Is Defensive Mentality Broken in FM22?

[Draakon]

1 hour ago, herne79 said:

Taking this right back to the opening post for a moment:

I'd actually propose that using the Defensive Mentality can be somewhat overpowered.  It can help with possession retention, remaining solid in defence and help to create fewer but better quality chances.  Case in point:

At the same time you have to keep in mind that no tactics is a guaranteed key to winning. Defensive tactics is often used when you try to avoid relegation, in a season when you're constantly against bigger opponents who have better quality  players. Great tactics, spot on team talks and good teamwork and determination can only go so far, but you can't win/draw every game by just defending at all costs. Of course you're going to suffer if you have less quality on the pitch. Of course there's at least couple of times during each game when world class attackers carve your half Premiership/half Championship level defence apart. And you suffer goals and you lose games, but the root cause could not be your tactics, but just the difference in quality of players. Individual brilliance can win games and it often does.

[XaW]

27 minutes ago, SimonHoddle said:

Really appreciate the advice. It’s kind of what I do tbh. Pressing centre forward ✔️. Lower DL and LOE but press intensity on 75% ✔️ 

you’re right, everything you say is logical. Time and again though I get beaten by multiple balls over the top. I have v high quality fast CBs so can’t blame concentration. 

I think the whole opp instructions of MM and always press also play a big part. But, again, I think SI fail to comprehensively explain the output of these inputs. If I’m saying MM an opp CF does that mean my CBs will be dragged out and wide. If that is the case why ever MM an opponent….

it’s too ambiguous. 

What would you expect a DC man marking another player do? You are specifically asking him to follow that player everywhere, that's what man marking means. If you want tight zonal marking, then set up that. Having one of a midfield do man marking can be a good idea IF that player is the key to the opponents tactics, but very few teams utilize man marking. If you do so and your centre backs are draw out of position, you know what's causing your issues. Just change it. Man marking players is a high risk/reward option for tactics, both in game and real life, and if you do, the whole tactic must support that player being constantly out of position defensively. 

[SimonHoddle]

3 minutes ago, XaW said:

What would you expect a DC man marking another player do? You are specifically asking him to follow that player everywhere, that's what man marking means. If you want tight zonal marking, then set up that. Having one of a midfield do man marking can be a good idea IF that player is the key to the opponents tactics, but very few teams utilize man marking. If you do so and your centre backs are draw out of position, you know what's causing your issues. Just change it. Man marking players is a high risk/reward option for tactics, both in game and real life, and if you do, the whole tactic must support that player being constantly out of position defensively. 

I don’t MM for exactly those reasons.

look at my recent cup final v MANU.

I went deep low block, 75% pressing intensity and Time wasting on 88 mins. Within 5 mins they scored 3 goals behind my defence (2 offsides despite us being deep lol, which hadn’t happened at all  when I had high DL.

this game makes defending so difficult. I know Man U are all out attack but how can they get behind my deep defence 3 times in 5 mins when they haven’t done that the whole of the previous 90 mins with my v high line!

i don’t mind losing! I hate the inconsistencies.

[HUNT3R]

6 minutes ago, Draakon said:

At the same time you have to keep in mind that no tactics is a guaranteed key to winning. Defensive tactics is often used when you try to avoid relegation, in a season when you're constantly against bigger opponents who have better quality  players. Great tactics, spot on team talks and good teamwork and determination can only go so far, but you can't win/draw every game by just defending at all costs. Of course you're going to suffer if you have less quality on the pitch. Of course there's at least couple of times during each game when world class attackers carve your half Premiership/half Championship level defence apart. And you suffer goals and you lose games, but the root cause could not be your tactics, but just the difference in quality of players. Individual brilliance can win games and it often does.

Yeah, fair point. It's a combination of the tactic, the quality of the players and also the type of players you select. Setting up to be compact and fairly defensive, while looking to counter attack, for example, you realise you're going to need to soak up pressure. In a case like that, I select players who will do just that. The back 4 will have players who are defensively very sound. I don't care how good they are going forward, that's not what they're going to do for a lot of the match. Stay defensively strong (good Strength, Balance, Positioninig, Anticipation and JR) and I'll select faster players (as opposed to creative players or slow, strong players) up front who could counter attack quickly.

