A Breakthrough (?). Season's End.

If they’ve done nothing else, the early stages of my blog will doubtless have evidenced just how one dimensional my thinking has been in trying to make early inroads at Strasbourg…

...Okay two dimensional, I’ll be generous to myself.

Whilst I’m fully aware that the days of plug-and-play tactics are long gone, and I have no expectations of a quick fix, I’ve still been somewhat guilty of just scratching the surface in terms of my initial approach. In my desire to iron out single issues (long shots) I’ve tended towards looking at sections of my formation in isolation, rather than considering the eleven men as a whole. To give myself some credit I did recognise from the off that it’s not a simple question of telling a player to shoot less, and that it’s about creating better chances and space; it’s doubtful whether the changes that I’ve tried to make actually address that though, even given that I’ve been looking at a very brief period of time for the team to adapt.  

RECOMMENDED READING

I’ve spent a fair bit of time reading through a range of blogs, threads, and discussions. Some I’ve linked before, like @Cleon81 and his development thread. In terms of stuff related to the FM franchise though, it’s the following by @MrEdsFM that really got me to thinking about things from back to front.

Pretty much everything on his blog has been useful to me, but I'd particularly pull out the following. 

Tactical Analysis of his 4-2-3-1 formation which is a really great piece, particularly in terms of thinking about how you want to attack - not just from attacking positions. I'll refer back to that one later. 

Reactionary Tactical Analysis which is helping me start to think about tweaks to make when faced with different formations. I'm a long way from making big strides forward here, but it's creeping into my thinking when setting up initial formations. 

Squad Overhaul which also links to a great piece by @furiousuk, over that the SI Forums, on creating contrast. Again it's something I'm just starting to scratch the surface of, but it's worth pointing out now. 

I can't over emphasise just how valuable MrEdsFM's material has been to me, and it's something I expect to refer back to frequently. As I write this I know that he's having some difficulties in coming to terms with the changes in the FM14 tactics creator, I hope that he does as I'm intrigued to see him write some pieces about how he adapts to it. 

A FRESH APPROACH

Armed with the ideas that I’ve taken away from those posts, I sat down to really take a better look at my squad. Whilst I didn’t go into forensic detail, I scribbled down the following notes in a quick 15 minute run through the senior players; I’m hoping that you’ll see how even this brief review helped me to revisit my thinking significantly.

GOALKEEPERS

• Guillame Gauclin: Solid, first choice, unlikely to improve further. 

• Vauvenargues Kehi: Similar to Gauclin, scope to eclipse. Start to give him games.  

CENTRAL DEFENCE

• Milovan Sikimic: Big, strong, aggressive. Excellent in the air. Slow, too old to do anything about that. 

• Ludovic Golliard: Good but slightly less effective in the tackle. Again low pace.

Given the lack of speed of my two first choices, I don’t feel that a Stopper/Cover combo is particularly viable – rather I’ll opt to minimise their involvement in anything other than basic defensive duties  

• Billy Modeste: Younger but weaker than either of above on the ground. Excellent in the air.

• Steven Keller: Decent cover, but better as Anchor Man in DM. 

FULLBACKS/WINGBACKS

• Francisco Donzelot: Right foot, can play on left. Pacey, decent crosses (cross from deep?). One of our stars. 

• Eric Nyatchou Ndema: Right foot, can play left. Less effective than Donzelot. Better in the air (not a big thing for FB).

• Jean-Philippe Sabo: Left foot, left only. Great attacking option, potential to move up to the wing. Look for overlaps, potentially cross from deep if needed to defend more.

• Rolson Mayoukou: Left, can play (poor) right. Better defender (just). Good aerial. 

DEFENSIVE MIDFIELD

• Keller: Decent Anchor Man, okay passer but can’t dribble. 

All four of our other DMs are suggested by my Assistant as BWMs

• Stanislas Oliveira: Great engine, will get stuck in, decent ball player although weak Decisions and Creativity. No frills MC-D (no specialist role) or BWM, Anchor if needed.

• Jeremy Grimm: Very similar to Oliveira. Slightly better in Decisions and Concentration.

