This is a joke....

[TEGER]

How is this realistic? What is the best way to actually try and score? 7 draws and 7 0-0’s doesn’t seem right...

[robot_skeleton]

That's unusual for a Klopp team 😅

[Novem9]

I see there one more argumeent for strikers issue of weak movement..

[Dagenham_Dave]

1 hour ago, TEGER said:

How is this realistic? What is the best way to actually try and score? 7 draws and 7 0-0’s doesn’t seem right...

What I take from this picture is it's clearly only your team having so many goalless draws, so you know...

[Dagenham_Dave]

23 minutes ago, Novem9 said:

I see there one more argumeent for strikers issue of weak movement..

Not really, because someone on another thread attributed his save having way too many goals to this over exaggerated issue of 'weak movement'. Can't have it both ways. 

[Spurs08]

I suggest posting in the Tactics forum, or at least in this thread, with what you're doing tactically. That's a very, very bad performance so it's likely you're doing something badly wrong, but there's no way for us to know what without seeing your system.

[themadsheep2001]

I would definitely be interested in what you're doing, because in my new save I'm unbeaten halfway in and still a point behind Liverpool, who almost refuse to drop points  

[Dagenham_Dave]

12 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

I would definitely be interested in what you're doing, because in my new save I'm unbeaten halfway in and still a point behind Liverpool, who almost refuse to drop points  

I'd agree with this. Going Liverpool in this year's game is the equivalent of playing the 'easy' mode in the old school arcade games. 

[rp1966]

Liverpool the team to beat in my save as well. 2nd behind Mou's Man Utd in 2018/19 (because SI still haven't downgraded Mou according to his current performance levels), then won it 2019/20, won literally everything 2020/21 (quadruple); now in 2021/22 season and battling it out with Chelsea, If the AI can do that, then a player should be blitzing the league with Liverpool.

 

[Svenc]

Try to not put half the team on defend/hold position Duty for the entirety of the 90 minutes (which even the AI won't do every other game managing Liverpool).  

Instafix.

[TEGER]

6 hours ago, Spurs08 said:

I suggest posting in the Tactics forum, or at least in this thread, with what you're doing tactically. That's a very, very bad performance so it's likely you're doing something badly wrong, but there's no way for us to know what without seeing your system.

This is my ideal formation/team with the tactics I currently use. However in more recent matches I have moved the number 10 and gone with 2 up front in a 4-2-4 which is working marginally better. 

It should be known that I have changed nothing about this team from the first season in which I won the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and was runner up in the league and Champions League.

[bar333]

People point to tactics and honestly with THAT many 0-0's there's definitely an issue with OP's tactics I mean that's half your games, but 0-0's are surprisingly common when you play a top team in your league due to the extreme negativity of the AI. I'm comfortably sitting top and having pretty easy success with a top team in Germany but still end up with 3-4 of them a season.

The AI is absolutely relentless with it's negative tactics, especially when you're in good form. Been to the tactics forum, got the t-shirt, I beat most parked buses but you can't beat them all - statistically, when the opposition in 80% of your league games tries to play for a 0-0 (and I wish I was exaggerating the number - I promise that I'm not), it's bound to succeed sometimes. Simple law of big numbers. 

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, bar333 said:

The AI is absolutely relentless with it's negative tactics, especially when you're in good form. Been to the tactics forum, got the t-shirt, I beat most parked buses but you can't beat them all - statistically, when the opposition in 80% of your league games tries to play for a 0-0 (and I wish I was exaggerating the number - I promise that I'm not), it's bound to succeed sometimes. Simple law of big numbers. 

Whilst the aforementioned tactics tends to choke the space in the final third where defensive AI compresses that itself, needs a few arrows in the UI to show (and not the forum for this) -- absolutely agree on that as well. The defensive tactics "to go to" have been far too extreme even by real life football standards. By basically parking half the team plus behind the ball where they would never be caught out of position or anything, I spammed 0-0 in sequence even on prior releases already. In real football, that at "best" tends to happen in completely mismatches on international levels (Malta - England, say). On FM, even teams like Barcelona could do it. If you would go into the editor and give every AI manager of your league a) an inherently top heavy formation for all prefered formations, b) giving them inherently attacking traits and c) level the club's starting reputations, you will immediately see an increase in goals all itself on any release.

