Concerning tactical issue

[Wells]

@Rashidi not only 4-4-2, but any tactic that contains wingers, they will always/mostly stay wide..

[MBarbaric]

5 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Is the real issue, the AI can't defend, or is the real issue the human managers can't defend? Basically if we make it easier for human managers to defend, then we are also going to make the AI harder to defeat

the real issue is that defending isn't the creative part of football. or, to be more precise, it is, but not to the levele of attacking phase. defense has its  own variants but it is constructed around what space you are willing to concede to the opposition. 

in other words, there are few schools of thought of defensive appraoches for each third of the pitch (and the creative part is to employ the right mixture for the right opposition) but current match engine doesn't replicate none of them at all.

ATTACKING THIRD

Do you defend from front or wait for opposition to arrive to middle third or half way line?

If you defend from front, is your goal to:

                                a) win the ball high, 

                               b) force the opposition into uncontrolled clearance

                               c) funnel the play towards wide/central area for pressing trap

How do you do approach to each of the above? What are duties and roles for each player to achieve the desired effect?

MIDDLE THIRD
If you wait for opposition to arrive to middle third, how do you defend? Do you mark strictly zonally, Do you mark zonally but oriented towards the opposition men in particular zone? Does the striker(s) drop to help? Do you allow space wide or centrally? Whose responsability it is to cover once the opposition penetrates the first line of defence?

How do you cover wide areas? 
   a) with wide players coming deep doubling the full backs?
   b) wide players coming deep, full backs tuck inside to cover the central area?
   c) central midfielder covering wide area?
   c) pressing trap to funnel play central? who is responsible for pressing/covering?

How do you cover central area?
   a) dropping deeper one of the strikers?
   b) pressing trap to funnel play wide? Who is responsible for pressing?
   c) strictly zonally/zonal but man oriented?
   

I admit these are poor examples off the top of my head but they are decisions each manager makes when he plans his overall defensive strategy. For each of above questions there are exact behaviour patterns. It has zero creativty in it. it is the matter of automatization of movement in different zones of the pitch that are written in any coach manual.

The difficulty is to convey ideas to players, chosing the right approach for right opposition, adapting for opposition during the match and time to perfect each approach with given player selection. In most cases, coaches chose one overall defensive method that is then more or less adjusted for each opposition as it is difficult to change overall approach significantly week in week out.

[Rashidi]

15 minutes ago, Wells said:

@Rashidi not only 4-4-2, but any tactic that contains wingers, they will always/mostly stay wide..

I thought wingers were supposed to stay wide, if you don't want them to stay wide, why choose wingers?

[MBarbaric]

4 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

I thought wingers were supposed to stay wide, if you don't want them to stay wide, why choose wingers?

because when the opposition has the ball you have zero use of winger and you need a defender?

[Guest El Payaso]

@Rashidi I think that you know quite well that this topic isn't just about 4-4-2 defending so don't act like you didn't. The idea of the topic clearly is that the wingers are not helping defending in the middle of the park which is highly related on how easy it is for players to perform there and that is why I brought Joe Hanks to the discussion. 

So more about Hanks. Having decent passing and vision don't make him a good player. For middle of the park he is lacking bravery, off the ball and anticipation. Also he hasn't the mobility to make up those weaknesses. Most of the vital attributes that are required to perform in midfield are in League 1 level (if even that) and nothing makes him stand out. If the quality of Premier league and Champions League haven't drastically dropped then you are facing a lot of players with close to 20 for most of the defensive attributes and that kind of players should be making dog meat out of a mediocre player like Hanks. 

I have the same 'problem' too as I decided to develop one of my twenty years old and throw him into the deep end by making him a starter as a DM. Well he is maybe a decent player for Segunda League but as he isn't pressurized or bullied in any way on the pitch the end product is in same level as it is for Mikel Merino or the other more experienced players who have played on this level for years. 

[Wells]

26 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

I thought wingers were supposed to stay wide, if you don't want them to stay wide, why choose wingers?

So that makes them to not defend? their job isn't just to stay wide all the time, they need to contribute in such case needed to form a solid defense, so It is just poorly implemented in this version.

