Defenders dallying on the ball

Hi

Any ideas as to why in the last 10 games of the season just finished my defenders started doing this ?

put creative freedom down, i think that should get them to stop fannying about (using logic not experience)

It just seems odd that they suddenly started doing it.

When does this happen>?

In my last ten league games where my form went down the toilet.

No, I mean in match. When does it occur. Is it when they are passed the ball? Won a header? When does it happen in match?

It seemed to vary - however I had, had a sudden spate of defensive errors.

It seemed to vary - however I had, had a sudden spate of defensive errors.

did you have titus bramble playing for u at the time

Dom

Various ways round this. Like the other poster said, drop their creative freedom to nil. Also look at defensive training (defending, tactics, set peices all help).

Or, knowing FM08, your defenders have been doing this all along and got away with it. One AI team notice it and beat you by exploiting the weakness. The other AI teams now know this and do the same. In other words your tactics have been "cracked".

"Close down their centre backs... they're always dallying on the ball," say the AI managers. Annoying, but real life examples would be when Bolton beat Arsenal and the other "little" Prem team managers saying, "The Arsenal... they don't like it up 'em," and of course the infamous Titus Bramble: "Right lads, you need to aim crosses close to Titus, pass within a few feet of him, or try lobbing it over the top... that's their weakness."

As far as tactics are concerned you might want to increase the pace of your gameplay or go "direct" passing. Can't guarantee it'll work, but these little teaks do make a difference. For me, the last ten games require a slow, short passing game, but only when you've built a top-class team.

I've a few things to add:

Make sure that they have options. If you have both your central midfielders set to a fairly attacking mentality and forward runs often, they may not be "showing" to your defenders, so there's no option in the center of the pitch. (Fix: the MCd discussed in T&TT, less forward runs, lower mentality, so he 'hangs back' a bit.) If you have your fullbacks on a farrow to wingback, and also on "Forward Runs Often", they are pushing all the way up to the left midfield / right midfield position .. which again, means that they aren't "showing" to your defenders. (Fix: Forward Runs Mixed for the DL->WBL player)

If you have both of those set, then there really are no options, and they're dallying on the ball because they don't have anybody to give it to.

If neither of those is the case, then there's a few other things you can try:

Make sure that they don't have "Hold Up Ball" ticked.

I notice my defenders make worse decisions if I set their Mentality to extreme defensiveness. Remember that Mentality is on a sliding scale already, so "Normal" for a striker means "try to score", and "Normal" for a defender means "try to defend". Shading your defenders too far to the defensive side of the scale, you start seeing them put it out for a throw when not under pressure, play horror backpasses to your 'keeper, etc. So, try to keep it in the 5-15 range.

Increase Passing style (as an individual instruction) for those players - more Direct, at least on the Direct side of Mixed even if the rest of the team has Short.

Increase Tempo.

Increase the "Tactical" aspect of their training.

Reduce the amount of pressure you are placing on them in team-talks.

If all else fails, tell your centre backs to run with the ball often! If they're going to stand there and wait for someone to take it off them anyway they may as well go on a run with it instead