The AI managers could settle for "not getting thrashed" match approaches for very very long. In that scenario, imo such extremely approaches are acceptable. It's however become the generally "AI defensive approach" to "go to". In tendency, playing the game online is a completely differentn experience on any release (with completely different results), as human managers, even the select few who opt to go more cautious, are never this extreme.

[bar333]

7 hours ago, Svenc said:

Whilst the aforementioned tactics tends to choke the space in the final third where defensive AI compresses that itself, needs a few arrows in the UI to show (and not the forum for this) -- absolutely agree on that as well. The defensive tactics "to go to" have been far too extreme even by real life football standards. By basically parking half the team plus behind the ball where they would never be caught out of position or anything, I spammed 0-0 in sequence even on prior releases already. In real football, that at "best" tends to happen in completely mismatches on international levels (Malta - England, say). On FM, even teams like Barcelona could do it. If you would go into the editor and give every AI manager of your league a) an inherently top heavy formation for all prefered formations, b) giving them inherently attacking traits and c) level the club's starting reputations, you will immediately see an increase in goals all itself on any release.

The AI managers could settle for "not getting thrashed" match approaches for very very long. In that scenario, imo such extremely approaches are acceptable. It's however become the generally "AI defensive approach" to "go to". In tendency, playing the game online is a completely differentn experience on any release (with completely different results), as human managers, even the select few who opt to go more cautious, are never this extreme.

Yep, it's an issue with FM19 that I feel doesn't get raised anywhere near as often as it should. Both the frequency & the type of tactics used is bizarre and is nothing like football IRL. 

Frequency - I swear that 80% estimation is not just hyperbole to make a point. Everyone does it against me. I get teams in the top half in great form themselves routinely parking the bus at home. 

Tactics - truly just playing for a 0-0. I've watched the AI in full match and observed what it does. Defend duties everywhere, full backs don't cross the halfway line, etc. 11 men behind the ball & no attempt to counter attack. These are the type of tactics you only see used IRL to hold onto a result in the last minutes - the AI plays this way for the whole 90. It's no wonder I concede so few goals year in year out - these tactics often don't register a single shot on goal. You can drop dline & press lower to see what they do with the ball, they will simply dominate possession by keeping the ball in their own half and rarely playing it forward.  Did I say playing for a 0-0? Sometimes I doubt even that since even being a goal down they will not change their tactics until the 85th minute at least. 

It's my biggest problem with the game by a huge margin. SI have taken it too far, the AI has got to pick their defensive tactics less & those themselves have got to be less negative and at least allow it to counter attack outside of specific scenarios. 

[Mitja]

27 minutes ago, bar333 said:

Defend duties everywhere, full backs don't cross the halfway line, etc. 11 men behind the ball & no attempt to counter attack. These are the type of tactics you only see used IRL to hold onto a result in the last minutes - the AI plays this way for the whole 90.  Sometimes I doubt even that since even being a goal down they will not change their tactics until the 85th minute at least. 

It's my biggest problem with the game by a huge margin. SI have taken it too far, the AI has got to pick their defensive tactics less & those themselves have got to be less negative and at least allow it to counter attack outside of specific scenarios. 

agree with this. it's totally unrealistic and huge issue.

[Spurs08]

11 hours ago, TEGER said:

This is my ideal formation/team with the tactics I currently use. However in more recent matches I have moved the number 10 and gone with 2 up front in a 4-2-4 which is working marginally better. 

It should be known that I have changed nothing about this team from the first season in which I won the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and was runner up in the league and Champions League.

