[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

It happens again and again and again. Playing away from home against slightly inferior opponent. Go slightly defensive. Get battered. High class defenders have a nightmare. I ask my team to close down richarlison so obviously he scores twice in first 15 with no one around him in area. If SI created, as they program it, a manual explaining positions, pressing, marking etc this would be less painful. But they rely on goodwill. 

I literally have no idea why this failed so comprehensively. Which is why the game is failing the light user. It’s repetitive and boring.

one thing I’ve noticed is that if an opposition striker scores early he gets a massive boost and often becomes unplayable. That’s ridiculous.

[Does Form exist ? Is the performance of the day random or (a bit) predicatble ?]

2 hours ago, Jack Joyce said:

Good form improves a player's morale, and a high morale definitely has a positive impact on a player's performance on the pitch. What we don't do though is improve a player's future performance because of their past performance, it'd create a self-feedback loop that just keeps making good players better and better. Form in a way is just short-term variance, which is replicated through a player's consistency (and other hidden attributes), and sometimes it's just down to a run of good fortune.

Great question. Thank you for answer. And what about the training rating?

also can I ask where in the manual or help pages does it explain this? If you point us in the right direction we won’t have to ask these questions.

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

50 minutes ago, CaptCanuck said:

To the point of reducing opponent's chances - after using a back 3/5 for all of FM21, the past 1.5 seasons I switched to a 4-1-3-2 and have led/am leading the league in goals conceded/shots against, while also being top 3 in possession stats and at/near the top is goals for. Granted I have the 7th highest wage bill and a very good, deliberately constructed Brighton side in 2027/28, that could contend and win things with a myriad of tactics.

Anyhoo, for some food for thought, this is my current tactic. I normally concern myself with the attacking movement and having something that will create chances; however, in regards to keeping it tight:

• 'Regroup' along with being 'Narrow' to begin with helps keep us more compact and helps eliminate giving the opposition gaps they haven't earned through their play by having players chase after lost causes trying to regain possession
• Everyone bar the AF (as expected) contributes defensively. PF will drop into midfield and even though the IW is on attack, he's at the midfield level instead of the attacking level. It can almost turn us into a 4-5-1 defensively
• The anchorman as a general sweeper-upper and recycler helps prevent things before they start and can help clog things up, passing lane wise.
• My back 4 are all excellent, maybe I will run this with default 2020/21 Brighton and see how it goes, but really as Herne mentions above having the right players genuinely helps.
• General 'Balanced' mentality helps keep everyone from being too rash. I will drop to 'Cautious' now and again, but does that actually help us stifling the opponents attack... IDK

Interesting. I do think this version favours 2 up front. So even in a defensive set up it’s wise to have 2 strikers

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

12 minutes ago, herne79 said:

The words "Advanced Forward" were merely used to describe your striker.  If you had been using a Complete Forward or Poacher or Pressing Forward then those words would have used instead.  Perhaps it would have been better to just use the word "striker".  So no, the suggestion was never that you using an AF clearly showed you wanted to play on the break.  It was always about your use of TIs vs you (apparently) wanting to play on the break.  However as you say that assumed style of play was incorrect anyway .

It can yes.  Adjusting Tempo would be one way.  However, when you adjust passing length it doesn't mean short passes or long passes, it means shorter or longer.

That's a Counter Press (aka Gegenpress) which is very different from Counter Attacking football.  With a counter press you do indeed aim to win the ball high up the pitch, preferably in the opposition's half, and immediately attack from there.  With a counter attack you aim to drop deep, invite the opposition to over commit players forward before winning the ball back deep in your own half and breaking quickly from there.  This is why we have the "Counter" instruction separated from the "Counter Press" TI.

So counter and counter press don’t necessarily work together?  I have a mid block in my save right now. With both counter and counter press. I assume that IS compatible 

sorry to be so persistent. It’s just you’re very helpful!

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

41 minutes ago, herne79 said:

 

I agree that some more information in game could be useful, however I'm also going to play devil's advocate here and suggest us users don't always read things properly either, which can then snowball a myth into reality.