It gives me a good chance to get something out of the game. No guarantees, but as long as you can sneak enough wins/draws over a season. As you say though, the better teams might just turn up with a very good player who wins the match all by himself. That can certainly happen as you're up against mostly better teams than your own.

[XaW]

4 minutes ago, SimonHoddle said:

I don’t MM for exactly those reasons.

look at my recent cup final v MANU.

I went deep low block, 75% pressing intensity and Time wasting on 88 mins. Within 5 mins they scored 3 goals behind my defence (2 offsides despite us being deep lol, which hadn’t happened at all  when I had high DL.

this game makes defending so difficult. I know Man U are all out attack but how can they get behind my deep defence 3 times in 5 mins when they haven’t done that the whole of the previous 90 mins with my v high line!

i don’t mind losing! I hate the inconsistencies.

Without knowing the specifics of the match itself, it's not easy to see how of why it happens, since I don't know what you changed from or to, but looking at the xG Match Story, you clearly made a mistake, since they had a sharp burst of chances around that time. So whatever you did on that occasion, it clearly didn't work. What happened VISUALLY in the match in those minutes? Did your players become passive? Where did the space open up for the opposition? Was the chances seemingly instructional issues, or player related. If it's the latter, you might have a weak squad mentally for example. The game is too complex to say you do X so Y will always happen. You can only shift the percentages around. Remember in the game as in real life, you can do everything perfect and still lose, as well as everything wrong as still win. I'd advise you to look at patterns, look at the last 10 matches you went defensive in the final minutes. How many did you win, and how many did you lose? Do the same for games you DIDN'T do the same and check things. If you lose more often going deep, then the way you are set up does not work with the changes you make. Could it be player instructions? Does your tactic breach structurally? Do you ask things of the players they are not capable to do?

I very rarely see this happen when I try to hang on to a lead, so you are clearly doing something differently than me, and if it works fine for me, it leads me to think you are doing something that allows the other team to overwhelm yours in some way. If you can show both tactical setups, both before and after the change, perhaps it's possible to spot something, but without knowing how the game changes it might be hard. Also, remember player instructions and opposition instructions can also screw this up...

[SimonHoddle]

27 minutes ago, XaW said:

Without knowing the specifics of the match itself, it's not easy to see how of why it happens, since I don't know what you changed from or to, but looking at the xG Match Story, you clearly made a mistake, since they had a sharp burst of chances around that time. So whatever you did on that occasion, it clearly didn't work. What happened VISUALLY in the match in those minutes? Did your players become passive? Where did the space open up for the opposition? Was the chances seemingly instructional issues, or player related. If it's the latter, you might have a weak squad mentally for example. The game is too complex to say you do X so Y will always happen. You can only shift the percentages around. Remember in the game as in real life, you can do everything perfect and still lose, as well as everything wrong as still win. I'd advise you to look at patterns, look at the last 10 matches you went defensive in the final minutes. How many did you win, and how many did you lose? Do the same for games you DIDN'T do the same and check things. If you lose more often going deep, then the way you are set up does not work with the changes you make. Could it be player instructions? Does your tactic breach structurally? Do you ask things of the players they are not capable to do?

I very rarely see this happen when I try to hang on to a lead, so you are clearly doing something differently than me, and if it works fine for me, it leads me to think you are doing something that allows the other team to overwhelm yours in some way. If you can show both tactical setups, both before and after the change, perhaps it's possible to spot something, but without knowing how the game changes it might be hard. Also, remember player instructions and opposition instructions can also screw this up...

I’ll send to you. TY again. I’m pulling my hair out!

[phd_angel]

On 04/07/2022 at 08:34, SimonHoddle said:

I don’t MM for exactly those reasons.

look at my recent cup final v MANU.

I went deep low block, 75% pressing intensity and Time wasting on 88 mins. Within 5 mins they scored 3 goals behind my defence (2 offsides despite us being deep lol, which hadn’t happened at all  when I had high DL.

this game makes defending so difficult. I know Man U are all out attack but how can they get behind my deep defence 3 times in 5 mins when they haven’t done that the whole of the previous 90 mins with my v high line!

i don’t mind losing! I hate the inconsistencies.

A good example of how FM22 Defensive option is broken. You set yourself too low, too defensive, and time wasting (is a waste). These options might work in real life, but it's exactly what does not work in FM22. (In my game, I might set mentality to Very Defensive in very final minutes but I never move my defense line low - it's asking for trouble, sorry...).