 

 

[Michael Zorc]

34 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

the real issue is that defending isn't the creative part of football. or, to be more precise, it is, but not to the levele of attacking phase. defense has its  own variants but it is constructed around what space you are willing to concede to the opposition. 

in other words, there are few schools of thought of defensive appraoches for each third of the pitch (and the creative part is to employ the right mixture for the right opposition) but current match engine doesn't replicate none of them at all.

ATTACKING THIRD

Do you defend from front or wait for opposition to arrive to middle third or half way line?

If you defend from front, is your goal to:

                                a) win the ball high, 

                               b) force the opposition into uncontrolled clearance

                               c) funnel the play towards wide/central area for pressing trap

How do you do approach to each of the above? What are duties and roles for each player to achieve the desired effect?

MIDDLE THIRD
If you wait for opposition to arrive to middle third, how do you defend? Do you mark strictly zonally, Do you mark zonally but oriented towards the opposition men in particular zone? Does the striker(s) drop to help? Do you allow space wide or centrally? Whose responsability it is to cover once the opposition penetrates the first line of defence?

How do you cover wide areas? 
   a) with wide players coming deep doubling the full backs?
   b) wide players coming deep, full backs tuck inside to cover the central area?
   c) central midfielder covering wide area?
   c) pressing trap to funnel play central? who is responsible for pressing/covering?

How do you cover central area?
   a) dropping deeper one of the strikers?
   b) pressing trap to funnel play wide? Who is responsible for pressing?
   c) strictly zonally/zonal but man oriented?
   

I admit these are poor examples off the top of my head but they are decisions each manager makes when he plans his overall defensive strategy. For each of above questions there are exact behaviour patterns. It has zero creativty in it. it is the matter of automatization of movement in different zones of the pitch that are written in any coach manual.

The difficulty is to convey ideas to players, chosing the right approach for right opposition, adapting for opposition during the match and time to perfect each approach with given player selection. In most cases, coaches chose one overall defensive method that is then more or less adjusted for each opposition as it is difficult to change overall approach significantly week in week out.

I really wish you had a job working on the football theory aspect of the FM match engine.

You have so much insight into real-life coaching & defending that few others possess.

I have no doubt the game would advance dramatically with your input.

Honestly, if I had enough money, I'd pay SI whatever I could to get you a job there.

[Rashidi]

1 hour ago, MBarbaric said:

the real issue is that defending isn't the creative part of football. or, to be more precise, it is, but not to the levele of attacking phase. defense has its  own variants but it is constructed around what space you are willing to concede to the opposition. 

in other words, there are few schools of thought of defensive appraoches for each third of the pitch (and the creative part is to employ the right mixture for the right opposition) but current match engine doesn't replicate none of them at all.

ATTACKING THIRD

Do you defend from front or wait for opposition to arrive to middle third or half way line?

If you defend from front, is your goal to:

                                a) win the ball high, 

                               b) force the opposition into uncontrolled clearance

                               c) funnel the play towards wide/central area for pressing trap

How do you do approach to each of the above? What are duties and roles for each player to achieve the desired effect?

MIDDLE THIRD
If you wait for opposition to arrive to middle third, how do you defend? Do you mark strictly zonally, Do you mark zonally but oriented towards the opposition men in particular zone? Does the striker(s) drop to help? Do you allow space wide or centrally? Whose responsability it is to cover once the opposition penetrates the first line of defence?

How do you cover wide areas? 
   a) with wide players coming deep doubling the full backs?
   b) wide players coming deep, full backs tuck inside to cover the central area?
   c) central midfielder covering wide area?
   c) pressing trap to funnel play central? who is responsible for pressing/covering?

How do you cover central area?
   a) dropping deeper one of the strikers?
   b) pressing trap to funnel play wide? Who is responsible for pressing?
   c) strictly zonally/zonal but man oriented?
   

I admit these are poor examples off the top of my head but they are decisions each manager makes when he plans his overall defensive strategy. For each of above questions there are exact behaviour patterns. It has zero creativty in it. it is the matter of automatization of movement in different zones of the pitch that are written in any coach manual.