Example - nobody in this thread has said that playing an AF contradicts PooD, yet hairbo says someone did which fred then accepts as reality.  This is what was actually said about the AF and Play out of Defence:

What's being said there has got nothing to do with the use of an Advanced Forward.  The person who made the comment (correctly) pointed out that you are using shorter passing / PooD which perhaps conflicts with the desired intention of getting the ball up to your striker quickly in order to make a break (aka fast transition front to back).  So PooD / shorter passing is the possible conflict with quick transitions - nothing to do with the striker's role.

Fair comment.

so quick forward transitions can’t happen with short passing? Isn’t that exactly what Liverpool do IRL? The fluid counter attack preset uses shorter passing and play out of defence. Win the ball, short pass to creative mf, high tempo run up pitch, short pass to striker. Liverpool rarely knock it long to Salah but we’re described  as best counter attacking team in world. I’m in danger here of doing exactly what did before 😂 and reading too much into a comment. 

someone laughed at my tactics on the tactics forum which was very high press and counter. They said you’ve got no space to counter into cos you’re winning the ball so high up the pitch. Again surely that’s exactly what Liverpool do. Counter means get the ball to the opposition goal as quickly as you can. 

the ambiguity is doing my head in. I’ve head Trent Alexander Arnold and Andy Robertson with Kane up front for 6 months without one headed goal from a cross. I’m really struggling to get my head round this game. I’ve been playing for 20 years!!!

 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

1 hour ago, Haribo1681 said:

Instructions like this do make some sense to me - for instance, I try to use opposition instructions to use harder tackling on players with low bravery or increased pressing intensity on players with low composure; conversely, I avoid pressing players with high dribbling ability for fear of my players being skinned!

I get not man marking players with high dribbling but not closing them down? So you leave them alone?

Don’t you think it’s more sensible to give their leaden footed CB the ball by never pressing them so they get the ball most of the time. 
 

I just don’t think there’s any transparency here. 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

2 hours ago, Haribo1681 said:

I totally agree with you on this - I never feel like I have any idea why tactics and team selections succeed or fail, so it becomes a case of trying different things out until something clicks, then trying to preserve that for as long as possible until more seemingly unconnected minor changes are required to retain or rediscover form - hence why it often feels like trying to crack a code.

I've put a post in the main feedback thread where I think the Assistant Manager/backroom team feedback piece is where this really could be improved - not to the extent of suggesting which instructions to use (a push-to-win button like some seem to think is being requested), but just feedback as to what is happening in matches that we don't see by watching highlights - stuff like: 'our three attacking midfielders are often taking up similar positions so we're lacking space' or 'our left back is often short of options so resorts to playing long balls more than we'd like.' At the moment, I'm sure all this is visible if you watch games in full or have the understanding of the data that is collected, but time is precious so many of us cannot do this or simply don't know how. FM collects and presents huge amounts of data, but very little information to then make decisions upon.

This, combined with having such a large 'box of toys to play with' is why many of us struggle to make 'good' tactical choices - we don't know the affect that many of those tools have on the game and then we don't learn from the mistakes we don't know we make, so we accidentally issue conflicting instructions which cause problems and don't reflect what we actually want. For example - I was told earlier in this thread that using an Advanced Forward contradicts Play Out of Defence, because this makes my team string a couple of aimless passes together, then get frustrated and try to launch it in behind for the forward to chase, which then allows the opposition to counter. I've never seen this happen despite playing POOD and an AF for pretty much four seasons, but apparently this is obvious - in a perfect world, I don't want FM to tell me that this conflict exists because it might still be what I want, but I'd like some feedback from my backroom team that this series of events, which I cannot see, is happening.

Stuff about AF fascinating. How on earth were we meant to know that?

I also read somewhere you press useless players not talented players. So someone like Kevin de Bruyne who I always pressed (never man mark as hell draw my players out of position) I’m meant to ignore! 
 

it’s just so badly explained 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

3 hours ago, zyfon5 said:

I played with defensive tactics for two seasons and was equally effective on both not sure if you have read the whole thread. If you want to see how a top team can play counter attacking football and excel with it I can share my recent save with Chelsea which broke all kinds of premier league records while having less than 50% possession while only having the 3rd best squad in the league but that would be boring compared to an underdog team which is the first two seasons when I managed West Brom. And the keeper that you mentioned immediately failed to perform elsewhere when I left the club so I am not sure how much he mattered. 

