counter-attack as can be seen with both tactics I've released so far this year but this is something a little bit different.
My core inspiration is Pellegrini's Manchester City with a twist. So basically instead of having a wide playmaker (David Silva) cutting in (interiore) on one side and an out and out winger (Jesus Navas) on the other, I've gone with two wide playmakers which basically just acts as a less aggressive inside forward.
The reason why I think this approach will work very well on this match engine is because this year it favours narrow play which seems to have become a thing now in FM17 and a biproduct of SI trying to nerf wide players and crossing which was OP in FM16.

Note: Other positions whose player instructions I've not shared just have "Mark Tighter"

I've tried this approach whilst tweaking as I go along with both Blackburn in the Championship & Crystal Palace.
As you can see, it isn't a wonder tactic (I don't believe a wonder tactic exists yet in FM17 because the ME and tactics seem to make this much more difficult this year as it feels like they've changed a lot of elements - I have a rough idea what has been changed but that's for a different topic and I know different tacticians have different views on this as well).

However, what I got from both teams was plenty of goals despite being underdogs which lead to positive league positions (e.g. Palace currently in 4th, could easily win the league still with the tweaks I've figured out for bigger teams like Arsenal etc and Blackburn in 6th).

What I need YOUR help with is ideas and testers as to how I can solidify this defensively. It seems to concede from:
A) Corners
B) Really dumb counter-Attacks through missed passes or interceptions despite us having the highest passing rate in the PL lol
C) Crosses, crosses and more crosses

Now a lot of early losses were against the BIG teams like Arsenal, Chelsea etc. If you look towards the end you see I turned some of them around after figuring out a tweak:
- TWEAK 1: Against significantly stronger teams, change the wing backs to DEFENSIVE FULL BACKS. (Didn't start using that UNTIL 14/12 where we beat Tottenham 3-2, managed a 3-3 draw against united after being 3-1 up and then beat Arsenal where we had both full backs as crappy youth players lol)

- TWEAK 2:
Also it's important to:
0-5th/10th min - DEFENSIVE then switch to ATTACKING
40th-45thmin - DEFENSIVE
45th-50thmin - DEFENSIVE
80th-90th (if leading) - DEFENSIVE/CONTAIN

- TWEAK 3:
If you score a goal, go DEFENSIVE for 5 mins

- TWEAK 4:
Against top teams, remove your goalkeepers instructions to pass out the back

The reason for this is because I found we were conceding most of our goals at the start or end of halves and this tweak helped too.

Now, it plays some really sexy football going forward but I would really like to tighten things up defensively. I don't mind setting the full backs to defensive full backs against the big teams, but against similar or smaller teams, I feel the overlapping wing backs providing width really help going forward and get a lot of assists still.

So I was wondering if people had any ideas regarding how you think the tactic can be solidified defensively without sacrificing the beautiful attacking nature it currently has that is turning the likes of Danny Graham and Benteke in to beasts. A good start would be if someone shared their corner defensive routine?

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions and hopefully together we can create a sexy tactic coz sometimes I feel like there isn't enough collaboration between FM tacticians nowadays unlike the past!

Cheers

 

[Kyanite]

Currently trying to drop the defensive line to normal and remove the offside trap with "Get Stuck In" enabled.
So far scored 4 and conceded 1 out of 2 games against West Ham & Boro... let's wait and see.

Edit: Nope, dropping the defensive line made it worse offensively and not much better offensively, conceded 5 to man city lol

Edit again: Possibility of telling right and left wingers to man mark opposition full backs looks to potentially reduce goals conceded from crossing, need to test further as well as changing wing backs to full backs

View attachment 116799

Finished 4th in the end. Probably would've finished 2nd behind OP Spurs if the approach on how to play versus top teams was figured out from the start. Might restart this save and see what happens doing this correctly (perhaps including man marking and wing back to full back switch) from the start and do half a season.

 

[jesaustralia]

Hey guys,

Been messing around with trying to create a 4-4-2 that scores lots of goals.
Normally I'm quite a defensively minded coach who prefers to play on the counter-attack as can be seen with both tactics I've released so far this year but this is something a little bit different.
My core inspiration is Pellegrini's Manchester City with a twist. So basically instead of having a wide playmaker (David Silva) cutting in (interiore) on one side and an out and out winger (Jesus Navas) on the other, I've gone with two wide playmakers which basically just acts as a less aggressive inside forward.
The reason why I think this approach will work very well on this match engine is because this year it favours narrow play which seems to have become a thing now in FM17 and a biproduct of SI trying to nerf wide players and crossing which was OP in FM16.