[DarJ]

 First of all I'm going to assume that you mean "is using defensive mentality for defensive football broken" because the example that was given was winning a game 2-0 then changing the mentality and few other things to try and hold on to the lead.

I wouldn't say it's broken, I'll just say that it's difficult to pull off because most people don't actually know what they are doing. I'll try to explain using a tactic I've created recently in FM 21 (I'm not a fan of FM22 although I had one of the ideas for the tactic playing FM22)

So this is the tactic

Spoiler

Although the mentality on the screenshot is Balanced I normally switch between Defensive, Cautious and Balanced but I use Balanced the most. 

The tactic came about because I'm managing in the Polish league and 7 seasons in I'm always getting to the group stage of the champions league but I've never gotten out of the group so I was looking for a way to not lose games at all, my aim was to at least draw all 6 games since I'll at least get a point per draw and there is always the chance to beat one of the teams in the group; anyway long story short I put this together and it really worked, the 4-0 against Ajax was the game that made me come up with the tactic and even if it's meant to be defensive we still scored as much goals as the other good team and could have conceded less if I used it from the start and the only game I lost was on penalties. The only few thing I change depending on the game is mentality from balanced to defensive or counter, hold shape to counter and defensive line from low to standard 

Spoiler

I'm going to talk about some of the instructions I have in this tactic that all the youtubers and most of the people here will tell you not to ever do and how it can help you stay solid defensively.

• Lower mentality and lines (how we defend): Normally, when people try to defend, they lower their mentality and line of engagement and defensive line. There is nothing wrong with that, however, you need to understand that you have given the opposition space both in front of you and out wide (lower mentalities tend to play narrower) People try to solve this dilemma by having counter press on and having their pressing around 75% and while this could be a valuable way of trying to solve the problem especially if you have a top heavy formation, the downside to that is that your players leave gaps all over the pitch because you have told them to counter press (try to win the ball back as soon as they lose it) but also not press until the opposition is passed the half way line so it's all confusing. I on the other hand opted to embrace the fact I'm leaving the space in front and out wide, to fix the problem of the space out wide, I used opposition instructions to tight mark and press the opposition wide player, that way whenever the ball is wide depending on the zone of the pitch, my wingers or full backs will step out early to try and stop crosses. To solve the problem of leaving space in front I just decided to tell the players to hold their ground and keep shape; so the team is set to regroup and pressing a bit less. This is the most controversial part of the tactic, having lower lines and less pressing seems like a recipe for disaster but in this case it's not because I have players in every strata, I have players in the defensive strata, DM strata, CM strata, AM strata and ST strata so the formation is compact on its own and it's very difficult to pass through us, the only way we can concede is through long shots, freekicks or if they win the ball back when we are in their half attacking. Most long shots will be blocked because of the amount of players in front, freekicks is something I keep an eye on, if it's getting high I'll add "stay on feet", scoring from winning the ball back from us when we attack is not unique to my tactic, it will happen regardless of how you play, you just have to try and lower the frequency as much as you can.
• What we do when we win the ball: When most people try to defend leads they only try to think about the defensive side of it but never what their team will do when they have the ball or they think "I'm playing with lower lines so I'm inviting pressure so when I win the ball counter attack". Not thinking about what you team will do with the ball is a big mistake and trying to counter attack is not always the answer. First of all, you are trying to hold on to a lead because your players are not that good anyway so you don't trust them to keep playing how you normally play and win; for you to counter, you need a good players who are fast, can dribble and you can trust those 3 or 4 players to do the job. I decided to go for the opposite; chances are the team is going to win the ball deep in our half and the distance they will have to cover to try and score is much so if they moved the ball forward quickly they will have to rely only on the front 3 to try and score because the rest of the team won't get up in time in time to give them support due to how deep the team is playing. This is exactly what I did in the few games I played against teams that were very attacking and I saw space I could use. In these games I go for "counter" instead of "hold shape" so the ball goes to my striker quickly, he's decent in the air too and strong so he can fight off 2 defenders on his own sometimes. In most of the games however. the strategy was to bring the team up together by holding shape when they win the ball and working it in the box. What this does is that when they win the ball back players are not just running off on their own trying to do something, if the ball goes to the strike or inside forward for example they will slow down and wait for support from the midfielders and fullbacks so there is always an extra man to pass to. Some people will say I'm giving the opposition time to go into their defensive shape by not attacking immediately after winning the ball and they will be right, however, I've setup the formation in a way that every player has at least one other player close by and sometimes 2 so there is always options to pass to and different players are joining from different strata at different times. For example, on the right hand side if the ball was with the IW, he will delay his forward run until the BWM arrives and shortly after the FB. If I was playing the normal  4231 with 2 CMs it will take the FB longer to join the attack because he's far down and CM will be much closer to the IW to begin with. If people remember the old FM games, you used to be able to change the team shape from a range between highly structured and very fluid, with the way I set up the roles it is as if I selected fluid so the downside to that is that since since the team move up together, when they lose the ball everyone is up so there will be space to exploit depending on how fast they come back and this is how they score us the most.A

