Pressing & Marking.

[retrodude09]

Hello guys. This is the first time I've started a thread so bare with me.

Throughout all the ME's and updates there is one thing I've noticed and that is how badly my team presses. I've tried 'stand off more' ; 'default' and 'press more'. On last years game you could use 'press more' and you'd get away with it. This year you seem to get punished a lot more frequently.

Firstly, here is a screenshot of my set-up:

As you can see, pretty basic with everything being left on default. This is because I'm no tactic guru and I'm just figuring out what changing everything does again.

Now, what I'm about to show you has happened in several games recently and it's really starting to frustrate me. This is the first leg of the Europa League first knock out round where my Newcastle team are drawing 1-1 with 10 men Anzhi.

1:

Here you can see Jucilei has the ball and my Newcastle team is set up pretty well to cope with this with all the attacking players marked (minus the LB and RCM)

2:

Now we see that Jucilei has gone past Cabaye unchallenged [this annoys me too, perhaps up tackling?] [Cabaye; LCM; CM - S] and both centre backs have moved to the left with Debuchy staying out wide leaving #7 free to pick up a pass.

3:

The ball has been played into #7 with Debuchy now getting back round. However, with Willian picking the ball up inside my box, both #13 and #12 have moved across to close him down, leaving Anzhi's #9 (Eto'o) free.

4:

#7 then has the simple task of passing to #9 who has an easy finish to put Anzhi 2-1 up.

Now, pretty much as I've wrote this, I've noticed that on 'Default' marking, my two fullbacks then have 'Zonal' marking whilst my two centre backs have 'Man' marking which could explain why both centre backs went to close down Willian because he was in their zone.

However, is it simply a case of changing my marking to zonal, or is there more to it?

[goodyboy]

The one thing to bear in mind is the attributes of your players when setting closing down. Attributes like for example aggression, composure, decisions, positioning, teamwork, work rate, acceleration, agility, pace and stamina are some attributes you should be considering when setting pressing tactics. For example you're best playing a game based more around defending deep and containing if your players are physically poor and lazy. Personally myself I try and have my starting 11 to have at least average attributes in positioning and teamwork as I feel personally these are two attributes which are the backbone to any defensive set up. Then I try and set up how high or deep the team defends from there depending on physical and mental abilities.

As for the scenario you've shown there, your Newcastle set-up doesn't look too bad for pressing Anji. You have the one striker and two wingers to press the back four and the positioning of your midfield three mirrors Anji's positioning of their midfield three man to man. Your full backs are spare players in the team and can concentrate on getting forward.

I think in this case with the centre backs, setting them both to zonal marking or one man mark and one zonal would be better. Remember you've got a spare man at the back in the centre. Have a zonal pairing if their intelligence and understanding is good or a zonal-man system with the DCs if their intelligence is poorer or they haven't forged a good understanding yet.

With the two centre backs, look at their closing down settings and aggression ratings as well. Players with high aggression will close down more naturally in spite of instructions so you may wish to make the closing down lower than the aggressive DCs default setting. I can give some scenarios to help if you want.

One more point to make is where did you focus your attacking in this game? Personally I'd have tried to exploit the wings because this is where the space is and you have 2v1 in your favour on each flank with no wingers to face - perfect for creating overloads. This is where you could have put Santon on an attack duty as remember the two centre backs would have a 2v1 in their favour against Etoo. The full backs could then have stepped into midfield to dominate this area and leave Etoo rather isolated. You could also have had the two wingers cutting inside as inside forwards and the full backs overlapping to provide crosses which would have varied attacks, got the wingers closer in support of the lone forward and provided width.

[tommonufc]

You've set your tactics up with Standard on everything - what sort of pressing levels are you trying to achieve? If your using in game shouts of hassle opponents it will distort you marking instruction, so I'd advise you make a decision on what sort of defensive set-up you want to play with and move away from your standardization of everything.

Newcastle have players, presuming you haven't sold them, that you can play a very effective high pressing game - yet your choosing not to either stand off, or close down.

