Dealing with the AMC threat

[Eddie Boop]

Playing a 4-2-3-1, the one thing that concerns me the most is the space between my centre backs and the two MCs when the opposition is playing an AMC (and one upfront). How do people try and combat this? Opposition AMCs getting turned and running at my defence is by far the biggest attacking threat I face.

The way I can see it, there are a few options: Increase the closing down and/or mentality of one of your centre backs, have a DC mark him tightly, lower the mentality of one of the MCs, have one of the MCs man mark him. In theory, I suppose most teams IRL would (provided they have the pace defensively) play a higher defensive line, thus squeezing the gap between defence and midfield. But, as I understand it, the defensive line in FM affects the whole team - i.e. if you move the defence up two paces, then so the midfield will move up two paces, etc etc.

All thoughts very welcome!

[Romanista1994]

What I generally do when faced with an AM behind striker threat is create a Stopper/Cover partnership, whereas if faced with two strikers they are both on Defend. The stopper is selected to physically dominate the opposition striker, while the cover player is more intelligent and tracks the AM and other midfield runners.

Another thing is selecting two CM's with high Workrate, Determination and Stamina attributes so that they can in a sense play two roles: compete in the midfield battle and, if necessary, also follow and mark the opposition attacking midfielder so that the defence is not completely exposed. The high stamina enables them to do it for longer periods, but if they become tired, pick up knocks or the opposition sub their AM off I substitute them for fresher legs who can carry on doing the hard work.

[phnompenhandy]

The simplest solution is to give one of your DMCs an Anchor Man (defend) role and/or set one of the DMC/MCs to man-mark the AMC.

[SS19]

Also opposition instructions close down and tight marking often.

[heathxxx]

Depends on lots of other things for me... weather/pitch conditions, assessed "risk" of not having anyone specifically taking care of the AMC based on his ability, focus on my own game-plan...

That said, if facing a potentially troublesome AMC then I'll do some or all of the following things:

Stopper/Cover central defenders (which I always use anyway)

Ball Winning Midfielder "Defend" (Which I currently use anyway)

OI Closing Down "Always"

OI Tackling "Hard"

OI Tight Marking "Always" (If he's not blessed with pace)

The last OI tends to work quite well for me as with the BWM "Defend" and Stopper, with my zonal marking, one or the other will usually pick him up.

Otherwise, if you're particularly worried about an opposing AMC, have your best DMC/MC with good all-round attributes, drop back into the DMC position to sit on him with the appropriate OI's and maybe even go into "advanced" tactical settings and instruct specific tight man marking.