Tactics Fm21

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Whencreating a tactic in this way, one must depend on smart player selection (according to their attributes) to achieve tactical goals. Player attributes have a key role in dictating how that player behaves on the pitch and within the confines of the tactic. For example, good technical passers with high Team Work attributes tend to act as playmakers without you actually designating them in a specific playmaker role. Likewise, creative players positioned in a more attacking, forward role will bring through a unique blend of creativity and offense.

Just by looking at the roles, you would think that the strikers will push forward to attack as the wingers run along the flanks and provide crosses for them. This could happen if you only use players whose attributes gravitate towards this behaviour, and in the long-term it would probably make your play very repetitive and predictable for the opposition.

Such predictable football could work very well in lower leagues with good wingers that are pacey and can cross. Yet it would not survive the test of the higher divisions, with more mentally adept defenders and midfielders. To succeed at a bigger club, you will need to inject variety into your tactics via your player selection. So let's rework the front four with that in mind.

A good rule of thumb for me when creating a well-balanced tactic is that no two players should be doing the same thing. Whether they are your forwards or defenders, the same rule applies. To achieve this, I reworked some of the roles and duties. While the shape remains the same, the players will behave very differently

You might not have two world-class strikers but the two of them combined could more than make up for this due to a smart combination of attributes. Using two strikers could compensate for the lack of elite goalscorers and playmakers. Finally, it can allow us to use two players with dramatically different skillsets to a better combined effect. Matching a pure goalscorer, who is not capable of much else, with a tall forward good at playmaking, could create a deadly striker combo when neither player alone would set the world on fire.

Behind the wingers, the Full-Backs will have to both complement each other and the wingers in front. As such, you should ideally play a fast, aggressive crosser behind the winger who cuts inside and a more defensively responsible fullback who tends to stay back behind your traditional crossing winger. Your wide players should look a little like this.

To complete our example formation, the centre-back pairing should also follow my rule of thumb. My ideal partnership would be an older, slower (but more technically skilled) defender like Wes Morgan next to a quicker player who can anticipate the play better. I choose their roles accordingly, but their attributes will do most of the work.

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Hey guys I need help with making this counter attacking tactic better. I've been struggling a lot with trying to make this work but it doesn't seem to be working that well. Any ideas on improving it or getting certain players that can help this tactic out? I have it on attacking since it seems to suit the counter attacking style better but maybe bring it down to positive might help.

much higher tempo might be too high, i have my 442 counter attack setup on attack with default tempo. get stuck in might be too aggressive of a TI for what you're trying to achieve. i really don't see other glaring issues.

pressing forward is another i don't tend to use and favor the advanced forward with how OP they are. a PF might be too deep from pressing the opposition to be available for a long pass. i'd rather have an advanced forward on the shoulder of opposition CB ready for the long pass to run in behind as soon as we win it back.

Fraudiola made some very good points. Another I would think about is putting your DLF on attack duty. With his duty set to attack, your DLF will stay higher up the pitch and will be much more direct, looking to play quick passes between himself and his forward partner rather than holding the ball up waiting for the midfield runs. Due to the way that this turns your entire attack into "your forwards doing it all themselves", I'd look to reduce attack duties in the midfield and have them focus on being defensively sound. This is pretty important as your DLF-A won't drop back to help your midfielders much like a DLF-S does.

Thanks for the advice I was wondering what do you use other than DLP? The reason why I have a DLP is to hold the ball and give some time for my strikers to run forward since I don't have any fast strikers. I was wondering also if a Poacher would work fine instead of an AF. I'm not a big fan of how a Poacher doesn't defend at all but I might give it a shot.

I was kind of hoping the DLF would drop deep to support the midfield and bring them into attack like the CM(s). I don't really want a tactic where the forwards have to do everything trying to bring the wingers and the midfielders into the attack also.

From what I've seen so far with the changes, I was wondering what OI's you guys would recommend. I feel like cause my strikers aren't dropping deep to defend gives the opposition midfielders all the time and space in the world to move up the pitch since my midfielders are immediately dropping deep once possession is lost.

So based how you are describing what you are looking for now, it sounds like you are more looking for a fluid counter-attacking style rather than pure direct counter-attacking. don't think you defensive setup would work all that well for countering.

On defense: get rid of force opposition out wide and get stuck in. Add tighter marking. Also tell your players to regroup when losing the ball. This will create the solid 2 banks of 4 that gets behind the ball first and seeks to deny the opposition space and should allow plenty of time for your DLF-S to drop back to help the center mids, creating what is essentially a 3 man central midfield in the defensive phase so you won't get overrun. It should be pointed out that the defensive positioning stat of your center mids is extremely important in a system like this so make sure that both of them are up to the task. They don't need to be world class or anything but make sure they are not weak in this area. If both players are good at defensive positioning, I frequently change the DLP-D to a DLP-S and go without a dedicated defend duty in midfield as the defend duty sits deeper in the defensive phase and I feel that it somewhat disrupts the effectiveness of the 2 banks of 4.

This is a solid defensive system that I've had success with several teams at various levels. The main focus of winning the ball back with be through interceptions rather than tackling. Because of the hard to penetrate 2 banks of 4, your team will look to isolate the opposition wide players and keep them from moving forward which causes them to pass the ball back into central areas or to switch it to the other flank. This is where the passes get intercepted and turned into a direct counter, either through a quick ball to your PF-A/AF-A or through direct dribbling from your wingers. The key to this system will be these interceptions and the counter transition.

If you decide that the defensive system works and need to fix things on the attacking side, I'd look at getting rid of the attacking mentality and just setting it to balanced. You can adjust this on a game to game basis but it is a poor choice to set it to attacking as a default unless your club vision requires you to play attacking football. I'd also ditch early crosses and set your tempo to standard or lower. You don't need to create a million chances as a counter attacking team so you should be focusing on fewer chances but higher quality chances.

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