I cannot hold a lead

[ross1605]

I am playing with Spurs and always take the lead but I am constantly dropping points from winning positions. I just played West Brom and was 5-1 yo with 30 mins to go and I kid you not the game ended 5-5 (ridiculous).

 

I tried everything - playing disciplined, slower tempo and time wasting etc and nothing worked! West Brom literally doubled their season goal tally in 90 mins against me. Does anyone have any advice on how to hold a lead I really am struggling to work out how.

[silentwars]

Can you post your tactic? It's also worth mentioning that when you change something the tactical familiarity goes down, so it maybe worth training another tactic to help you see matches out.

[YLSFM00]

29 minutes ago, ross1605 said:

I am playing with Spurs and always take the lead but I am constantly dropping points from winning positions. I just played West Brom and was 5-1 yo with 30 mins to go and I kid you not the game ended 5-5 (ridiculous).

 

I tried everything - playing disciplined, slower tempo and time wasting etc and nothing worked! West Brom literally doubled their season goal tally in 90 mins against me. Does anyone have any advice on how to hold a lead I really am struggling to work out how.

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/548488-throwing-games-away-what-do-i-do/?tab=comments#comment-12961012 I had this problem in a Forest save. The last post helped me quite a fair bit. Also, I'd post your tactic so we can get a better understanding.

Edited March 15, 2021 by YLSFM00

[Outsider23]

What is your team cohesion like? I found that with higher team cohesion my team is less likely to collapse late in games.

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, ross1605 said:

I just played West Brom and was 5-1 yo with 30 mins to go and I kid you not the game ended 5-5 (ridiculous).

 

I tried everything - playing disciplined, slower tempo and time wasting etc and nothing worked!

If you lead by 5-1, it means you are completely in control of the match. Why then would you want to apply all these "negative" instructions in the first place? 

[HUNT3R]

If I'm Spurs and playing against West Brom, being 5-1 up and 30 mins to go, I would not change anything. If I do see them change to something more attacking (which I wouldn't expect, given they are so far behind) then I may change slightly. Maybe a Duty tweak or a drop in the LoE, but it all depends on my tactic. 

Definitely don't overdo it though. If you're the better team with the better players, you don't have to go ultra defensive and invite that much pressure.

It depends on your tactic though. If you have a very aggressive/attacking tactic, the changes you listed are not going to do very much in terms of being 'defensive' or protecting a lead. 

[sporadicsmiles]

To go from 5-1 to 5-5 suggests you have gone fundamentally wrong in your approach to holding leads. 

I will echo what others have said here and say if you are leading 5-1 you do not really need to change anything. Maybe if your base tactic is particularly attacking you should have a slightly less attacking version of it to use. For example I often stop pushing my FBs quite so high up when I have a comfortable lead. It is a small change that does mean we lose some attacking thrust, but we are simply more solid. 

On that note, wholesale changes are generally a bad idea for holding onto a lead. Especially if you are inviting more pressure with those instructions. It seems like you fall into the common trap of thinking that defending deeper, playing slower, etc. is being defensive. Now obviously I cannot know what you do, as you did not post in detail, but if it led to conceding 4 goals, do not do that, it is clearly not a good idea. If you completely back off and let the opposition do whatever they want, it is unlikely to end well;

The changes I make when defending against a team who are pushing for a goal are usually reactionary. If they are pumping balls over the top, I will make sure my defensive line is set up to handle it. If they want to play wide, I will make sure we have wide cover and pack the box. If they go 424 then I make sure my defenders are able to handle so many players in a reasonable manner. 

The more significant changes I do make are more often to my attacking style. If a team is pushing forward, they should be leaving a bunch of space for me to exploit. So I make sure I identify that space and set up to exploit it. Maybe I just need to tick counter. Or their right FB is pushed super high so I want to clear the ball to where he isn't. Or I want to generally speed up attacking transitions so we can catch a team out of position. Do not neglect this, because this is a key aspect to defending a lead. The best way to defend a lead is to get another goal. 

