Defenders going walkabouts - anyone else had it?

Hello,

I am playing as Tottenham in FM07 and over 4 years, I have acquired an excellent team on paper. We got taken over by a rich chairman in the 2nd year and I was given a lot of money to spend, so my first 11 is good and should be capable of winning the league. However, I have finished 4th two years running and am finding it really hard to break into the top 3. I can't seem to get any points at all from the usual "big 4" and teams like Everton and Aston Villa always beat me too.

I have no problem scoring goals, but defensively, I always seem to concede the same sort of goals, so I need your help in eradicating that.

The problem I have is illustrated really nicely in the 4 images below. My central defenders never seem to stay central and they always leave massive holes right through the middle.

The first image shows Aston Villa playing down the left hand side. Their 28 is Sunli Tuncay and he is pretty well marked by my right-back Rafinha. The ball is being passed to Tuncay by the Aston Villa midfielder, number 26. The two Aston Villa strikers, Rodrigo Palacio (17) and Michael Owen (25) are being marked pretty well by my two defenders Jonathan Woodgate (5) and Georgio Chiellini (17), who's marking and concentration stats are high, and have been set to Tight Marking and Man Marking. The only problem seems to be where my other DC has gone, Ledley King, number 26. He is set to Man Mark Michael Owen, but for some reason, he's run away somewhere, so Chiellini has filled in for him. I've no problem with that, Chiellini has identified a problem and filled in, that's good.

In the second image, taken 4 seconds later, Tuncay received the ball and has found some space away from Rafinha. My number 5 Woodgate has inexplicably left Palacio, presumably to try and stop Tuncay, but in doing so, has left it 3 on 1 against Chiellini. At this point, I am hoping King will get back and at least make it 3 on 2.

The third image, taken 1 second after the second, shows Tuncay has cut inside, and Rafinha hasn't stopped him at all, and Tuncay has curled a ball towards Palacio and Owen. Chiellini (number 17) is now definitely 3 on 1 and King hasn't made any attempts whatsoever to get back in. King's pace is 18 compared to Owen's 13, by the way, so it's not a case of King not being able to get back.

The last image shows the ball, having being played over Chiellini's head, reached Owen, who volleyed it into the corner. Aston Villa won the game 2-1. King did manage to get back, but decided to mark someone else (the Villa 24, who was their midfielder Steven Davis), despite being set to man mark Owen, and Owen being blatantly the most threatening player.

I concede a lot of goals like this, where my defenders decide to run off somewhere and leave it 2 or 3 on 1 at the back. All my defenders creative freedoms are set to very low, and their mentalities are defensive.

Can anyone help me to understand and stop this?

Thanks.

Many have similar problems, but there is no clear answer. My defenders usually respond well, but unfortunately I get an absurd amount of missed interception messages after goals have been scored. So while their movement looks OK, the AI seems to decide that a goal is needed, and my talented defenders give them their goal through interceptions and own goals. In your scenario, there is no question my center back would likely have powered a header straight into my goal, instead of drifting away and marking the wrong man.

But where is number 5 going? What has he seen? I thought he might have been going to give Rafinha a hand, but you don't leave 2 on 1 right in the middle of the goal to go and help someone that's really good at recovering!

I mean, just compare picture 1 to picture 4. I really need to figure out a way to stop it as it's costing my team quite heavily, and I can't get past the ceiling that's 4th place!

Any ideas, people?

Usually if a fullback gets beat by a winger cutting in a central defender will step up to address it. Then everyone behind him shifts over 1. So the other central defender marks near post guy and the left fullback drops in to mark the guy towards far post, with other midfielders dropping as as fast as they can. You need to tell us what your formation is, and what numbers are playing which positions. Is Chiellini your left full-back, or a central defender? Do you play with three central defenders? If it is not Chiellini, which number is your left full-back?

I play a 4-4-2.

Rafinha is my right back - he's over trying to deal with Tuncay crossing. The two people in the central defensive positions are Woodgate (DC) and Chiellini (DL). My other DC is King, number 26 who's trying to get back, but doesn't make enough effort and doesn't mark the right person when he gets there.

In picture 1, I'm not entirely sure why Chiellini and King's positions were almost reversed, they should have been in each other's positons.

In that case, I have no good explanation. Woodgate and Chiellini are responding correctly. King has taken a seat on the pitch and is picking flowers, or chasing a butterfly?

Have you tried zonal marking? I find it keeps the team in much better shape than man-marking which can cause huge holes and strange positionings like you are seeing.

You could increase their creative freedom - they are world-class defenders so should have a pretty good idea how to defend if you give them licencse to ignore any tactical mistakes you might make.

Lastly check to see if your DC's are going forward for throw-ins. If so they may take a while to get back into position after the throw.

I would advise you not to watch on 3D as defender movement looks even worse on that.

Ledley King was looking for the injury table.

Oh, this is FM07? This will be solved by FM09 I assure you!

I think you might want to bold the FM07 part, or put it in the title, though honestly it doesn't look too much different than FM09.

Oh, this is FM07? This will be solved by FM09 I assure you!

I think you might want to bold the FM07 part, or put it in the title, though honestly it doesn't look too much different than FM09.

Haha, I completely missed that this was 07.

I have recently started playing FML and the ME is so completly different. The fullbacks are like gods with a serious performance enhancing drug cocktail taken before each match. they block ALL crosses or tackle ALL wingers before they get a cross in. I had a match where i had 0 crosses completed 28 attempted. All blocked. Are fullbacks the size of fuel tankers in FML?

The irony of course is that its completely the opposite in FM 2009. There needs to be a balance between the 2 because it spoils both games.

Have you tried zonal marking? I find it keeps the team in much better shape than man-marking which can cause huge holes and strange positionings like you are seeing.

You could increase their creative freedom - they are world-class defenders so should have a pretty good idea how to defend if you give them licencse to ignore any tactical mistakes you might make.

Lastly check to see if your DC's are going forward for throw-ins. If so they may take a while to get back into position after the throw.

I too was going to suggest this (zonal) although i'd leave his original defensive settings to defend deep & creativity set to low. if succesful may be able to bump up cre & def accordingly.