How to beat Bus Parkers?

Sometimes it is very frustrating to watch my team tear mid table teams apart but draw or lose to relegation battlers.

Against the bottom teams I have literally seen them have 11 men in their box. What is the best way to break these teams down?

I know that my team is very quick. I play 4-1-3-2, and my central 3 midfielders all have about 18 pace and acceleration. But this is no use against teams which park the bus.

I am usually set up like this for most games:

No shouts. I use shouts in match.

Sometimes i play Lidington as TM(s), and sometimes I have a 'passer' type of player (b2b or cm support) rather than 'tackler' in Zuculini's place. The other roles I don't change. Moreira plays CWB(a) because the passer/tackler on the right hand side does not cross very often or go wide. Tao Cun is FB(s) because his crossing is poor (8) and CM(a) provides a ton of width on the left.

I have heard some people say drop deep and invite pressure. Last season I had a lot more success getting in behind teams playing a 4231 with 2 dm's and 3 central midfielders (no attacking mids!) with the 1 isolated striker. That formation did invite a lot of pressure but created some really beautiful football because I was able to use my AP(a) and CM(a)'s killer balls and pace. But this season I moved to 2 strikers and 1 dm because the secondary supporting DM (alongside the anchor man) last season was just not doing anything noticeable and getting average or low ratings. But i am doing worse this season (even though i have a better league position) because i moved that DM up a notch from DMCR into MCR.

Beyond sit deep, what else can i do?

They will play narrow as well, which makes it hard for my advanced playmaker to be effective as he relies on splitting defenses with through balls. But balls don't go through walls. How do i draw them out wider to enable my AP(A) to be more effective?

So yeah I am doing better this season at the moment, but i can't beat the top teams and i really have to grind bottom teams out. I want to win the Prem and i know i have to be better tactically to do it.

It really depends on the context. Despite teams playing defensively, they won't all play exactly the same, and they'll all have different weaknesses to exploit.

When teams park the bus you generally have two choices.. Either you try to just attack the living crap out of them and be relentless, or, you remain patient and try to open them up via precise play.

I think that teams that already play a direct game will naturally struggle in this situation, because it will be difficult to change style drastically, and obviously the space a direct team needs to exploit will be plugged up by tons of men in the box.

Seeing as you are a direct team, the best thing you could do is try to sit back a bit and open up space. You need to draw the other team on to you, and then counter-attack into the space they leave behind. Otherwise, maybe you need to just go with the relentless attack and storm right through them?

Also, because you have such a narrow formation, you really need to try to add some width. At the very least exploit the middle and play wider, I would assume. Try setting some of your attackers to roam a bit more, or perhaps look into changing roles/duties to get away from the "direct" style and be more possession oriented?

It's a pain to deal with, I know. But there is usually something that can be done about it.

OK in my last match I did this vs Atletico Madrid's (away) absurdly offensive 4-2-4

I started off with Defensive (My default philosophy, which i now realise is the wrong choice) and Atletico showed glimpses of weakness every time I would try to hit them on the break. Also I think my choices for pre-match shouts were perfect for what I wanted. It was 0-0 and we were 2-0 down on aggregate. I switched it to Counter and won 3-0!

Here are the match stats:

So it seems my team is much more effective on the counter attack than just plain attacking. That being said, my strikers still did not have a good game and they've had a very poor season compared to last. Will Game (STR, very fast, very athletic, ok technically, ok mentally) scored 22 in 32 last season and has been prolific since I signed him when he was 15 and playing for Hampton and Richmond.

So if I can figure out how to make my strikers more effective I will do even better. I know there are problems with the match engine, so I don't know if it's that. Frankly I think the final patch for FM14 was insufficient.

I will use the same tactics next game against Man United and report back. I have a feeling this will do well against big teams but I'm still not sure on the small teams and I'll report my findings.

Depending on the situation I will either sit back and draw them out or overwhelm them with players in the box. The first approach is useful for when you have a lot of time to break a team down, while I use the second when time is running out and am hoping for a quick, scrappy goal.

Football is all about space and the idea of sitting deep is to maximise this. To do this, I'll instruct my players to drop deep and play wider. What I do next depends on whether the opposing team stays back and concedes possession or starts to come forward.

They sit back: I'll ask my team to play at a lower tempo to further encourage opposing defenders to press us and break their shape. Again, this is the principle of creating space. It also gives your players more time on the ball and thus more chance for them to do something special.

They come forward: When they come forward, there is now more space behind the opposing team. To exploit this, I use Hassle to win the ball back quickly and set a higher tempo with Pass Into Space to move the ball up the field and into the space created before the opposition has a chance to repark the bus. I may also set more direct passing and run at defence as well, depending on the situation.

For the second more desperate last ditch attack, you want to stretch the play laterally as far as possible while squeezing as many players as you can into the box and keep pumping balls in there. Thus Play Wider, Push Higher Up, Higher Tempo, Pump Ball Into Box are all good options. As there is generally more space on the flank Exploit Flanks may also be useful. Shoot On Sight may also be needed if you have a player with a high Long Shots attribute who can smash that 40 yarder in the top corner.

I'm not sure your Athletico examples is that helpful as it doesn't sound like they came with a park the bus attitude.

Anyway, I think Cleon deals with this issue pretty well in his sticky http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/377489-Creating-A-Tactic-Design-Create-and-Maintain - see post #5