Poor defenders

(I don't know if this should belong in the Tactics forum but...well, I've put it here, so ner)...

Has anybody noticed the unrealistic idioticness of certain players in games when changing tactics or formation? I don't mean idioticness in the sense that my right back boots it at my winger's head and it flies into the middle of my own net coz the 'keeper thinks it's a passback if he picks it up, no, not that.

Basically, I play a 3-5-2 (or 5-3-2, whichever way you look at it - I play two wingbacks) formation and it works wonders. But over the course of my game I've had a number of players sent off, as you would. Depending on the circumstances my actions at this point differ, of course, but just now in a home game against Portsmouth, one I was expected to win, my centre mid was sent off for an elbow. Being the attacking minded manager I am, instead of throwing an extra centre mid on for one of the strikers, I replaced a centre back instead. I then dropped my wing backs to right and left back, creating a 4-3-2 formation (with a lack of width, granted, the 3 in midfield are all centre mids). But I went on to lose 6-0. I could have probably prevented it getting to that stage but walked out of the room at 3-0 to make toast. But what stood out from the three goals I saw was the complete ineptitude of my centre backs. What they did, essentially, was played as if there were 3 (as they woul have before). One drifted towards right side, one towards the left side, leaving a massive gap in the middle of the defence for their lone striker to score 4. Now, I'm no expert on the mind of footballers, but I thought even on a game the defenders would have the capacity to, erm, mark the striker a little bit, and realise that their previous partner has been subbed.

(Before anyone asks, I adjusted the mentality of the wing backs to fairly defensive, which means there's no way they were bombing on and my defenders were having to come across to the full back spots or whatever - I watched it, my centre halves just didn't fill the gap they were supposed to).

I'm sure somebody will provide with me with some sort of tactical bombard of why this happened and what I've done wrong, and please do, because as I could see there wasn't a great deal I could do (you can't give them instructions to defend more centrally, nor change their mentality from 'utter plank' to 'mark your ruddy man'). Anyone who advises I should have 'tight marked' the striker will be shot for thinking I'm stupid enough to not, though, then again, when you're losing 6-0 to Portsmouth you've got to be a bit dim.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Did you change the player instructions for the DCs?

Did you change the player instructions for the WBs that you dropped back to DL & DR?

ive had that happen to me to i lost 1-0 to a stupid defence eror

there player got the ball on the half way line and just ran staright through my defence, no one closed him down, they just moved out the way

Did you change the player instructions for the DCs?

Did you change the player instructions for the WBs that you dropped back to DL & DR?

Yes and yes. You don't take Redditch to the Premiership by being that naive (sorry, that sounded horribly pompous).

Actually I can add my thoughts before you answer.

I suspect you were playing against a 442 with attacking wingers.

Your fullbacks continued to bomb forward as if their were wing backs creating large gaps in your defence.

Your 2 DCs were left to mark 4 attacking players but more specifically your DCs were left 2 on 1 against a winger and a striker and left with the option of sticking with the striker leaving the winger with a run at goal or closing down the winger and trying to block the pass to the striker.

idioticness? Is that even a proper word because Microsoft word or any other dictionary that I've looked at doesn't recognise it? I think you probably mean Idiocy

Thanks for your contribution trekman. I think I probably do mean idiocy. I just googled it and it's defined as 'the act of something pointless such as replying to somebody's post telling them they've typed the wrong word'.

You mentioned lone striker, so the other team is playing 433? The AI fullbacks are very aggressive in that formation. Your fullback and DC will have to deal with the opposing fullback and AML/R causing them to drift wide.

You may have done better if you changed nothing playing a 342.

Interesting, I wonder if the Centreback behaviour has anything to do with them gelling into a 3-5-2 formation?