Defending in This Game is Shocking

[Guest]

If it's the one who allows the player who crosses the ball to casually drift by on his blind side he's a lazy inside forward/support, the MCR who runs around but does very little is a B2B.

[MBarbaric]

22 hours ago, Barside said:

Bingo. 

Look at how wide players are covered, the ME has the defensive player square up to stop a run at the byline & this leaves an easy crossing angle in the inside. 

I would just ask anyone to watch the video below and think how much that relates to FM. The problem with defence in this game is that, at least it seems to me, defence is done on individual basis. that each player on the defending team defends for himself. So the problems are created already by attackers who don't track back, don't make curved runs to funnel the opposition play towards outside, or inside, midfielders don't grasp that they are part of a team and once ball arrives in final third, it is all broken.

 

 

[Sunstrikuuu]

On 8/11/2016 at 06:42, Cougar2010 said:

 

 

I have a random quote tag that shows up whenever i try to reply.  God I hate this new system.

On the topic, Barside, I'm talking about the BBM.  At 5/6 seconds into the clip as the BBM starts to move outside, you can see the LCM stuck trying to mark two players.  By 7 seconds he's started to chase one of them into the box as the CAM drops back to mark the other, but at that point it's too late and the player on the right has a second target for his cross.  The movement of the BBM makes absolutely no sense as the player he's rushing to close down is in theory already marked and closed down by two players.  As well, the attacking team's right midfielder has made it past the fullback and could either finish a through ball from that central midfielder or a cross hit a little harder to the far post.  And to compound things, a long pass crossfield would pick out the fullback in something like thirty yards of space as the defending team's left midfielder has had to track a run inside and all the way into the box, until he stops to hand the runner off.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

I would just ask anyone to watch the video below and think how much that relates to FM. The problem with defence in this game is that, at least it seems to me, defence is done on individual basis. that each player on the defending team defends for himself. So the problems are created already by attackers who don't track back, don't make curved runs to funnel the opposition play towards outside, or inside, midfielders don't grasp that they are part of a team and once ball arrives in final third, it is all broken

 

Excellent observation. 

The 1v1 approach to defending is a killer & is very much evident when you see two players closing down a single player out wide, in FM the general behaviour is that both players will close down the man in possession as if they are the only player defending against the attacker when what we should see at the top level of the game is that one presses while the other covers behind to clean up should the first player not win the ball, very tough logic to simulate.

[MBarbaric]

22 hours ago, Barside said:

 

I can cope with not being able to instruct players to do what i want oin offensive phase of the game, but the defending is really killing the immersion for me. I have no idea about coding, but defending is really a set of exact rules teams should adhere to and it doesn't show in the game at all. although they are a little better now, until recently  wingers on attack duty, according to game, weren't supposed to track back and defend. it just destroys illusion and appeal of the game. 

The irony is that FM pushed me into coaching and once I finally started, I begun to see all the downsides and it just breaks my will to spend time playing it.

 

ps yes, quoting is absolute nightmare as you can see above

[Guest]

I might have mentioned this earlier in this thread or it could have been another. A key part of the issue is how training is so focused on the individual's development with very little time spent on the team's development, should SI ever be able to integrate the ME & training into a single challenging system then the real world approach of training being about making the team better & as a natural consequence the player better would be much more important rather than simpler idea that improving the player improves the team which is the current methodology,

The fact that we get have a new team have a full understanding of our new tactic in a single preseason is far to short a time period, a full understanding takes seasons to develop but in FM it takes weeks so stability & tactical ability is never truly rewarded. 

1 hour ago, Sunstrikuuu said:

On the topic, Barside, I'm talking about the BBM.  At 5/6 seconds into the clip as the BBM starts to move outside, you can see the LCM stuck trying to mark two players.  By 7 seconds he's started to chase one of them into the box as the CAM drops back to mark the other, but at that point it's too late and the player on the right has a second target for his cross.  The movement of the BBM makes absolutely no sense as the player he's rushing to close down is in theory already marked and closed down by two players.  As well, the attacking team's right midfielder has made it past the fullback and could either finish a through ball from that central midfielder or a cross hit a little harder to the far post.  And to compound things, a long pass crossfield would pick out the fullback in something like thirty yards of space as the defending team's left midfielder has had to track a run inside and all the way into the box, until he stops to hand the runner off.

