Please help me understand how to prevent through balls like this from happening (FM15)

[Pendraz]

First of all, the usual information and context:

Tactic:

TIs: pass into space (I got good anticipation/vision/passers and good off the ball/anticipation/quick strikers and want to make the most out of it), get stuck in

I guess I should start by saying what I am trying to do with this tactic:

Organized, deep sitting defense, looking to try to counter or break quickly through the wing when possible, otherwise to build up patiently, while looking for a killer ball or a cross.

It has worked fairly well so far, I am sitting in the 7th position of the premier after 30 matches played (just promoted from the championship), the first place is 5 or 6 points away.

We do manage start a few counters usually, but most of the times they fail due to horrible passing/decision making.

Our goals scored come mostly from passes, with a fair number of crosses and with the odd long range shot.

In the screenshot showing the tactical instructions, you can also see the stats of one of my CDs, to see that he's certainly nowhere near as good as I'd like him to be, but he's not a completely garbage defender either.

Now let's analyze the goal I received shall we.

It all starts here, rodriguez is on the ball, slowly dribbling forward while followed by one of my BBMs, who doesn't close down too much aggressively, which is fine since it's what is being asked of him with a defensive mentality and no additional TIs or PIs to close down more. We are looking to let them come forward to a more advanced position before trying to steal the ball and then hopefully catch them off guard.

Rodriguez has passed the ball on the left flank, where it reaches banks. As far as I can see, we are well covered. My wingers came down to help and are man marking the MCs, banks himself is being marked by my own WB, and their strikers and AM are man marked as well. I have two players covering the space in the box, my BWM and a BBM.

Now here happens the first thing that I don't really understand. Paul, my AMR, decides to leave his mark to go double team on banks, who was in no position to pose any real danger, leaving his man behind. My defense line has made the call to pull back even more, almost reaching the goal line. The problem is, my BBM, Lipovac, also decided to pull back along the rest of the line, taking the role of WB left behind by Lafuentes.

This leaves Titarenko in acres of space to receive the ball from banks, as all my players are caught in the middle of nowhere, but mainly because Billing, my other BBM, makes the (at least for me) very strange choice to go man mark an opponent sitting more deep, instead of recognizing immediately the threat posed by titarenko who is now completely free inside the edge of the box.

Now Titarenko start to cut inside, my defensive line pushes up to put their strikers offside, my BWM, BBM and AMR all start to chase Titarenko.

It keeps getting worse. I got three players standing on top of each other, staying on the left of their mark instead of making a wall in front of him to shield the goal. Please note, I have no opposing instruction activated like "show into X foot", otherwise I'd have only myself to blame. Nobody even attempts a challenge, and I DO have the get stuck in instruction activated (He wasn't even inside the box, so absolutely no reason not to stop him, even with a foul if necessary).

Now take a look at the position of my CDs. They have decided to try the offside trap. None of them even think about sticking with their man, he's left completely alone in the middle of them. He receives the ball, a pass actually so strong and long that my keeper could have easily swept it if he didn't remain there standing like a moron as their striker scored freely.

Well, as far as I can see the number of mistakes is staggering, some of course worse than others, but I am at my wits end to how I can stop goals like this from happening.

It feels like a contradiction, at the beginning the closing down is aggressive enough to leave their marking to go double up a FB on the wing. Later on, I got three man against a single player trotting about who are so passive in their aggression that they don't even attempt to steal the ball or stop the opponent.

This sort of situation happened in the past, where I don't know how to fix the closing down issue. I scale it down, and my opponents will be able to dribble around INSIDE MY BOX like if my players were statues. I raise it up, and I'll have a band of psychos who will leave us exposed over and over again.

I leave it in the middle, and well, it's definitely much better overall, but you'll still concede these kinds of goals over and over again.

I am sure there must be a solution, but I just don't know what to do.

Do I really have to set a specific man marking and closing down for each single player by myself every time? Because that's about the only thing I feel I am left with at the moment to try and prevent this from happening, and I am not sure it would work anyways.

[herne79]

One question - what job do you see your player in the DMC position doing? And how do you see a BWM(S) achieving it?

Ok, 2 questions .

[Keyzer Soze]

Your midfield is all over the place.

You need at least one man to hold position.

[Pendraz]

@Herne79: He has a double role: when we are on ball, he's fundamental for providing options during the build up.

If I change him to anything else but a support duty coming up to help, our build up suffer so much that we stop scoring, literally, I tried already.

In defense he's supposed to sit deep and help recover the ball while the rest of the team keep the shape solid. Basically, he's supposed to be the player who should go double mark and harass from deep when someone has the ball close to our box, recover possession, and start a counter when possible.

If I put the BWM in the midfield instead of the DM zone, I end up with a player that will start trying to recover the ball too early and too high on the pitch, and I don't want that. At the same time, as I said, an anchor man or similar holding player, just doesn't offer enough variety when we are on attack.