The difficulty is to convey ideas to players, chosing the right approach for right opposition, adapting for opposition during the match and time to perfect each approach with given player selection. In most cases, coaches chose one overall defensive method that is then more or less adjusted for each opposition as it is difficult to change overall approach significantly week in week out.

I hate to say this, but it does exist, unfortunately doing it well is one of the hardest aspects of the game and I agree that this difficulty should be kept high.

[Rashidi]

34 minutes ago, Wells said:

So that makes them to not defend? their job isn't just to stay wide all the time, they need to contribute in such case needed to form a solid defense, so It is just poorly implemented in this version.

 

 

Then you want the role to play differently from how its indicated in the game.

[themadsheep2001]

42 minutes ago, Michael Zorc said:

I really wish you had a job working on the football theory aspect of the FM match engine.

You have so much insight into real-life coaching & defending that few others possess.

I have no doubt the game would advance dramatically with your input.

Honestly, if I had enough money, I'd pay SI whatever I could to get you a job there.

With respect to MBarbaric, Rashidi is a genuine expert on the game, there are few with his insight on both football, and the ME itself

Secondly, football theory doesn't translate to knowing how to code it

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

Then you want the role to play differently from how its indicated in the game.

Surely that's a discussion for the tactics forum while in here it should be more a case of whether the interpretation is correction.

I'm happy to be proven wrong but AFAIK in all the discussions on this subject that I've seen in here, the feature ideas & tactics sections I'm yet to see an example of a real life wingers/wide players defending in the manner they do in FM.

[themadsheep2001]

4 minutes ago, Barside said:

Surely that's a discussion for the tactics forum while in here it should be more a case of whether the interpretation is correction.

There's not set interpretation of how teams should defend. What you can get to is a broad agreement that the more options are required in the TC. Of course these can only happen if such options are ready to be coded into the M£ and the AI can also handle such options

[MBarbaric]

30 minutes ago, Barside said:

Surely that's a discussion for the tactics forum while in here it should be more a case of whether the interpretation is correction.

I'm happy to be proven wrong but AFAIK in all the discussions on this subject that I've seen in here, the feature ideas & tactics sections I'm yet to see an example of a real life wingers/wide players defending in the manner they do in FM.

there are situations where a winger might play so wide in defensive phase. 

Above is the example from DEN v ESP match and you can see the winger staying wide like he would in FM however, there is a good reason for this. Namely, Marco Asensio. So the manager decided to keep a player closer to him is less dangerous than conceding space in central area. Additionaly, to mitigate this, CF drops back to help two central midfileders.

 

Above is the same situation when the ball is on the other side and you can see the LW is much narrower than the RW in previous screenshot. that is the default position of winger in zonal marking. as on the right side the red team doesn't have same quality wide player, there is no need to keep the winger so wide and he is more concerned with covering the central zone.

So wide players can stay wide in defensive phase, however, there is usually specific reason for this in real football while in FM that is default behaviour, which, in real, is the other way around.

[Michael Zorc]

12 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

With respect to MBarbaric, Rashidi is a genuine expert on the game, there are few with his insight on both football, and the ME itself

Secondly, football theory doesn't translate to knowing how to code it

I don't know Rashidi so can only go on his posts and body of work on his website.

I don't know MBarbaric either.

So with all due respect, but from what I've read (extensively over many years for Rashidi - both before and after his posting break on these forums a few years ago), I strongly disagree with you on the "football insight" aspect. Everyone entitled to their opinion though, so this is mine and we obviously differ on this. Some basic things that Rashidi can't seem to grasp about defending on this thread disturbs me greatly because he appears to have an influence on the FM match engine development, and based on some of his ideas/views, I think that's actually really dangerous for FM on a quality/realism level.

Rashidi understanding the current intracacies of the match engine? Yes. Understanding the complexities of high-level defending in real world football? Seems an obvious "no" to me. It's not even close given some of the things he has posted. Maybe he's exhibited a better understanding in person vs his written word but I can only go on what I've read.

But yes, coding football theory into the game is different as well. Agree with you on that at least. Methinks advanced machine learning will be needed at some point in the future to get the match engine to a level I'd be happy with.