• Briam Amofa: Weaker defensively, needs work (21 year-old). Good physicals all round.

• Dino Djiba: Decent Box-to-Box option, although still not great on the ball. Best passer of the bunch. 

ATTACKING CM 

Basically looking at an AP-S or AP-A role, probably sitting in the MC strata

• Stephane Noro vs Anthony Sichi: Noro getting past it, but just edges Mentals. Sichi better athlete, much higher Determination.

• Cedric Faivre: ‘play and pay’ deal, strictly backup. Would be a great tutor if signed full-time, can’t afford to pay his wages just for that.  

ATTACKING WIDE

• Bejamin Genghini: Good long shot, decent crosser but prefer to encourage him infield to work into box. Can play either side (Right footed)

• Dimitri Lienard: Left only. Good physicals and work rate. Decent cross but can’t seem to go past men. Cross from deeper (drilled?).

• Jorris Romil: Youngster to develop, good potential. Could be striker, but looks like a useful IF-A for left side (right foot)

STRIKERS

• David Ledy: Great work rate, poor in the air (drill crosses to him?)

• Julien Perrin: Big aerial threat, will do less in support. Target man!

Really feels like 2 up front, or use Ledy as SS in AM strata.

If you read the above, then my last couple of posts, you’ll notice three things:

First, the fact that Perrin wasn’t mentioned among my original key players. He should have been.

Secondly I originally talked about building around an offensive line of: Ledy, Genghini, Noro and Sichi. I now think that it should have been Noro or Sichi. This is partly due to them being very similar players, and partly due to neither of them doing much in the Shadow Striker role I’d been trying; a lot of my long shots were coming from there.

Finally, in my last post I said that because of the Sichi/Noro situation I wasn’t keen to play two up front. I think that was a mistake; Ledy's isolation, and lack of aerial ability, combined to make him a difficult man to find unless he dropped deep - and when he did that, he tended towards shooting from deep as well. 

Whilst I was reading MrEdsFM’s stuff, and formulating my new plans, I did play a couple of games with the old formation. I enjoy the game so much I didn’t want to wait hours for my next ‘fix’. I targeted six points from our next three games, I got them in the first two – playing the Shadow formation. They weren’t great games though, two 1-0 wins during which we gave up 6 clear cut chances. Praise be to Gauclin!

A MOMENT OF CLARITY

A lot has been said about having an idea of how you want your team to play before starting to build your formation. I already had that before (I think), but the key thing I came across in MrEdsFM’s articles was this quote:

“ When it comes to attacking organisation, you need a means to an end – know where your goals are going to come from. Brendan Rodgers talks a lot of crap but one thing he says that makes sense is that a team needs three and a half goalscorers. I prefer to think of it as three and a half goalscoring routes. It’s also vital to ensure your attacking roles will create space.”

Whilst I had an idea of where I wanted the ball to go, I don’t think I had more than a couple of routes to goal (Ledy, Genghini if he cut inside, and the off chance of a long shot from Noro/Sichi finding its mark). Three and a half felt like a stretch, but I decided that I wanted to offer threats from:

·         

• Perrin, the Target Man (1)
• Ledy, playing as a deeper striker (1)
• Genghini cutting in (0.5)
• Occasional Long shots, Sichi or Noro as the AP. (probably nearer to 0.25) 

That gave me 2.75 and, like Eds, I tend to think of 'miscellaneous' as another half (set pieces, etc). 

You’ll note that I still referred there to “where I wanted the ball to go”. I would confess that I’m still focused more around that than where I want to create the space, but I’m hoping that the latter will start to come to the fore.

It was for the third game that I made my changes, effectively building a 4-1-3-2 but with the CM strata shifted to the right slightly. Genghini and Sabo to provide the width, Ledy to play off Perrin (the Target Man), and a flexible three-man CM strata that would adapt as necessary; I can play two defensive and one attacking player here, or vice-versa...

...initially you'll see that I went with the DM Anchor Man as we’re facing a good number of 4-2-3-1 formations; that man in front of the defence felt like a good option to tie up an AMC. If necessary I can push Sabo and Donzelot up to the wingback positions, to sit tighter on their wide men, and give them less attacking roles; that’s going to reduce the effectiveness of their contribution to the attack, but I’m happy to make that compromise, especially away from home.

