Shocking standard of defending

[dolph11]

I agree to a point. Thing is, I give my defenders certain instructions that aren't followed up. I want the game to help me improve my defenders and what I want them to do. I agree about the goals like the one last night, but it happens regularly on FM12. Either way, we've gone through this before, some of us are satisfied with the ME and defending some of us aren't. I think it's extremely poor and I have never seen defending like it in my life! I coached u7's whilst working in America and they defended better! Some of us think the defending is ok and are happy with it. That's just the way it is.

[Äktsjon Männ]

The role was based on how Makalele played, when he'd win the ball in broken play, keep it while the defence regrouped, then lay it off to a more creative player. It might be that we need a new duty. Anchor Man / Limited, who wins the ball and quickly lays it off, and Anchor Man / Composed, who is more likely to keep the ball when the defence is out of shape (or something to that effect).

The point is the setting forces them to be caught in possession. It's a good idea to have them slow down play but when you instruct them to do that they need to have options in case the easy pass isn't instantly on. But these settings say they shouldn't carry the ball a step, shouldn't play a creative pass as an out ball, should never go against their instructions and only have defending on their mind. The result is that player standing in one spot for 5 seconds before being closed down and tackled. Sure having good movement patterns around him will usually make it work but movement can and occasionally will break down.

[wwfan]

The point is the setting forces them to be caught in possession. It's a good idea to have them slow down play but when you instruct them to do that they need to have options in case the easy pass isn't instantly on. But these settings say they shouldn't carry the ball a step, shouldn't play a creative pass as an out ball, should never go against their instructions and only have defending on their mind. The result is that player standing in one spot for 5 seconds before being closed down and tackled. Sure having good movement patterns around him will usually make it work but movement can and occasionally will break down.

I've often used an AM and have hardly ever seen him get caught in possession. As you say, the key thing is the movement patterns around him, not the settings of the AM per se. It would be very unusual to have an AM with no CF, very short passes and such an ultra-low mentality that he won't ever try the direct out pass when under pressure.

[CityAndColour]

Players aren't robots in real life therefore you shouldn't expect them to be in FM.

Lets take an example - Runs not being tracked. Just like Llorente's goal last night where he appeared unmarked between three defenders to score.

I'm not sure why I'm even replying to this as I know you know I don't mean realistic defensive errors, I mean clear fundamental representation errors. At no point have I said that defenders in FM should not make mistakes or have lapses in concentration. But realistic movement and having the same ability to react to situations as attacking players do surely isn't too much to ask, especially given how many excellent attacking animations the game has.

[aderow]

Sorry Aderow, forgot that these were your forums. Please forgive me.

These being my forums has nothing to do with anything.　Being a dick solves nothing.　If someone has an issue and won't listen to advice given to them, move in. Its their loss.

Have a nice day.

Players aren't robots in real life therefore you shouldn't expect them to be in FM.

Lets take an example - Runs not being tracked. Just like Llorente's goal last night where he appeared unmarked between three defenders to score.

Don't remind me

[CityAndColour]

[video=youtube;UQj6Mk39E_c]

As an example - what exactly is my left centre-half doing here? The only explanation I can come up with is he thinks the passer is actually going to pass cross field and he positions himself for that, but really he should leave that to the ball-winning mid who has already positioned himself to block that route. So my centre-half just stands still for long enough that his direct opponent gets a clear run on goal. Unfortunately this is not uncommon.

[Äktsjon Männ]

I've often used an AM and have hardly ever seen him get caught in possession. As you say, the key thing is the movement patterns around him, not the settings of the AM per se. It would be very unusual to have an AM with no CF, very short passes and such an ultra-low mentality that he won't ever try the direct out pass when under pressure.

Well I *have* often seen my defensive midfielders get caught so I untick 'hold up ball' and set RWB and through balls to sometimes. Now my players don't get caught. The AI managed players do though. Once again, advantage gained. Is it unfair?

[Johnjo]

These being my forums has nothing to do with anything. Being a dick solves nothing. If someone has an issue and won't listen to advice given to them, move in. Its their loss.

What about if the person your trying to give advice to about giving advice doesn't want your advice? I will listen to your advice about being a dick though as you clearly have more experience in such matters.

You have a nice day too

[Things Could Get Messi]

Perhaps somebody can help me with my problem? regardless of what tactics I set, I sometimes find defenders clearing the ball the whole of 6 yards maximum which then gets picked up by opposition straight away and we're under pressure again. How can I tell them when under pressure to at least try to boot it out for a throw in or whatever?

[Cougar2010]

Well I don't know the ability of the player or what orders you have given him but on first glance it looks as though he thinks he is the last man (DL is behind him) and steps up to play the forward offside. He fails on this occasion but I don't really see a problem with the clip if you've given him those sort of orders.