[retrodude09]

You've set your tactics up with Standard on everything - what sort of pressing levels are you trying to achieve? If your using in game shouts of hassle opponents it will distort you marking instruction, so I'd advise you make a decision on what sort of defensive set-up you want to play with and move away from your standardization of everything.

Newcastle have players, presuming you haven't sold them, that you can play a very effective high pressing game - yet your choosing not to either stand off, or close down.

I set it up with default pressing because I didn't like what I was seeing when I'd used 'Press More'. I know that Newcastle have the players to press high, but it just seems to me that the ME replicates the 'press more' instruction very poorly.

[tommonufc]

I've never used 'press more' as it takes my marking settings to man mark - so your defensive structure will get dragged much more.

I've managed Newcastle from day one with 'attack' and 'press more' with the general approach of having players that can close down really well. Try that, get your defensive line and closing down settings increased from the TC before tweaking in game, and if you field the right players in the side you should see it work very well.

One thing I'd add is that playing AMR/AML closed down and kept better shape when played from MR and ML, so instead having a 4-1-2-2-1 you have a 4-1-4-1 that defends in that shape, but attacks from the previous 4-1-2-2-1. Your find that your wingers will track back much better and close down in a better position that when played as AMR/L.

One final thing I'd add is whenever your trying to play a pressing game you need your defensive line to push up and close the space. With that increased pressing and high line I found that the normal stopper defend combination of center backs gave away their line far too quickly, and found two covering defenders were excellent when defending high.

Presuming you still have Coloccini, (if you don't at Feb first season your mad) he will be fantastic in this role, and best suits him to play as one of the best center backs in the league. Steven Taylor is a very good defender as well with his aggressive nature overriding a covering duty to add a nice balance.

[retrodude09]

I've never used 'press more' as it takes my marking settings to man mark - so your defensive structure will get dragged much more.

I've managed Newcastle from day one with 'attack' and 'press more' with the general approach of having players that can close down really well. Try that, get your defensive line and closing down settings increased from the TC before tweaking in game, and if you field the right players in the side you should see it work very well.

One thing I'd add is that playing AMR/AML closed down and kept better shape when played from MR and ML, so instead having a 4-1-2-2-1 you have a 4-1-4-1 that defends in that shape, but attacks from the previous 4-1-2-2-1. Your find that your wingers will track back much better and close down in a better position that when played as AMR/L.

One final thing I'd add is whenever your trying to play a pressing game you need your defensive line to push up and close the space. With that increased pressing and high line I found that the normal stopper defend combination of center backs gave away their line far too quickly, and found two covering defenders were excellent when defending high.

Presuming you still have Coloccini, (if you don't at Feb first season your mad) he will be fantastic in this role, and best suits him to play as one of the best center backs in the league. Steven Taylor is a very good defender as well with his aggressive nature overriding a covering duty to add a nice balance.

I'm actually pretty pleased with how my team is defending now, and I just went from 'default' marking to 'zonal'. I've found that they press well enough and keep their shape a lot better. I do have Coloccini but I'm not a big fan of his. Also, I must be doing something right considering I've just won the league in my first season without any major signings or sells. I have 3 games left in the league and I've already wrapped the title up and been offered the Chelsea job.

My bad as well, I did sign Lacina Traore when Ashley gave me extra transfer funds.

[Svenc]

Seeing how everyone makes recommendations about marking in this thread, I'd like to ask whether someone can actually explain in detail in which behavior the two marking options in FM (marking/zonal) actually hugely differ from. Because they're both zonal. There is no man marking, bar specific man marking a man, and that is instantly visible if you really take a look. I know that "man" is supposed to make a player stick to the man entering his zone until the attack is over (implying that he is more likely to get dragged out of position and the defense losing shape), but honestly I can barely spot a difference, if any at all.

I think even some "tactics gurus" on these boards struggle to explain how this "modern zonal" man marking game is implemented into FM - I think I recently even saw wwfan struggling to explain and admitting using solely zonal, and that "man marking" was mostly a part of the TC because it was supposed to be utilized in SOME way - so I'm really curious what people are looking at if they offer the advice given here.