Help with 3 Central Defenders-Defence

I'm trying to get my 3-5-2 tactic to work but I am unsure about the settings for my defence. The problem I have is that every time the opposition attacks via one of the wings, my DC's are rooted to the spot in the middle of the penalty box, marking 1-2 players, usually also supported by my DM. I have set man-marking and tight-marking for all of them. Meanwhile the attacking winger can either directly strike the ball unchallenged at goal or cross the ball to the unmarked attacking winger on the other side who will then easily score. My wingers don't really care about the opposition wingers, although they are on support and have a quite low mentality. What can I do about it? Any suggestions how to spread around my players around in the defence area?

My tactics are:

GK - Sweeper - Defending

DCl - Stopper - Defending

DC - Cover - Defending

DCr - Stopper - Defending

DM - Defensive Midfielder - Defending

MC - Box-to-Box - Support

AML - Winger - Support

AMC - Advanced Playmaker - Attacking

AMR - Winger - Support

STl - Target Man - Support

STr - Poacher - Attack

Thanks for your help!

try your left and right central defenders as zonal marking

Thank you, it improves the situation slightly as the left and the right defender now play a bit wider. I also tried 'hug touchline' and 'roam from position' but that wasn't very helpful. So I'll keep that 'zonal marking' setting for now and watch out for further tips

BTW the tactic is on 'accomplished'.

If you want your wingers to play more defensive then you'll have to drop them back to MR/ML. In this case they will naturally drop back to wingback roles when you don't have the ball. Its not ideal but its the answer.

I've never liked 3CBs, both in the game and in real life.

Too often, the opponents will play with (or switch to) a lone striker and 2 wingers and then you end up with your wingbacks stifled, and since you will be lacking in midfield, it allows the other team much more possession.

It's really hard to make that system work.

That's why except for Serie A that system isn't used anywere else in the world.It's too easy to break.

Thanks for your answers. It's hard to accept that this tactic might not work in FM11, as it easily won me the treble three times in a row with Ajax in FM10.

Actually I don't struggle against 4-3-3 teams (1 Striker + 2 Wingers), in fact I managed to win against Real. But any midtable 4-4-2 team (2 Strikers + 2 Wingers/Midfielders) will tear me to pieces. If you look at the picture it's not an issue of players lacking in the defence zone but rather their positioning.

I'm going to FM10 now and try to rebuild the tactic for FM11 although I know that with the ME changes the outcome might be different. It's worth a try. Cheers for sharing your thoughts. Feel free to post further ideas

Err... you can't simply use FM10 tactic files with FM11, can you?

This is a very hard tactic to implement in FM, in real life teams that play with 3 at the back don't really defend with 3 at the back and thats the problem.

Basically you have 3 centre backs, 2 of which are comfortable going wide to close down wingers and your defensive midfielder has to be comfortable playing as a centre back so as soon as one of your CB goes wide he drops in the centre to play CB.

Very hard to make this happen in FM, I would suggest playing around to try and make the 2 side CB's play a lot wider and then have the DM ultra defensive, possibly man marking on him so he only drops down when theres an extra man with the other zonal. I would also suggest having your wingers with a little defensive nature, perhaps closing down more than normal and just enough so they track back enough to let the CB come out, otherwise the rest of the attacking players don't matter.

Thanks for your answers. It's hard to accept that this tactic might not work in FM11, as it easily won me the treble three times in a row with Ajax in FM10.

Actually I don't struggle against 4-3-3 teams (1 Striker + 2 Wingers), in fact I managed to win against Real. But any midtable 4-4-2 team (2 Strikers + 2 Wingers/Midfielders) will tear me to pieces. If you look at the picture it's not an issue of players lacking in the defence zone but rather their positioning.

I'm going to FM10 now and try to rebuild the tactic for FM11 although I know that with the ME changes the outcome might be different. It's worth a try. Cheers for sharing your thoughts. Feel free to post further ideas

Err... you can't simply use FM10 tactic files with FM11, can you?

No, that wont work unfortunately.

Regarding the problem with 3CB, I didn't really mean 4-3-3 specifically, a 4-4-1-1 or 4-5-1 will be equally as effective. The problem is more that you end up with 5 defenders against the opposition's 4 thus giving them the extra man. It doesn't really matter how they arrange themselves - the problem is still the same. You end up with 3CBs against 1 striker.

You can import tactics but I don't advise it due to ME changes.

I just realized that, too. I imported my old tactics and won 4-3 in a game I lost 2-5 and 2-4 before. Still I concede too much. This must be because crosses are more effective in FM11 and thus the 'free' winger of the opposition will receive the ball more often. Anyway I hope that with a bit of tweaking and gelling, I can establish my 3-5-2 (some may call it 3-3-4) in FM11.