[CityAndColour]

He's a covering defender with no instructions to play offside.

[rayzorz]

How do you know if the tactic uses exploits or not? I almost always use odd formations but I'm not a FM genius by any means, most individual instructions are default and so on.

[scott MUFC]

the issue i have with defending is mainly away, players seem to tackle MORE at home even on attacking formations, yet playing counter or defencive away from home, they sort of block the oppositions movement but they just pass about infront of your players, where at home my player would get a foot in retreive the ball and go.

the opposition will get the foot in and interupt your play as well more away from home. also if you get a good lead, players get a bit more lax so you could consede through complacency.

dont ask me why defenders dont get the foot in away, i do not know.

[jimmy87]

Bit of chaos theory here, the intricate players of the game might tweak it too much, on balance anyone half decent should be able to do this in a positive manner on balance. Leaving the computer to sort your team out might get lucky and do better than your tactic you've spent hours at. All the super tactics i've seen have been very attacking centred, hence the lots of goals, plus the fact, if you don't change things after going ahead, the opposition will pile the pressure on and most likely score.

[drhay53]

The defending in this game is completely awful.

[BiggusD]

the issue i have with defending is mainly away, players seem to tackle MORE at home even on attacking formations, yet playing counter or defencive away from home, they sort of block the oppositions movement but they just pass about infront of your players, where at home my player would get a foot in retreive the ball and go.

the opposition will get the foot in and interupt your play as well more away from home. also if you get a good lead, players get a bit more lax so you could consede through complacency.

dont ask me why defenders dont get the foot in away, i do not know.

That's what non-attacking mentalities do. They make your players passive. So the solution is to only use defensive mentalities when it is your intention to have your players stand in the way of shots and cover space. As such, if you prefer TC+Shout strategies, Contain, Defensive and Counter team mentalities should only be used with formations that have lots of men behind the ball naturally. So while 4-4-2 functions fine when you do that because 8 men would be behind the ball, 4-2-4/4-2-3-1/4-3-3 formations would only have 6-7 men behind the ball naturally (if even that!) and then the passive behaviour of those 6 would make the defense very leaky. This is why I have to retract the wingers to wide midfield positions when I reduce player mentalities and closing down in my "counter/balanced" tactic - they all have attacking mentalities and max closing down so just dropping deeper would not work as they would just leave space behind them all the time.

Also, since the idea of countering opponent attacks presupposes that you win possession in relatively advanced positions and then attack quickly, your players can't be as passive as they are when you use the Counter mentality in the TC. They need to be much more aggressive in order to win challenges and also seek out forward passes immediately. Therefore, to make a counter-attacking tactic in FM you'll have to keep your players deep formation-wise but push up and use attacking mentalities throughout in order to force opposition mistakes and loss of possession in the midfield.

It is very important to keep the distance between the defense and the midfield short at all times. If you defend deep but let the midfield join the attack, you are essentially setting up the opponent's counter-attacks. In a flat 442 this is a really bad idea, so if you try to create a balanced 442 the defense must push up and have relatively high closing down instructions while the midfielders are as deep as possible. Basically, there's no point trying to create a balanced, realistic tactic using non-attacking mentalities because the disadvantages of Mixed/Normal and Defensive mentality settings are so huge and many compared to Attacking that they are only usable in specific circumstances. In my opinion, the behaviour you see when you set Tackling to Hard, Mentality to 20 and Closing Down to 20 should really be what you see when you set Tackling to Easy, Mentality to 1 and Closing Down to 1. A defender's job is to take the ball from the opposition, not standing around watching.

[IMT]

They didn't 'rip me to pieces' as the statistics show, so please keep the hyperbole in the bank. The match was decided when they scored their second goal as a result of poor defending (hence the thread). I have raised legitimate points, backed with examples but you're too focused on the examples. I'm quite happy with the result as a whole, but feel that we should have won 4-2.

But you didn't you drew 3-3 because you didn't adjust your mentality, you can either take people advice on board or continue to be an arse back to them and continue losing leads, no skin off my nose.

[omaroo]

I always concede from set pieces its bloody annoying.

[Bebetu]

Fm2012 doesnt have defense,if u want to win u must score more than your opposition.All players with pace above 16 are Maradona doesnt matter if they have dribble or flair 1.When playing vs teams with midfielders/strikers that have high pace u clearly can see that its something wrong,because they dribble 30-40 meters till 1 on 1 with goalkeepers.I dont exagerate at all even recently i took some weird goals from chicarito and anderson who started to dribble from a throw in till my goalkeeper net after driblling 5-6 players.Defending is horrible slower world class defenders with relative low pace doesnt cope with crappy faster players and this is sad.

