Centre backs keep costing me

[chroniclesofal]

Playing as Arsenal and I'm conceding an unbelievable amount of stupid goals. It goes like this:

Opposition attacking midfielder gets ball, my CM (D) and DLP (D) are nowhere to be seen, one of my CB (D)s charges forward (despite having individual closing down as low as possible on the slider, 'stand off more' employed also) and leaves defensive line, gap exploited by opposition, goal. Usually late on. I've screenshotted it but it's not appearing in my folder.

Usually it's Vermaelen, I'm on control and dominating possession in games, and yet whenever a team comes forward my defenders just lose their minds and completely ditch the line to close when they should be standing off. I'm losing my own mind because it's just so frustrating. What more can I do to get them to keep their line?

[Puni]

You got OI's on the opposition's ACM? That may cause your CD to run out of the line. Other than that, it may be worth doing some specific man marking on the ACM, since he's between your central midfield and central defense and will otherwise be a lot harder to pick up. Having the counter box ticked may also encourage your midfielders to run forward on every opportunity, leaving you vulnerable to a counter-counterattack.

[däkkä]

Well who do you want to pick the AM up? If you leave him for the central midfielders they need to stay back. If you leave him for the centre-backs they need to feel comfortable (and possess the ability ofc) stepping out the line.

I hate playing without an anchorman, especially when the opponent are playing an AMC and the play flows through him. If your centre-backs have to constantly move out of the line, or stand off the AMC and back to the goalkeeper's lap (that can be even more horrific), the simplest thing to do is to assign someone to mark the AMC or play a DMC who is naturally in place to mark him.

It seems that you don't allow the CBs to close down but then are playing high up the pitch with relatively high d-line and attacking mentality which to me is asking the defenders to face the opponent attackers early on but then back off to your own box! If you're playing control strategy surely you want your defenders to engage themselves when deemed fit. Because for your average attacking midfielder it sounds like a dream come true. Getting to run straight at the back four and having plenty of time to open gaps.

[Puni]

Truth be told, I actually suffered from the same problem for a while with opponents who played a 4-4-2 with a DLF constantly falling back. I tried to play attacking football and in my third season in the PL had the problem that because of a very successful spell my adversaries adapted to a counter style. Because of my high pressure, I constantly had my central defenders running all over the place and it took me a while to figure out how to change that. Now, when I see that problem occuring I just either swap to a formation with a DCM like dakka suggests, or I try pushing my entire line higher up so that I limit the DLF's space to play in. Another solution would have been to stand off him entirely, but I had quite a big gap between defense and midfield in my 4-2-3-1 and I didn't want to play deeper.

[RTHerringbone]

I'd get your CM (D) to do a specific man marking job on him. If the AM beats him, your DLP gets a second chance to stop him.

dakka makes several very good points.

[Warrenwwr]

my current tactic only has 1 dc, who sometimes ends up getting man of the match award, even after making a mistake which led to a goal (eg, miss an interception or header).

for now, especially in this version of the game, i'd go with 1 dc, and if i could give up my gk too i would. very rarely do i even see saves being made.

anchor men seem very proficient though.

[Ron_Burgundy]

Realised my previous post was off topic and not very helpful so have removed it...