And these are quotes taken directly 'defending is failing', 'defending is almost impossible because when you are the weaker team...' and it is clear my tactics disagrees with their quotes. Whether the ME favours which type of playstyle is not what I replied and I respect your opinion on it.

Simeone and Mou do not play with defensive tactics all the time. They like any sensible coaches know that they have to be on the offensive end on some matches and vice versa is true. Playing with defensive tactics for the whole season will not get them anywhere and the FM world is also not exempted from this. At the same time I have also seen a fair share of people who played with ultra offensive tactics and failed with it.

I think you’re definitely streets ahead of me tactically. And I agree that each game should present its own dilemma and tactical solution. The problem is, as stated above, a lot of us don’t know why we’re winning or losing and therefore have no idea of what tactic might work. I don’t have time to understand the nuances and SI do very little to explain.

I don’t understand why, since I bought them, Trent Alexander Arnold and Andy Robertson (yes they’re playing for Spurs now people) can’t hit a single decent cross. I don’t understand why Kane misses so many sitters. I don’t understand how Calum Wilson can skin 4 of my defenders and score a worldly from inside his own half.

I don’t understand what always man mark means as it’s utterly illogical. Same with always press.

I don’t understand how someone on FM20 put 2 under 18 gks up front for Liverpool and got one of them to be top scorer.

ultimately I don’t understand too much about this game. I ain’t stooopid. Not very anyway. I get civilisation vi as it comes with a well written manual. It certainly doesn’t mean I win every time. Knowing what everything does.

I go back to my point. FM is opaque. Deliberately IMO. I really appreciate people like you exist and assist but I don’t want to copy tactics. I want to design my own knowing what will and won’t work. I want to know What parameters FM plays to because let’s face facts it’s a game, not real life. 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

4 hours ago, Nahuelzn said:

The core issue for me is that the Match Engine is very direct by default (direct in the build up I mean, it generates a lot of chances very easily) and usually favors one team over the other way too much, even when both teams are even. And then get a lot of chances very easily. This makes defensive playing almost impossible because when you're the weaker team, you just concede a lot of chances to the other team and it's just waiting for a goal to happen. In reality, if you play a defensive tactic against a better team and it works, the other team should have some issues creating chances even if they have 65% of possession.

This also means that it's easy for the human manager to dominate the AI-team even when your team is weaker (although not by much), because AI managers by default are very cautious, so you end up being the "attacking" team most of the time in a situation where maybe in real life you would use a defensive system. And even more, the game doesn't penalize your tradeoff, because most of the time you can be offensive with almost no risk.

To be honest, even with all of the above, I find that FM21 compared to FM20 improves this and allows some defensive systems that works well and the trade-off issue has been noted. However, I think it still needs some more balancing. I understand defensive football is boring (and tight matches in FM are not enjoyable, it's true), but one should be able to play all styles theoretically, and then the game should reward you or not if you made the right decisions.

You’re right. Boring matches are part of football. If everyone played pep ball that would get boring (maybe not actually).

FM has to bolster defensive tactics. Otherwise it’s leaving reality behind.

too many players are saying the same thing. Defending is failing.

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

24 minutes ago, darthrodent said:

My biggest issue with the game is the inaccessibility to tactical feedback / knowledge as it pertains to success or failure. I didn't just win promotion first season with Birmingham City, I absolutely smashed the league. Why? No idea. It was kind of hollow because in my previous save I had failed miserably with Arsenal. I used the exact same tactical logic so why was I wildly successful with a mediocre Championship team and wildly unsuccessful with a Europe-chasing Premiership club? NO IDEA. I'm not privy to that information. The game doesn't communicate anything useful around my tactics. It's actually really disheartening and very frustrating.

Could not agree more! It’s deliberately opaque. Just because you understand success or failure doesn’t mean you win everything. But you should be given the information to understand your wins and losses. People say the players like us complain when we lose. Actually I complain when I win as well because half the time I can’t explain it. 