In conclusion. defending passively is very possible, as you can see from the screenshot not only do I have lower lines I'm also pressing less and regrouping but you need the right formation to begin with, this won't work as well with the 442 for example but you need to be aware that you will have less possession and the opposition will have long shots and it's fine, it's the trade off you are making, the most important thing is decide what you will do with the ball once it's won because you might just be giving it back to the opposition to attack you again so you'll never leave you half and concede goals.

I'm not trying to tell people to copy this, it worked for my players and might not work for yours and this is FM21 not 22

[Jack722]

I spent a good few months on FM playing around with only defensive tactics. I made a thread about it here.

What I think after all this time is that defensive football is absolutely viable. And although I don't believe it is as good as some clearly OP tactics like the gegenpress, it is criminally underused by the FM community, and quite shockingly misunderstood, even by top youtubers and forum posters with high reputation.

Once you figure out how to setup a defensive tactic, and more importantly, when to use it.. I would say it is more or less 80% effective compared to how it is in real life. The only big issues being that counterattacks are quite poor, with a ME tendency to dribble wide instead of play an easy pass through the middle; as well as far post crosses and sometimes corners being a bit OP. When sitting back and inviting pressure, I see far too often a 5'6" winger outjumping my fullback and directing a perfect header straight at goal. I think everything else works fairly well.

Firstly you have to understand when to use it. No successful manager, under any circumstances, will play defensive football every game. If you actually watch multiple full games of literally any manager known for being defensive, they will only use defensive tactics as a tool in specific situations. Even Jose Mourinho and Diego Simeone. Defensive tactics will come out when: 

• Defending a lead
• Playing as the heavy underdog

Because most of us will only watch these managers play in the big games, they bring out these defensive tactics more, and we assume too much that they play like this all the time. But after the CL semi final, Atletico Madrid will play at home to some team like FC Cadiz, and play almost the entire game looking to attack and press, unless already winning. The thing is, playing defensive football every minute of every game is just silly and not viable. When you think about it, if you were a player in a league game, and you came up against a team much worse than you, you will always attack and try to pressure the ball, it literally makes 0 sense to sit back from the first whistle trying to defend for 90 minutes. You will do this even with no manager or tactical insutrction telling you to do so.. Because it's common sense. But when a big team comes along, this is when you decide to sit back and focus on stifling the opposition attack. And even in this situation, you wouldn't and shouldn't expect to win. Not even draw. You're doing this to only lose 1-0 or 2-0 and maybe have a small chance to draw, instead of losing 5-0 and having morale destroyed. The only other situation is using it to defend a lead.

The problem is that most people on the FM community just seem to only use one tactic, maybe a second tactic very rarely. This instantly eliminates the possibility of a defensive tactic being successful. Because the instant you concede, the game is basically over unless the opposition make a mistake. And they may never make that mistake if they decide to play defensively as well. But if you play attacking, if you go 2-0 down, you can always win 3-2.

The other mistake everyone makes is setting up their tactic. Everyone has an obsession with creating 'balanced' roles. Normally a couple of goal threats, one fullback going forward, one staying deeper.. 1 Dm and one CM on attack - getting forward to support the striker. And then when they switch to defensive, they wonder why they instantly concede. This is because your having players not tracking back (attacking IF and AF's, P's..), while sitting deep and inviting pressure, while having deep players rush forward (like overlapping fb's and attacking cm's) without getting the ball forward to them. A defensive tactic should keep most players back, for example 2 defensive FB's + CB's + 1DM, and should have the attacking players track back. This means very few, if any, attack duties, and a bottom heavy formation. My favourite is a 541 with defensive fullbacks, 1 defensive + 1 supporting CM and a supporting striker. PLay this with a deep block and little pressing and its so hard to break down.

