How to play gegenpressing successfully against defensive/cautious sides?

[goku4]

After playing FM for a while, I noticed that the better your team's results get, the more cautious/defensive your opponents will play (not a real new exploration). However, what is new this year is that these oppositions tend to have a very high percentage of possession, no matter whether away or at home. One of the reasons is that even a 3rd division side can easily play around the back and keeping the ball in his own third. I personally like to play the 4141 formation and I have noticed that whenever I set my LOE to extremely high, all my 3 front players just run like headless chicken into the opposition player in possession leaving the whole flanks completely free. This is also one of the reasons I give away so many free shots and chances.

When I tell my wingers to specifically mark the full back positions there is either not much pressure on the AI in possession or they tend to still leave the fullback and just run again towards the CB leaving once again the wide areas free. One would say drop the LOE and start a bit lower, however this will result in AI keeping the ball even more and longer in their own third as they rarely seek for that forward pass and are happy to keep the ball.

This thread is not about keeping possession stats high, rather it is about how to successfully press oppositions as early as possible who are way below your level and how prevent 3rd division sides to play tiki taka at the back so easily against a side that has won the CL...

I read some threads and some mentioned that this year I should play formations consisting of an AMC to put more pressure on the AI, but I did not really felt any differences with an AMC. Somehow the AMC tends to sit deeper and make the closing down lately  and also he is doing the same as the wingers and just running into the player in possession...

[crusadertsar]

But that's the thing you shouldnt be trying to geggenpress against such sides. It doesn't work. And I'm not saying you should go all low block against them as that won't work either. You could still maintain a relatively high defesive line but just remove counter-press instruction and reduce your extreme closing down. And just try playing more expensively without necessarily rushing the play. What you want is to slowly probe these teams while trying to move their defenses around with overloads on one side of the field to open up more space on another side.

I'm trying something similar in my thread here and finally having some success after many months of frustration with the game.

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by crusadertsar

[Experienced Defender]

You first need to post a screenshot of your tactic. A few instructions viewed in isolation mean nothing. The most important aspect of play in both the attacking and defensive phase is how you set up the roles and duties.