Need coders with ability to incorporate concepts used by world class coaches, which are understand by people such as MBarbaric. These human coders probably don't exist or SI doesn't have the resources to acquire them, so ultimately we may need to wait for intelligent machines to do it for us.

[Wells]

46 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

Then you want the role to play differently from how its indicated in the game.

Like I've said before.. the problem lies when playing against narrow tactic opposition, why should they just stay alone in the wide areas? like I have shown at the first pic on OP.. whether you play wide/narrow they will always defend the same in FM and that is unrealistic tbf. 

 

Also there was huge discussion about this nvm, 

[themadsheep2001]

6 minutes ago, Michael Zorc said:

I don't know Rashidi so can only go on his posts and body of work on his website.

I don't know MBarbaric either.

So with all due respect, but from what I've read (extensively over many years for Rashidi - both before and after his posting break on these forums a few years ago), I strongly disagree with you on the "football insight" aspect. Everyone entitled to their opinion though, so this is mine and we obviously differ on this. Some basic things that Rashidi can't seem to grasp about defending on this thread disturbs me greatly because he appears to have an influence on the FM match engine development, and based on some of his ideas/views, I think that's actually really dangerous for FM on a quality/realism level.

Rashidi understanding the current intracacies of the match engine? Yes. Understanding the complexities of high-level defending in real world football? Seems an obvious "no" to me. It's not even close given some of the things he has posted. Maybe he's exhibited a better understanding in person vs his written word but I can only go on what I've read.

But yes, coding football theory into the game is different as well. Agree with you on that at least. Methinks advanced machine learning will be needed at some point in the future to get the match engine to a level I'd be happy with.

Need coders with ability to incorporate concepts used by world class coaches, which are understand by people such as MBarbaric. These human coders probably don't exist or SI doesn't have the resources to acquire them, so ultimately we may need to wait for intelligent machines to do it for us.

You can strongly disagree, but if you don't know both well, you're not exactly best placed to start saying who should be working where.

It doesnt need advanced machine learning either. Moving on

[Michael Zorc]

Just now, themadsheep2001 said:

You can strongly disagree, but if you don't know both well, you're not exactly best played start saying who should be working where.

It doesnt need advanced machine learning either. Moving on

Happy to disagree and leave it at that.

Good to get views from all sides and hear different perspectives.

[themadsheep2001]

11 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

there are situations where a winger might play so wide in defensive phase. 

Above is the example from DEN v ESP match and you can see the winger staying wide like he would in FM however, there is a good reason for this. Namely, Marco Asensio. So the manager decided to keep a player closer to him is less dangerous than conceding space in central area. Additionaly, to mitigate this, CF drops back to help two central midfileders.

 

Above is the same situation when the ball is on the other side and you can see the LW is much narrower than the RW in previous screenshot. that is the default position of winger in zonal marking. as on the right side the red team doesn't have same quality wide player, there is no need to keep the winger so wide and he is more concerned with covering the central zone.

So wide players can stay wide in defensive phase, however, there is usually specific reason for this in real football while in FM that is default behaviour, which, in real, is the other way around.

We've had this discussion before. All it does for me is reinforce the fact we should have options. I wouldn't want to be forced narrow if all the danger play is vice versa. 

The traditional thought is that you went narrow and deep, as the space in front of the back 4 has historically been the danger area. That said, attacking play has moved on that its not necessarily the case any more, certainly at top level.

[Scrench]

Every role in the wide midfield strata seem to defend the same way, the differences are barely visible. Even with much more closing down PI, the players stay out wide in defense wheter or not there is potential threat in that area, and we don't have any options to change this behaviour. The half spaces are left wide open and roles that exploit that space are flourishing. The same applies for the AI, which leads to easy exploitation with narrow tactics to the point that it is almost pointless playing with wide midfielders as you have minus 2 men in defense.

[MBarbaric]

9 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

We've had this discussion before. All it does for me is reinforce the fact we should have options. I wouldn't want to be forced narrow if all the danger play is vice versa. 

i absolutely agree we should have options but the thing is that the default option in the game is the wrong option. default should be to cover the central area (if there is no particular threat, i.e. Asensio) and you could then assign individual marking instruction to man mark the player on weak side (plus order your striker to drop deep to mitigate for the gap in the center).