Ah yes, the problem of MC's ping-ponging left/right or forward/back as they chase after high balls hey will never be able to challenge for & then leave big gaps for players to drop in to, sometimes clearly tactical other time just odd.

[Powermonger]

3 hours ago, Barside said:

Excellent observation. 

The 1v1 approach to defending is a killer & is very much evident when you see two players closing down a single player out wide, in FM the general behaviour is that both players will close down the man in possession as if they are the only player defending against the attacker when what we should see at the top level of the game is that one presses while the other covers behind to clean up should the first player not win the ball, very tough logic to simulate.

Yes pressing is a big problem in FM, I want my players to double team an opponent and apply pressure however the issue I see is both players will apply pressure goal-side of the opponent and act independently. 

I want to see one of my players apply pressure from the front and the second player apply pressure from behind. One should be concentrating on the opponent, the other should be concentrating on winning back the ball. This doesn't happen though.

I think why there are issues is because 90% of tactic instruction are focused on the attacking phase. We hardly have any options for controlling the defensive phase. It's all hard coded. 

 

[Jean0987654321]

They need to fix that crossing bug, tho. That nonsense is a big turnoff for FM players like me. Saying that tho, it is good to see my crosses finding a man for that first time in forever...

[fmfan74]

Has anyone discussed how potent Ronald Koeman was when he was back in Barcelona as a defensive player.  That defence struck fear into the hearts of men, let alone the AC Milan days of maldini.  As for koeman his free kicks, passing were a joy to watch.  Especially his passing being so deadly and creative.

Not many defensive lines now days have the skill of offensive potency of days of the past.  I'm seeing more and more defence instead of attack minded.  Has anyone used the D-Line in FM16 to be a focal point of attack ? just wondering if you can do it.  And when i mean attack i mean the x2 central defenders and not the wing backs.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Jean0987654321 said:

They need to fix that crossing bug, tho. That nonsense is a big turnoff for FM players like me. Saying that tho, it is good to see my crosses finding a man for that first time in forever...

Thanks for helping move the discussion to a higher level of in depth analysis. 

[MBarbaric]

On 17.08.2016. at 23:14, Barside said:

13 hours ago, Barside said:

I might have mentioned this earlier in this thread or it could have been another. A key part of the issue is how training is so focused on the individual's development with very little time spent on the team's development, should SI ever be able to integrate the ME & training into a single challenging system then the real world approach of training being about making the team better & as a natural consequence the player better would be much more important rather than simpler idea that improving the player improves the team which is the current methodology,

The fact that we get have a new team have a full understanding of our new tactic in a single preseason is far to short a time period, a full understanding takes seasons to develop but in FM it takes weeks so stability & tactical ability is never truly rewarded. 

 

 

Bolded is really key. That is correct to an extent, however, players need time to understand what manager wants and how he wants it. Time to grasp the ideas and make them work on the pitch depends on complexity of demands from manager, and his ability to convey them, and adaptability/intelligence/tactical understanding of current players.

I don't know how hard would it be to implement this but it couldn't be harder than make decent defending principles make it in the game. However, until defending is done properly so you can see a player applying pressure and another covering him the game is just a glorified database. In the end, a game of football has exact rules and if SI managed to code those rules, I don't understand why they wouldn't be able to code rules for defending as that, unlike attacking, really has exact set of rules. SI loves to say they work with coaches, clubs and what not, so they might ask around how does the team defend as a unit. 

Then we can go on and make the offensive game work.

 

This above is the Chelsea transition from defensive into middle third under Conte in last match against West Ham. Look the left side of Chelsea attack, you can't really tell your players to completely vacate the middle in FM, can you? And even more interesting is how Chelsea arrives into that position, look at Oscar's initial and final position in transition from defence to offense. That is how Chelsea plays and no way you can replicate that in FM.

However, I agree, let's sort defence first.

[Earnie is God!]

On 18/08/2016 at 20:48, Sunstrikuuu said:

I have a random quote tag that shows up whenever i try to reply.  God I hate this new system.