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Jack722

[DP]

1 hour ago, Jack722 said:

I spent a good few months on FM playing around with only defensive tactics. I made a thread about it here.

What I think after all this time is that defensive football is absolutely viable. And although I don't believe it is as good as some clearly OP tactics like the gegenpress, it is criminally underused by the FM community, and quite shockingly misunderstood, even by top youtubers and forum posters with high reputation.

Once you figure out how to setup a defensive tactic, and more importantly, when to use it.. I would say it is more or less 80% effective compared to how it is in real life. The only big issues being that counterattacks are quite poor, with a ME tendency to dribble wide instead of play an easy pass through the middle; as well as far post crosses and sometimes corners being a bit OP. I see far too often a 5'6" winger outjumping my fullback and directing a perfect header straight at goal. I think everything else works fairly well.

Firstly you have to understand when to use it. No successful manager, under any circumstances, will play defensive football every game. If you actually watch multiple full games of literally any manager known for being defensive, they will only use defensive tactics as a tool in specific situations. Even Jose Mourinho and Diego Simeone. Defensive tactics will come out when: 

• Defending a lead
• Playing as the heavy underdog

Because most of us will only watch these managers play in the big games, they bring out these defensive tactics more, and we assume too much that they play like this all the time. But after the CL semi final, Atletico Madrid will play at home to some team like FC Cadiz, and play almost the entire game looking to attack and press, unless already winning. The thing is, playing defensive football every minute of every game is just silly and not viable. When you think about it, if you were a player in a league game, and you came up against a team much worse than you, you will always attack and try to pressure the ball, it literally makes 0 sense to sit back from the first whistle trying to defend for 90 minutes. You will do this even with no manager or tactical insutrction telling you to do so.. Because it's common sense. But when a big team comes along, this is when you decide to sit back and focus on stifling the opposition attack. And even in this situation, you wouldn't and shouldn't expect to win. Not even draw. You're doing this to only lose 1-0 or 2-0 and maybe have a small chance to draw, instead of losing 5-0 and having morale destroyed. The only other situation is using it to defend a lead.

The problem is that most people on the FM community just seem to only use one tactic, maybe a second tactic very rarely. This instantly eliminates the possibility of a defensive tactic being successful. Because the instant you concede, the game is basically over unless the opposition make a mistake. And they may never make that mistake if they decide to play defensively as well. But if you play attacking, if you go 2-0 down, you can always win 3-2.

The other mistake everyone makes is setting up their tactic. Everyone has an obsession with creating 'balanced' roles. Normally a couple of goal threats, one fullback going forward, one staying deeper.. 1 Dm and one CM on attack - getting forward to support the striker. And then when they switch to defensive, they wonder why they instantly concede. This is because your having players not tracking back (attacking IF and AF's, P's..), while sitting deep and inviting pressure, while having deep players rush forward (like overlapping fb's and attacking cm's) without getting the ball forward to them. A defensive tactic should keep most players back, for example 2 defensive FB's + CB's + 1DM, and should have the attacking players track back. This means very few, if any, attack duties, and a bottom heavy formation. My favourite is a 541 with defensive fullbacks, 1 defensive + 1 supporting CM and a supporting striker. PLay this with a deep block and little pressing and its so hard to break down.

 

What I don’t like is that the game lets you have attack duties on a defensive formation. Surely the duties should change based on the mentality set? It seems odd and over complicated to me that you can have ‘defensive’ mentality set but everyone set to attacking duties. 
 

It’s contradictions like this that plague the current engine and means the community gets confused. There’s a lot that can be done to simplify it. 

Edited July 27, 2022 by DP

[HUNT3R]

35 minutes ago, DP said:

What I don’t like is that the game lets you have attack duties on a defensive formation.

Why shouldn't you have players who break forward when it is safe (relatively speaking) to do so?

It can be an attacking (or counter attacking) threat. Looking at it as a defensive option, have players break forward into space where they can hold onto the ball. That relieves some defensive pressure.

Considering the fact that defenders are a bit more direct and attackers pass shorter on the more defensive mentalities, it can work well.