All tactics from download section required pace,i dont see 1 tactic at least that required a target man or trequartista such Di Natale,Totti etc.Really SI u must do something with this pace its just too OP.

[ianscousemac]

You can't play any defensive tactic it's a joke!

[IMT]

Well personally have just kept my 3rd clean sheet in a row and have conceeded 25 in 29 league games with Sevilla in my current season, which is the 3rd best behind Madrid and Valencia. I think it depends if you just plug and play your tactic or tweak during matches or not.

[pirategas]

Football is just a funny Ol' game. Love it when you win and hate it when you lose, even more so when you deserved to win. Seems FM12 has hit the nail on the head! How more realistic can you get than dominating a team only for one foolish error or several (Ie Bilbao somehow conceeding 2 goals last night) to give away a goal or lose.

Dominating a side does not automatically result in a win, if that was the case Arsenal would be champions virtually every year.

Take the advice given by others or keep being frustrated and hitting reload.

[wwfan]

You can't play any defensive tactic it's a joke!

I guessing winning the CL on a Counter strategy or only conceding 1 in every 3 games in my current season is a figment of my imagination then?

if u want to win u must score more than your opposition.

Profound!

It's perfectly possible to defend and defend well in FM. You just need to know what you are doing. If you play very aggressively and keep lots of players up field, the trade off is a weaker defence. However, if you focus on keeping players behind the ball and maintaining shape, you won't concede very many.

Does that mean I think the defending in FM is perfect. No, it doesn't. However, for it to be as terrible as so many people claim, you need to be doing something pretty fundamentally wrong tactically. As with the OP, the defence is bad because they are obeying his instructions.

[kymsheba]

I suggest you stop using a downloaded "super-tactic", which, by the way, looks bloody awful and is indicative of the kind of system that tries to win through exploiting ME holes (who plays 5-1-3-1!!!), and start using the TC to think about how you should play. If you trust the TC, you never need to worry about slider clicks. Just play logical strategies, roles, duties and shouts. It is not rocket science.

but it is his game and he can play the game however he wants, what he is asking is clarification on the sliders and why players do as they do, which by the way everyone has asked over the years, i myself like the look of the formation i have experiemented with all sorts of formations myself but have never thought of anything like that it looks very interesting, i always play with a back 3 1 fbl and 1 fbr and 1 dc with the midfield triangle of deep lying playmaker/ball winning midfielder/advanced playmaker then arrange the rest of the players in a variety of spots, have had success everytime but i find the best thing is to cutr the defenders back to 3 instead of 4 which gives you an extra attacking player you can place where i see fit and you must have the 3 midfielders in place as stated the rest arrange wherever i like.

[wwfan]

but it is his game and he can play the game however he wants, what he is asking is clarification on the sliders and why players do as they do, which by the way everyone has asked over the years

Which I have provided. However, I still think his best bet would be trusting the TC. His current settings are horrible.

[BiggusD]

but it is his game and he can play the game however he wants, what he is asking is clarification on the sliders and why players do as they do, which by the way everyone has asked over the years, i myself like the look of the formation i have experiemented with all sorts of formations myself but have never thought of anything like that it looks very interesting, i always play with a back 3 1 fbl and 1 fbr and 1 dc with the midfield triangle of deep lying playmaker/ball winning midfielder/advanced playmaker then arrange the rest of the players in a variety of spots, have had success everytime but i find the best thing is to cutr the defenders back to 3 instead of 4 which gives you an extra attacking player you can place where i see fit and you must have the 3 midfielders in place as stated the rest arrange wherever i like.

Of course he can play the game whichever way he wants, but expecting success doing so is a bit much don't you think? I support the notion of "this is a game", but I do so under the assumption that the player of this game then needs to figure out how to beat it by learning what works and what doesn't. By watching his defense unravel after his tactical changes, the OP should now have learned that this didn't work - and whether or not it should is immaterial at this point. He has, through this thread, also learned why his attempt failed. Thus the purpose of this discussion is fulfilled, perhaps with the exception of the idea that FM simulates defense badly... which is no secret, really, nor an epiphany.

I suggest a more fatalist approach to FM highlights - it is much more healthy. Instead of reading every kind of artificial intelligence or logical reasoning into what happens on the pitch, just consider that whatever you see in a highlight is already loaded, and won't change for any reason. In-between highlights there are all sorts of things you can do, but once it is loaded, it displays whatever the ME spits out and that's that. So let's say that opposition player A1 steals the ball from your unobservant winger B1 and passes it to striker A2 who dribbles past a dumbfounded defender B2 before lobbing a through ball into the backside of defender B3 who watches something in the stands. Defender B4 looks puzzedly at the ball for a while until striker A3 shoots it behind your keeper B5 who falls over on the spot like a sack of oats. Now consider that somewhere along the way of these unfortunate events, mr. B1, B2, B3, B4 or B5 weren't momentarily braindead and actually did what he was supposed to do. Then team A wouldn't get a goal. What's the point of showing a highlight of A2 failing to dribble B2 (unless that tackling success would lead to a chance in your favour)? There is none. A highlight should show a chance. A big chance, if set to Key. And since chances either come from fantastic attacking performances or a defensive mistake -or both, that's what FM shows you. If the ME has calculated that thanks to a zillion factors a goal has been scored, the 3d animation will show you what it took for that goal to be scored based on this, and if what that took was that your/their entire team fell into a temporary coma, that's what it will do.