 

9 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

The traditional thought is that you went narrow and deep, as the space in front of the back 4 has historically been the danger area. That said, attacking play has moved on that its not necessarily the case any more, certainly at top level.

the most dangerous area is always going to be the area in the center. nothing has changed there and won't as long as teams play with equal number of players. the reason is that a shot from central area has broader angle towards the goal and higher probability of going in than a shot from a tight angle.

equally, a player with the ball in the center of the pitch is more dangerous as he has 360 degrees for chosing passing option or moving with the ball while player on the wing has only half of that space. hence why pressing in wide areas is easier and more common than pressing in the central area.

[Guest El Payaso]

I think this wide midfielders defensive positioning was made to improve defending wide areas which was the main issue on FM 16. The thing though is that it really didn't fix that area. Especially the Ai uses wingers on AM strata which means that they will not backtrack too well which means that the overlaps still are effective. By looking at statistics we can still see that ever so often the amount of crosses attempted highly exceed the amounts that we see in real life. 

How I would expect them to defend is to actively shift from wide to middle and back depending on where they are needed. Currently the most awful thing that I see is when they stay even outside the opposition full backs when they are 'defending'. 

So the defensive effort that especially a AMRL produces quite often is a round zero. 

[Preveza]

14 minutes ago, El Payaso said:

I think this wide midfielders defensive positioning was made to improve defending wide areas which was the main issue on FM 16. The thing though is that it really didn't fix that area. Especially the Ai uses wingers on AM strata which means that they will not backtrack too well which means that the overlaps still are effective. By looking at statistics we can still see that ever so often the amount of crosses attempted highly exceed the amounts that we see in real life. 

Exactly. SI decided to use a quick band aid fix. SMH. Hopefully FM18 has some completely new fundamentals instead of these quick fixes. Disappointing to say the least. Pity I can't get my money back

[themadsheep2001]

35 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

i absolutely agree we should have options but the thing is that the default option in the game is the wrong option. default should be to cover the central area (if there is no particular threat, i.e. Asensio) and you could then assign individual marking instruction to man mark the player on weak side (plus order your striker to drop deep to mitigate for the gap in the center).

 

the most dangerous area is always going to be the area in the center. nothing has changed there and won't as long as teams play with equal number of players. the reason is that a shot from central area has broader angle towards the goal and higher probability of going in than a shot from a tight angle.

equally, a player with the ball in the center of the pitch is more dangerous as he has 360 degrees for chosing passing option or moving with the ball while player on the wing has only half of that space. hence why pressing in wide areas is easier and more common than pressing in the central area.

You can still create angles of attack from wide, that drag players out of central positions, and create that dangerous angle on goal.

A player in the centre might have more options, but a player on the wings more likely to one on one opportunities to beat his man, and create an attacking opportunity from wide or inside on the angle. Having free space wide is dangerous if they can attack the corner of the box.

[Svenc]

13 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

You can still create angles of attack from wide, that drag players out of central positions, and create that dangerous angle on goal.

A player in the centre might have more options, but a player on the wings more likely to one on one opportunities to beat his man, and create an attacking opportunity from wide or inside on the angle. Having free space wide is dangerous if they can attack the corner of the box.

To "moderate" some. I think we can all agree that players not getting properly tracked in whatever area of the pitch, particularly advanced ones, can be mightily dangerous all around. However, MBarbaric is right here too. I doubt that the "wide area" issues prior or any other issue prior has ever lead to matches where sides from divisions below could "dominate" superior sides (to an extent, mind), and that's what's happens if a simple man advantage now means control of the crucial central spaces of the pitch. This all feels like a slightly repeat, so I'm bowing out on that, and chose the "I have faith" team talk Paul and Co. deserve after all the hours of entertainment he's given me throughout the years. [And an alternative football escapism that thankfully isn't as bonkers and filthy as a lot of real football has become, once you discard the sums being thrown around, that is! ]

Btw., is Ray Houghton actually still involved?

