I'll be missing some players (U16 girls, non-premier competitive) for next Saturday's game. I've determined that my best chance to take advantage of the strengths I'll have is to play 4-5-1. I'll have a good striker, 3 good center mids, and 2 good outside mids, but not much flexibility in those 6 players. Do any of you have suggestions on how to best use that system of play? My hope is that we'll be able to hold enough possession for the outside mids to play as additional forwards out wide.
You need the lone forward to hold the ball. If they are a true "go forward take chances" type striker this can be problematic when trying to get your midfield involved. The frontrunner needs to play as a target with their back to goal. If they can win the ball and hold it for a touch or two and your midfield can get forward and in support of the target, 4-5-1 can work well. Have you tried a 3-5-2?
Thanks, EJDad. Fortunately, my forward can play that role, so I think we'll be ok there. She's starting to understand that her best chances come when she receives the ball, distributes, then moves to space to receive it back. Certainly works better than turning into a 1v2 (or 3 or 4). I have tried 3-5-2 and had it proven to me that a team needs speed at the back to play with 3. We have precious little speed ANYWHERE and none at the back. We have to play with 4, 1 of them as a committed sweeper, to have any depth and recovery ability.
451 is a good system. It can easily turn into a 433 on the attack. So you should be fine offensively, when you counter your wingers should move up with your AM supporting behind the CF. It would work fine, just practice the formation though. Plus you may not need to have one of the mid's come back on defense on the outside. If you pressure the other teams back with the cf and rm, lm, they may stay back becuase of the pressure of the wings.
As a follow-up - 4-5-1 worked pretty well. We won Saturday - we dominated the midfield and were able to get middies up with the lone striker. We lost Sunday because we played a better team that outplayed and outworked us, so that wasn't due to the system of play. I'm not sure what I'll do the rest of the season.
Good luck Try not to change your formation all the time. Work on Shadow play so they really learn the system.