[Bebetu]

I dont see something out of ordinary with his 5-1-3-1 really,the only mistake i see is that he should push fulbacks higher the pitch as wingabacks maybe and a much higher defensive line to make pressing more efficient from the 4 upfront.This tactic is somehow close to Bielsa 3-3-1-3 his favourite formation when playing against formations that have 2 strikers.

And speaking about exploiting the ME i see that AI used 4-1-3-1 (4 up front and 1 midfielder as playing 10 men),a tactic that indeed no one ever on Earth used or have seen.I did speak about this in another thread in wich ai with 10 men way to offen is better than as normal 11 just because of this kind of ME exploit.

[aderow]

I dont see something out of ordinary with his 5-1-3-1 really,the only mistake i see is that he should push fulbacks higher the pitch as wingabacks maybe and a much higher defensive line to make pressing more efficient from the 4 upfront.This tactic is somehow close to Bielsa 3-3-1-3 his favourite formation when playing against formations that have 2 strikers.

And speaking about exploiting the ME i see that AI used 4-1-3-1 (4 up front and 1 midfielder as playing 10 men),a tactic that indeed no one ever on Earth used or have seen.I did speak about this in another thread in wich ai with 10 men way to offen is better than as normal 11 just because of this kind of ME exploit.

Mate the mistake he made was a pretty big one 　Giving the midfield away by sitting as deep as possible while only playing 2 players in midfield and then having your attackers stay on attacking mentalities basically is telling the opposition 'here attack as much as you like'.　

[dolph11]

It's not about success on the game, I've had success and failure in different types of saves. I use the TC with minor tweaks, people aren't complaining about losing, they are saying the defending is shocking! I usually go for Lower League Management but I recently indulged in a Barca save which is rare for me. I didn't concede a lot of goals but the defending was still unbelievable. Even when I'm someone like Worcester City I expect it to be poor but it's just so unrealistically poor, even at that standard.

[Bebetu]

Mate the mistake he made was a pretty big one 　Giving the midfield away by sitting as deep as possible while only playing 2 players in midfield and then having your attackers stay on attacking mentalities basically is telling the opposition 'here attack as much as you like'.　

You are right but i think his formation is closest formation to Bielsa 3313.And i say this because u cant use 3 midfielders and because of ME its better to use 2 fullbacks and 1 midfielder.Bielsa make man marking all over the pitch like at basketball and with high pressing wich is impossible to replicate in fm2012.Thats why hes nickname is "LOkO' because many tacticians consider him eccentric also.If in real life we have such eccentric tacticians why we would not have in fm2012 haha.

I tried a 505(no midfielders) just for fun and surprisingly i did 2-2 with Man City while playing as Fulham.Was pretty funny to see that u can have such succes with even more weirder formation.

[5uare2]

You are right but i think his formation is closest formation to Bielsa 3313.And i say this because u cant use 3 midfielders and because of ME its better to use 2 fullbacks and 1 midfielder.Bielsa make man marking all over the pitch like at basketball and with high pressing wich is impossible to replicate in fm2012.Thats why hes nickname is "LOkO' because many tacticians consider him eccentric also.If in real life we have such eccentric tacticians why we would not have in fm2012 haha.

I tried a 505(no midfielders) just for fun and surprisingly i did 2-2 with Man City while playing as Fulham.Was pretty funny to see that u can have such succes with even more weirder formation.

Again, you're making the mistake of looking at the formation rather than the overall tactical instructions. Maybe if he used wing-backs it would look like a Bielsa formation, but Bielsa never tells his team to split into two halves, with the attacking players never tracking back to defend and the defensive players standing off on the edge of the area and conceding the entire midfield - you're asking the team to sit deep and get players behind the ball, but only giving them 6 players with which to do that, 5 of which are packed into a single strata.

As for the overall point of this thread: yes, there are problems with defending in this ME. Everyone knows that. But is OP's rant an example where the team has suffered for no reason other than the ME? Definitely not - the tactic is bizarre, for reasons that many people have already outlined. It got him a win against Spurs, but one game doesn't make a tactic. Even if the ME was fantastic defending-wise, I'd wager that his setup would have struggled, because there's no tactical logic to it.