Okay. That looks like a tactic that's going to strangle the game against smaller teams without really providing a lot of threat, so the four 0-0s against them aren't a huge surprise. You're doing a huge amount of pressing and I expect keeping the ball pretty easily racking up a large possession stat without being able to do much at all with it? I think in those games it'd be worth dropping off a little more and inviting the opposition to hit you a bit so that there's some more space opening up. There's no particular need to press so high and hard - they aren't generally going to offer a huge threat from deep. And going forwards it's a bit one-dimensional. Maybe you could try something as simple as putting Salah on a support duty given his range of talents, turning TAA into a wingback overlapping him, and moving Henderson back to a defend duty to help cover him? Something along those lines would give you different threats - the overlap and Salah's creative and dribbling ability down the right, and the raw pace and power of Mane and Fabinho down the left - and give the opposition a bit more to think about.

[TEGER]

18 hours ago, Spurs08 said:

I suggest posting in the Tactics forum, or at least in this thread, with what you're doing tactically. That's a very, very bad performance so it's likely you're doing something badly wrong, but there's no way for us to know what without seeing your system.

This is my ideal formation with more or less my ideal starting XI. In recent matches I have moved my number 10 in to a second striker and played a 4-2-4 formation which has been marginally better and improved results.

[TEGER]

2 minutes ago, Spurs08 said:

Okay. That looks like a tactic that's going to strangle the game against smaller teams without really providing a lot of threat, so the four 0-0s against them aren't a huge surprise. You're doing a huge amount of pressing and I expect keeping the ball pretty easily racking up a large possession stat without being able to do much at all with it? I think in those games it'd be worth dropping off a little more and inviting the opposition to hit you a bit so that there's some more space opening up. There's no particular need to press so high and hard - they aren't generally going to offer a huge threat from deep. And going forwards it's a bit one-dimensional. Maybe you could try something as simple as putting Salah on a support duty given his range of talents, turning TAA into a wingback overlapping him, and moving Henderson back to a defend duty to help cover him? Something along those lines would give you different threats - the overlap and Salah's creative and dribbling ability down the right, and the raw pace and power of Mane and Fabinho down the left - and give the opposition a bit more to think about.

Thanks. I did have TAA set to overlap and he did get lots of assists (most assists thus far I think). Good recommendation on Salah, my thoughts with the attack duty would be that he’d almost be playing off Firmino and linking with him that way.

[Spurs08]

3 minutes ago, TEGER said:

Thanks. I did have TAA set to overlap and he did get lots of assists (most assists thus far I think). Good recommendation on Salah, my thoughts with the attack duty would be that he’d almost be playing off Firmino and linking with him that way.

That sounds a lot more like what he should do on support - with attack, he may well be too focussed on getting up into the box alongside and sometimes ahead of Firminho to score himself. It sounds like you're on the right track and might have had a bit of poor luck.

[TEGER]

6 minutes ago, Spurs08 said:

That sounds a lot more like what he should do on support - with attack, he may well be too focussed on getting up into the box alongside and sometimes ahead of Firminho to score himself. It sounds like you're on the right track and might have had a bit of poor luck.

1st game with the changes...Southampton away won 3-0 with Robertson and TAA getting an assist each! Would have 100% have drawn that or lost 1-0 previously!

[Spurs08]

1 minute ago, TEGER said:

1st game with the changes...Southampton away won 3-0 with Robertson and TAA getting an assist each! Would have 100% have drawn that or lost 1-0 previously!

I feel dirty being happy with a Liverpool win, even in FM, but congrats Small changes can make a big difference in this game

[bar333]

33 minutes ago, Spurs08 said:

Okay. That looks like a tactic that's going to strangle the game against smaller teams without really providing a lot of threat, so the four 0-0s against them aren't a huge surprise. You're doing a huge amount of pressing and I expect keeping the ball pretty easily racking up a large possession stat without being able to do much at all with it? I think in those games it'd be worth dropping off a little more and inviting the opposition to hit you a bit so that there's some more space opening up. There's no particular need to press so high and hard - they aren't generally going to offer a huge threat from deep. And going forwards it's a bit one-dimensional. Maybe you could try something as simple as putting Salah on a support duty given his range of talents, turning TAA into a wingback overlapping him, and moving Henderson back to a defend duty to help cover him? Something along those lines would give you different threats - the overlap and Salah's creative and dribbling ability down the right, and the raw pace and power of Mane and Fabinho down the left - and give the opposition a bit more to think about.