[themadsheep2001]

Just now, Svenc said:

To "moderate" some. I think we can all agree that players not getting properly tracked in whatever area of the pitch, particularly advanced ones, can be mightily dangerous all around. However, MBarbaric is right here too. I doubt that the "wide area" issues prior or any other issue prior has ever lead to matches where sides from divisions below could "dominate" superior sides, and that's what's happens if a simple man advantage now means control of the crucial central spaces of the pitch. This all feels like a slightly repeat, so I'm bowing out on that, and chose the "I have faith" team talk Paul and Co. deserve after all the hours of entertainment he's given me throughout the years. [And an alternative football escapism that thankfully isn't as bonkers and filthy as a lot of real football has become, once you discard the sums being thrown around, that is! ]

Btw., is Ray Houghton actually still involved?

It will be interesting to see what FM18 brings, plenty to do either way,

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Svenc said:

Btw., is Ray Houghton actually still involved?

TBH I do not think he was ever that involved to start with, certainly not in the way it was portrayed to be at the time.

[Rashidi]

1 minute ago, Barside said:

TBH I do not think he was ever that involved to start with, certainly not in the way it was portrayed to be at the time.

Always thought he was involved to, at least thats the way I was led to believe. I just lost to Arsenals 442, got ass whipped in the last 5 minutes with 2 quick goals, they changed, mentality/shape/roles and duties and just exploited the width.  And this discussion has encouraged me to drop the narrow 4231 I was using, to go user wider systems.

[MBarbaric]

19 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

You can still create angles of attack from wide, that drag players out of central positions, and create that dangerous angle on goal.

That is why a team doesn't defend one v one but with at least two players where one pressures and the other one covers at an angle with the idea to push the player either wide or in the center towards the packed midfield). that is why you don't see anymore pure man marking defence and, after all, why teams defend as unit sliding towards the side where the ball is, thus leaving the oposite flank (called the weak side, go figure) with less attention/men. 

25 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

A player in the centre might have more options, but a player on the wings more likely to one on one opportunities to beat his man, and create an attacking opportunity from wide or inside on the angle. Having free space wide is dangerous if they can attack the corner of the box.

all mentioned above is designed to deny space for that one player on the wing that might wreck havoc. and then you face messi and suddenly nothing works anymore however, the idea does. and the idea is to get opposition the least space possible ithe most dangerous space. and then, if they happen to have luck, messi, whatever... then you just move on and try to give the other team hell on the other side of the pitch.

 

11 minutes ago, Barside said:

TBH I do not think he was ever that involved to start with, certainly not in the way it was portrayed to be at the time.

i genuinely don't think SI is unaware of how defence works in real. anyone who has anything to do with how football works would understand defending in FM simply doesn't work as it should.

the real problem, i feel, is that if they did proper defence in the game whole offensive phase would get exposed and that would be much worst for SI. most of us like to attack more than to defend. so, in short, proper defending would break attack and there would soon be no product to sell.

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

Always thought he was involved to, at least thats the way I was led to believe.

Ray Houghton comes across as a man you does not have the time of day for football chat with anyone who hasn't played the game professionally.

[lemeuresnew]

14 hours ago, Barside said:

They're Sunday league tactics, In the OP's image what threat are the wide players defending against?

they are covering there area of play. if the opposition switched play out wide i would expect them to make some form of harrying of them on there side, but i wouldnt want them too central as this would limit how we could try to counter or play the ball out to relieve pressure on the defence

i would say having every man central just because that is where the ball is at that time could be called sunday pub team football too. the opposition really dont have that many men forward to warrant such defensive play in my opinion

 

[lemeuresnew]

11 hours ago, Rashidi said:

it was changing mentality/shape and duties regularly in the game which made it even harder for me to nail them down,

i really enjoy matches like this, but they dont happen often enough and usually from random managers at random times

maybe there could be more focus on the ai managers being flexible and cunning instead of just throwing everyone back for 90 minutes. some times it can feel like shooting practice when they make no effort to attack back. i dont believe my team press that effectively EVERY game, just finished my second season unbeaten so may be even worse next time

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

they are covering there area of play. if the opposition switched play out wide i would expect them to make some form of harrying of them on there side, but i wouldnt want them too central as this would limit how we could try to counter or play the ball out to relieve pressure on the defence

i would say having every man central just because that is where the ball is at that time could be called sunday pub team football too. the opposition really dont have that many men forward to warrant such defensive play in my opinion

 

Tucking in doesn't mean playing in a central position, the natural tactical position to take up is inside the vertical line from the full backs.