Note: Other positions whose player instructions I've not shared just have "Mark Tighter"

I've tried this approach whilst tweaking as I go along with both Blackburn in the Championship & Crystal Palace.
As you can see, it isn't a wonder tactic (I don't believe a wonder tactic exists yet in FM17 because the ME and tactics seem to make this much more difficult this year as it feels like they've changed a lot of elements - I have a rough idea what has been changed but that's for a different topic and I know different tacticians have different views on this as well).

However, what I got from both teams was plenty of goals despite being underdogs which lead to positive league positions (e.g. Palace currently in 4th, could easily win the league still with the tweaks I've figured out for bigger teams like Arsenal etc and Blackburn in 6th).

What I need YOUR help with is ideas and testers as to how I can solidify this defensively. It seems to concede from:
A) Corners
B) Really dumb counter-Attacks through missed passes or interceptions despite us having the highest passing rate in the PL lol
C) Crosses, crosses and more crosses

Now a lot of early losses were against the BIG teams like Arsenal, Chelsea etc. If you look towards the end you see I turned some of them around after figuring out a tweak:
- TWEAK 1: Against significantly stronger teams, change the wing backs to DEFENSIVE FULL BACKS. (Didn't start using that UNTIL 14/12 where we beat Tottenham 3-2, managed a 3-3 draw against united after being 3-1 up and then beat Arsenal where we had both full backs as crappy youth players lol)

- TWEAK 2:
Also it's important to:
0-5th/10th min - DEFENSIVE then switch to ATTACKING
40th-45thmin - DEFENSIVE
45th-50thmin - DEFENSIVE
80th-90th (if leading) - DEFENSIVE/CONTAIN

- TWEAK 3:
If you score a goal, go DEFENSIVE for 5 mins

- TWEAK 4:
Against top teams, remove your goalkeepers instructions to pass out the back

The reason for this is because I found we were conceding most of our goals at the start or end of halves and this tweak helped too.

Now, it plays some really sexy football going forward but I would really like to tighten things up defensively. I don't mind setting the full backs to defensive full backs against the big teams, but against similar or smaller teams, I feel the overlapping wing backs providing width really help going forward and get a lot of assists still.

So I was wondering if people had any ideas regarding how you think the tactic can be solidified defensively without sacrificing the beautiful attacking nature it currently has that is turning the likes of Danny Graham and Benteke in to beasts. A good start would be if someone shared their corner defensive routine?

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions and hopefully together we can create a sexy tactic coz sometimes I feel like there isn't enough collaboration between FM tacticians nowadays unlike the past!

Cheers

How do you estimate that the match engine favors narrow play? - their might be people trying to tell you that it favors narrow play, come to think about it they do that every year - Pav Gegenpress is not narrow - Sublimity is not normally narrow either - these tactics work splendid using wider settings. Even if you went narrow you wouldn't stop conceeding if the opponent had enough quality - so I call that a BS statement. Theirs actually some results with narrow that has been quite horrific - I wonder if maybe it would be a better idea to have it on balanced if we are talking about a sweet spot in the engine

Anyway I didn't wanna put a sword to your throat and I hope you understand my points - their are still alot of other settings that influence the match engine besides width - so it must be called a grey area after all

Cheers mate

 

[Kyanite]

How do you estimate that the match engine favors narrow play? - their might be people trying to tell you that it favors narrow play, come to think about it they do that every year - Pav Gegenpress is not narrow - Sublimity is not normally narrow either - these tactics work splendid using wider settings. Even if you went narrow you wouldn't stop conceeding if the opponent had enough quality - so I call that a BS statement. Theirs actually some results with narrow that has been quite horrific - I wonder if maybe it would be a better idea to have it on balanced if we are talking about a sweet spot in the engine

Anyway I didn't wanna put a sword to your throat and I hope you understand my points - their are still alot of other settings that influence the match engine besides width - so it must be called a grey area after all

Cheers mate

I get what you're saying, however I do still feel I can justify my claim.
For example, from what I've seen of Sublimity is that it's a narrow 4-3-3 formation with no wingers. So wide/balanced width on a narrow formation is almost the equivalent to a narrow width on a wide formation from first hand experience. As wide on a 4-2-3-1 is much wider than wide on a narrow 4-3-3 for example or a 4-1-2-1-2 narrow. When I say narrow, I do not mean just the setting, I am talking about tactical width in general and the setting is just a part of what defines that width.