This is the line of thought I used to follow up until recently but having really observed things more carefully I'd be very careful with doing this. 

"Inviting" a team that's parking the bus to play doesn't really work if they don't want to play, which very often the AI will not. All you'd be doing is inviting them to knock the ball around endlessly in their own half with no one getting forward & leaving any space to exploit during your attacking transitions. You will just end up with 30% possession and even less chances to score. I don't think people realize just how negative the AIs tactics can get in some of these classic 0-0 games. 

I'd advise making sure the AI is actually trying to play football before pressing lower & giving them time on the ball. Watch what they do in full match mode. 

[Spurs08]

3 minutes ago, bar333 said:

This is the line of thought I used to follow up until recently but having really observed things more carefully I'd be very careful with doing this. 

"Inviting" a team that's parking the bus to play doesn't really work if they don't want to play, which very often the AI will not. All you'd be doing is inviting them to knock the ball around endlessly in their own half with no one getting forward & leaving any space to exploit during your attacking transitions. You will just end up with 30% possession and even less chances to score. I don't think people realize just how negative the AIs tactics can get in some of these classic 0-0 games. 

I'd advise making sure the AI is actually trying to play football before pressing lower & giving them time on the ball. Watch what they do in full match mode. 

As I said, minor adjustments. Don't start selecting much lower pressing or anything. Just don't combine the 'more' instuctions with a positive mentality all the time. There's definitely a balance to be had!

[Svenc]

On ‎06‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 11:13, bar333 said:

 Did I say playing for a 0-0? Sometimes I doubt even that since even being a goal down they will not change their tactics until the 85th minute at least. 

Yeah, noticed that tendency too. IIRC, the way the AI works is that -- prior to a match and making its tactical choices-- it works out a scoreline to "target". At least that's how it's used to be, reading really old patch notes giving a few hints. Anyhow, one of such scorelines to target can be Pretty much just avoiding a "Big defeat". On Occasion, that's reasonable, like when a HUGE Underdog faces a big dog and just wants to avoid getting "trashed". However, there seems to be several issues here, which basically make the AI settle for "avoiding the big defeat" far more often than it should do. It's also the only time I'd personally consider putting half the Team+ behind the ball ever reasonable (for any prolonged minutes of a match). 

Then again, the AI may work completely different now. I personally think the AI in general is rarely brought up for as long as it doesn't do anything obviously unrealistic/stupid.

[mrgoal100]

This is weird.

The more defensive AI plays, the more goals I concede. And I'm not taking about counterattacks with my team exposed due to an overaggressive tactic. I'm talking about the AI moving the ball, passing it, dragging my defenders out of position and finding CCC.

If I then go park the bus too, the match becomes crazy with lots of chances for both.

How different can this game be for each of us.

 

[Svenc]

47 minutes ago, mrgoal100 said:

IThis is weird.

The more defensive AI plays, the more goals I concede. And I'm not taking about counterattacks with my team exposed due to an overaggressive tactic. I'm talking about the AI moving the ball, passing it, dragging my defenders out of position and finding CCC.

The only Prior release where this was at all possible was FM17, which related to how wide midfielders positioned during defending (which was a one-off and has been fixed). Typically park the bus AI if it ever moves forward is easily mopped up every time going Forward on any other release without much further ado. And certainly as of FM 19 also, which is why many final match stats (AI vs AI included) are this comically one-sided. If you would Play similar tactics against such AI with a gazillion defend duties, you can spam 0-0s in sequence (I did).  It's like two cowboys in a classic Western movie shootout, with both of them being afraid to ever draw their gun, completely stalemates start to finish. The only Goals you tend to concede against such AI are indeed either a) counters b) Errors c) flukes or generally individual skill moves (dribbles past the defenders, a successfully long shot). Oh, and set pieces of Course. That will happen at some point of the season.