[lemeuresnew]

17 minutes ago, Barside said:

Tucking in doesn't mean playing in a central position, the natural tactical position to take up is inside the vertical line from the full backs.

he already has his full backs tucked in, if they were in that line from the picture they would not be positioned on the wing at all

i would think having your full backs sit narrower and wingers would just be over kill

[Wells]

2 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

he already has his full backs tucked in, if they were in that line from the picture they would not be positioned on the wing at all

i would think having your full backs sit narrower and wingers would just be over kill

It wont be overkill and for your info AT.Madrid usually plays like that, maybe you should research more before jumping in the bandwagon..

Even Nic Madden acknowledged this a ME issue so and they will improve it...

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

he already has his full backs tucked in, if they were in that line from the picture they would not be positioned on the wing at all

Correct & then when possession is regained they'd look to break wide.

As for the full backs being tucked in that's not the case eithwr, there's a huge gap between them & the centre backs with the opposition striker sitting in one of those gaps, this is because players in the flank positions are too rigidly programmed to cover those flanks even when there's no need.

[lemeuresnew]

6 minutes ago, Wells said:

It wont be overkill and for your info AT.Madrid usually plays like that, maybe you should research more before jumping in the bandwagon..

Even Nic Madden acknowledged this a ME issue so and they will improve it...

im not jumping on any bandwagon lol

i understand that different teams defend differently in real life, and there is a long way to go before the me allows you to do these things if they ever do get there

not really sure if you ment to sound as hostile as you did. i was replying to barsides reply to me at the start (ish) of the discussion. was really no need for it

[lemeuresnew]

8 minutes ago, Barside said:

Correct & then when possession is regained they'd look to break wide.

As for the full backs being tucked in that's not the case eithwr, there's a huge gap between them & the centre backs with the opposition striker sitting in one of those gaps, this is because players in the flank positions are too rigidly programmed to cover those flanks even when there's no need.

my understanding of defensive positioning is that your start line up will give you a rough guide of where they will defend. as simplified as i can think to put it. i know it isnt ideal, and better defending would be great, but if you want them further in wouldnt it be easier to just play them inside with roles or pis to go out? 

i tried a 3 man defense for the first time in a few years, and that has improved considerably. hopefully some time soon things like this wont be discussed

[Wells]

9 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

im not jumping on any bandwagon lol

i understand that different teams defend differently in real life, and there is a long way to go before the me allows you to do these things if they ever do get there

not really sure if you ment to sound as hostile as you did. i was replying to barsides reply to me at the start (ish) of the discussion. was really no need for it

Did I actually sounded antagonistic? I was just pointing out the facts to you, since you are sounding like there is nothing wrong with it.

[lemeuresnew]

1 minute ago, Wells said:

Did I actually sounded antagonistic? I was just pointing out the facts to you, since you are sounding like there is nothing wrong with it.

i know its not perfect. but its a lot better than in passed years, and will hopefully carry on getting better. i dont think i have ever posted something suggesting there was no problems with the game. i just wouldnt want my wingers defending like that, wether another team does or not. football is all about opinions ya know. 

if i wanted greater numbers centrally i would play them centrally. but then i wouldnt have my wingers waiting to win the second ball from clearances out wide like they do. no one attacks with 10 men (usually) so i dont feel the need to defend with 10

[MBarbaric]

1 minute ago, lemeuresnew said:

i know its not perfect. but its a lot better than in passed years, and will hopefully carry on getting better. i dont think i have ever posted something suggesting there was no problems with the game. i just wouldnt want my wingers defending like that, wether another team does or not. football is all about opinions ya know. 

if i wanted greater numbers centrally i would play them centrally. but then i wouldnt have my wingers waiting to win the second ball from clearances out wide like they do. no one attacks with 10 men (usually) so i dont feel the need to defend with 10

true, everyone is entitled to have his opinion on whichever topic. the problem is that not everyone's opinion has the same value and barside explained why yours is off  on this topic. 