I also feel Mr. L's league tables also back up my statement.
The 3-4-3 in first place uses "Much Narrower" and gets most width from its wing backs, the second place Calabrese counter tactic uses a narrow 4-3-3 with no wingers, the third place Zidane 4-2-3-1 uses "Much Narrower", the 4th place Suk Sam uses a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond narrow.
This doesn't mean that tactics with wingers/IFs and wider won't work such as Pav's Gegenpressing one but in general, I'm noticing a pattern this year to do with narrow formations and narrow width.

If you don't want to agree I don't really care as everyone is entitled to their own opinion and knowing our luck, 2 weeks from today, they'll release a match engine patch and break all of our tactics anyways

Edit: And just as I post this, someone releases a new tactic called 4-2-3-1 "Wingers Magic" with Much Narrower on it Surely it isn't only me that finds it ironic a tactic called "Wingers Magic" has a narrow width? (Not having a dig at the guys tactic, rather having a dig at the match engine lol)

 

[Kimbe]

What about your Strikers? who is the main scorer?

 

[Kyanite]

What about your Strikers? who is the main scorer?

Both score and assist each other well.
I believe the season ended with Benteke on around 20+, Remy on 15+ and Wickham with 10+.
The wide players contribute with goals as well from time to time and the central midfielder likes a Gerardesque strike from time to time.

Nothing game breaking, but in the long term with better strikers could be quite satisfying.

 

[Imran520]

What about your Strikers? who is the main scorer?

I think, stoke is the best.

 

[Gump]

And heres me thinking wing play is still OP, at least I feel like most of the goals I concede is a winger running to byline(ish) and crossing in very accurately and boom.

 

[Kyanite]

And heres me thinking wing play is still OP, at least I feel like most of the goals I concede is a winger running to byline(ish) and crossing in very accurately and boom.

That's the thing.
I feel like wing play IS OP for the AI but not for you - the human player.
Almost as if the match engine is interpreting things differently for AI tactics versus human tactics.

One of the complaints in my post is that we're conceding too much from crossing yet most successful tactics (including this one) favour narrow play rather than traditional out and out direct crossing from wingers (like a lot of AI teams seem to do).
I've found I can have a player with 20 crossing down the wing yet he'll somehow smash the ball over the crossbar instead of to Andy Carroll in the box lol and it feels like it's what they've done to tone down OP crosses from last year.

 

[Gump]

That's the thing.
I feel like wing play IS OP for the AI but not for you - the human player.
Almost as if the match engine is interpreting things differently for AI tactics versus human tactics.

One of the complaints in my post is that we're conceding too much from crossing yet most successful tactics (including this one) favour narrow play rather than traditional out and out direct crossing from wingers (like a lot of AI teams seem to do).
I've found I can have a player with 20 crossing down the wing yet he'll somehow smash the ball over the crossbar instead of to Andy Carroll in the box lol and it feels like it's what they've done to tone down OP crosses from last year.

Yea and our defenders are still too dumb to throw their bodies at obvious crosses which goes past right under their noses not to mention when a winger is on the byline and the cross is obviously imminent, the players are way too dumb to realise ''Oh yea theres that striker there maybe I should be closer to him instead of being 10 meters away '' and then ur left wondering how you could have at least given it a better try yourself in that situation to prevent the goal.

 

[jesaustralia]

I get what you're saying, however I do still feel I can justify my claim.
For example, from what I've seen of Sublimity is that it's a narrow 4-3-3 formation with no wingers. So wide/balanced width on a narrow formation is almost the equivalent to a narrow width on a wide formation from first hand experience. As wide on a 4-2-3-1 is much wider than wide on a narrow 4-3-3 for example or a 4-1-2-1-2 narrow. When I say narrow, I do not mean just the setting, I am talking about tactical width in general and the setting is just a part of what defines that width.

