Late Goals

[TheRealTactician]

An issue i have faced the past month has been conceding a ridiculous amount of late goals, and i am struggling to score any late goals at all. I have tried many different things, but i can't get out of this rut. Any advice?

[Guest]

What do you change tactically when entering the latter stages of a match & what information do you use to base any changes on?

[TheRealTactician]

If i am trying to hold onto a lead. I usually tend to go Defensive once they start pushing up and direct and try and lock up the game essentially. Other times i try and score another goal to finish the game off and not try and invite pressure. Other times i tend to press a lot if they aren't playing very direct, but that has had varying success. And it is frustrating when they get in behind you, when you are sitting deep and on Contain. The past couple seasons 50% of the goals i have conceded have been in the final 20 minutes.

And when i need a late goal, i tend to try and be more direct, and essentially get more players in attacking positions.

[Guest]

Do you do anything other than change team mentality?

Will also move this thread to the tactics & strategies section s as that should get more of the right people viewing it.

[TheRealTactician]

I may press the team more, maybe play another centre half, change my width.

[Guest]

You also need to look at player roles & instructions, set-piece routines are another think I change if I'm looking to play out a winning position as that's when I'm most exposed to counter attacks or being penned into my own defensive third.

It will be a good idea to take screenshots & notes of the changes you make next time you look to see out a win or chase a late goal, you can than post a mini report of what you did & why. This will not only help folk see what you're doing but as other have found once you start recording your decisions & the reasons behind them you can sometimes clearly see what decisions were poor or changes that would have been better.

[herne79]

Speaking in general terms:

- If teams start being more aggressive towards you, they can also leave a lot of space for you to exploit. However, there can be a fine line between soaking sufficient pressure for you to then take advantage and you soaking too much pressure and collapsing under the weight of it. All sorts of things can affect this, including formation, mentality, player roles/duties and player condition/morale. Also take note of AI substitutions and the condition of your players that may directly face those subs. There is also the argument whereby if you are winning and playing well, why change anything?

- This can also work in the opposite way. If you go chasing a goal by playing more aggressively, you can start leaving space which the AI can (and will) exploit. Remember, if you up the mentality you are increasing risk, and if you increase the risks you take that may not always end well. Think about other options to improve your chances of breaking down a team other than just increasing mentality (eg., a player role or duty; increasing creativity; tactical substitutions; stretching the opposition out of shape and so on).

Difficult to be specific without specific detail, so can only generalise I'm afraid.

[TheRealTactician]

Thanks for the advice both of you, just one more question. Do either of you, tend to go on Overload most of the time when chasing a goal, or have you found it best to be a bit more conservative?

[herne79]

I never use Overload, in fact I rarely change mentality at all. But that's just me, plenty of other people do change mentality - it depends on how you play the game and the system you have set up.

[Guest]

For the most part I move between standard & attacking mentalities. I will sometimes use overload but that is rare & is normally a sign that I've given up on that competition which restricts it to cup games. My manage the clock systems can work with a defensive mentality but I prefer to have them on standard & while I do use contain just like overload that's quite rare. The one mentality that I never use is counter, just can't get a sound approach with the counter mentality & tbh I've never been all that bothered to address that as the other mentalities provide enough tactical flexibility.

[Svenc]

On my most aggressively overload though not used overly much I would go overload mentality plus adding the big lump in central defense to the forward line as a Target Man and making players bomb the ball towards him. It's a strategic switch for the dying minutes when you're desperate for a goal, though as it is a game of chance it doesn't result in anything every time. When it does though it is either a nicely flick on to the other two forwards or a cross / long ball swung from the back with the centre back cum TM adding a goal. Oft more effective in the lower echolons where it is easy to find physically far superior players to the oft modest average level of competition (i.e. 16+ jumping reach + strength players when the average backs are nowhere near).

Conversely with a superior side in particular, you can keep players deeplish and just recycle possession and completely kill games even pretty early on to the point that there's barely a shot attempt made anymore neither by your side who sits and keeps the ball nor by the opposition who won't get much hold of the ball anymore. Sure the fans will complain about the lack of exciting football on display in the confidence analysis if they're witnessing matches where there's at worst less than ten attempts made for/against, but to quote the game's pragmatics such as Sir Alfred R., you're hired to get results, right? Bit of a turn-off is that no AI manager much reacts to it and is able to spot such things as such, in particular the underdogs who drop deep either way or are content with narrow losses so never push up ever. Any often made suggestions from anyone that AI managers would crack anything or have superior abilities (or even cheat) are silly. As documented, there's multiple ways to skin a cat which is how it should be. Some will drastically change their stuff, sometimes a simple switch in duty can make all the difference in the world, in particular as it's the duties which are inherently tied to forward runs made by players anyway.

The late goals by opponents in general is oft a combination of several things, though tactically it is typically an AI manager going overload all by itself, which includes an increase in attack duties typically, i.e. players running forward when previously they did not. If you're aware where your formation is prone to be overloaded when additional players start making forward runs (narrow ones down the flanks when full backs start rushing up alongside wingers rather than staying deep, 4-4-2s in between the flattish lines/two banks of four for forwards dropping off, AMCs, MCs pushing up) you could then develop something however simplish or elaborate that could make this less likely to happen.