Survival? Pfft! Piece of Cake...

PERFORMANCE

After an opening day draw, and the solid Cup win over La Berrichone, we went on something of a run. Nine games undefeated, eight of those in the league, and we were firmly in the top four slots. For the most part I was sticking with a lone striker formation away from home, mainly the 4-1-2-2-1 outlined in my pre-season update, but at home or against poor performing hosts I leaned towards a strike partnership.

Sometimes I would take the same ‘proactive’ approach as I did to the Berrichone game (see below), tweaking things ahead of kick-off, but not always as I wanted to get the squad familiar with my base formations and instructions.

We had a blip in October, taking just four points from six games, but then another unbeaten run took us into mid-December still sitting pretty. That run included four back-to-back away games (two league, two cup) which saw three wins and a draw.

Things were looking good, and despite a couple of defeats to take us into the winter break we still looked like surprise contenders for a promotion push. The Board gave me the opportunity to review my targets at that point, and I decided that it was a fairly safe bet to upgrade to ‘Mid Table’ and earn a few extra quid in the transfer pot.

TACTICAL APPROACH

Tactically I found myself in the habit of tweaking constantly, but whilst it was good for results I wasn’t paying enough attention to really be taking a great deal away from it. That leaves me in the interesting position where I can go back and review matches to get a feel for what might have gone right/wrong, but I can’t test those theories by making changes and seeing the outcome – at least not on this season’s performances.

Bear in mind that I’m reviewing these at a point where I’ve already played out the entire season. My next post will include the second half, but won’t necessarily include any revelations that I’ve taken away from this one. As I’ve alluded to before, I have a habit of getting carried away with playing the game which can mean that I get somewhat ahead of myself.

CASE IN POINT #1 – WHAT WENT SO RIGHT (or WRONG)?

For the opening game of our season (at home to FC Metz) I made brief notes when considering the scout report. The key point was their formation – a 4-2-2-2 with 2 central DMs, 2 wide midfielders (MR/ML) and two strikers; not something I come up against much.

I asked my fullbacks to sit deeper and tight-mark their wide midfielders, showing them inside (the majority of their past assists having come from crosses). With their central DMs sitting deep we should get room for our wingers to work, and I also pushed my DM into the MC strata for a 4-3-2-1 shape.

To my eyes this was shaping up almost exactly as expected. Sichi, the most attacking of my central trio, is starting a lateral run whilst Laoudihi arrives at the back of the box. Sabo (at DL) might be construed as having pushed up a little far, but given how deep they’re playing I’m not too worried – in fact he’s just played the ball in to Sichi, resulting in the crossfield run, and one of my more defensive MCs is sitting wide enough to offer cover.

One of their DMs (circled) appears to be tracking Perrin, our target man, leaving a lot of space in the middle of the park for Sichi to run into. That, in turn, causes their ML (boxed) to try and cover. Had he been given more licence to get forward I suspect that my DR (bottom of the shot) would be offering a good option into the space on that flank. 

Ultimately the move came to nothing, except an injury to Sichi as their hulking centre-half stepped forward and scythed him down, but it looked like a good build-up to me. 

I’d be interested to see if anyone has a radically different interpretation of this, as the analysis of the match engine is one of the areas I really need to work on.

The notes I made as the game played out were as follows:

• First 25 mins very good, Sabo getting forward well, with left IF sitting narrower.
• Despite 2DMs, my Box-to-Box Mid getting plenty of space 20-30 yards out. (Not sure I fully understood why at the time, although I suspect that it was per the shot above – at least one DM was tracking our lone striker).
• Metz getting crosses in, but DCs coping well and no-one arriving from deep for them to challenge for the second ball.
• Plenty of room for Laoudihi to drive infield from AMR spot.
• Dominating the game early on, but lone striker struggling, encourage IF(L) and W(R) to attack more.

Fast forward to mid-way through the second half, here’s another shot.

Highlighted are the runs by one of the more defensive DMs (on the ball) and the wide players on the left. That pair are behaving as expected, the IF cutting in and DL bombing past him. Metz are sitting so deep in their defensive lines that the two wide midfielders are now having to cut in and cover the danger area – leaving huge amounts of space on the flanks.

Had I been smarter at the time I guess that I should have been giving my DR more freedom to get forward, although I’m not sure what more he would contribute apart from a lateral pass.

Conversely, would I have been better served to get one (or both) of the left players to get forward a little less? I’m thinking that a less penetrating run by the IF (per the broken line) would offer a great option, but I’m not sure what combination of Role and Duty would best influence that?

I guess what this does demonstrate, which ought to be intuitive, is that against this formation we should be using playmaker type roles in the middle of the park, drawing their wide men, and making room for our FBs to roam.

In the end nothing came of that move either, but we played out a 0-0 draw in our first Ligue 2 game, against a side who would be constant promotion contenders throughout the campaign. Here’s the stats for the match.

Don’t mention the crosses! That’s something I’ll be coming back to at a later time, as a failure to really analyse these stats throughout the season meant that I really hadn't appreciated how pointless our crosses were on the whole. (I’m considering firing all wide players and playing the Brazilian 4-2-2-2 box formation!) 

