10 Man Army - How to cope with being outnumbered.

[Cpt_Short]

I've often wondered about people's ideas for dealing with situations when you go a man down. It could be a sending off or a late injury but on the occasions when this happens I find it a rather exciting intellectual battle when deciding how to approach the rest of the game.

For example, I was playing a league match with a Tier 10 Non-League side when when one of my DC's was dismissed for a pretty stupid lunge just 4 minutes into the match. I made a mental note to discipline the player later but, for the time being, I'm now in a situation where I have 86 minutes of football to play with a significant disadvantage.

The reason why I'm curious is because there isn't actually an obvious method for dealing with it. You could go slightly more defensive, but then you're inviting pressure onto an already weakened side. And if you stay as you were your starting tactic isn't going to be nearly as effective because one of your players, who likely had a specific role in the team, is now gone and you can't plug the gap without opening another. And then if you decide to go a bit gung-ho and chase the game (assuming you're already losing) then you're going to have holes appearing in your defence and the opposition can practically Waltz through on the counter. As an avid Formula 1 fan this idea of inventing a new strategy on the fly fascinates me endlessly.

Fortunately I encourage discipline in my teams so this is rarely something I encounter, but I'd be interested in discussing it with some of the FM Veterans on this forum.

[AytchMan]

Well, first off, I agree that there's no obvious plug-in solution. For me, any shift in tactics depends a lot on the game situation: ahead, behind, quality of opponent and even some more obscure factors such as where we are in the season (fighting relegation, vying for a playoff spot, whatever). Generally, I tend to go defensive with counterattacks, probably start playing longball and maybe narrow up a bit.