[Star signing playing horribly]

This is actually quite real life. A lot of teams record buy IRL flop at their new club.

spurs - ndombele

arsenal - Pepe 

Man U - pogba….certainly flopped first few seasons

city - Kane..oooooops

chelsea - Torres 

everton - sigurdsson

It happens a huge amount of time. IRL it’s generally better to be the mid price signing with little pressure. It’s only the real elite few players who cope with record price tags as they have no doubts in their abilities 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

42 minutes ago, zyfon5 said:

Then it is sort of your fault? Playing subpar defensive tactics and having subpar performance is surprising to you? The truth is playing defensive is much harder than playing on the offensive because you have to react to every move the opposition make and not just slap the same tactic and expect it to work every time.  If you are not interested in learning every aspect of the tactical game, you should do yourself a favor and just avoid playing on the defensive.

I certainly do not agree that the game is inaccessible. FM is a manager simulation game, not how to do tactics 101. Most tactical instructions already have basic decsriptions attached to it and there is an official manual that described most things in the game. The onus lies with the player if they want to learn more about the tactical side of the game and learning football tactics are now easier than before with the abundance of information on the internet.

I wish with work, kids, life I had the time to learn like a professional coach but I don’t. It’s a game. Where we all pretend to be world class managers and the suspension reality that entails.

To make it playable SI obviously have to compromise on swathes of reality. I play FMT on iPad due to lack of time. With it being so stripped back tactics are hugely important. Yes I want a quick guide to every facet. The only other game I play is civilisation which has a instant guide to every single facet of the game (it doesn’t tell you right from wrong). It tells you what everything means. FM doesn’t have that. it really should have.
 

 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

18 hours ago, zyfon5 said:

There are two types of defensive strategy in football: you can either control the ball so that your opponent will not be able to score without it or you can concede possession and control the spaces that the opponent can attack you.

With the help of statistical analysis, we now know that the further the shot is from the goal, the harder it is to score and headers are inefficient shots. We also know that transitions (shots created within 10s of a loss of possession) tend to generate very high quality shots. We also know that a lot of the high quality shots are generated from the two half spaces. So any defensive strategy will need to defend in a compact shape and protect the two half spaces basically allowing the opposition to take as much of these inefficient shots as possible while minimizing the threat from transitions either from counter pressing or having a good set up to defend transitions.

Alternatively if you are looking to defend with the ball, you will need to set up the team so that they do not lose possession easily by constantly having passing options and press resistant players. These teams also often deploy high pressing to minimize opponents time on the ball and to force a mistake to create transition opportunities for themselves.

Appreciate what you’ve written and I see how that translates to the match. But my team (having spent millions) is of immense quality with the ability to play through a high press, keep the ball etc. But when I play deep, counter attack with these high quality players I end up having dozens of shots peppered in on my goal. it just comes back to the point that this years version is relentlessly unforgiving of defensive football.
 

I’m not Jose. I don’t have the time in my life to study each intricacy of positioning. but every time and I mean EVERY time I set up with a defensive formation, regroup and counter. We get bombarded. However I nuance the tactic. We get bombarded. 
 

the game shouldn’t be so inaccessible to the player who isn’t awash with time. It needs to say what works and what conflicts. And then the player can make educated choices. 
 

I’m also bored of the complete lack of transparency around tactics such as always press and always man mark. Like I said above, in isolation the instructions are idiotic. Why on earth would you always man mark someone who isn’t maradona. Always? Even in their own box?? And I’d you don’t always man mark an opposing striker I assume your CBS have the nous to get pretty bloody close to him when he’s 6 yards from goal. Same with always press or never press. Would you seriously not press someone whose clean through on goal???

im sure they have simple rationale but they’re ancient Tactical instructions which SI have never evolved, rarely explained and leave the player wondering about what will help their team defend better. Again,it’s poor communication and development from the makers unfortunately 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

15 minutes ago, herne79 said:

I was trying to show that when the AI sets up defensively they're not always successful at doing it, despite them "having an advantage" .

