arteta is god

Alright, so I've been working for a while now on finding a decent striking partnership for a front two that works nicely in tandem. It seems I have found one.

The title of this post (Little & large) is not entirely appropriate, but almost. It matters not what the height of the quick guy is, but you do need one big fella. For this to work, you need:

Striker 1: To be fast, creative, have good off the ball movements, be a good dribbler, crosser, and finisher.

Striker 2: To be tall, strong, good at jumping, good at heading, and to be a good finisher. Pace matters not in the slightest, but I can imagine that it would be a bonus.

As it happens, Derby County have the perfect duo in Arturo Lupoli and Steve Howard.

I forget the stats exactly, but I know that Lupoli fits the bill for striker 1, and Howard, striker 2. What's more, Lupoli is left-footed and so this fact complements Howard's game even more. It's a beautifully balanced partnership.

How they line up

Lupoli Howard

No surprises or thrills here. No arrows or anything fancy. It's just your basic 4-4-2 set-up.*

* I use my global 4-4-2 home and away systems, which can be found in the forum.

Following are the instructions with only the applicable slider settings...

Instructions
Striker 1—Lupoli
Mentality: High atacking (2 notches from the right) (Obvious)
Creative Freedom: High (2 notches from the right) (want him to roam and try things)
Forward Runs: Often (I want him to play on the shoulder of the defence as high up as possible)
Run with Ball: Often (want him to run at the defence and hit the byline)
Cross Ball: Often (Lupoli does not give the ball away with silly wasteful crosses, because...
Cross From: Byline: Since I have instructed him to cross from the byline, he won't usually cross from deep, thus wasting the ball. The byline is the optimal position to cross from (unless you are an AI full-back needing a goal in the 90th minute). Every coach, and anyone with any common sense will tell you this.
Long Shots: Mixed
Free Role: Yes (Wanted him to roam)
Hold up Ball: No (That's the big fellas job)

What I want from him
I want Lupoli to be the creative force in the team, playing on the shoulder of the full-back for the through ball/flick-on, or pulling wide and deep to retrieve the ball and run at the defence. On top of this, I want him to hit the byline and pull the ball back for my on-rushing striker.

Striker 2—Howard

Mentality: High atacking (2 notches from the right) (Obvious)
Creative Freedom: High (2 notches from the right) (want him to roam and try things)
Forward Runs: Mixed (I want him to be there for the cross, but I also want him to sit a little deeper to hold the ball and flick it on)
Run with Ball: Mixed (Obvious)
Cross Ball: Mixed
Cross From: Mixed
Long Shots: Mixed
Free Role: No
Through Balls: Often (Since he holds up the ball, and his passing is good, I decided that there would be no harm in him playing the odd through ball to Artur Lupoli, who plays on the shoulder of the defender)
Hold up Ball: Yes
Target Man: Yes
Target Man Supply: To head (Very important. Just because you play to a target man's head it does NOT mean that your football suffers as a result. The players use him as they see fit and it is EXTREMELY effective. They still find his feet when necessary.


What I want from him
I want him to be your stereotypical target man—win flicks, hold up the ball, get on the end of crosses, and score at the near post from corners.

Stats/Observations
Played one season: Won the Championship losing only 4 games.
Highest Av. Rating: Artur Lupoli (7.86) - Most man of the match too.
Top Scorer: Steve Howard (44 goals)
2nd Scorer: Artur Lupoli (39 goals)
Most Assists: Artur Lupoli (22 Assists, mostly for Howard)

As you can see, my strikers were nothing short of spectacular. Most of my goals came from Lupoli running at the defence, hitting the byline and squaring the ball to Howard's bounce. A lot of goals were scored straight from corners, having Howard at the near stick and aiming there. Howard got a respectable 18 assists too, which were mostly flick-ons to the advancing Lupoli and the odd through ball. It's amazing how effective the target man/aim for head setting is. Howard's acceleration and pace are something like 4 or 5, but it mattered little since he was always in the right place. I noticed that a lot of times, my full backs, Mears and Andy Taylor (loans) would hit Howard's head from deep, and he nearly always won the ball and flicked to Lupoli who was usually very close to Howard and on the shoulder of the CB. Lupoli is very quick for that division, so he found himself clear often. I notice too that Lupoli scored a significant number of goals by simply getting the ball and running through the defence.

2ndchance

Upload it you lazy get!.

I've got Tevez in magnificent form using both your original home tactic and updated away tactic!.

Ashton of course is injured as usual!.

arteta is god

Awwww, Ashton was a joke when I was the Hammers. ALWAYS bloody injured. It was quite a struggle getting Tevez to play too. Glad the tactic is workin, mate. I swear I tried to upload the tactic the other day, but something in FMDownloads was getting updated or summit. If you point me toward a site, I'll download the Derby formation I'm using. It's basically exactly the same as the other global but with this new strike partnership mdification.

Marseille07

arteta, where you got your home and away tactics? fmdownloads.net? While you pretty much explained the entire tactic, uploading 1KB of file wouldn't hurt

aston_martin

Very good post Arteta, WP :thup:

I especially like the statement of using a TM doesn't mean your play will suffer.

One thing I find useful when using a TM though is to put a barrow and/or lower his mentality slighltly - in doing this the fast striker and wingers get lots of room due to a DC being pulled out of position by the TM coming deep.

I am currently doing this with my AFC Telford team in the Conference North in Dafuge's challenge and my fast ST has 11/12 goals in 13 games, my TM has about 6 in 11 and my TM also has an avg. rating of about 7.8.


also 1 final hint - always match your ST up against the opposition's weakest jumper

Myst_

Very nice thread, I´ll give it a shot

NeilJWD

What about winger's and full backs cross aim? Is that on Target man, or mixed?

davey256

you've got lupoli crossing often, doesnt this instruct him to cross when there might be a better option to go for goal??? im experimenting at the mo with making strikers more goal minded and would appreciate any contribution

aston_martin

I have both of my ST's set to cross rarely at the moment, and as you can see from my post above it has been very succesful, although sometimes the ST's may shoot when they should cross it's not that bad becuase they make up for it in the amount of chances they take

arteta is god

NeilJWD: FBs, WGs, and Lupoli—Cross to TM

davey256: Since I have on cross often, and cross from byline. he will only cross it if he finds himself there. I never see him wasting crosses.