Where the opposition has no AM my plan is to push the Anchor Man into a straight MC-D role, and push Genghini up to the AM strata. With his quality on the ball he tends to draw two men when he stays wide, with Ledy in the mix as well I’d hope that this creates a little more space for Perrin as the Target Man - particularly as, by that time, Sabo will usually be seen cutting in to the far corner of the area. 

The other immediate idea was that, with a desire to start to develop Romil, I could pull Ledy out and put the youngster in as an Inside Forward on the left – effectively giving me a 4-1-2-2-1 with Genghini pushed on. I’m not sure what impact that will have on Perrin as a lone Target Man, but it feels like something we can do when holding a lead in the last 20-30 minutes.

Oliveira and Sichi would start as D and S respectively, in the MC-R and MC-L spots, with the option to go S and A if the opposition allows (shown here)

IN ACTION

Here’s the first game with the new setup, I do have to point out that the opposition were bottom in the league, with the worst defence. Even so, this was very pleasing. They played a 4-2-3-1, we sat a little deeper and played a more direct passing game; I also switched from Rigid-Control to Balanced-Standard to get players involved in more phases of play. The intention here was to create a pseudo-Counter Attacking setup without actually using the Counter mentality; I’m not clear exactly what changes that setting would make, and for now I’d prefer to ‘know’ what I’m changing.

There were still a fair number of long shots (five, two producing saves) but you can see how much of an impact Perrin had (#10). In addition Genghini was getting into the box well, creating an added challenge for their back four. Long shots become far less of a concern for me when they’re not our primary route to goal.

We followed that with a home match against mid-table opposition.

Same opposition formation, for which I pushed the fullbacks to wingback to help nullify. Again there were long shots (four, two saved) but again it felt like less of an issue.

Now obviously there’s still plenty of work to be done, but I feel like things are starting to come together for the team. Five clear with eight to play, and by far the tightest defence in the league.

As for me, I’m starting to pick up bits and pieces (I think!).

I spent the afternoon pressing on to the end of the season, and secured promotion – albeit giving up the top spot on goal difference, following a poor run in.

I put some of those late results down to tiredness, and an absence of the aerially impressive Sikimic from defence for two or three weeks, but overall I know that I should have the wherewithal to improve on that sequence. 

Whilst I’m feeling better about my approach to setting up our own formation and tactics, what I really need to work on is reacting to the opposition’s. The changes I made for 4-2-3-1 formations seemed to work reasonably well, and against a flat 4-4-2 I felt comfortable too. The real difficulty I had was with a 4-2-2-2 with wide wingers (the drubbing from Ajaccio) and against 4-2DM-1-2-1 (where we were very lucky to scrape the 2-2- home draw against Frejus Saint-Raphael).

Again I’ll give a thumbs up to MrEdsFM and his ‘reactionary’ thread, but I suspect I have a way to go here.

For now though, it’s time to look at rebuilding the squad. I have a bunch of guys leaving in the summer, including at least one who I desperately want to keep (Genghini), and I suspect that I’ll need to start over with looking at my roster and coming up with:

• A formation that suits them, and uses their strengths to create space. 
• A minimum of two ‘solid’ routes to goal, and one ‘partial’. I suspect that it will be a season of consolidation, so I’m not expecting to be free scoring.
• Some contrast in my options, to enable a change of player to produce different behaviours in a given spot. 

As ever, if anyone has any feedback on my approach then let me know, whether it be things I’m doing right, or obvious mistakes in my thinking. This is very much intended as a blog to assist with my learning, so interaction is always welcome either here, or on Twitter at @flipsix3_FM

Finally, I’m aware that I’ve posted quite a bit in a short time. As much as anything it was just a case of being keen to get things up and running, that and the fact that I had a lot of free time available. Back to work now though, and I work away from home quite a bit, so there will be bigger gaps between postings. On the plus side that working away does give me plenty of time for reading up on threads and articles, and to keep scribbling formation ideas in my notebook.