[herne79]

@Herne79: He has a double role: when we are on ball, he's fundamental for providing options during the build up.

If I change him to anything else but a support duty coming up to help, our build up suffer so much that we stop scoring, literally, I tried already.

In defense he's supposed to sit deep and help recover the ball while the rest of the team keep the shape solid. Basically, he's supposed to be the player who should go double mark and harass from deep when someone has the ball close to our box, recover possession, and start a counter when possible.

If I put the BWM in the midfield instead of the DM zone, I end up with a player that will start trying to recover the ball too early and too high on the pitch, and I don't want that. At the same time, as I said, an anchor man or similar holding player, just doesn't offer enough variety when we are on attack.

In all honesty, and putting it bluntly (sorry), if you are relying on your DMC to provide options in build up play AND to provide defensive cover, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the system.

You could use him from DMC (for example a Regista type of role), but you would need to have one of your MCs on a defend duty to provide cover.

Alternatively, have your DMC as your primary cover on a defend duty and adjust your MCs so they are the ones more involved in build up play.

You can't really have it both ways, and I think that may be the cause of your issues.

In your screen shots, Bajric has gone running out to close down, because that's what his role is telling him to do - and it leaves your central defenders exposed.

[Pendraz]

Well, I appreciate your point of view, but in all honesty, even if told to hold position, in a situation like the one in the screenshot, I expect my holding player, be him an anchor man, defensive midfielder or whatever, to still close down and slide in since the other two players have been running after him for half the box without being able to stop him.

The problem in my opinion is not the fact that he tried to run to stop him, the problem is that three players couldn't stop another one and allowed him literally seconds on the ball without doing anything to stop him, and at the same time they positioned themselves so badly that they weren't shielding the goal either.

Actually, the problem starts way before, since the beginning, when the players make awful decisions about what they should do.

[vincenzo143]

Well, I appreciate your point of view, but in all honesty, even if told to hold position, in a situation like the one in the screenshot, I expect my holding player, be him an anchor man, defensive midfielder or whatever, to still close down and slide in since the other two players have been running after him for half the box without being able to stop him.

The problem in my opinion is not the fact that he tried to run to stop him, the problem is that three players couldn't stop another one and allowed him literally seconds on the ball without doing anything to stop him, and at the same time they positioned themselves so badly that they weren't shielding the goal either.

Actually, the problem starts way before, since the beginning, when the players make awful decisions about what they should do.

In my experience, players make awful decisions when you set their roles up poorly, this means their passing options and defensive positioning is poor. I would suggest listening to the advice that you're given before writing it off without trying to see if it works or not.

[RTHerringbone]

A holding player will never be a holding player, if he has a Support Duty and is a BWM. It just will not happen so herne79 is correct. You might want to try other Support Duty Roles back there, but the outcome will likely be the same.

[Pendraz]

@vincenzo: Maybe I didn't explain myself well enough, but the advice I have been given, for which I am thankful for, is something I had tried already.

Not only I still received goals like that anyways (less often? Probably, not sure since they happen rarely anyways), but my building up phase suffered enormously because of the decrease in passing options.

I am not brushing off the advice or something, it's simply something I have already tried and didn't work for me. I am near the end of the season, and I just can't start making experiments to make a new setup that includes a holding player and still works to a satisfying degree in the build up phase.

As I said, I am way overachieving, actually still competing for the premiership with a team that was in championship the year before. So there's no real need to make a hasty change, I'll rethink about it in detail at the end of the season.

I seem to understand that you all agree my problem is the lack of a holding player.

I am sure you are right, and yet I still think that it's way too strange to see that sort of closing down with three people walking around doing nothing.

[herne79]

You can't just look at those 3 players in isolation, you have to consider your system as a whole.

You have a very passive defensive set up from your chosen mentality. Players are not going to get stuck in much, even if you tell them too. You have to consider the starting point: passive defence + get stuck in = a bit more; whereas aggressive defence + get stuck in = even more. It's like choosing much higher defensive line from the starting point of the defensive mentality - it still won't be that high a line.

On top of this very passive defence, you have an extremely aggressive player at DMC, who has a massive circle of influence. Any opposition player who enters that circle with the ball will get closed down, despite your passive defence set up. Even if they have 2 of your team mates chasing them as seen above. From the example given, all I really see is two of your players trying to play catch up (because they are passive), while your BWM comes charging out (because he is aggressive), mis-times his charge and gets caught out of position.

This is why I said above there is a fundamental issue with your system, not just one or two players - although granted we did specifically mention a BWM(S) at DMC.

Anyway, as you say, you are overachieving and you don't have to make any hasty changes.

[Pendraz]

That's a good point about the stuck in instruction increasing by not so much because the mentality is low, I hadn't thought of that, for some reason I thought that TI were supposed to overwrite everything else, not being just incremental, so I have to see it as a tiny bit added to something that is very low.

I have a couple of tests I want to try in the next pre season to add some PIs and change the midfield a bit, we'll see, thanks for the help.