On the topic, Barside, I'm talking about the BBM.  At 5/6 seconds into the clip as the BBM starts to move outside, you can see the LCM stuck trying to mark two players.  By 7 seconds he's started to chase one of them into the box as the CAM drops back to mark the other, but at that point it's too late and the player on the right has a second target for his cross.  The movement of the BBM makes absolutely no sense as the player he's rushing to close down is in theory already marked and closed down by two players.  As well, the attacking team's right midfielder has made it past the fullback and could either finish a through ball from that central midfielder or a cross hit a little harder to the far post.  And to compound things, a long pass crossfield would pick out the fullback in something like thirty yards of space as the defending team's left midfielder has had to track a run inside and all the way into the box, until he stops to hand the runner off.

I had this problem the other day and finally managed to fix it. To do so, press 'ctrl' and right-click the quote box and this will give you four options, Choose the bottom one.

[Dante_tz]

On 8/17/2016 at 00:44, Barside said:

Likely to be the opposition going to a contain mentality as players not closing down opponents using contain is a known issue as it's perceived that they are offering no attacking threat so there's no need to pressure the player in possession. AFAIK this is something that the ME team had on the priority list but it does require a significant change to ensure it does not destroy the balance when other mentalities are used, essentially it's a fix one & risk breaking all the other mentality combinations so was incredibly unsafe to tinker with on the current ME.

So ,what can be done in situations like these ..is there a way to surpass this issue,despite the AI using the contain mentality? .Becasue I encountered this problem numereous times ,my players jut wont close down opposition players .

[Guest]

I've not come up with a tactical solution & I do not believe there is one. Asking the question in the tactics forum might see someone post how they've approached the challenge of winning the ball back off a side that has decided to shut down the match with an ultra contain style.

[sirgiorgio]

On 17 agosto 2016 at 23:14, Barside said:

Bingo. 

Look at how wide players are covered, the ME has the defensive player square up to stop a run at the byline & this leaves an easy crossing angle in the inside. 

While I agree the fullback is to blame, I wouldn't call that an "easy crossing angle". A cross from that zone of the pitch is considered as one of the hardest (and, therefore, most useless) thing to do in football. Maybe a fast ball toward the near post, hoping for a first time shot, an header, or even a deflection from the defender... but to aim at the far post it takes "incredible craft and vision", and also a fair share of luck, since you have to find the no man's land between the keeper and the defender(s), and you have to hope for some kind of misunderstanding from their part ("is it mine?" "No it's yours", "I go", "you go", nobody goes...). In fact, every time I see these goals I can't help but thinking of the goalscorer, who seems to be the only one in the whole stadium to understand where the ball will go...

The way I see it, there's simply too much space between the fullback and the nearest defender, which is partly due to the fact that the goal comes from a counter-attack (so you have to expect some players to be caught out of position) and partly due to the "individual vs team defending" issue. Great defenders (and defenses) are able to spot their teammates' errors and react quickly. On the other hand, mistakes happen, so I don't see anything particularly "flawed" in the way defenders act and react. The only exaggeration, the thing you don't (usually) see in a game of football, is that Perfect Cross. Another winger (with another ME?) would have probably punished the poor defensive positioning cutting inside with the ball and reconsidering his options (pass, cross, shot, dribbling) from a much more dangerous zone (more central and nearer to the goal).

[herne79]

On 22/08/2016 at 16:24, Dante_tz said:

So ,what can be done in situations like these ..is there a way to surpass this issue,despite the AI using the contain mentality? .Becasue I encountered this problem numereous times ,my players jut wont close down opposition players .

 

22 hours ago, Barside said:

I've not come up with a tactical solution & I do not believe there is one. Asking the question in the tactics forum might see someone post how they've approached the challenge of winning the ball back off a side that has decided to shut down the match with an ultra contain style.

To me, it's not really a question of trying to force some sort of turnover in this type of (rare?) situation.  At some point, you are going to get the ball back regardless - whether that's the ball going out for a thrown in / goal kick; picking the ball out of the back of the net (hopefully not!); someone (eventually) putting in a tackle; an opposition player messing up a pass; etc etc.

It therefore becomes more important what you do with the ball once you have it.  And that's situational based on your own tactical set up.  For example, if I play a Structured system, I may try something a bit more Fluid instead to add creativity to my team - but obviously wouldn't be doing that if I am already playing a Fluid system, I'd try something else.  It becomes playing round the parked bus, not through it.

But that's nothing to do with the OP and "shocking" defending.