Here’s a quick overview of the club:
So they were in the fifth tier not long ago, although it was a short stay. Been at the sixth tier (or higher) for over a decade and are coming off a mid table finish. All signs point to this team severely underperforming to be next to last in the league.
Finances are fine. Slightly in the black, although our projection has us finishing in the red. Again, pretty average/mediocre for this level.
I’m also gonna add this next part for
@GuyIncognito. Anytime I take a job over mid-year, I’m going to build my tactic around the players. I don’t have sufficient time to get players that fit my system or try and teach them new stuff with almost half the season gone. So this is just a simple look at how I’m going to build a tactic for my team:
So let’s start with Torres - who is also my captain. Likes to play CM as an advanced playmaker and is a fairly significant drop off in any other role and any other position. Being our best player, captain, and guy who wants to run the show, this is an easy and obvious starting point.
Then we’ve got our second tier - led by our GK Smith, who is pretty typical and nothing really changes there. Then there’s Sturgess, who’s important as he’s our only natural left back. Our best RB, Udoji, also prefers the defensive fullback role (as do basically every lower level FB), so we will likely stay symmetrical with those two and a four man back line. We’ve got four CBs who are all basically the same quality, so I’ve got to look deeper there.
Then we come across our first issue - we’ve got a pair of attacking wingers on each side, but then a RM. can’t play all three. I can also see I don’t have anyone who’s a natural LM - so it becomes a little easier to move Johnson to the bench. As a bonus, he’s also on a non-contract so he doesn’t get paid as much when he doesn’t start AND he can play a couple positions, which is useful with a five man bench.
So now that we’ve narrowed it to a four man back line, with two attacking wingers, we are basically limited to a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 or very attacking 4-4-2, maybe Bob Bradley empty bucket.
Looking at the other CMs, I’ve got a wide range of talents. Another technical player that could sit deeper if I want to control possession, a Carrilero who can drift wide, or a ball winner if I need someone to break up counters. This gives me some options and I’ll hold up for now on making decisions here.
The last place to look is striker, and I only have two. That makes the 2 striker formations a tough ask, especially since they are both target men and those don’t work together in pairs.
So, with all that figured out, it’s easy to choose a 4-3-3. But 4-3-3’s can look vastly different depending on how you want to play. For me, it’s become obvious based on the roles we have, but I’ll go step by step in my thought process here for the sake of the exercise.
1) my fullbacks aren’t going to contribute to the attack much, mostly because they are technically limited. This isn’t a huge deal because my wingers want to stay way and stay forward
2) I’ve got a target man striker, which is unique. It also pairs extremely well with two natural wingers who can ping the ball into him
3) with only two technical players in the starting 11, we want them to run the show. Torres wants to go higher, and Jez wants to sit deeper. So we don’t get overrun, putting our ball winner, Kane Wills, in there is a must.
4) at this point, our basic strategy is in place. Then we have a couple preferences within this system to choose from. Namely:
- how high of a backline do we want to run?
- how much pressure are we putting on?
- in possession, do we want to slow the game down, or counter?
The great news is that our set up allows for either side of all of those options. With a TM and out and out wingers, we could easily sit back with seven and have our CMs pick out passes wide to spring our wingers for a cross to the big target. Or, we can patiently build up, having the striker keep his back to goal and connect with Torres, or recycle the attack with Jez deep.
One consideration here is that my players are not particularly advanced in their tactics. Playing in the lower leagues, it’s unlikely that they’d have any familiarity with a high line, high pressure system, despite that being my personal preference. Because we only have six months to turn this around, we are going to play traditional, lower leagues, English soccer in an untraditional formation.
Finally, I’m going to start with almost no instructions on anyone or for the team to see how the game flows for us. My big concerns right now are:
1) our target man being isolated up top. Okojie has the attack duty set, so hopefully he stays high and let’s the creative midfield and wingers find him near goal.
2) a weird CB combo. Simpemba is one of the longest members of the club and a veteran overall, so I’m going with him to help grind out results. He likes to play stopper, which is great because Golan has 13 pace, which is excellent for a CB. But Golan has no technical ability. So we’ve got a central defender with stopper and defensive center back with cover.
3) we get into a track meet and my midfield three is working too hard both ways. Other than Willis, they need to focus on their attacking duties. I ultimately think we will want to control the game with those two, but not yet.
Onto the matches