Dr. Gazz's Football Manager Clinic

[Gazz]

Paitent #1: Plubby's Shot Shy Stade Rennais

Young Plubster is struggling in the depths of Ligue 1 with his Stade Rennais team. His team usually dominates possession both home and away but they don't create many, if any, clear goalscoring opportunities and take very few shots, usually less than ten per match.

Let's have a look at a typical match...

He's set up with a standard 4-5-1/4-3-3 as is the fashion these days. Montpellier are set up very defensively, especially for a side at home, so even if Rennes dominate possession and sit in the Montpellier half, clear chances are going to be hard to fashion purely due to numerical disadvantage.

The two in the middle play as BBM/S and DLP/S and the wide players are both W/A and the striker is TM/A.

What I would suggest when facing a team playing wing backs is to push your own full backs forward to try and pin them back in their own half.

The match finishes a 1-1 draw, the first half was cagey, even and goalless. Montpellier took the lead after 60 minutes when Ramsteijn lost his man in the area and Rennes scored a late equaliser when Kanoute broke free and a fortunate deflection fell to sub Romil.

The stats are pretty grim reading offensively, barely any shots, one good chance and too high a percentage of shots from long range. Possession is good and the passing percentages are good, though defensive passing should be higher because of the lack of pressure from the opposition in your own half. The Rennes midfield and full backs had a ton of possession, Emerson the left back was 91 for 98 attempts and none of the midfielders were below 86% completion, which is good but if there is no end product, ultimately pointless. It also suggests that the midfield spends a lot of time passing amongst themselves and the radar view shows that the majority of their passes are sideways or backwards.

The real standout stat and the root of Plubby's problem is the cross completion, 6% or 2 completed from 29 attempts. That's 27 cycles of possession wasted with zero end product. It's clear that to create 29 crossing opportunites, the wingers are seeing plenty of the ball and in the right areas though.

Rennes' shooting opportunities, we'll ignore the halfway line lob attempt. The goal was a tap in into an empty net but the main problem is that there are no shots in and around the six yard box / penalty spot and Kanoute, the lone striker never managed a single shot all game. That would suggest he's either a) not in the area very much or b) marked out of the game.

Let's go back to crossing and focus on the main offender, the left winger Alessandrini, who went 0 for 12 during the game. You can see he's mainly getting to the byline but generally he's not beating his man and though it says 'blocked', most of these attempts were intercepted by a defender. He's not a bad player and it takes two to complete a cross, so let's look at a typical cross to diagnose the problem.

It's fairly obvious, Alessandrini (19) has got into a decent position and whipped the ball into the area. The problem is he's aiming for one guy who has potentially got three defenders to deal with. Kanoute is getting no support from the midfield (23 and 17)or the opposite winger and this is why no crosses are getting through. The opposite right winger is in no position to help either, he's too far away from the penalty area and he's being doubled up by the opposition left back (12) and a midfielder (14). Alesandrini's only real option is a backpass to his own left back (27), whose position for a cross is no better than his own anyway.

The only 2 crosses that were successful, one was a corner and the other was from the right back getting forward, which allowed the right winger and the two midfielders to get into the area, which made the usual 1 v 3 into 4 v 4 as a Montpellier midfielder was forced to drop back into his own area to even the numbers.

Another problem with Plubby's midfield sitting too deep is that his wingers and especially his forward become isolated. This isn't helped by his slow build up play that allows his opposition time to regroup and pick back up his attacking players who may be in space up field when possession is won back. Take this example, Rennes won the ball back down the right flank, four passes and ten seconds later, the ball has gone nowhere and Montpellier have five defenders in a line across the width of the pitch, any counter attacking opportunity has gone and Rennes are going to have to pass their way through eight players. Unfortunately, his centre backs don't quite share his tactics passing philosophy, as evidenced by their lower completion rate on the match stats. Here we see the CB with the ball, what are his options really? The right winger (12) is double marked, the left winger (10) is miles away and a long pass will probably be intercepted, you should never ping a pass across your own area so the left back (27) is out and Rennes midfield three (8, 23 and 28) are too deep and too close, both to the player with the ball and each other. So, he hoofs it forward in the hope that Kanoute might do something...

with predictable results.

Now the opposition have time and space on the halfway line to launch their own attack. Luckily, Rennes still have ten men behind the ball and attack came to nothing as the ball got bogged down in a midfield scrap as it did all game.

