Honest discussion about Defending

Ok people, lets be civil.

In all honesty everyone one has some beef with what they call, leaks, lack of tackling, lack of marking whatever. Maybe we can all talk about this, find strong points and weak points that we are doing and everyone can help everyone with defense.

Now I know the Match Engine isnt flawed, because I see defenders with high ratings, and high tacking stats. Even in my game, the marking that my players produce is actually kinda good. For me, I can't get my defenders to close down. I've even tried putting the defender on stopper, but it open holes on my back line. My DMC, when I use the position, closes down every chance he gets forcing a pass. But if a defender is defending an attacker, he just stays infront of him forcing a long shot.

Question is, how do we get defenders to hold their line and make tackles. Anyone have success. Maybe less closing down with hard tackling. Seriously the more people that puts there imput in, the more answers we could get

The coding is bugged. Its not yours or anyone elses tactics that have made defending go bad.

SI are trying to fix it.

Defending certainly needs work, but if anything it's as much to do with the default settings for players in the tactics wizard as it is the ME. I've found a lot of my defensive problems to be due to it appearing the case that players are running straight through my defence. I think in actual fact the 3D representation isn't too accurate, and actually it's the case that the striker is able to either turn the defender high up the pitch, or simply catch them out of position, leaving them running back towards their own goal.

I've tried to counter such by playing a very deep defensive line and high closing down, but this too has it's issues. Too often I find either players not being closed down enough, or it being too easy for through balls to be played through the middle once one or both of the DCs have stepped up to close down.

Putting a DM in can prevent the need for a 'stopper' but only if correctly utilised. I've found that an anchorman will be hopelessly ineffective if your defensive line is too deep, and so instead a standard defensive midfielder may be the choice. Particularly as you're most likely sacrificing an attacking player, you still want some extra support going forward, even if just a DM who isn't giving the ball away needlessly and is winning it back in more dangerous positions.

In order to counter the threat of wingers I've found wingbacks much more effective than fullbacks - acting almost as a deterrent to wingers, instead forcing them to pass, allowing you to get more men back.

At present I'm thus playing a formation that can probably be best described as a 2-3-2-1-2. Bear in mind that even the best defenders make mistakes, and even the best defences and formations can be breached. Players have off days and on days - but you've got to make the most of what you can and try to limit/reduce all the potential threats as best you can. Unless your players are an absolute mile above their opposition, and unless they're on form, you'll struggle to constantly be perfect at the back.

Also remember, attack is the best form of defence. The other team can't score goals if they don't have the ball, and who cares if they do if you can score more?

Anyone else got something to add to this? I was quite proud of the above post.

I would only like to add that the issues with defending don't really bother me because I don't expect the game to be particularly accurate and overall I think it does a fine job of getting more things right than it does wrong. Of course, this is the crux of the matter, since one only tends to notice the faults whereas the good points go unnoticed. At the end of the day, we can't expect it to be exactly like real football, and so must expect every match engine to be flawed.

But I think you summed it up nicely Hershie, and the fact that we CAN get away with playing these sort of strategies in the game and see fairly realistic results from it, show that the match engine is heading in the right direction.

I would only like to add that the issues with defending don't really bother me because I don't expect the game to be particularly accurate and overall I think it does a fine job of getting more things right than it does wrong. Of course, this is the crux of the matter, since one only tends to notice the faults whereas the good points go unnoticed. At the end of the day, we can't expect it to be exactly like real football, and so must expect every match engine to be flawed.

But I think you summed it up nicely Hershie, and the fact that we CAN get away with playing these sort of strategies in the game and see fairly realistic results from it, show that the match engine is heading in the right direction.

Match engine is the most important part of the game i think. After all the money spent on C.ronaldo, dont you want him to show you what he's got? I dont care about transfer bugs, budget bugs, or any other bug, the match engine to me must be almost equal to real life football. It just feels so good when your starting strikers are injured and you have to gamble with your 17 year old striker and watch him score 1-2 touch goals and stuff like that