Introduction
Here we go, it is my first tactical post. Today I will be analysing the role of Inside Forward, tell you the best ways to make it effective and which kinds of players to utilise it with.
Inside Forwards are becoming a bigger and bigger part of modern football, and now you see many great players in real life such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Eden Hazard, and Gareth Bale thriving with that kind of role. Although those players are described as wingers, their job is very different from more of a traditional player down the flanks such as Di Maria. For example if Di Maria was played down the right he would probably put a cross into the area looking for Benzema/ Morata/ Jese whereas Bale or Ronaldo would cut in and smash an effort at goal. Both roles have up sides and down sides, it is up to you to decide which one will make your team be deadly in front of goal.
Important Attributes to Have
There is a number of extremely important attributes that an inside forward needs to be able to perform well. I am not going to say exact numbers that attributes must be above because even if 11 dribbling isn’t great for a top league if you are in the Conference North/ South it is excellent.
Pace/ Acceleration: This is absolutely vital for any player down the flanks no matter what role they play. Players who lack this will get bullied by opposition full backs and not be able to cut in quickly enough to get a shot on net.
Dribbling: This one is a bit self explanatory. Your inside forwards will often leave you frustrated if they can’t dribble past your opponent. Many attacks could go to waste this way.
Finishing: The thing that seperates good wingers and world class wingers is their ability to find the back of the net. After they’ve nut-megged the full back, cut inside, and dummied past the center back they still need to put the ball past the keeper.
Long Shots: Against organized and compact teams who drop deep, you will need to have another way of scoring and long shots is certainly one of them. Last year this was key for Gareth Bale when Spurs were struggling to break down West Ham, Southampton, West Brom, and many other small sides.
First Touch: The importance of first touch is often underestimated by many FM players. This attribute is a neccesity for any inside forward. Without a good first touch, a player will often fail to keep the ball from going out for a throw in, not control long passes, or lose the ball in tight areas.
Cristiano Ronaldo is an example of the perfect Inside Forward.
The Pros of Inside Forwards
There is lots of positives to using inside forwards in your tactic. First of all, they can expose a slow defence so badly that it will look like a cricket scoreline. Inside forwards can completely stretch a defence and ruin the team’s match plan. They do this by drawing opposition full backs in and creating space for your teams wing backs to get down the flank. This may lead the opposition to either have their center back come out and leaving the middle exposed or having their wide midfielders track back which takes away their attacking threat. Inside forwards although are mostly selfish, but can still get assists from occasional crosses or quick passes in the box. Another huge plus is the fact that they are excellent helping out with build up play. When your team isn’t connecting passes you can get them to drop back and support your midfielders. I will now show some examples of these things in-game using Ronaldo and Bale.
These are the specific instructions I put on Ronaldo and Bale. They are not neccesary but I would reccomend them if you want to really utilise your inside forwards.
Here we see Ronaldo, who was more out wide before, sprint to support Coentrao when he didn’t have any options other than passing back. Not a huge moment but shows that IFs are great for build up play.
Ronaldo again checks in to get the ball out wide…
Cuts in very slightly, you can see Benzema making a great run…
Ronaldo ends up playing a great over the top ball to Benzema, who can’t finish off the chance.
When Bale gets the ball here, 2 players (11 and 10) close him down leaving Carvajal open on the wing.
Carvajal receives the ball with a decent amount of space, which he uses to cross the ball to Benzema who again misses.
Here I just want to show the usefull positioning of both Bale and Ronaldo. When either of them picks up the ball they have plenty of space to cut in or to accelerate at full speed out wide.
This was a but of a quiet game for our 2 IFs but they still proved to be dangerous assets in certain situations.
The Cons of Inside Forwards
The biggest con of using IFs is the lack of service to your striker. Big target men who like aerial battles will go to waste because they don’t get any crosses to them and usually the only way poachers can score is by doing the work on their own or off of rebouds from the IF’s shots. When you are coming up against pacey and strong defences who drop deep you may also have some problems breaking them down and a couple big players in the box would be much more useful. Another problem I’ve had is that they don’t track back enough leavig my flanks exposed.
Hazard, an Inside Forward, didn’t track back enough against Atletico Madrid and his team suffered. This can also happen in Football Manager.
Formations for Inside Forwards
This one is a defensive 4-3-3 that relys on IFs do to a lot of the creating and goalscoring. If they can do that then you will be able to grind out victories but if they can’t it can mean lots of 1-0 losses or 0-0 draws.
This 4-2-3-1 I’ve used to great success with both Chelsea and Roma. The IFs have much more help on the attack and it gives you some very free flowing beautiful football.
Yep, you heard me, strikerless! Just tested a couple of these formations out last night to great success and this one has an IF to help sharpen your attack. Credit has to go to @MerryGuido for this one (you can check out his blog for more of these: http://strikerless.wordpress.com).
Other formations can be attacking 4-4-2s (more like a 4-2-2-1-1) or 3 at the back formations with wingers.
Hopefully you’ve found this a good read or even are inspired to try something new with inside forwards. You can follow me on Twitter @thekillerpassfm for updates on new posts or make a Word Press account and follow my blog that way. Thanks for Reading!
The Killer Pass 