As I said earlier, I wanted to re-new the whole Withdrawn Targetman role. I basically want a player who will hold up the ball and bring his team-mates into play, choosing how and when to pass the ball to maximise the potential of the attacking movement. Because this Withdrawn Targetman is also supposed to be my Plan B, he would have to offer some physical brutality as well as footballing skills.
I basically want a player who can beat opposing players for headers and contribute with flick ons, and hold up the ball by controlling aerial balls played into his chest. Such a player will play with his back to goal to help relieve opposing team’s pressing and allow our runners to link up. I want this player to play a typical targetman role about 15 metres deeper than where a targetman usually plays. He would pair up with a shadow striker making runs forward to get on the end of a flick-on or get the rebounds from the headers. In a nutshell, I want the role Fellaini plays for Utd at times or how Cahill plays for Australia and Everton.
Table of Contents
The Withdrawn Targetman Mk. II
With the Enganche role being a fairly static one, I really want him to be as close to the forward runners as possible without taking up an advanced position. If the Enganche drops too deep, he will be isolated and unable to play the kind of passes I want him to play. Since the Enganche seems to drop slightly deeper in the FM15 Match Engine, I needed to come up with a new plan.
Where the Enganche was a fairly static player, the Attacking Midfielder (A) is a more mobile threat. He’ll be asked to be more direct, roam from his position and take up wide positions if necessary. He is asked to dribble more so he will keep hold of the ball a bit without significantly slowing play down, which adds a bit of static nature to his role. I also want my Withdrawn Targetman to move laterally over the pitch, so he can combine with all the onrushing midfielders in the team, playing the typical one-two’s and flicked-on passes you would expect a targetman to play. The roam from position, move into channels and run wide options are there to ensure that the Withdrawn Targetman stays mobile as opposed to the more static Targetganche. By nature, he’ll be positioned slightly deeper than the two runners besides him, which makes him ideal for the kind of play I want to see. Just look at the picture below.
As the pass is played towards the Withdrawn Targetman, you can clearly see how the other two attacking midfielders have taken up slightly advanced positions, making themselves available for a quick pass or flicked-through ball. That’s the vertical movement I want to see from my Withdrawn Targetman.
The two dimensions to this role within my strikerless style of play
After playing a few seasons with the new and improved Withdrawn Targetman, I can conclude that the role shows several dimensions in terms of style of play, these being:
- the advanced pivot;
- the withdrawn targetman;
- the goal-scoring threat.
The advanced pivot, receiving the ball to feet
The pivot role is basically how the Withdrawn Targetman plays during the normal stages of play. He often takes a touch before quickly passing the ball along, instead of holding it up to ensure players link up or move into advanced positions. He’s not supposed to delay play, but keep the ball moving, keep the tempo high, contributing to fast and fluid ball retention. Just look at the match clip below.
You can see the Withdrawn Targetman as he takes up his standard position slightly behind the two other attacking midfielders. This is quite a high-paced attack, the pass comes in, he takes a touch to control the pass and quickly moves the ball along into the path of one of the two Shadow Strikers. The goal is created by a piece of individual brilliance from the Shadow Striker, but the Withdrawn Targetman played his part in this attack by keeping up the tempo of the attack.
It also becomes evident why I chose not to use the hold up ball instruction. Had I instructed the Withdrawn Targetman to hold up the ball, then he might have taken more time on the ball there to allow one of the central midfielders or wingers to link up as well, wasting the available space. Another prime example of the importance of speed in this element of the role is visible in the next clip.
Again, we see a fairly quick and incisive attack. Whilst the attack gets smothered on two occassions, the attacking players constantly try to maintain a high tempo when going forward. The assist is another instance where the Withdrawn Targetman controls the ball and passes it along almost immediately.
In employing a single pivot at the base of offensive structure, I try to ensure that the ball is regularly funnelled from that strata either to the two more advanced attacking midfielders or to the on-rushing wide men, meaning that there is plenty of attacking intent at a fairly high pace. Let’s just have a look at what I mean by that.
In the above image we can see Withdrawn Targetman acting as a pivot in possession. When the pivot receives the pass from the centre back, there is a short lateral pass available, as well as two more risky passes to more advanced players. The pass towards the wing-back is one ideal for stretching the defence, whereas the pass towards the left would be ideal to set up a one-two, which would make the pivot continually available should the ball need to move back to start again.
This aspect of the Withdrawn Targetman is quite common, as the team style is generally centered around ball retention and quick, incisive passing. There is no need for headers, flick-ons and battering ram-esque activities when the ball is being passed from A to B to C in a smooth and silky fashion. What is important is a player who, with his positioning and skill, helps to ensure that the player in ownership of the ball has a variety of options in close proximity so that the ball can be safely shifted to change the angle or the depth of the attack.
