Opposition Adapts

[spaced33]

In one of my current saves I am playing a high pressing 4-1-2-3DM Wide with high pressing with the focus on possession in attack. For half the season we have dominated the vast majority of our games and have averaged 59% possession in the premier league.

We beat Liverpool 4-0 at home and 4-1 at Anfield in the premier league. We then came up against them in the FA Cup at Anfield. I had grown quite complacent and was only watching key highlights. We were 4-1 up at half time and coasting to another easy victory despite not having great possession (about 53%). Then Brendan Rogers made some changes and all of a sudden we were being overwhelmed in defence and the for the first time this season we had about equal possession. Liverpool then scored three goals in 8 minutes to draw level in the 76th minute. I then changed made some changes to our tactic and shored up our midfield and we managed to score the winning goal in the 85th minute courtesy of Radamel Falcao - a lucky win considering Liverpool had the highest number of clear cut chances I have ever seen at 13 compared to our 2. Disaster avoided (My team is Man Utd)

Our next game was against Chelsea. I had put the Liverpool result down to an anomaly and continued to watch on key highlights (big mistake). My complacency was compounded by the fact we had beaten them 2-0 at Stamford Bridge, 3-0 and 4-0 at Old Trafford in that month (FA Cup, Prem and 1st leg of Capital One Cup). They started out in their favoured 4-4-1-1 and I saw no red flags. Once again possession was fairly even and we weren't looking good. By the time I reacted (about 60th minute) it was too late and they ended up winning 1-0, What I did notice is that at some point they Roberto Mancini (Mourinho had been sacked by this time) had changed to a the 4-4-2 narrow diamond that Liverpool had used to such devasting effect.

I now need to go back and analyse those two games and identify what it was about that formation that made it so effective and come up with a game plan to prevent this happening again. I'm up against an unbeaten Arsenal next who lead us by 5 points in the title race.

The point of this post is just to say that I was quite impressed with the way the AI managers had finally identified a tactic that nullified my own and now other teams were using it against me. I think it makes the game a lot more interesting.

[daneisfootymad]

diamond is giving them and extra man in midfield?

[spaced33]

It was more than that - I had defeated that Liverpool diamond comprehensively in our two previous meetings - I think it was role changes. Their AMC seemed to be looking to make more runs through and with the high press that I'm using our half back and centre backs were being pulled out of position offering great through ball opportunities. This coupled with my centre backs being fairly slow and their forwards being pretty quick meant that we were being ripped apart at the back. I will look to counter this in future by using two defensive midfielders and punish them on the flanks with attacking wing backs.

Their fullbacks were also staying back and marking my wide men tightly and a lot of my play is focussed through these guys. I will need the wingbacks to overload their flanks. Hopefully this will give me stability in the middle of the park and open up space out wide.