Diagnosis

Change the wide players from Wingers/Attack to Inside Forwards, which ever is the better dribbler and finisher as a IF/A and the other as a IF/S. I'd also suggest playing narrower via the team instructions in an attempt to get your wingers inside their full backs rather than going round the outside. You could also use 'cut inside' if you have wingers that can use their other foot or are opposite footed, ie. right footed left wingers. This should get the wide player into the penalty area and hopefully his opposite number should be up with him on the back post, causing problems for the defence.

Change the midfielder playing as a DLP/S to an Advanced Playmaker, support against bigger teams and away where you need to be a bit more defensive and attack when at home and where you are the favourite to win. This will allow the midfielder to get further forward to support your striker, giving you another option in attack and leaving the BBM to do all the legwork between the DMC and the more attacking midfielder.

Set your centre backs to 'shorter passing' via the player instructions. You have a DMC (if he can play Regista, even better) who should be available for shorter, low risk passes that he can then recycle into the midfield or if he's good enough, spray out onto the flanks.

The wingers playing narrower presents an opportunity for the full backs to get forward into the space they've left behind. I would suggest giving them 'cross from deep' instructions. Hopefully with a striker, two inside forwards and at least one midfielder to aim for, their completion rates should be better.

The striker is isolated as a target man / attack. If he's still being isolated despite more team mates getting forward, I'd suggest changing him to one of the more creative minded roles (False 9, Trequartista, Deep Lying Forward) so he drops into the space in front of the centre backs rather than sitting on their shoulder. I'm aware that Kanoute and Rickie Lambert don't scream creativity so you might want to sign someone who isn't a big lug / donkey.

[Lineker]

It would be really great if stoker did a thread like this!

[Gazz]

Pfft, has he ever won the Chinese Jia League title?

[King Ellis]

Gazz is a FM Legend, whereas Stoker is more of an FM Icon.

[Liam]

I like the look of this - I am struggling to get my Fulham team going in the year 2017 or 2018. Could do with some guidance perhaps...

[Your Mom]

Oh...I thought you were a different kind of Doctor

[Gazz]

I like the look of this - I am struggling to get my Fulham team going in the year 2017 or 2018. Could do with some guidance perhaps...

Save a few matches and upload the pkm files.

They should be in My Docs/SI/FM14/matches

[Plubby]

This was super-awesome. Except i'm struggling with expectations, not in the depths of the league. I predicted Euro Cup, and i'm lingering 1-4 points behind that slot, board is getting grumpy. Hence the call to Obi-Wan Gazzobi.

[METALMAN]

The diagnosis isn't where you offer solutions. It's the bit where you say what is wrong, you big lug.

[Liam]

I like the look of this - I am struggling to get my Fulham team going in the year 2017 or 2018. Could do with some guidance perhaps...

Save a few matches and upload the pkm files.

They should be in My Docs/SI/FM14/matches

Can I save them after they've already been completed?

[Plubby]

I like the look of this - I am struggling to get my Fulham team going in the year 2017 or 2018. Could do with some guidance perhaps...

Save a few matches and upload the pkm files.

They should be in My Docs/SI/FM14/matches

Can I save them after they've already been completed?

Yes! Go into the match from the fixtures screen (or wherever) and in the default skin it's on the upper-left part of the screen.

[stokeriño]

I think being used as a stick with which to troll Gazz is quite probably my most rewarding FM achievement of all.

[Gazz]

The diagnosis isn't where you offer solutions. It's the bit where you say what is wrong, you big lug.

You can moan when you've got a PhD. Not before.

[Liam]

My save has corrupted, so had to go back a rolling save. Two draws in first two games against teams I should have beaten. Two games enough to look at?

From what I remember, my team went on to under perform for the best part of the next month or so I played.

[Gazz]

Yeah

[Liam]

Won't let me upload them here. E-mail?

[Benji]

Oh...I thought you were a different kind of Doctor

Well, his catchphrase doesn't help.

"I'm not a gynaecologist, but I'll have a look!"

[Gazz]

Use filedropper or sendspace and post the links

[Liam]

http://www.sendspace.com/filegroup/GR7LgS34Rk%2BAkIotp%2F612g

Just for some background information as well, I sold my main striker and have bought in a few players. The general make-up of my team has remained the same though.

[Plubby]

Got sacked. Thanks for nothing, Gazz. ( )