Narrow Pitch = Epic Losses

On my current file i'm Man Utd and i've beat liverpool, chelsea, man city and tottenham home and away this year but everytime we play someone from the bottom of the table we get battered 2 or 3 nill! I've tried every single different combination of tactics to beat teams who have narrow pitches but having absolutely no success what so ever. Does anyone know how to play against a team with a narrow pitch and negative tactics? cos if they do i'd love to know!

Update - Just got battered 4-0 of sunderland who also had a narrow pitch. Should probably mention i'm using a 4-4-2 formation, shorter passing, very fluid and man marking, everything else is on default or mixed.

I find direct passing more effective at breaking down teams like that.

If it's a long, narrow picth then one thing to consider is to stagger the formation, so go from playing a flat 4-4-2 to a diamond so your players are better spread up the pitch. A more direct passing style will also help get the ball to your attackers quicker as the ball won't get bogged down in midfield.

cheers guys i'll give it a go, sunderland had a short narrow pitch tried everything but a change of formation, will definitly be setting out differently next time.

Good luck bud, let me know how it goes.

Tired what you suggested while playing QPR in the FA cup at their ground which was also narrow, the direct passing definitly helped us more than shorter passing would have. Tried playing 4-4-2 diamond which didn't really help, they got alot more possesion in midfeild and we went in 1-1 at half time, considering we were playing lower opposition we didn't dominate the game as much as i would of liked us to, only really got 3 chances until i changed the formation again to 1 up front and 5 in midfield (4-1-2-2-1) then once we scored we really dominated the game as they went 4-2-4 giving us the whole midfield. Next time i play on a narrow pitch i'm going to try and pack the midfield see if that helps. I'll let you know what happens.

i have also just played QPR away in fa cup and welbeck scored 4. won 4-1.

with short passing and 442 so maybe its just your defence is the problem

Glad to see an improvement in your results. I picked up a lot in the demo this year and found that actually pre season - something I normally skip through and let the ass man do - is very very useful at helping you tweak tactics. Play a variety of teams and find what combats different teams and styles the best.

Obviously you are quite far in to this season so ride it out and maybe don't be too disheartened by any under performance then next pre season set your friendlies up (mostly away as Utd don't need the money) and tinker like you're Claudio Ranieri!

lol yeah i'll have a mess around with new tatics in pre-season. I'm doing really well apart from the past few results away to lower teams, i'm top of the league 8 points clear, played 25 games and hadn't lost one until i played burnley away.

My defence is fine, i was playing scott martin (regen from celtic) vidic, sakho and rafael, all solid defenders, not had any problems with any of them all season, i think bossing the midfield is the key to beating the lower teams with narrow pitches.

You lost away at Burnley... Just like real life.

Maybe midfield is your next area to look at then - to be fair Utds midfield has looked a little doughy IRL this season.

lol yeah unfortuantly just like real life, and it was the same bloke who scored the winning goal! I should probably mention that this is my 4th season into the game, started at boca, then went onto valencia and now i'm at united. Their midfield is pretty good, it consists of carrick, hargreaves, galvan, guarente, fletcher, anderson, feghouli, navas, ljajic, tosic, nani and vucinic, so although theres room for improvement their definitley good enought to crush teams like QPR, Burnely and Cardiff! But like united in real life i think i'm lacking a creative midfielder in the middle, hopefully galvan will come good soon otherwise i may have to spend some serious money on david silva!

same thing happened again, away to sunderland got beat 2-1. Started off with an unorthadox formation 4 in defence, 1 defensive mid, 2 wingers, 2 attacking mids and 1 striker, playing default passing style, went 2-0 down at half time so i changed the formation to a standard 4-5-1 and went attacking then to overload, then we got a goal back, looked a bit more threatening but not enough to win the game. Going to stat the next "narrow pitch" game attacking 4-5-1, might even start overload. I'll let you know how it goes!

Good luck to you. Quite an impressive career too, all with the same manager I presume?

yeah all the same manager and same file. I was really surprised at how fast it took me to get to the top, only took me 3 good seasons to get at man utd. Won 4 league titles and their equivilent of the champions league at boca then had a good season at valencia (3rd league finish and spanish cup final loss) then i was offered the man utd job after fergie retired. I'm pretty sure i wasn't their first choice though.

it took u 3 good seasons to get to utd?

u won 4 leagues with boca and then 1 season with valencia.

surely this equals 5 seasons and not 3?

in argentina you play 2 leagues in one year (each one last 6 months)

No i'm in my 4th season now, almost finished it. Won 4 league titles in argentina, they play 19 games in the first half of the season = 1 title, then another 19 games after christmas break = 2 titles, then an overall title (all 38 games combined) = 3rd league title then i played another 6 months at boca and finished the first half of the season and won the title again then valencia offered me an job towards the end of their season, so really i only played 1 and a half seasons at boca and 1 and a half at valencia.

Why do we have to set our pitch dimensions at the start of the season and stick with these?

Watched the Arsenal v Wolves game tonight and the comentator made a remark about Wolves reducing their pitch width to the absolute minimum allow under league rules in the hope that it would stop Arsenal's creativity.

I remember this happening last season as well in a match that Arsenal played so its obviously not against any league rules to do this so why is it not in the game?

Btw it didn't help Wolves as they lost 4-1!

No i'm in my 4th season now, almost finished it. Won 4 league titles in argentina, they play 19 games in the first half of the season = 1 title, then another 19 games after christmas break = 2 titles, then an overall title (all 38 games combined) = 3rd league title then i played another 6 months at boca and finished the first half of the season and won the title again then valencia offered me an job towards the end of their season, so really i only played 1 and a half seasons at boca and 1 and a half at valencia.

sorry, didnt realise this was the way the league was played in argentina.

very strange!