Help needed: Defense

[robot_9x3]

Hello all,
if you've seen some of my posts you might know I like defense first football (not toothless but having been a goalkeeper in my youth I prefer to have the opposition to not score).

I got FM23 for Christmas and have since only played 44 hours eventhough I had taken off two weeks planning to sink them into the game. I tried again this weekend (which probably added 12 of the 44 hours) but I have so many problems with getting the new defense settings.
And something with the defenders seems weirdly off.
I don't know if I am crazy but I have learned a back four should behave like a cresecent (meaning ball is centrally both cds a little bit deeper than the fbs, shifting with the position of the ball) I notice quite a lot that both fbs are deeper than the cds.
Than I have noticed that the cds tend to position a bit quite a far from each other, even in defensive situations.

Which now leads to the problem I am having:

Something I  have suffered from a bit is long balls through the middle. Sure that can happen and be successful but not in the frequency I suffered from that and not at a Top-5 level league (German Bundesliga).
Currently I play a flat back for FBs-CDd-CDd-FBs and a DMd infront of them.

What I tried:

Obviously force the opposition outside with the pressing traps option. I mean that shouldn't be to necessary with a 4-3-3 (Dm). But was worth a try didn't help much but at least brought the CDs a little closer.

Than I played around with the deny crosses or allow crosses options. My Idea being we allow crosses and bring the back 4 narrower to stop a ball from the halfway line going through the middle.
That still didn't help a lot.

I also wonder whats the difference between pressingtraps outside and denying crosses (I noticed with denying crosses the CD is more likely to step out wide as well)
But basically don't they do the same? bring the opposition outside and win the ball back there?

So I tried the back line option, hoping that instructing my defense to drop off would make it harder to hit a ball in a spot that is not easily collected by my keeper or is too short to be a danger outright. I know in hindsight that should have been the first option to try out because it at least sound like what I want to happen.
I am now pondering whether I should try to make the defense step up hoping to catch more attackers offside but as i said I am defense first I would like to have a safety net instead of the offside gamble.

Now I am trying to play with the defensive line position, obviously pulling that deeper should help as that forces the defense to be deeper, instead of dropping off when needed like I hoped the previous option would. Although from previous FMs I am rather reluctant to pull it below standard deepness.

 

Other Ideas I will have to play with:

CD partnership options -> maybe stopper/cover would help, forcing the cover CD deeper while the stopper hopefully challenges the long ball.

Formation changes -> I might have to switch to a three at the back formation... Obviously having a third CD and one centrally should be a stumbling block for balls through the middle.

 

Please help

Is it me playing the game wrong? obviously I notice it and get annoyed because my team is not setup to go for a shoot out trying to outscore the opposition.

Is that something you guys suffer from as well? Do you have a solution? Have I missed something which would be obvious? Are some of the instructions contrary to each other?
I doubt its the players Bundesliga level should be good enough to not see  a common slap stick performance.

[CARRERA]

It’s always useful to post your entire setup, including your tactic and some data to back it up, especially if you have such a specific problem.

Fitst of all, FM23 ME does favor balls over the top to some extend, so you properbly can’t deny all of them. 

Did you make sure to use different settings for a few matches, to give your team a chance to settle on the new instructions?

Do you provide enough defensive pressure against the ball? It’s important to actually challange the ball carrier to sone extend so he can’t take the time to make the pass

Edited January 23, 2023 by CARRERA

[HUMBL3B33]

I think i would echo with @CARRERA. It would be much better for us to understand if you can share screenshots or images for things to better understand them as due to our smaller attention span it is hard for us to read the entire forum. 
However, noticing the issue, I think it looks like you are having issues with unmarked runs from the middle. Which has been an issue since last years FM. If you can sustain the ball long enough, and have a runner through the middle, you can potentially have a free runner.

Tbh, a solution could be to drop your defensive line deeper but if you have a higher line of engagement this will leave a massive opening in between your attack and defense, essentially allowing them to recycle the possession and retain it for long enough to score.

The only possibility in my head for this issue is to play in a low block and have fast players to play on transition and try to score on the break. Your simple counter attacking football. Hope to see more in order to help you better.

[Gruf]

I concur, low block, low line of engagement works for me. As mentioned it needs some sort of pressure on the ball rather than being passive. I noticed Arteta has stolen most of my ideas judging by the ManYoo game last night

I posted a reply to a thread in this forum "Defensive football" where I had similar problems with long balls down the middle.

Reworked my whole tactic and as shown in the thread it was going quite well...Still is, all  stats way above the league average defensively

I take a while to finish my seasons, I like to luxuriate in all the detail. The latest update,10 games left, 10 points ahead, lost 3 games all season have a dominant defense, semi finals of the FA Trophy, beaten a few teams from divisions above me, which is a good sign. This despite having a scattershot strike force.