That is, unless you put "specific marking" instructions all over the place which could completely nuke your defense. Those are basically man marking, except taken to its extreme. If you would tell your CB to specifically mark the Opposition CB, he would do it the second the Opposition wins the ball -- and with it, make your entire defensive shape implode. This Video demonstrates such AI, even if it's an older release. At first, AI Napoli keeps half its Players parked behind the ball. Attack is easily mopped up and cleared by Barcelona. In the second sequence of a much later stage of the game, it tries to get an Equalizer and starts pushing men Forward, almost conceding off a counter. At least it DOES change to something more attacking in this case rather than being the spoilsport not even much trying…  
 

 

[bar333]

15 hours ago, Svenc said:

Yeah, noticed that tendency too. IIRC, the way the AI works is that -- prior to a match and making its tactical choices-- it works out a scoreline to "target". At least that's how it's used to be, reading really old patch notes giving a few hints. Anyhow, one of such scorelines to target can be Pretty much just avoiding a "Big defeat". On Occasion, that's reasonable, like when a HUGE Underdog faces a big dog and just wants to avoid getting "trashed". However, there seems to be several issues here, which basically make the AI settle for "avoiding the big defeat" far more often than it should do. It's also the only time I'd personally consider putting half the Team+ behind the ball ever reasonable (for any prolonged minutes of a match). 

Then again, the AI may work completely different now. I personally think the AI in general is rarely brought up for as long as it doesn't do anything obviously unrealistic/stupid.

They do in cups too. Just played an away game in the cup, parked bus for 80 mins til they finally went 1-0 down from a set piece. 

Who does this? What is the logic? What was the plan exactly? To drag me into extra time for the sake of it? To penalties so their own squad can get hammered physically by ET as well? Can any of the staunch defenders of this hyper realistic game point me to perhaps one of the FA Cup games this weekend where one team parked the bus for 90 mins? Is the AI even concerned with getting a result at this point, or is it simply playing to ruin the player's enjoyment?

This issue + ME issues turn this game into an unbearably bad edition of FM if I look at it objectively. Never before has been it easier to play for a 0-0, never before has 0-0 been this common, never before has it been easier to turn a 0-0 into a daylight robbery 1-0 with a goal that doesn't come from any real football move - set piece, long shot, etc - which are the most common goals in FM19. This is the FM for the Tony Pulis, Jose Mourinho, Sam Allardyce et al school of managers. Rob teams blind or be robbed yourself.

The only thing that keeps me playing FM19 right now is my attachment to my save, my regens etc. I'm already in 2027.  If my save gets corrupted tomorrow I am back to FM18 without giving it a milisecond's thought. There isn't even a shadow of doubt in my mind about that. For all it's flaws, of which there were many, it is miles ahead of this one in terms of pure entertainment value\fun factor. FM19 is a snoozefest broken up by the odd fun game when the AI decides it wants to play football against you. Fun is the exception to the rule.

That there is so little said in these forums about this issue is extremely telling of where people's attentions are. It's astonishing so that few people have even noticed this. Undoubtedly some of those who did have convinced themselves that it makes sense for the AI to behave like this, it's realistic, etc. Mhm.

[Svenc]

4 hours ago, bar333 said:

TThis is the FM for the Tony Pulis, Jose Mourinho, Sam Allardyce et al school of managers. 

I'm tempted to start a save, enter TWO human Managers, let them have a couple friendlies against another and set both up to Play more proactive attacking Football for the 90 minutes. Then note down how many attempts are from open positional Play or set piece Play. Mind, something like this has been impossible on FM before already -- however, set piece conversion tended to be quite some lower (where it arguably should be). Impossible as in: One Team Camping in ist half, and yet the Opposition actually creating almost every shot from open Play, as opposed to from a set piece. Naturally, that is a matter of Definition, at least to a Degree. At which Point does a shot stop being from set piece Play? Still...

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1190196/MatchReport/England-Premier-League-2017-2018-Liverpool-Burnley

[wearesporting]

In 2017 Rostov played out five 0-0 draws in a row in the Russian top division. That's in a row.

In the 82-83 season Udinese drew 20 of their 30 games. 11 of them were 0-0.

[Matty-h]

It's got to be tactics surely. I've had bad saves with poor tactics, changed the tactics about and been much more successful. Currently Man Utd, back to back Prem and Champions League winners and unbeaten at home in the league in 2 and a half years.