[lemeuresnew]

Just now, MBarbaric said:

true, everyone is entitled to have his opinion on whichever topic. the problem is that not everyone's opinion has the same value and barside explained why yours is off  on this topic. 

i dont think he did. he explained a flaw in the match engine, it doesnt change the fact i would still want my full back wider than he does, because i dont want my team defending like that. i have a defensive midfield dropping back so my central defenders (supposedly) dont need the fullbacks further inside. 

 

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

my understanding of defensive positioning is that your start line up will give you a rough guide of where they will defend. as simplified as i can think to put it. i know it isnt ideal, and better defending would be great, but if you want them further in wouldnt it be easier to just play them inside with roles or pis to go out? 

Somewhat ironically that used to be an option with PIs but they were removed for FM17.

As for the behaviour it exists to combat a problem with overly effective attacking wide play paired with poor penalty box defending so ideally SI will address those underlying issues to more naturally redress the balance.

[lemeuresnew]

1 minute ago, Barside said:

Somewhat ironically that used to be an option with PIs but they were removed for FM17.

As for the behaviour it exists to combat a problem with overly effective attacking wide play paired with poor penalty box defending so ideally SI will address those underlying issues to more naturally redress the balance.

that is kind of the idea behind not wanting me fullbacks to sit inside, you might want them narrower but i try to use midfielders for that. if im going to concede from a cross i want them to at least have to beat a defender out there to do it lol

[MBarbaric]

3 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

i dont think he did. he explained a flaw in the match engine, it doesnt change the fact i would still want my full back wider than he does, because i dont want my team defending like that. i have a defensive midfield dropping back so my central defenders (supposedly) dont need the fullbacks further inside. 

 

fair enough if you use the dm. however, the OP is about 4-4-2 formation.

[lemeuresnew]

Just now, MBarbaric said:

fair enough if you use the dm. however, the OP is about 4-4-2 formation.

isnt that the idea of formations though? different ones do different things. if you know a formation struggles with different types of play you change to adapt, if its forced by me issues or not? 

[MBarbaric]

you might do so but the AI can't. besides it isn't so simple otherwise all the teams would defend the same way against the same offensive formation. since there aren't two same offensive formations you can't really do that. you can adapt your general approach more or less but you are limited with player's abilities and how your "new" approach differs from what your players are familiar with. and if opposition changes their attacking approach during the game and start flooding the center having constantly 5v4 advantage there you'd surely need to move that winger more central to help them out. therefore there are some good practices and experience that tells you how you defend in general. and, in general, it isn't with your winger standing alone near the byline in acres of space.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

that is kind of the idea behind not wanting me fullbacks to sit inside, you might want them narrower but i try to use midfielders for that. if im going to concede from a cross i want them to at least have to beat a defender out there to do it lol

It should go without saying that the fullback would be expected to challenge a player attacking the flank & the wise midfielder/winger may assist by doubling up or covering an out pass but when no player is on the flank or the play is on the other flank they are just defending space & as we all know space has never scored or assisted in a goal.

All I & others want is more intelligent positioning from defenders.

[lemeuresnew]

as rashidi said, he lost because the ai seemed to constantly change at the end of the match. i think that they can do it to an extent, but no where near often enough to make the game as challenging as people would like, and maybe not enough over 90 minutes to be particularly noticable if you arent watching a match in full

would be good if instead of sticking to a rigid 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 they over loaded a player having a bad game suddenly for 5 minutes. or after 40 minutes of shooting practice they realised my defence werent going to just watch there lone striker walk past them and tried mixing it up and keep the ball

maybe make it dependant on the ai managers tactical knowledge or flexibility. they are have the atts displayed, why not try using them for some thing

[lemeuresnew]

1 minute ago, Barside said:

All I & others want is more intelligent positioning from defenders

i dont think anyone would think that was a bad think mate

[Guest]

Currently AI tactical changes during the match is pretty much restricted to the scoreline & match time, what AI managers can't to is identify specific threats & make tactical choices to counter them.