I also play various systems which are most certainly not "attacking" but still have success.  I mentioned an example of that above in my Bari save (2nd reply from the top, just below your first reply).

As a West Ham fan with a twin brother, wife and father in law who all support Spurs it's hard to think of a better result for me .

Haha. Only in FM you understand!

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

46 minutes ago, herne79 said:

Don't get me wrong, I agree it is harder to set up an effective sit deep & compact system than a more aggressive strategy.

But come on, really?  If the AI were anywhere near that smart we wouldn't win a match .  Also worth noting that anything the AI can do to us if we set up "defensively", we can give back in spades to the AI if they try to defend.  West Brom just tried to set up their 442 like that against me and Spurs didn't bother getting off the bus.  However to be fair Newcastle did almost catch me napping with their much more effective system.  It's almost like they were trying to prove a point :

I don’t like Spurs getting beaten 7-0 by West Ham 😂 

So attacking football nearly always wins….

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

4 hours ago, herne79 said:

The AI essentially reacts to your performance during a match and/or your form / reputation before a match (in relation to it's own).

So if you are doing well in the league, expect the AI opponents to be a little more cautious than usual against you.  Likewise if you are doing well during a match expect the AI to either play more passively or they could start to play more aggressively to grab a goal or two.  Basically that's the AI logic and very far from "understanding every game component".  It doesn't have some sort of insight into the game's code.

The AI having an unfair advantage couldn't be further from the truth - it's us human managers who have the unfair advantage because we can use every game system in far more creative ways than any AI manager can.

Tactics are not some sort of code to crack.  The key is understanding how they combine with your players - they are two sides of the same coin.  So if, for example, you don't consider your fullback has the Trait to get forward often and you just allocate the Wingback attack role/duty along with an aggressive Mentality without a thought to that Trait, you tread the tight rope of over stretching yourself, being open to attacks down his flank and getting "FM'd".  Likewise if one of your midfielders has not much in the way of Determination and Work Rate, you should probably not make him a Box to Box midfielder and make sure his midfield partner is set up accordingly to compensate.  Then again if you notice your heavy pressing system isn't working in a particular match or your defensive strategy is inviting more and more pressure and you don't do something to address it (or what you do doesn't work), that isn't the AI's fault.

What happens if your defensive strategy always invites heavy pressure? However much you tweak it. As seems to be a lot of people’s experience.

i understand your player role points.

I think the AI has some advantage. A programmer will surely arm the AI with comprehensive understanding of each role, tactics, timing of decisions etc. More than I have. That’s not to say the human hasn’t got the ultimate upper hand but there are things it will see better than a player

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

3 hours ago, zyfon5 said:

Taking the chess example: If lets say you do not know how to do castling in chess and ended up losing with it, is it your fault or is it the game fault for not hinting you how to do castling? Using the same analogy, if you do not know how the BWM works, do you think SI should release a detailed video on everything about the BWM when there are tons of youtube videos and FM articles on it? And keep in mind that FM is a much more complex game than chess with endless permutations.

Chess has quite a few permutations. I think it is the developers responsibility to build a comprehensive guide frankly. Otherwise we’re playing the game, they worked so hard to build, half blind, I don’t have the time to trawl through forums and videos made by v generous users. 

not a detailed video but a clear description of each role and where it does and doesn’t work. Also, for the love of god, explain always man mark/ always press. Because as an instruction in isolation its actually absurd. 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

1 hour ago, Haribo1681 said:

Final post on this thread, I promise...

I wasn't going to play another match in this sequence, but the next fixture was away to Sevilla in the Champions League; we'd already qualified in first place, so I had nothing to lose. Again, they were marginal favourites, so this struck me as a good chance to test a more defensive variant of our usual 4-2-3-1 formation. We switched to 4-4-1-1, keeping a high line, standard LOE (to try and be compact) and then looking to retain possession to effectively defend with the ball. Understandably the risk here could be that a medium-intensity press and a high line could invite the ball over the top, but I wanted to limit their space in midfield. The use of balanced mentality should allow us to see how the game progresses without inviting unnecessary pressure and with wide players on attacking mentalities supported by full-backs rather than wing-backs, we should have a reasonably balanced setup that keeps two banks of four to protect our penalty area. The idea being that any shots at goal should be from distance and we should be able to restrict their xG.

