Defence like a Swiss cheese in 4-4-1-1balanced/standard disaster ***FM2013***

[SpartanUTD]

My team is TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, playing in Budesligua, an average to good team, according to last season rankings.

It seems that my decision to take it easy and turn tactics to a melo and neutral 4-4-1-1 balanced/standard from a 4-2-3-1 attacking, turns to a nightmare :mad:

I am only at a pre-season now, but team's performance and especially defenders (CBs & FBs) is appaling in every single game, no matter what tweekings I might do.

I actually picked these settings (balanced/standard), hoping that I might improve defence performance!

What really bothers me, is that although in the first easy friendlies, my team had an impressive start, later on, when opponents got better, the whole team just collapsed. Especially the goalies and the defence seem to be having extremely bad time and they can't bounce back.

To show an example of how desperately bad my defence is, in the last friendly, after using different defence for 1st and 2nd half, the AR was from 3.60 to 6.20 for 7 of them!

It hasn't been any better for any other of the friendlies, where I concede like if I played with my U19 squad.

I wanted to go for a slower paced, more controlled style of football, so that I can have a solid defence and attack mainly on the wings. I managed to get my full-backs extremely incompetent and can't find any solution for "the black hole" in the centre of the pitch, between my centre midfielders and my CBs, although crossings seem to be the major issue at the moment.

The points I wish to raise:

1. Seeing my FBs getting beaten up in every game, I limited the marking of the wingers to their own half (just one click before whole pitch). It didn't help, what do you suggest?

2. It seems that using a Stopper in a 2 CB formation doesn't work. Although I put a defensive mentality to the MCL (defend), there's always a massive gap in this area. How could I set the MCL to stay back more and help the 2 CBs?

3. How could I use full backs to support the attack, witout constantly leaving the defence exposed? I have set them up in normal mentality and "support", but they fail to both defend or to support for strikers.

4. Some specific full-backs constantly underperform (AR under 5.90), even if their attributes/history show that they could do better. Should I try more tweeks in the tactics, before I throw them out of the squad?

5. In many threads, people suggest the use of a Deep Lying Playmaker. It never worked for me, as I can't see how he is better from a strong DM or a Midfielder/support?

A proposal: I think that we should be able to give some players a shout during PRESEASON, if they constantly under-perform as well as fine them too!