dealing with wingers and fullbacks

[axehan1]

playing my latest match last night against chelsea i dominated the 1st half and desrvedly went in at half-time 1 up.i play 4-2-3-1 and chelsea lined up 4-4-2.In the 1st half they had no attacking threat bar a couple of long range attempts.10 minutes into the second half and they are 2-1 up,albeit from 2 set pieces(corners)but that came from there attacking threat down the wings, now i was loathe to change the way i was playing as i basically had them in my bac pocket and eventually equalised later in the game.Gutted though as there went the winning start to the new season.

My question is what would have been best to counter the obvious threat down the wings without totally nullifying the good attacking work i was doing?To be fair learning how to deal with AI when they change tack is something i am struggling with so helpful hints would be very welcome.

[Marsupian]

You really can't stop a winger from getting a few corners each game unless you completely take them out of the game. If you have fullbacks that are agressive, have high workrate, good tackling and pace to not let the winger slip away you can shut him down but those players are hard to find and you have to give in on attacking threat down the sides. The next best thing is to have your central defense set up to deal with the crosses and have a good defensive corner tactic. Working on defensive set pieces in match prep can also work wonders on defending those corners if you do this every game you set yourself back on other areas like team blending and getting fluid with your tactics.

Edit: Maybe playing with a DM can also help. The DM can cover for your fullbacks and help defend the crosses when they do come in. If you set him as deep lying playmaker you don't lose too much on the attacking side and with 2 MC in front of which one can take on the role of the original AMC it could work out much the same as before.

[sjm]

In a nutshell, your FBs need to take care of the wingers and your outside midfielders in the front 3 (are they all AMC? AML AMC AMR?) need to disrupt the opposition full backs. If the full back and winger both gang up 2 v 1 against your fullback, there's not much he can do to stop them. Most of the time when the AI is attacking over the flanks, the full backs are set up very offensively, and this causes great problems vs narrow formations.

Getting your players to actually take up sensible defensive positions can be a nightmare though, given how rigid the positioning is and how narrow the midfield plays if you don't have proper wingers (e.g. if you play a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 diamond, you basically just end up with 4 central midfielders occupying the same space). This is more a flaw with the tactics engine in FM (at least with arrows you could compensate somewhat) than anything else.

[SFraser]

playing my latest match last night against chelsea i dominated the 1st half and desrvedly went in at half-time 1 up.i play 4-2-3-1 and chelsea lined up 4-4-2.In the 1st half they had no attacking threat bar a couple of long range attempts.10 minutes into the second half and they are 2-1 up,albeit from 2 set pieces(corners)but that came from there attacking threat down the wings, now i was loathe to change the way i was playing as i basically had them in my bac pocket and eventually equalised later in the game.Gutted though as there went the winning start to the new season.

My question is what would have been best to counter the obvious threat down the wings without totally nullifying the good attacking work i was doing?To be fair learning how to deal with AI when they change tack is something i am struggling with so helpful hints would be very welcome.

Reduce the mentality of your Wingers so they defend deeper and help out your Fullbacks more.