So my general tips would do not completely back off and change everything. If you have an attacking base tactic, find a way to ease up on the attacking without losing control of the game (experiment with that), because very attacking tactics can be vulnerable to the AI attacking back, and you do need to take care. Watch the game and take care of specific threats. And definitely find a way to exploit the new space an attacking side leaves you. Make sure you have a goal threat, and try to make it a potent one. 

[Guv'nor]

Surely the clue is in the first 5 words...Spurs. “Can’t hold a lead”, nothing out of the ordinary. 

If this is a recurring theme, could be a sign that your system’s been coded. To lose 4 goals in 30 minutes vs West Brom, blue lights and yellow ‘do not cross’ tape, as far as the formation’s concerned.

Need a lot more “little more” info. What’s the base formation, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 etc etc? 

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Guv'nor

[ross1605]

Thanks all for the tips.

In term of style I only went from attacking down to a more standard approach whilst keeping my 4-5-1 formation - I didn't think this would have such an impact. I lowered tempo and pressed less to try and preserve energy as we are currently playing three games a week so players are becoming tired easily. I deployed similar tactics on my previous save with Coventry and it worked a treat but maybe it's the Spurs DNA.

I am going to train a new controlling possession tactic to use when I am leading against lesser teams to just try and keep the ball and kill the game.

[plcarlos]

You'll get more help posting your tactic. As just stating the formation is one of many parts. Did you use the same tacitc that worked for another team, or did you tweak it for th spurs squad based on the assement of the sqaud.

What your doing with lowering mentality alone, is reducing pressing, tempo, width, and many other under the hood behaviors. Then compounding it by reducing the tempo and pressing again. Basically inviting pressure. When you need to make a change, just a single one is enough, but needs to be considered in the whole tactic overall, changing some much at once is asking a lot.

As for DNA, IMHO Davies\Sanchez\Serge all have a lower concentration attribute, that could impact late decisions as well (A reason I upgrade\Sell most of them). All 3 cost me goals in my first season through late mistakes.

There's also the saying - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if your tactic is draining your players, maybe it's not suited? There are some players who do not have the best natural fitness\stamina to go at that pace all the time

[Britrock]

I train a version of my primary tactic with all TIs turned off except max time wasting and the mentality on cautious. That way when I want to see out games my players already have familiarity with what to do and how to play

[Guv'nor]

^Very good point. 

[Christopher S]

On 16/03/2021 at 00:50, Experienced Defender said:

If you lead by 5-1, it means you are completely in control of the match. Why then would you want to apply all these "negative" instructions in the first place? 

It's funny you should say it, but I can maybe add an opposing view here. 

I often find that after going up any amount of goals, be it 1 or 4, suddenly, the the game just flips on its head. It used to be worse on previous editions - to the point where I'd rather be down 1 goal at half time than the opposite, as the AI would suddenly turn any team into Barcelona through team talks -, but it still happens. I'll be 2-0 up at 60 minutes, or 30 minutes for that matter, 60%+ possession, creating shot/chance after chance and not conceding any chances. Then on the drop of a hat, the AI just... takes over. Suddenly we can't get ahold of the ball anymore, we stop creating chances and get completely dominated for the rest of the game. So I can relate to OPs question.

I'll be the first to add that it's almost guaranteed tied to something I/we are doing wrong, but it definitely happens.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Christopher S

[Domus Clamantium]

Don't reduce mentality or d-line.

Reduce tempo, remove all attack duties, make your full backs more conservative. Tell keeper to slow pace down and play short. Retain possession and dribble a bit more,

[Pasonen]

On 16/03/2021 at 15:33, ross1605 said:

I lowered tempo and pressed less to try and preserve energy

Do you have secondary tactics where these changes are included. If not, you should just to get familiarity levels up IF you decide to use these changes again. 

[Britrock]

Another important point - set pieces. If you set up a secondary "timewaste" tactic, spend a minute making sure your CBs aren't going up for corners, free kicks or throw-ins. Keep them back with your FBs and your holding midfielder and you should be much more protected against a counter direct from a set piece.