The withdrawn targetman, flicking the direct ball on
Whilst I am not blind to the importance of possession, sometimes keeping the ball just isn’t enough to break down a defence. The problem with possession is that, while having the ball is certainly more desirable than not having it, you force the other team into sitting deep in a low block defence. This is the bane of possession-orientated teams such as Barcelona and Spain and to a lesser extent, Pep’s FC Bayern.
When the chips are down and our slick passing isn’t getting the job done, we can switch to a more direct approach, which is when the more brutal side of the Withdrawn Targetman comes into play. The goalkeeper is asked to distribute the ball with a long kick towards the Withdrawn Targetman and the entire team changes its passing-game. You get situations like this one.
You can see that play down the middle gets congested, progress is delayed by a lot of defensive players forming a sort of human wall in the central area of the pitch. At this point, the team plays the ball wide, tries to stretch the defence and whips the ball in high towards the Withdrawn Targetman, who has dropped a bit deeper than the runners ahead of him. His headed through-ball is finished by one of the runners, albeit in an off-side position. Whilst such assists are not uncommon, the following situation is more typical for the targetman behavior we wish to see.
The Withdrawn Targetman is now playing with his back towards the goal and has to beat opposing players for headers, flick ons, and aerial balls played into his chest. He’s a big and strong presence in the AM-strata, strong on the ball and creative with a fantastic first touch. The Withdrawn Targetman is using his athleticism coupled with his technical ability to act as a completely different kind of pivot. Gone is the smooth passing, silky one-touch footballer. The more stereotypical battering-ram now enters the fray to act as a Plan B to break down the defensive and batter through the congested heart of the defence. Let’s look at another match clip.
This is full-blown proper targetman stuff. A long ball fired towards the big guy upfront, who battles a few defenders for possession before flicking the ball towards a team-mate. If you can’t succeed by playing fancy football, you can always try to break through using brute force and that’s where the Withdrawn Targetman comes in. When you are fielding strikers, you can use an actual Targetman, but there is no real role like that in the AM-stratum, so we’ve created a somewhat similar role by asking the goalkeeper to hoof the ball towards the AMC and by applying a more direct passing style.
You can see the long ball coming in, which forces the defenders back, so they do not risk being caught out of position when the ball is flicked on. When the targetman wins the header, he has plenty of options nearby. The two attacking midfielders are making their runs, whereas the central midfielder is available for an easy header back into feet. It really looks like it’s coming together nicely.
The goal-scoring threat
The third dimension of the Withdrawn Targetman’s game is the goal-scoring threat he offers. With the two Shadow Strikers acting as diversions, defenders tend to be rather susceptible to a late run into the box to meet a well-placed cross. That would look a little something like this.
In both clips you can see the same scene developing. You can see the winger beating his marker down the flank before swinging a cross in. The Withdrawn Targetman has made a late run into the box, darting past the two Shadow Strikers and their markers and appearing unmarked in a position to receive the cross and coolly put the ball past the goalkeeper. This is fairly typical for a targetman and our man tends to score a fair few goals like this.
On the other hand, this is usually what happens when the team applies a more direct style of play. We mentioned the more technical and aesthetically pleasing aspect of the Withdrawn Targetman, where he acts more as an advanced pivot. Our physical brute suddenly becomes a smooth technically gifted player, setting up one-two’s before penetrating the opposing box and scoring. Such a move would look a bit like this.
In this case we can see the ball is played in to the Withdrawn Targetman, who is looking to drop off the defensive line to pull the central defenders out of position. As soon as he takes possession of the ball, the two flanking attacking midfielders attack the space that his initial movement has created. On the near side (closest to the ball) the wide player is holding a much wider position to create space while on the far side the wide attacking player has already moved in to connect with the play. The defenders pick up these various moves, but are stretched and thus powerless to resist a quick exchange of passes and a penetrating run into the box.
Guido is the founding father of Strikerless and main nutjob running the show.
29 Comments
UpInTheStand · March 24, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Incredible detail. Great to see how this balances the roles of assisting and goalscoring as my attempts of creating something similar in the past (although in much lesser detail and/or knowledge) found that I either made a target man or a pure assist maker, nothing in between.
strikerlessGuido · March 24, 2015 at 10:31 pm
Thanks mate. I reckon this is the way to go for me, in FM15 anyway.
comeontheoviedo · March 24, 2015 at 10:55 pm
Absolutely bloody brilliant as usual Guido, wonderful detail and yet again taking your style to a different place. Love it.
strikerlessGuido · March 25, 2015 at 10:06 am
I have to Chris, the role isn’t working as well as it used to in FM14.
