Entirely possible to beat Man City in my save. Help not needed.

[Meltboy]

It's 2022 and I'm going to be sacked if I don't win my next game. I don't want to be sacked as I'm commited managing Southampton at this point.

Guess what. My next game is against an invincible Man City.

I'm currently resorting to cheating (saving before the match and reloading if I lose or draw) JUST for this game because I know that if I can get through this game I can pick myself back up.

Unfortunately I have reloaded way too many times now and find myself at a loss for how to beat them at all.

For an idea of how impossible it feels right now, picture this:

You're in a fight with the worlds strongest man and you have your arms tied behind your back and your legs are broken. The worlds strongest man is holding you down and just pummelling your face unforgivingly. Also you can't die and he never tires out. Also it's a fight to the death. Remember how you cant die? Welcome to Hell.

Now that you have some idea of how impossible it feels, lets look at why.

I wouldn't say that Man City have outstanding players attribute-wise, however, they perform as if they're all the greatest player to ever live and they're playing against children.

I figured out that defensively they're back line is not the fastest but also not slow either. Average attribute being about 14/15. I hoped to use this by playing my fastest attacking players and just running past them on goal. They laughed at this attempt. They just cut out what seems like 95% of the passes. Anything that gets through is saved or off target.

I looked at their attacking players (midfield and strikers). They're mostly pretty quick, but my defence is also quick. No player in my defence has less than 16 in acceleration or pace, some have 18. So I figured I have 2 options; play deep to remove speed from their game (hopefully), or, push higher up and play offside, hoping that if they beat the offside trap my defence can sprint back to stop the attack.

Nope. It's seemingly impossible to stop them scoring, from my experience so far.

Defend deep? Doesn't matter, they'll cross the ball or fumble the ball in the box somehow and score effortlessly (it seems).

Push higher up? Doesn't matter, they'll beat the offside trap and then as soon as they're one on one with the keeper it's game over.

They also dominate possession usually, however, I have been able to dominate possession in the past but at great defensive cost.

So after trying desperately to figure out how to defend against them, to no avail, I decided my only option was to outscore them.

I just don't know how.

They're so defensively solid that creating chances is extremely difficult. Out of lets say 10 times I've played them so far, I've scored in 2 games, and even then it was1 goal in a game they scored at least 2.

I have even tried some outrageous tactics out of pure desperation.

Last game I tried playing with no defenders, just wingbacks and defensive mids, hoping that they would act as my defensive line, just higher up and better at keeping possession and creating chances. I set them to play offside, hoping that any attack would be a fail because it was offside, due to my very high defensive line.

Obviously this didn't work, and in fact it was by far the worst I've been so far, other than how high our possession was.

Trouble was that any time we lost possession they scored without fail.

So I'm here. Desperate for someone to point out some miracle tactic or strategy or something!!!

PLEASE HELP!!!

[RTHerringbone]

So......show your tactics.

EDIT - To elaborate - reloading is a pointless exercise, and you're cheating yourself because if you think it'll save you the job, then you'll do the same in five games time when you might next be up for the chop. Using crazy systems without any sort of logic is absolute desperation and is not the solution. You need to give us more info - how do you typically line up? All details: Formation, Roles, Duties, Mentality, Team Shape, Team Instructions, Player Instructions. How are City lining up? Context is everything, and in the absence of any, you won't get any practically applicable help.

[Jambo98]

Also, given that your admitting your cheating, not sure you should expect much help here.

[Meltboy]

I'm usually playing either a 4-1-2-2-1 (4-5-1 barcelona set up) or a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 (4-4-2)

Roles: Full backs set to support (however I change this depending on whether I think I need to be more defensive or attacking)

Central defenders set to defend

anchor man defend OR ball winning midfielder set to defend

advanced playmaker in attack

deep lying playmaker in support OR Box to box support

Inside forwards on support (alternatively I play an attacking mid set to attack in my narrow formation)

A target man on attack

and a complete forward on attack (remove either striker for the tiki-taka style formation)

4-5-1 Mentality: Fluid Control (usually, however I've been attempting counter attacks and overloading too)

4-4-2 Mentality: Rigid Normal (sometimes control or attacking)

Team instructions 4-5-1: Retain possession, pass into space, play out of defence, run at defence, play wider, push higher up, stick to positions, hassle, stay on feet, play offside, tighter marking, much higher tempo.

Only player instruction is for the goal keeper to distribute to defenders.

City are lining up in a 4-4-1-1.

I know I'm cheating but I'm playing for fun, I don't see why anyone here would care whether I'm cheating myself.

I'm fairly certain that the bad patch of form that got me into an insecure position is behind me now, if I can just get through this game with a win.

My last 2 games were chelsea and totenham. We drew against chelsea and could have won on another day, would say we were the better team and just got unlucky on the day.

We beat totenham 4-2 and they were lucky to get 2.

[Meltboy]

I should have mentioned I'm playing FM14 not FM15.

I'm sorry about this.

Regardless this thread can be deleted because I've finally figured out what works against them and no longer need help.

Thanks to anyone who would have tried though.