FM 2013 Tactics Review: Jake’s 3-3-3-1

This is the start of a new series of posts on Football Manager Stories, a series of posts in which myself and Darren will analyse various FM 2013 tactics, finding their strengths and weaknesses and eventually suggesting tweaks to improve those Football Manager 2013 tactics. The purpose of this series is to have you, our readers, submit tactics for review and us doing our best to test them out.

The testing procedure is quite simple: we install the tactic and use it through pre-season plus six league matches with Spurs. We will watch each match closely, see what happens and then come up with the best review we can be capable of. We will also keep track of various statistics in order to be able to compare the essential numbers between the tactics that we’re going to be testing. It will be more or less like a benchmarking tool for FM 2013 tactics.

The first FM 2013 tactic that I tested is Jake’s 3-3-3-1 tactic, a rather unusual formation code-named «Jarliecake«.

Formation

The formation is a rather unusual one, a 3-3-3-1 with three central defenders behind a defensive midfielder and two wing backs, three central attacking midfielders and a striker. Obviously most of the play is done through the middle, there is little to no impact from the wide players.

Team Instructions

The style is set to rigid and the strategy to counter, meaning that this is a tactic that focuses on keeping things organised and tight at the back. The width is set to narrow, passing is focused to the middle while the striker is set as target man and the central attacking midfielder as playmaker.

Average Positions

As the image shows, there are this tactic splits the team into two units: four players attack and the other six defend. You might think that this can’t make for a successful tactic but I can reveal right now that you are wrong, there is some clever thinking behind this.

Defending

When defending the three centre backs plus the two wing backs form an impenetrable line at the edge of the penalty area while the defensive midfielder does most of the closing down and harassing opponents job. The three attacking midfielders do contribute as well when it comes to defending, especially the two wide ones who track back to help the defensive midfielder quite regularly. They are also set to close down the opponents inside the opposition half, the striker does that as well.

The screen shot above shows a pattern I have encountered in most of the games I have played with this tactic: the opponents are under pressure by our DM and three AMCs and in this case the DM (Sandro) steals the ball. As you can notice the striker is ready to spring into action on the counter attack and that is exactly what happened, the ball was launched behind the opposition defensive line and the striker was able to create a clear cut chance.

Attacking

What is really clever about this tactic is the movement in attack. With little or no support from the flanks, most of the damage is done through the middle. But the good part is that you have four players all attacking through the middle, and that’s a difficult challenge to face for any defence.

The picture above shows a situation I have witnessed in more than one occasion while playing this tactic: the defenders can’t cope with the number of players attacking through the middle, the striker has the ball and the left side AMC has a clear chance to make a run forward. This situation resulted in a clear cut chance as the striker was inspired enough to pass it through to meet the AMCs run.

I can also show you a goal that was scored in a similar manner, check out the video:

Obviously you will also have a fair share of successful counter attacks as the defenders and the goalkeeper are instructed to play the ball long as soon as they get them. One of the goals that we scored was assisted by Hugo Lloris, the goalkeeper, who launched it long behind enemy lines for Adebayor to collect and stab home.

Results

The results were good, almost great, as we won five straight before getting beaten by Manchester United. That defeat was quite unfortunate though as United got goals from a penalty kick and an own goal.

Statistics

Goals scored: 12 (2 per game)

Goals conceded: 5 (0.83 per game)

Shots on target for: 6.83 per game

Shots on target against: 3.66 per game

Clear cut chances for: 1.83 per game

Clear cut chances against: 0.16 per game

Half chances for: 2.33 per game

Half chances against: 0.66 per game

Ball possession average: 48.5%

The most interesting numbers are those related to clear cut chances. We managed to create at least one in which game while the opponents only managed one in six games! And that one single clear cut chance against us was the penalty kick that Manchester United had! Things looked pretty well regarding half chances, we didn’t have any of those against us in four of the six matches we had played. That’s why I can confidently say that this tactic is extremely solid in defence, even though we let in five goals in six matches.

+

• Good results.
• Rock-solid defence.
• Plenty of chances created.

—

• Team needs a lot of time to get familiar with the tactic given the unusual formation.
• Wide players have little or no impact in attack.
• Goals coming only from the AMCs and striker.

Suggested Tweaks

Changing the duty of the two wing backs from automatic to support or attack might be a good idea. When the four men upfront attack through the middle there is a lot of space opening up on the wings and that could be better exploited.

Download FM 2013 Tactic

Download the 3-3-3-1 FM 2013 tactic by clicking on the image below:

After downloading the tactic follow these simple steps to install it in FM 2013:

1. Put the downloaded file into this folder: Documents>Sports Interactive>Football Manager 2013>tactics

2. Start your game and go to your team’s tactics screen.

3. Click on the little arrow located to the right of your starting tactic name, move your mouse cursor over “archived tactics” and select this tactic from the menu.

I hope you have enjoyed this analysis and I’m looking forward to discussing it with you in the comments. If you want to submit your tactic for analysis please do so through the form below or via email at johnny@footballmanagerstory.com

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