What stands out here is that our striker is the one producing most of the Key Passes, and looking at his passes in the analyser I can see him dropping deep and acting as a ‘playmaker’ to bring the Box-to-Box midfielder into play. That’s something I’m used to seeing from my 4-2-3-1 in FM12, and I’m not too concerned on this occasion as he also got a couple of decent shots away, however I’m thinking that I should have been looking to change from Target Man to Poacher as that should see him looking to get onto through balls rather than play provider so much(?)

CASE IN POINT #2 – WHAT WENT SO RIGHT (or WRONG)?

The second competitive game of our second season provided an interesting challenge, and a chance for me to put some serious thought into our approach to an individual match. We were drawn away at a team from a lower division; La Berrichonne. Whilst my initial reaction to the draw was favourable, I soon realised that they had just dropped out of Ligue 2, passing us as we came up. They still retained a core of useful players, including a couple of £1m+ rated stars – not that I read too much into monetary value.

I decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to think about a ‘reactionary’ approach, particularly as we were missing Sichi and hadn’t had Coco join us yet; we were therefore playing with reduced options in the AM areas. 

Rather than just sticking our primary formation out I took some time to consider the scout report. First up I was told that our hosts favour a 4-1DM-2-2-1 formation. Looking at their squad, and the lack of quality wingers (no good AMR, and an AML/STC who was clearly their striker) I thought it likely that this would feature a narrow MC/AMC area with attacking fullbacks providing the width. 

Looking at their Squad Depth chart next, the following was a big factor – they had three good defenders. One was considered both their best DC and also their best right fullback. One was their left fullback, and one was an out-and-out DC. The rest didn’t look too sharp. Central midfield was also not a well supported area.

Looking at their Goals data, their right flank produced most of their assists – almost 3:1 against their left. They also conceded most from assists on their right flank. That told me that their right wingback likes to maraud, and probably leaves more open space on that flank than he should. Armed with that information, I set up like this

The thinking behind this:

Firstly, we want a more defensive player than Sabo at LB, and we want someone on our left who will stay wider than Chere does as an IF. That’s a double result already, although both are naturally right footed either of our right-sided fullbacks can play left. In turn bringing Ndema across means that Sabo can push up and play the wide role on our left wing.

Also, and entirely unscientific, I’m thinking about how I play (albeit in 7-a-side). I’m right footed, and if I’m wide right I tend to shape my body in such a way that players are forced outside me; if I’m out on the left then the way I move will generally see them come inside. I have no idea if or how that compares to ‘proper’ players, but if it does then there’s an added bonus.

Secondly, putting Sabo on the left allows us to shift Chere into the centre to provide an additional body in what is likely to be a heavily populated area for them. Sichi would normally have taken that role, but Chere is a perfectly good alternative.

Two ‘defensive’ MC players will battle well with their weaker MCs.

Finally the gamble part, we leave our right flank exposed. The right sided MC-D should offer some cover, but Donzelot would have to take on a more defensive mindset. With Ndema asked to stick close to their WBR, and our right flank open, my hope was to focus their attacking play toward their significantly less productive side.

Having done all that, I’m then presented with their starting line-up in a 3-3-2-1-1 shape, but that’s fine. Firstly that’s even less threat up front. Secondly, whilst their WBR is as predicted, their decent WBL is playing as their Anchor Man – so the threat down our right should be even weaker than predicted. Their strongest DC is also sat on the right of their back three, so whilst we’re focusing on that side any attacks that do go down the opposite flank should meet less resistance.

To say that we had it all our own way would be disingenuous, but we were away at a stronger side, and we did get the result.

What’s more, my thinking seemed to play out well.

Heatmap - La Berrichone

Loic Nestor (#7) was their key WBR. With Sabo a constant threat on that flank, and Chere moving around in their DM-C zone, Nestor was left somewhat isolated for long periods. In addition their front two were also often cut off by our two defensively minded MCs, and mostly relied on speculative balls.

My Assistant frequently offered feedback that their WBL (#23) was being given too much freedom to get forward, but that was fine with me – it was what I planned for.

Ultimately both of our goals came from set pieces, so I can’t claim a lot of credit for them, and we did have a couple of squeaky-bum moments (note their two CCCs) but our central defensive pairing and Gauclin held firm.

After we got our second (70 mins) I withdrew Chere and put a young MR/L out on the right of a midfield trio. He’s no good in the tackle, but has pace and was asked to sit tight on their WBL. One of the two MCs was given a Support duty to encourage him to step up occasionally just to keep their defensive midfielders honest.

Overall I can’t say that it was entirely plain sailing, but we were through to the next round and – more importantly – it certainly felt like we dictated how they played, and put them where we wanted them. 

FEEDBACK?

So that’s just a couple of examples and, coincidentally, the first two games of our season. I’m hoping to post another update with a couple more such (after the fact) analyses, either before or immediately after the update for the second half of the season. Whilst they won't alter the outcome of this campaign, they'll offer more insight into my thinking. 

As ever any feedback would be greatly appreciated, via the Comments section or catch me on Twitter at @flipsix3_FM.

I’m particularly interested if there are other areas of post match data/replays that people think I should be looking at, bearing in mind that my ultimate aim is to be able to look at situations like the above and use them to further inform how I go about setting up our ‘default’ starting tactics, and how I adapt to take advantage of situations like the exposed flanks I spotted in the Metz game.