Is mentality the key to a tight defence?

[paulpuds]

Ive been playing with a 41221 formation and a find that balance strategy works best at keeping it tight at the back. I know there are other factors involved but I do feel switching strategy ( which changes mentality ) makes the biggest difference. I switched to control for a few games with swansea and even though I still won the games the amount of ccc that were created by the opponents was a vast difference from the balanced strategy.

At the moment I'm 9 games in and have only conceeded 7 goals while playing, Liverpool, man u and chelsea and the ccc created against me were at a max 2 compared to 4 or 5 playing lesser opponants with the control strategy, anyone else find this?

[dfgrigg]

You seem to be confusing Philosophy and Strategy. Balanced is a philosophy (set in Team Instructions) and Control is a strategy.

Both philosophy and strategy change mentalities, I'm just slightly confused over exactly what you mean by them. When you said balance strategy, did you mean to say standard?

If so, it's not surprising that standard is tighter at the back than control. Control is slightly more attacking, with a corresponding reduction in defensive tightness.

[themoffster]

The easiest way to create a tight defense I've found with old slow defenders is to set them to narrow, stand off opponents and have the full backs set to defend in the tactics wizard.

If you set your midfield to dig in too, that creates two walls of four which is very difficult to break down if your defenders can deal with cross balls (which experienced slow center halfs tend to be able to do).