Well, that didn't really happen - they scored after three minutes and then proceeded to exploit all kinds of gaps in our defence; if I had to guess, they were playing a kind of counter-attacking style, where they would quickly string together three or four incisive, vertical passes to get their wide attackers either in behind or one-vs-one with our full backs. They accrued 12 shots in total by half time, 11 of which were from inside our penalty area. Ultimately, none of their 15 attempts in this game were blocked, so they had enough space to get every one of their shots off.

We changed shape second half to our usual 4-2-3-1, higher LOE, more urgent pressing and positive mentality so generally more aggressive. An incredible 50-yard pass from their right back under pressure on the touchline put En-Nasyri through on goal after two minutes of the second half for 2-0 so the game was effectively over. They had less shots after that and we came into the game a bit more, but ultimately they made it 3-0 with a really well-worked goal from the edge of the box in stoppage time.

All in all, these four games have been a bit disappointing; not so much the results (although losing all four wasn't great), but more that what I thought were fairly sensible, logical changes designed to affect the game and reduce the opposition's threat didn't really do that, apart from the Liverpool game - which kind of makes it worse, because that suggests it might be possible.

Conclusions (based purely on my experience, so not in any way definitive): -

• The sheer number of shots and chances in games between theoretically evenly-matched sides is too great
• If the AI chooses to attack you, its players are too effective at exploiting gaps/errors/space - they play the right ball and make the right decision too often, even when it should be extremely difficult to do so
• There's not enough information available to the manager about where those potential gaps/spaces might occur and where they appear in matches - both scout reports and AssMan/analyst guidance in these areas is useless
• Creating solid, balanced tactics is a guessing game, unless you have in-depth knowledge of how tactics work in the game
• Compared to real life, it's too difficult to be solid defensively and too easy to be expansive in attack

Anyway, I don't mean this be a rant, just an observation from my fairly limited experience as someone who hasn't played FM for a decade before FM20 that it seems like attacking tactics are easier to setup than less attacking (let alone out-and-out defensive). I would have expected all four of these games to be tight, evenly balanced and with few chances, but it seems like attacking is more powerful than defending.

You articulate it perfectly. It again refers to my point about unfair AI advantage. I don’t believe the game is scripted . And I also recognise that a good player will be able to out manoeuvre the AI most of the time. But…as the AI works in pure logic it understands every game component. I still don’t really understand the concept of always man mark! We are being underfed from the assman and analysts and SI comprehensively fail to explain the game nuances with every version. I recently heard on the forum there is no point playing a BWM in a low block cos he’ll just charge about everywhere. SI should be making this clear.

as I have said before. I know every rule of chess and will still lose to a competent AI by being cleverly out thought. I want the same from FM. Not frequent mystery performances and results cos I’ve put my DL back a few yards.

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

And here we go. 10 match unbeaten run. Playing amazing attacking football 4312. Playing away at extremely pacey Man U. So go slightly….SLIGHTLY…defensive 433. Slightly deep. Regroup. Counter. Obviously get overwhelmed. This is why this game frustrates. It’s illogical. Losing is fine but every time I defend I lose. Every time I attack I win. I don’t want to play the same formation over and over again. The balance is wrong.

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

5 hours ago, herne79 said:

No more so than in any other formation which doesn't use anyone on the AM line.

Remember - your formation is your defensive formation.  When attacking use roles, duties and the other tactical settings to attack in whatever way you choose .

Interesting. So your formation is your shape when the opponent has the ball. But it’s pretty similar when my team has the ball! 

[Keeping Games Tight: Too Difficult?]

2 hours ago, Haribo1681 said:

This is a really general thought, but I'm interested to know if anyone shares my experience of this or if it's just me.

I think it's too difficult/unrealistic in FM at the moment to keep a game tight and cagey.

This comes from my most recent match, a trip to Old Trafford with my West Ham side. We've grown into a team that's finished 3rd in the Premier League twice in a row and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. Playing away to United is always tough because their forwards are so good on FM, so the logical approach here is to reduce risk, be a bit more compact and try to limit the number of opportunities.

