Sheps.

Hi guys and gals,

At the moment I'm creating a tactic, its a 4-4-2, with Utd. I know this shouldnt be too difficult as Utd have high class players, but I want to create a tactic I can use with most clubs.

Anyway, I want to use a second striker who drops off the target man in my tactic. I've checked the Tactics Bible for what i want, but it doesnt seem to be there, and I've done a search also, but again couldnt find anything on the subject.

My front 2 are Owen (Target man) and Rooney. I want Rooney to drop off, like he does irl, and play deeper. I've tried a barrow to AMC, but that doesnt seem to do much and limits where Rooney goes and the amount of chances he gets. Ive tried giving him a bit of CF, but he just goes wide whenever he gets a one on one situation with the keeper, therefore making his angle extremely difficult.

I'm wondering what instructions you would suggest for Rooney to get him playing the striker that drops off?

aston_martin

Try giving him a lower mentality. If I want a striker to drop back I'll give him a mentality around the middle notch.

Not perfect but it's as close as I've managed to get it.

crazy gra

Well, first of all, if you're using two strikers then I'd always go for a TM/quickST combo and would recommend it for any team. However, if you want to succeed with Rooney and Owen then how about try Rooney at AMC?

You said you're playing a 4-4-2, I thought it was a 4-2-2-2? Putting Rooney at AMC means you have a 4-2-3-1 which a lot of people use. Low CD, quite high CF and a free role on Rooney should work well. Don't know what you do for mentality, but I have mine on global now except for the ST (or just the quickST if two are upfront) has high mentality in defensive tactics.

Mixed FWRs should help so that he's behind Owen most of the time and will link up to the MCs better too. Making him hold up the ball might help as well, seeing as he's rather strong

moggydave

Give him a free role. I assume you have Owen's supply as run on to ball btw.

A barrow won't work. Give Owen Forward runs often and Rooney forward runs rarely, and set him to hold up the ball.

Crazy_T

Yea, stuff that's already been said really but I found the most effective things are:

1. Lower his mentality
2. Rarely/Mixed forward runs
3. Hold up ball (worked well when I had Riquelme)

norwichaggy

I've had Gilardino in the CF position, with Villa in the LF position. Villa is not exactly like Rooney, but when you looks at his stats, he has high dribbling, high creativity, high passing as well as "striker stats" so I thought I'd give hima go in a Rooney/Tevez dropping off role.

Gilardino has a PPM of "plays with back to goal" so I have him holding up the ball and then Villa fills in behind him and picks it up off him, with his face to goal and scores - or so the theory goes.

Basically, all I've done is lowered his mentality to one notch below attacking, put his forward runs onto rarely and creative freedom about 3/4 notches up from the middle. I've given him a BArrow, going into a LACM position - not right behind Gilardino, but diagonally back and left from him.

This allows him to drift off to the left wing (his PPMs have "moves into channels" and "runs with ball down the left" - so that works very very well). He scores quite a lot, although not as much as he probably would in a different formation as an out and out striker, but makes up for that by creating 15 odd goals a season.

I also play with an orthodox ACM, those two have settings to short passing and both "run with the ball - often". They mingle together, with Villa slightly further up and this works to great effect I've found.

STEVENJOE

I believe it would work if you gave Wazza a free role and tell him to hold up the ball.
You could also give him no forward runs but give him freedom and dribbling too.