Red Bulls (@skytalkertv) · March 25, 2015 at 6:43 pm
Might give this one a go when I get home. The idea of using Falcao as a Withdrawn TM…Hmm…with Rooney or Lacazette getting the flick-ons…
strikerlessGuido · March 26, 2015 at 6:36 am
Or you could just stick Fellaini there 😉
Rieftux · March 26, 2015 at 11:02 am
It’s will be better when you have a player like a combination of Messi+Giroud 🙂
strikerlessGuido · March 26, 2015 at 8:34 pm
If only those players were plentiful…
rodrigo feijó (@pilhoverman) · March 26, 2015 at 4:01 pm
great stuff. i’d been playing a trequartista between the shadow strikers lately, will try your approach today.
so you’re playing both with wingers and three players at AMC? that would be something like a 3-4-3-0? i’ve been playing with one, but DMs instead of CMs.
strikerlessGuido · March 26, 2015 at 8:35 pm
The wingers are defensive wingers though, as I have to have some sort of defensive presence out wide.
rodrigo feijó (@pilhoverman) · March 27, 2015 at 4:03 am
holy Bergkamp, this works well. went for the defensive wingers too (was using wide midfielders on support before) and won 11 in 11 so far in denmark. crazy ammounts of possession (i’m still playing short passing), creating chance after chance. btw, settled on a defensive midfielder on support and a regista.
thanks for the ideas Guido! great work as usual
strikerlessGuido · March 27, 2015 at 6:29 am
Yeah, it’s a great little weapon to the strikerless arsenal.
MANUMAD · March 27, 2015 at 6:36 pm
I think Im being a total idiot here but what formation do you use the withdrawn targetman with, exactly?
You talk about SSs next to him yet in previous posts you had bbms rite behind him and IFs on the AML + R strata.
strikerlessGuido · March 27, 2015 at 6:45 pm
It’s a 3-4-3-0 formation I haven’t released yet. Rodrigo has seen the beta phases of it. No IF’s in the clips you’ve seen, mate 🙂 You can expect the new tactic sometime next week.
MANUMAD · March 27, 2015 at 6:37 pm
Sorry for the double post but the engine wasnt allowing me to write more.
People are congratulating you for using defensive wingers… Where? Instead of IFs?
strikerlessGuido · March 27, 2015 at 6:45 pm
3-4-3-0 mate 🙂 Defensive wingers on the midfield to gain some width.
MANUMAD · March 27, 2015 at 9:34 pm
Ah ok! I was wondering whether I am finally getting senile!
Seriously though this is very interesting. Cleon is currently doing crazy things to a 343, trying to use it as a “defensive” set up. Now you are using a vertically compressed 343 and going strikerless with it. We’ re being spoiled!
El-Mano · March 30, 2015 at 4:20 pm
Wonderful reading. But could you share the instructions used for the rest of the players, and team setup?
strikerlessGuido · March 30, 2015 at 5:07 pm
I’m going to share the next generation of tactics in the next few weeks.
Onur C. · April 3, 2015 at 11:24 am
Dirk kuyt is Good with this game mental out of passing
strikerlessGuido · April 3, 2015 at 11:31 am
Yep, but he’d be a short term solution. He’s too old to be of long-term value. Still a very good player though.
zak · April 3, 2015 at 8:20 pm
When will this be released? Cant wait to try it out! Fantastic detail and brilliant ideas as always! Brilliant read!
strikerlessGuido · April 3, 2015 at 8:47 pm
The idea is this weekend 🙂
zak · April 3, 2015 at 9:13 pm
Great news! Looking forward to It!
Strikerless 3.0 – Introducing The Withdrawn Targetman Mk. II | Strikerless · April 4, 2015 at 12:24 pm
[…] and formation-wise, I haven’t really changed much, apart from the introduction of the Withdrawn Targetman Mk. II, the Fellaini-role introduced to the Strikerless game to replace the old Targetganche. I do feel […]
A New Direction; 3-4-3-0 Strikerless | Strikerless · April 6, 2015 at 8:18 am
[…] flank, a defensive midfielder and one box-to-box midfielder and the typical forward trio of a Withdrawn Targetman flanked by two Shadow […]
Strikerless Meets Pulis; The 4-4-2-0 | Strikerless · May 23, 2015 at 7:05 am
[…] the classic big guy targetman, fast guy runner combination. The AM(A) is tweaked to the role of our Withdrawn Targetman, whereas the Shadow Striker runs into space after through balls by nature. Crosses will be coming […]
A Leicester City-Inspired 4-4-2-0 | Strikerless · February 10, 2016 at 12:59 pm
[…] creating a mix between a targetman and a creative, mobile forward, essentially reviving my Withdrawn Targetman experiments from last year and bringing it to a higher […]
Strikerless’ Classic Revival | Strikerless · March 3, 2016 at 8:35 am
[…] year, I attempted to re-invent the whole Withdrawn Targetman role. I require a player who will hold up the ball and bring his team-mates into play, choosing how […]