To me, this means keeping the 4-2-3-1 formation that's served us so well in attack, but playing a standard DL instead of higher, match that with a lower LOE rather than standard and switching the right and left backs to play as FB(s) rather than WB(s) to try and keep our shape and hopefully be difficult to break down but without parking the bus. I wouldn't want to change formation to play, say, 4-4-1-1, because my experience tells me that this just invites pressure and a good team will tear you apart that way instead, so you might as well try to retain some form of attacking threat and just accept that the game will be like a basketball match.

My thought here is that good attacking players are too effective at adapting to situations - play a high line and they will drop it in behind or cross from deep and score that way. Player a standard or lower DL, they'll either cross to the penalty spot and score from there or just smash it in from outside the box. It seems as though whatever changes you make to be more defensive, the AI can just easily adapt and do as it pleases - but once you're in front, they're too slow to adjust to get back into the game.

Watching the stats in (at least my) FM games, there are way too many shots - in this particular game with United, there had been a total of 30 shots by the 60th minute and United were 4-1 up, so either my attempt to make the game tight was either completely ineffective (aka: "it's your tactics"), which to me means it's too difficult to make a game cagey or matches involving two good sides are just way more open than they are in real life. One save I'd love to create in FM is one based on a really defensively solid side that is a threat on the break but concedes hardly anything, but that just doesn't seem possible, so I just always gravitate towards possession-based attacking games.

Anyway, this is part-observation, part-rant - I'd be interested to know if anyone else experiences this or if there are effective ways to stop games from being wide open, shot-fests.

Many thanks!

Completely agree. The number of shots peppered in on goal when you play slightly defensive is just plain wrong. Compact and deep should make it v difficult fir the opposition to find space. The opposite happens. 
there is also a boost for a team that scores early. I think that boost is overpowered.

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

6 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

User deleted the entire thread...

It’s on SI. tough call though. They know they can make an assman who tells us everything tactical and training. It happens IRL and the manager is simply a motivator. But how would that make the game look? Basically a load of us waiting for Carlos Queroz telling us how to win the match.

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

3 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

There's no such code, and there's never been. 

The superior team doesn't always win in real life either. 

I know. Haha. But FM isn’t real life. It’s coded. So therefore it must be coded in such a way as to stop the best team winning each match. It has to be.

so if that piece of code which levels the playing field is slightly overpowered then users would notice strange results. Which is what is happening.

there is no issue with having 40 shots v 1 shot and losing very occasionally. If it happens too regularly people will get annoyed. That seems to be happening 

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

On 17/08/2021 at 11:56, Platinum said:

You're 4 points off first and got to the champions league final so you have done well, if you keep up that form you will win the league and champs league eventually. We all need a bit of luck and youve done much better than most other teams. 

As a Spurs fan  let me tell you that getting close doesn’t mean you’ll eventually win any bloody thing!

but I do agree with the sentiment of the post. By definition everything on FM is programmed and therefore artificial. Luck is programmed etc. Without a shadow of doubt there is some piece of code which is muting the success of high performing teams in favour of the smash n grab. The balance doesn’t seem right this year. Too many Late goals. Too many times I’ve swamped am opponent only to lose with their vastly inferior striker suddenly outsmarting my world class defenders.

you can’t possibly argue that a piece of code like this doesn’t exist otherwise the superior team would always win. 

 

[What the actual……..?]

29 minutes ago, glengarry224 said:

Agree with others that you shouldn't panic.

One note to be aware of:  when you use the OI 'tackle harder', that is a zonal instruction.  What that means is that wherever that opposition player runs, your player in that zone will try to tackle him harder, even if your player does not have good tackling attributes:  obviously 'tackling' but also composure, decisions, balance, determination, anticipation and concentration.  It can be a dangerous instruction when your opponent is counter-attacking, or anytime that you don't have a well-structured defensive shape.  Imagine that seven of your players are forwards on attack, with only your BWM and two CBs back, your opponent counters with three players and one of your defenders goes in hard for a tackle and misses...

Great advice!!