I understand that it can be confusing for some, but it's a million miles better than the sliders we used to have.

[Rashidi]

5 hours ago, DP said:

What I don’t like is that the game lets you have attack duties on a defensive formation. Surely the duties should change based on the mentality set? It seems odd and over complicated to me that you can have ‘defensive’ mentality set but everyone set to attacking duties.

I think is the basic crux of the issue.  Some read “Defensive Mentality” and assume it’s meant to reflect a defensive style of football. Others read mentality and only see risk affecting decisions taken on the pitch.

And this inherently has been a issue with how mentality has been presented over various versions of the game. I really hope that SI consider a fundamental UI shift.

Remove the word “mentality” and just change it to a colour that reflects risk. As long as the word “defensive” stays there people will make assumptions.

Styles of football - defensive or offensive come from a combination of sliders like defensive line, line of engagement and pressing intensity. That fundamentally defines your style of football. The choice of roles and duties then allow you to define how a team uses and controls the space that will be played on. 
 

It’s time SI ditch the words attacking, defensive etc.

[glengarry224]

A lot of good discussion here.  A few concepts I use:

• when trying to maintain a lead after 70 minutes,
  • be aware of the relative condition of each team's players:  a lot of players are tired or exhausted.  For example, if my CBs have adequate acc/pace but are exhausted and my opponent has subbed in a fast striker, I should probably drop my DL at least a little or bring in a fresh CB;
  • make changes based upon the relative quality of your players and their individual characteristics
    • if my players are not more exhausted, and are as good as or better quality, then I prefer to make slight adjustments to reduce the chance of counters but otherwise try to keep control of the game and not get passive;
    • Players with poor concentration should suffer more when exhausted;
    • players with higher leadership are more motivational
  • learn where your tactic and your team is most vulnerable and make some changes to cover specific weaknesses.  For example, if I concede too many crossing goals, maybe I'll defend narrower and/or have my wingers man mark my opponent's best wide-crossers;
  • create a 'training tactic' which covers all potential late-match defensive changes:  that way, your players have some tactical familiarity with those changes, even if you only make a few of them;
  • if you want your team to 'hold shape' more, lower pressing intensity and tackling.  If you bring in a fresh player, you can individually give him a more active role or up his pressing/tackling;

[Rashidi]

How do I play defensive?

I might be playing a 4312 with a high defensive line and a higher line of engagement, max pressing, hard tackling with an offside trap. My team could be set to counter pressing and counter, with a high tempo.. Whether I play on balanced or attacking mentality I am still playing aggressively. This is attacking football in the context of FM.

Now if I wanted to be more defensive these are the things I could change, some have big impacts others have smaller ones.

—All mentality will do is reduce the main sliders a bit but overall my players will take less risk with the ball. If I go from attacking to balanced then I will expect my players to be more measured with how they play. It doesn’t mean I have gone defensive, they could end up keeping the ball better.

—If I were to reduce the sliders like DL and LOE, then these are very big changes, so if I wanted to become more defensive without making big changes I would instead, drop counter pressing first. That instruction encourages my players to break shape to win the ball back quickly. It’s a minor change but incredibly useful for holding shape.

—Another thing I could do is reduce tempo or width, both changes would help me retain possession.

If I wanted major changes I would change defensive line first as this affects how the fullbacks or backline supports midfield transitions. If I drop it drastically I am literally telling my backline to let midfield worry for themselves. Naturally your role and duties matter. If I drop my defensive line, then how a fullback on support duty  and a wingback on attack duty might react will be very different.

Changes like LOE can be great if I wanted a compact block that was defensive.  Perhaps,  I want my backline to act like obstacles the AI needs to get around, then I might ask them to do a mid block with a high defensive line but I tell my entire team to press neutrally while staying on feet. Here I would be taking on a position where I am forcing sides to play around me. If I am not aggressive in the press or hard tackling we could stay compact and here mentality could be fun to use as a trigger.

With such a compact block I could tell my team to play on positive mentality, this will encourage us to play the ball out with a bird more risk, o4 I could dial things down with defensive and they don’t always look up to launch attacks.

Finally your formation plays a big factor in how offensive or defensive you are. Any system with 2DMs is going to be more defensive than a formation playing without DMs.

 

There are many ways to play defensively and your choice of mentality is the last thing to worry about.