I also feel Mr. L's league tables also back up my statement.
The 3-4-3 in first place uses "Much Narrower" and gets most width from its wing backs, the second place Calabrese counter tactic uses a narrow 4-3-3 with no wingers, the third place Zidane 4-2-3-1 uses "Much Narrower", the 4th place Suk Sam uses a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond narrow.
This doesn't mean that tactics with wingers/IFs and wider won't work such as Pav's Gegenpressing one but in general, I'm noticing a pattern this year to do with narrow formations and narrow width.

If you don't want to agree I don't really care as everyone is entitled to their own opinion and knowing our luck, 2 weeks from today, they'll release a match engine patch and break all of our tactics anyways

Edit: And just as I post this, someone releases a new tactic called 4-2-3-1 "Wingers Magic" with Much Narrower on it Surely it isn't only me that finds it ironic a tactic called "Wingers Magic" has a narrow width? (Not having a dig at the guys tactic, rather having a dig at the match engine lol)

Good explanation - I hear you - you just made me look at things entirely different - so I respect your reply - I'm looking forward to that match engine update - about gegenpress jeffdekker just destroyed the big prem teams in the efl and fa cup using Derby with their ingame players - I mean wide formations must still work great if that can happen - I have seen narrow formations get slaughtered - I agree that the match engine isnt balanced and maybe the keyword for them should be balanced width - but then again that wouldnt be balanced either - they should remove width haha - narrow drives me crazy - not gonna talk about my x-wife now

Cheers mate

 

[Kyanite]

Yea and our defenders are still too dumb to throw their bodies at obvious crosses which goes past right under their noses not to mention when a winger is on the byline and the cross is obviously imminent, the players are way too dumb to realise ''Oh yea theres that striker there maybe I should be closer to him instead of being 10 meters away '' and then ur left wondering how you could have at least given it a better try yourself in that situation to prevent the goal.

Haha exactly! Honestly some of the crosses I've conceded I'll have an opposition full back who's advanced forward with the ball, getting closed down (like literally 1-2 meters distance) by both my full back and my winger yet somehow the cross goes over both of them, over the first defender and gets met by a striker who my center backs just roll out a welcome mat for and say "after you, sir" to.

Now a few versions ago I used to just think the engine was just a load of pre-programmed situations of different styles which were just replayed with slight variation again and again and again just to give us something to watch. But as we've moved forward post-FM13 it's clear that the engine should be taken more seriously, has improved and that it is in fact possible to treat the engine like watching the actual game and that by watching it, you can clearly make the modifications necessary based on what you're seeing. But more than often a lot of these crossed goals just have you tearing your hair out...

As a software developer myself who is obviously also passionate about football and FM, I don't understand what the QA team does a lot of the time. Doesn't anyone notice things like this?
I mean, if it's happening in the lower leagues, I can understand it. But the same goals I concede in the lower leagues, I concede in the Premier League where world class defenders just do not function when it comes to crosses haha

Good explanation - I hear you - you just made me look at things entirely different - so I respect your reply - I'm looking forward to that match engine update - about gegenpress jeffdekker just destroyed the big prem teams in the efl and fa cup using Derby with their ingame players - I mean wide formations must still work great if that can happen - I have seen narrow formations get slaughtered - I agree that the match engine isnt balanced and maybe the keyword for them should be balanced width - but then again that wouldnt be balanced either - they should remove width haha - narrow drives me crazy - not gonna talk about my x-wife now

Cheers mate

I think you're correct when you say the engine isn't balanced and that some things work better than others! I just wish there was a direct correlation between those things and the league/players. I can't emphasize how many times people in previous versions have found success with things like high pressing approaches, short passing styles, high defensive lines with non-league teams as they do with top teams. I'm not sure if that's really changed in FM17 yet though!

 

[Augustin1979]

Any way to test this tactic?

 

[ManUnited20]

link?

 

[Kyanite]

Any way to test this tactic?

link?

After spending some time trying to tinker with the defensive aspect of the tactic, I've come to realise that not much I do is actually helping and that it doesn't seem possible to stop crosses without ruining the attacking aspect.

So I will be releasing this tactic in a new thread and I'll post the link here once it's released and you can try it out

 

[Kyanite]

Any way to test this tactic?

link?

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/shar...manuel-pellegrinis-4-4-2-solid-underdogs.html