Insane defending

As an experiment I set my back four to man mark - my defenders ended up on screen about 3mm from my goal leaving the opposition midfielders to run riot.

Surely in reality they wouldn't do that.

Im sure man marking was a massive problem in FM08, it is better to mark zonally so your defenders will work more as a unit, posting in the tactics forum may get a more elaborate response than mine!

some sorta mucked up bug or summin....

I always have man marking ticked in my game and it never fails.

Im sure having it set individually doesn't work mate!

They were set to mark specific players.

Screenshot would go a long way to showing what you mean and whether or not anyone can help alleviate the problem

But if you are talking about what I think you are talking about then I believe (based on experience so could be complete nonsense) it has to do with specific man marking, defensive line as well as general behaviour of defending players 'collapsing' towards the goal when the opposition gets deep with the ball regardless of how many opposition players are actually in an advanced position.

What's the best way of getting a screen shot - I used to know but it's slipped my mind.

Depends what you want of your players.

When I face a 3-4-3 with my 4-4-2, I switch from my usual approach (Zonal) to a specific-man-marking approach.

For me, that's: DR, DC, and DL set up to mark the three opposition forwards, "loose", low closing down.

Other DC set "Zonal", "loose", closing down just a smidge under center.

ML, MC, MC, and MR set up to explicit man-mark the four oppoisition midfielders, "tight", high closing down.

Yeah, my defenders wind up essentially ignoring the opposition midfield - but the "other DC" is available almost as a sweeper, to pick up anybody that beats his man in the centre of the park. My tight-marking, high-closing-down midfield ensure that the opposition midfield doesn't have enough space to work with.

I have never seen the problem of too much collapsing back towards the goal that you and isuckatfm describe.

One interesting thought there - what "Mentality" did you have them set on? In my experience, a defender who is basically on "Normal" Mentality is fairly defensive - in other words, Mentality is relative *to his base position*. An extra-defensive defender makes a lot more mistakes - horror backpasses, putting it out for a corner when not under pressure, etc. Therefore I've gotten in the habit of not ever setting Mentality below about 5 for any player, and my defenders are usually on a 6 to an 8.

Another interesting thought is "Forward Runs" - I've found that a defender on "Forward Runs Rarely" tends to back off of lose balls that are in easy reach of him. From the screenies of FM'09, you'd see that expressed as DC with a barrow! ... and he certainly behaves like it. However, "Forward Runs Normal" results in a DC who is willing to go get a loose ball, if it makes sense ... and does not give me a DC who is willing to go haring upfield to join the attack.

In combination with the defense I've outlined for the 3-4-3, I usually see the 3 "man" defenders stick with their man, while the "Zonal" defender goes after the loose ball ... but if one of the "man" defenders opts for the loose ball, the "Zonal" defender is available to watch his back.

Hope some of that was informative.

Depends what you want of your players.

When I face a 3-4-3 with my 4-4-2, I switch from my usual approach (Zonal) to a specific-man-marking approach.

For me, that's: DR, DC, and DL set up to mark the three opposition forwards, "loose", low closing down.

Other DC set "Zonal", "loose", closing down just a smidge under center.

ML, MC, MC, and MR set up to explicit man-mark the four oppoisition midfielders, "tight", high closing down.

Yeah, my defenders wind up essentially ignoring the opposition midfield - but the "other DC" is available almost as a sweeper, to pick up anybody that beats his man in the centre of the park. My tight-marking, high-closing-down midfield ensure that the opposition midfield doesn't have enough space to work with.

I have never seen the problem of too much collapsing back towards the goal that you and isuckatfm describe.

One interesting thought there - what "Mentality" did you have them set on? In my experience, a defender who is basically on "Normal" Mentality is fairly defensive - in other words, Mentality is relative *to his base position*. An extra-defensive defender makes a lot more mistakes - horror backpasses, putting it out for a corner when not under pressure, etc. Therefore I've gotten in the habit of not ever setting Mentality below about 5 for any player, and my defenders are usually on a 6 to an 8.

Another interesting thought is "Forward Runs" - I've found that a defender on "Forward Runs Rarely" tends to back off of lose balls that are in easy reach of him. From the screenies of FM'09, you'd see that expressed as DC with a barrow! ... and he certainly behaves like it. However, "Forward Runs Normal" results in a DC who is willing to go get a loose ball, if it makes sense ... and does not give me a DC who is willing to go haring upfield to join the attack.

In combination with the defense I've outlined for the 3-4-3, I usually see the 3 "man" defenders stick with their man, while the "Zonal" defender goes after the loose ball ... but if one of the "man" defenders opts for the loose ball, the "Zonal" defender is available to watch his back.

Hope some of that was informative.

Too many words this early.

That paragraph made my head hurt.

Depends what you want of your players.

When I face a 3-4-3 with my 4-4-2, I switch from my usual approach (Zonal) to a specific-man-marking approach.

For me, that's: DR, DC, and DL set up to mark the three opposition forwards, "loose", low closing down.

Other DC set "Zonal", "loose", closing down just a smidge under center.

ML, MC, MC, and MR set up to explicit man-mark the four oppoisition midfielders, "tight", high closing down.

Yeah, my defenders wind up essentially ignoring the opposition midfield - but the "other DC" is available almost as a sweeper, to pick up anybody that beats his man in the centre of the park. My tight-marking, high-closing-down midfield ensure that the opposition midfield doesn't have enough space to work with.

I have never seen the problem of too much collapsing back towards the goal that you and isuckatfm describe.

One interesting thought there - what "Mentality" did you have them set on? In my experience, a defender who is basically on "Normal" Mentality is fairly defensive - in other words, Mentality is relative *to his base position*. An extra-defensive defender makes a lot more mistakes - horror backpasses, putting it out for a corner when not under pressure, etc. Therefore I've gotten in the habit of not ever setting Mentality below about 5 for any player, and my defenders are usually on a 6 to an 8.

Another interesting thought is "Forward Runs" - I've found that a defender on "Forward Runs Rarely" tends to back off of lose balls that are in easy reach of him. From the screenies of FM'09, you'd see that expressed as DC with a barrow! ... and he certainly behaves like it. However, "Forward Runs Normal" results in a DC who is willing to go get a loose ball, if it makes sense ... and does not give me a DC who is willing to go haring upfield to join the attack.

In combination with the defense I've outlined for the 3-4-3, I usually see the 3 "man" defenders stick with their man, while the "Zonal" defender goes after the loose ball ... but if one of the "man" defenders opts for the loose ball, the "Zonal" defender is available to watch his back.

Hope some of that was informative.

Nicely put and for those people willing to read it some precise and accurate information. The later parts about the behaviour of the centre-backs is particularly worth reading.

You obviously watch more 2-D than real football