AI Possession massive

Please can we get some screenshots of your tactics, a save game or pkm of the match where this occurred?

I just had the same, playing as AC Milan at home to Cagliari. On extended highlights half way tru the first half they had 75% possession. I decided to watch the full match and saw them playing vertical passes between the three centerbacks, over and over again. My attackers were not pressing. Changed the line of engagement to much higher and put trigger press on the three center backs in the opposition instructions. Nothing changed, my players refused to press the centerbacks.

Helping out here as I noticed this issue during my save as well. The team I faced played 4 at the back though. Prime examples can be seen between the 30-35 minutes, 40-45' and at the beginning of second half up until 53'. This is hard to spot on any highlights except for full match, but you can notice the AI's possession going ~5% up between highlights on Comprehensive for example. AIPossession.pkm

My tactics below, but I should note that as mentioned before me, I tried tweaking everything from personal instructions to oppositions instructions to the tactics themselves.  

Please let me know if you would like more examples or if would like this to be tested with different tactics.

Here are also the Opposition Instructions. Later in the match I switched off everything from DMCR down and just left the instructions to press/hard tackle on everyone from DR till DMCR. This didn't seem to help.  

Edited October 22, 2021 by Rexxigg

Thanks for providing the further information, we are looking into this.

AI struggles with that too. 36% for ManUtd v Newcastle (result 2-0 win for Utd). Newcastle 664 passes, ManUtd only 295.

332 passes completed just from Newcastles 4 man backline. More than all(!) ManUtd players combined. 92% pass completion rate, by comparison PL average 21/22 is around 81%, highest average is ManCity with 87%. Newcastle 21/22 average is 77%.

I presume its because of the low mentality the AI is playing and they don't bother moving the ball out of their own half and the pressing system, even with the improved to this years game, is not advanced enough to deal with it or disrupt it so defenders are having an easy time circulating the ball between them.

Another example, this time Arsenal with a 5-0 victory so you would assume they massively had control of the ball. Not exactly. 37% possession at home. Pass completion rate from Crystal Palace 92% (IRL league average 81,2%)

Again they didnt bother moving the ball forward and just kept it circulating between their defensive players.

This also happens with AI vs AI games. Look at the stats of big teams playing at home vs small teams. The small teams have the better possession and pass completion %. IMO this ruins the game right now. To win these games when youre the favourite you have to play two strikers and very attacking to get atleast some press on the AI defence. You can also do this because these AI teams have no interest going forward or to counter.

As can be gleaned from other posts in this thread, the core of this issue seems to be the decisionmaking by - and lack of pressure on - centerbacks, who are far too conservative with the ball and complete far too many of their passes.

The attached .pkm is an excellent example - 300-odd passes by Atalanta's CBs, and every CB on both teams has a passing completion percentage well over 95%. This is despite the presence of Bonucci on the Juve team, who has the "Tries Long Passes" PPM, fantastic passing ability, and is encouraged to hit speculative passes into space by the "Pass Into Space" TI. There is simply not a snowball's chance in Hell he should be completing 100% of his passes and making 0 key passes in any game.

Likewise the Atalanta CBs should not have 300 passes between them when Juve's players are explicitly instructed to press them aggressively, and instructed to prevent short distribution by the Atalanta GK.

Atalanta v Juventus.pkm

Edited October 26, 2021 by Sneaky Pete

See similar here. As Liverpool, beat Spurs 4-0 (all good you might say :)). Did it with 47% possession, which doesn't seem too bad, and maybe not unexpected - but Spurs complete 93% of 643 passes and we completed 87% of only 361

Average positions look weird too:

This is the pass map for Spurs' 3 centre backs (Felipe, Romero and Dier who completed 271 passes between them)

 

Van Dijk and Matip made only 92 in total...

Liverpool v Tottenham.pkm

Wow, that last pass map is excellent, and completely encapsulates my issue with how CBs currently behave. There's literally not a single ball into the opponent's 3rd from their own half in all 271 passes - something that should be happening quite regularly with most modern ball-playing CBs.

Edited October 26, 2021 by Sneaky Pete

Thanks all for the examples, it's genuinely really helpful. The issue is still with the Match team, but rest assured they'll do their best to make tweaks and changes soon.  

Same issue.
The Line of engagement and pressure intensity dont work. Combined with a very conservative oponent i'm having lots of games with easy wins where i have very % of possession.

There are some examples:

 

 

 

 

 

In this particular case against Atl. Madrid it seems like they dont even try to win:

 

 

 

This happens a lot. What im seing in comprehensive highlights is that there no pressure applied on the defense and they just keep cycling the ball.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Diogo28

It also doesn't help that AI do not seem to see the urgency to make more risky forward passes when behind. It doesn't make sense to get trashed and then just chill at the back with passes between the defenders.

This bug also occurs a lot in cup games where the difference between teams is very big. I'm at work right now so can't provide .pkm, but i remember winning a cup game with 5-0 and only 25% possession, while the AI opponent was just chilling at the back.

(POSTED IN ANOTHER THREAD 1ST BUT THIS SEEMS LIKE THE RIGHT PLACE NOW)

 

6 months into my first season and i've yet to see a team finish with less than a 90% pass completion ratio( pcr) against me. i have 2 tactics, a tika-taka possesion and a gegenpress high intensity tactic. makes no difference which one i choose, the opposition be that athletico madrid, man city, burnley or blackburn rovers always finish with 90% +. I decided to look around the leagues. every one has a spread between 92%-86% be that league 2 or la liga. every one. approx. 140 teams with the lowest at 86%. that's scunthorpe united playing like man city. no long ball, no route 1, just every team attempting to play like city. my u-18s team have a league high 92% pcr with an average passing attribute of 10, technique of 10 and vision of 9. that's higher than the 1st team but not as high as sporting lisbon's competition high of 94% in the champion's league. in-fact, nicolas ottamendi at benfica has completed over 1000 succesful passes and misplaced 3( yes, three!) i played a champion league game against dinamo zagreb where they finished with 95% pcr against my own 91%. even though i was playing with a much higher line of engagement and much higher defensive line with 3 pressing forwards and 3 ball-winning midfielders. these examples arent outliers, they are replicated throughout my save. I'm bamboozled, i'm almost at the point where i'm left to assume that player attributes and team tactics have no influence on the game and are mere window dressing for a very very rudimentary algorithm.

 

just done a quick rummage around for the actual irl figures and in the football league, wycome wanderers come in with a league low of 57.4% and man city with a leagues high of 88.8% the next highest is Chelsea whose 86% is equal too or bettered by every single team i can see in my save. that's burnley, wycome, every u-18 and u23 team, every league 2 team, every team in the champions league( including qualifiers). literally every team in my save are out tika-taki'ing guardiola/ barcelona and NOTHING i do seems to make any difference