Man-Marking on the halfway line.

[dolph11]

Help needed here. I'm currently playing as FK Inter in the Finnish Premier League and am a few games away from winning the league. I'm not great at posting pics so hoping my explanation works. 

I've been trying to dissect the goals I'm conceding and the main problem is clearances from the opposition in their attacking transition phase. I don't set my defenders to 'man mark' nor 'mark tightly', I also have them on 'close down less'. My mentality and structure is Attacking/Highly Structured although depending on the game I do change the mentality. Now, I'm not happy with the defensive aspect of the game in general and am left baffled at ridiculous defensive decisions but here I'm going to be more specific.

I give Central Defenders the instructions above as I don't want them running around like brainless zombies and it tends to work a little bit. My problem is when I am attacking, be it a corner, free-kick or open play, when the opposition defence clear the ball none of my defenders even attempt to follow the attacker who comes a little deep or goes wide. Now, at times I've had 4 defenders 'stay back' still with no pressure on the opposition attacker. It makes absolutely no sense. It turns an absolutely futile 'counter-attack' into a dangerously ferocious one. Is this tactical? Do I have to surrender the rest of my tactics to change this? I don't want to put my Defenders on 'Man Mark' or 'close down more' but neither do I want them to be passive in such a critical phase of play. I'm looking for some realism here and no matter the level one opposition attacker coming deep on the halfway line with two defenders would be put under a high amount of pressure by at least one of them. How can I get this done?

[juusal]

3 hours ago, dolph11 said:

Help needed here. I'm currently playing as FK Inter in the Finnish Premier League and am a few games away from winning the league. I'm not great at posting pics so hoping my explanation works. 

I've been trying to dissect the goals I'm conceding and the main problem is clearances from the opposition in their attacking transition phase. I don't set my defenders to 'man mark' nor 'mark tightly', I also have them on 'close down less'. My mentality and structure is Attacking/Highly Structured although depending on the game I do change the mentality. Now, I'm not happy with the defensive aspect of the game in general and am left baffled at ridiculous defensive decisions but here I'm going to be more specific.

I give Central Defenders the instructions above as I don't want them running around like brainless zombies and it tends to work a little bit. My problem is when I am attacking, be it a corner, free-kick or open play, when the opposition defence clear the ball none of my defenders even attempt to follow the attacker who comes a little deep or goes wide. Now, at times I've had 4 defenders 'stay back' still with no pressure on the opposition attacker. It makes absolutely no sense. It turns an absolutely futile 'counter-attack' into a dangerously ferocious one. Is this tactical? Do I have to surrender the rest of my tactics to change this? I don't want to put my Defenders on 'Man Mark' or 'close down more' but neither do I want them to be passive in such a critical phase of play. I'm looking for some realism here and no matter the level one opposition attacker coming deep on the halfway line with two defenders would be put under a high amount of pressure by at least one of them. How can I get this done?

It's difficult to fix this. You can try use opposition instructions to tightly mark the strikers, but this has its dangers in other phases of play. The match engine in FM is just horrible when it comes to defenders, especially center backs. Their body positioning is always wrong so they are never ready for balls over the top. To add to this issue, center backs turn like HMS Titanic, by the time they have turned around to chase the ball the strikers are often long gone. And, as highlighted here, center backs are just really, horribly bad covering laterally. I really hope SI would  give us tactical instructions to change this, something to instruct players on how whether to defend narrow or go cover lateral areas when defending.

Oh and two more things, the name of the club is FC Inter and not FK Inter. But more importantly, resign ASAP, you don't want to be associated with such a plastic sugar daddy club in any way.