Help Figuring out how to perform well in this game

[Guille]

I've started playing FMM recently and I'm struggling at making good performances with the teams I manage. I'm basically interested in having more information about how to achieve better results.

At first, I took a team from England`s lowest division whose expectations were to avoid relegation. At mid season I was at mid table, but after that it started going downhill and I was sacked in March.  I think that my team (St Albans) started losing because I never changed my tactics and I guess that makes you lose performance. After that, I took a newly promoted team in which I had to sign a completely new squad. I didn't accomplish much and I stopped playing after a few months because I was in last place and it didn't look like things would improve.

 

That's when I decided to look things up online and found this forum, which gave me a big insight on how to make things work. I decided to start a new carreer with Barcelona. It's not that I wanted easy wins, but I did want to make it easier to understand the basics.

 

I made two signings: Isaac Succes (Granada's wonderkid) (attacker) and Ignacio Camacho (Malaga's central midfielder).

I kept Barcelona's basic 4-1-2-2-1 formation during this first (aproximately) 15 games, 

Bravo was the goalkeeper but I changed it to Ter Stegen because he allowed many goals (3 Real Madrid, 2 Sevilla, 4 Bilbao, 2 Eibar)

Defenders were Alves (WB), Mascherano (BPD), Piqué (CD) and Alba (WB)

Midfield consists on Iniesta (APM), Camacho (BWM, 8.15 average mark) and Rakitic (B2B)

Attack consists on Messi (Trequartista when in the center, Deep lying forward when in the right), Suárez (same as Messi) and Neymar/Succes (Wings on the left).

Captain is Mascherano and key creator is Messi. Messi is also in charge of corner kicks and free kicks (scored about three this season)

 

Friendly matches went well with 1-0 and 5-1 wins. Then came the Spanish Super Cup against Real Madrid. Lost 2-3 away and tied 0-0 at home. After that I lost the European Super Cup 1-2 against Sevilla. I guess that all of those results were within the possibilities. What I don't understand is what came next. I'll use some matches as examples.

 

Celta: lost 0-1. The ball was divided 50-50 but I couldn't create any serious goal scoring opportunity (although Celta was not particularly deffensive)

Bilbao: lost 2-4. Most goals conceded came from aerial play. That's when I noticed Mascherano wasn't particularly good at it.

Eibar: 2-2. I was winning 2-0, but I conceded 2 goals in the last 10 minutes. I created over a dozen of opportunities and Eibar only 2. I had a posession of over 60%

Granada: won 2-1. I created about 14 opportunities but a slim result.

Malaga: lost 1-2. Again, had a posession of over 60% and created about 16 goal scoring opportunities (14 on target). Malaga only created 2. This was the last game I played and I used a slightly different formation: 4-2-1-2-1 with Bartra (14 in aerial) in the defense, Mascherano and Camacho in the center.

 

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I guess that I'm making good decisions (I keep posession, create numerous opportunities, chose a better goalkeeper) but results are just not going my way. 

[Dec]

The issue is you have 3 defenders who like to step up.

[Guille]

That could explain a few things, but is it really the case here? I mean, I hardly allowed the others team to attack in the past few games, and I always had a ball winning midfielder to assist the defenders. Also, that doesn't explain how Messi, Suárez and Neymar can only do 2 goals after 16 shots.

[Dec]

There is two issues - 1 could be being countered so opposition sit deep knowing you will leave space in behind, the other is all 3 of your forwards aren't finishers and two are the same (passing roles) that stops variety. You need a Poacher in there.