For anyone struggling with this - I am coming back with some workarounds that worked for me after additional testing.
Some context: Looking at the analytics it seems that in most situations the opposing team has a lot of possesion in their own half, particularly around defenders and DMs. In my case it doesn't help that I play a 4-3-3 DM Wide which means that the opposing team will always have superior numbers in their own half. A high pressing style doesn't seem to do much of a difference (I believe this is the issue here and hopefully SI will fix it with the next patch).
Here's what I'm doing:
- I've set everyone from the middle up (so midfielders, wingers and strikers) to "Close down more". If you are already playing a "More urgent" or "Much more urgent" pressing style, drop it down a notch, add the "Close down more" PIs then move it back up to your initial setting
- When I don't have a stable superior possesion by min 30 - I start aplying PIs to man mark most of the opposing players (I use "Mark specific position" and not "Mark specific player"). Depending on the opposition's formation, I usually mark everyone except one of their CDs (the one with weakest passing/control ability if they play with 4 atb) and except their strikers. So basically I end up with everyone except my CD's and my GK to man mark specific position. This seems to do a world of difference! Now this is extremely tedious and you have to keep close attention to changes in the opposing team's formation otherwise you're in for a bad time. I really do hope that SI fixes pressing so this becomes more of a tool to tactically edge the other manager rather than the norm.