I have used the Cautious tactic shown in the thread most of the time, though modified a little, with opposition tactics changes which channel guys into the middle where the pack jumps on them and with stop crosses added. Though I will play positive dependent on how the game is going and sometimes use a slightly more attacking version of the tactic. Teams still try to punt it down the middle (thats non league football for you) but I have great CD and a DM who seem to have become wise to it. I think teams are scared of us anyway.

Seem to have more problems with bottom 5 teams TBH, 2 of the losses against them. Batter them, but the old 1-0 loss on a breakaway/Super Keeper/Multiple woodwork story.

Formation plays compact, we pass people to death which helps with defensive stats, we have an above 60% possession stat for the season, and as an added bonus we don't use as much energy as a squad as we sit in our defensive shell, as soon as we lose the ball we gegenpress them to death, and retreat back into our shell if we don't win the ball, break if we do win it.

At least at this lowly level teams can't handle it  If I go up I will finally need to spend some of the Chairman's money on  transfers and buy forwards who are able to hit water falling out of boat.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Gruf

[robot_9x3]

@CARRERA I didn't let the instruction settle for multiple games, mostly one game try to figure out what happens, what changes in the behaviour of the people I think will be targeted by the instruction and what changes to the starting no instructions at all do I see in the overall shape.

Yes not datadriven but I have to admit I'm awful in getting lots of knowledge out of the FM provided data.

Since its my first adventure into this years FM I started rather boring to get to know the Match Engine. No Instructions 4-3-3  

                 AF-A

W-A                        W-A

            CM-A CM-S

                A-D

FB-S CD-D CD-D FB-S

          GK-D

The only weird one is probably the Anchor, but I like the role and read somewhere it's the FM "Makelele role" although I'm not to sure on that. But hes reliable and should clog up the route through the middle.

Example long ball, this time a little from the side so not complete centrally:

Gif: long ball over a settled defense ending in a goal

It's not the Players I think, not to badmouth Terodde but  he has Acceleration:10 and Pace 12 while Elvedi the CD who is NOT caught absolutley out of Position (looking at you Itakura) has Acceleration:13 and Pace:15. I know pace is not everything but he should be quick enough to get the ball before Terodde .
I know that's football you will conced such goals but it feels like I conced them too much if you know what I mean. Or I'm just so fixated on them, I just notice them way to often confirming my owen made up bias.

I also think I now know why I sometimes see the inverted crescent I mentioned in my original post. Simply that both CDs get drawn to the ball like some U-12 Players, especially with long balls and if I am not mistaken the FBs drop earlier, probably to where the line should establish itself.

Still haven't figured out why I see the same occuring quite often when  an opposition player is out wide:

Picture: Inverted crescent

Situation one: CD-L (Itakura) has steped out, CD-R Elvedi is way ahead of Scally FB-R who dropped back more agressively. Bensebaini is the nominal FB-L but due to Kone challenging out wide he probably took his spot as a CM(?)
Situation two: The opposition goes down the flank some more, Itakura has dropped off as Kone is with the opposition. But instead of dropping off towards the goal he drops off away from it. Scally is still deeper than Elvedi. Maybe that's down to Elvedi being slow and scally faster.
Later on the line will establish as a line, nothing against FBs being on the money with their positional duty, just weird that the Cds are so 'slow' for a lack of a better word.

Look at Netz Left FB(Bottom) he drops way to deep way too early way to agressively. Yes this time it could be the player but again that's a trend I have spotted which irks me as I don't understand the why and can't explain it with my (limited) footballing knowledge.

Gif: Opposition in possesion, FB-L opposite of where the ball is drops meters behind the CDs

I have seen often that the CDs are slower to drop compared to the FBs, maybe I am wrong but isn't that the other way around normally? Could that be exacerbated by ticking the drop off more option? Thus making a long ball over the top even more dangerous?
And yes it's not happening like that all the time more often than not the back four behaves like expected , the scoreboard resembles most of the time a normal football match 2 Goals here 3 Goals there sometimes even 1 all sometimes none at all.

If you want me to look at specific data or even post a screenshot of the tactic, as I said nothing spectacular because I'm just fiddeling around, just tell me.

Maybe I just need to get to know this FM better, the problem with jumping every other release, I am not used to changes of the last one and this ones iteration.
But you guys would agree with me established footballing knowledge would dictate Pressingtraps outside, allow crosses, and drop back more with maybe a deeper line of defense should be considered when trying to shore up a defense that seems to be beaten by long balls right? Considering I am not aiming for a high press...

[CARRERA]

7 minutes ago, robot_9x3 said:

As you said, right before Krauß makes the pass, Elvedi and Itakura step up as if they wanted to put terodde offside. I usually would instruct the defensive line to drop-off at this point. Maybe try it once again for a few matches to allow your defenders to get familiar with that instruction.
But as I said earlier, this type of goal is produced quite often by the ME, so its not just down to instructions.