Help needed with my defence

[A1984]

Having a few issues with my defence on FM15 playing with Liverpool. I'm scoring plenty of goals and getting between 45-55% possesion per game but often find I end up letting a couple of goals in most games as the 2 CD's end up far to high up the pitch and leave loads of space between them and the goalkeeper.

I know with playing on control the defence line will be fairly high up the pitch but this is something I want to change - Is there an instruction I can give to the defenders in order to stop them pushing so high up that wont affect the rest of the team pushing forwards ?

Secondly is it possible to set the defence up to pass the ball forward quickly to the 2 CM players with all 4 defenders set on to defence dutys, the reason I have the left back on attack and right back on support is to try and get the ball forward but while that does work again it causes gaps that are leading to goals against me.

The only player instruction I currently use is to the keeper to take long kicks.

In case anyone was wondering the players all seem worn out as the screenshots were taken straight after a match.

[peleJunior]

You have issues in central midfield, the problem is there is one player; the DLPs, who is holding and he is still not on a defend duty so isn't holding as well as he could be. You then have a defender on cover but no stopper partnering him so you leave space in front of your central two defenders which the AI will have loads of fun in, especially as the cover defender is on the same side as the attacking central midfielder - creating a huge gap between both players. In fact that whole left hand side will leave space in behind. It's too many attacking roles, the players in the AM stratta make it even worse, as they wont get back nearly quick enough.

I suspect your two defenders are pushing up due to the lack of holding role in midfield, they are having to close the space in front of them, of which there is loads.

[Jambo98]

Yeah thats a crazy attacking setup. If that is your intention then fair play, but you have essentially 4 attacks. The only one with a support duty is also one of the laziest football players to walk the planet. So nothing going to be happening there to help your defence.

If you do want to play with all those attacking players, and i wouldnt recommend it personally, but the only real way to stand any chance is to have a much higher dline. To try and compress that space. The problem there is you probably dont have good enough centre backs to make a success of a very very high dline. Even then, your going to get hammered down the flanks.

I dont fully understand the 2 specific questions you asked either?

You want the Dline to actually be deeper, but the rest of the team to stay where it is? that will just open an even bigger gap?

Then secondly, the defense passing to the midfield? Well part of the issue is the midfield is probably already way up the pitch, so not available for a pass? But you also have retain possession, which already shortens passing and lowers tempo, then compounded by those same to TI. It will be mega slow, but you want it to move quickly?

Sorry if all that seems a bit harsh, but i think you need to put more careful thought into how your system works

[A1984]

Ok I have read your thoughts and ideas been tweaking things a bit - changed the centeral mids to have 1 on defend and 1 on support and changed the 2 central defenders to both be on defend and both full backs on support, also tweaked the instructions a bit. Just beat Leicester 4-0 but still only 485 possession. I'm giving some thought to playing with either Gerrard as a DM - playing as deep lying play maker and having just 1 CF playing as a deep lieing forward. I'm going to see how the current set up works against stronger teams over the next couple of games then make my mind up.