Conceding 2-3 goals per match, no matter what formation etc

[SpartanUTD]

I know that fining players every week is meant to be bad, but:

1. They started performing horribly for weeks and after a lot of lwt-downs and warnings, I started fining them and most likely shortlisitng them.

2. The main issue is the defence, no matter what the formation, mentality, man-2-man marking or zone defence, they are HORRIBLE, ALL of them.

3. I was playing variations of 3-5-2 and the opponent would play the ball to the other flank and 90% they'd score.

4, I turned it to 4-2-3-1 and they'd concede from both flanks and the middle.

5. I'm playing 4-1-2-2-1 and they're still in the same mess.

I'am usually conceding 2-3 goals at the first half, defenders and goalies ratings are below 6.5 and even those awkward times I might score forst, they always concede a late goal or 2.

I have currently put down a plan to change 80% of the team, but first, I must make sure I don't get relegated and sacked.

Any proposals?

 

PS: If I score 2 goals, I'll concede at least 2, my goalies would usually concede 3 oals out of 3 shots. This is my most horrible performance at a tea, since CM1999.

[NineCloudNine]

You need to post your tactic in the tactics forum to get advice. No-one can make any practical suggestions based on the info here. There is no general problem with conceding loads of goals so it is something specific to your team or tactic or both.

[SpartanUTD]

24 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

You need to post your tactic in the tactics forum to get advice. No-one can make any practical suggestions based on the info here. There is no general problem with conceding loads of goals so it is something specific to your team or tactic or both.

How is it not wrong to concedde goals? Especially that in the first half I might have conceded 2-3 or even 4 goals?

I don't think it's a tactical issue.

If you read m initial post, before any fines, atmosphere was great, 3-5-2, or 4-1-2-2-1, or 4-2-3-1, used and tested before with adjustments to different squads, nothing seems to work.

I think that my team is full of douchebags.

PS: I never go to tactical forums, I want to try to build my own tactic and not copy someone else's, although in this case, it is definitely not the tactic, trust me.

[NineCloudNine]

26 minutes ago, SpartanUTD said:

How is it not wrong to concedde goals? Especially that in the first half I might have conceded 2-3 or even 4 goals?

I don't think it's a tactical issue.

If you read m initial post, before any fines, atmosphere was great, 3-5-2, or 4-1-2-2-1, or 4-2-3-1, used and tested before with adjustments to different squads, nothing seems to work.

I think that my team is full of douchebags.

PS: I never go to tactical forums, I want to try to build my own tactic and not copy someone else's, although in this case, it is definitely not the tactic, trust me.

I'm not sure what you want then. If you're certain it's not your tactic and you're not willing to share your tactic (or even the team you're playing) for suggestions, then you have decided it's a bug and you should therefore post it in the bug forum. Unless you just want to rant, in which case knock yourself out .

All I can tell you is that in multiple saves with different clubs in FM23 and 24 I have never had a particular problem with condeding goals.

[El Payaso]

40 minutes ago, SpartanUTD said:

How is it not wrong to concedde goals? Especially that in the first half I might have conceded 2-3 or even 4 goals?

I don't think it's a tactical issue.

If you read m initial post, before any fines, atmosphere was great, 3-5-2, or 4-1-2-2-1, or 4-2-3-1, used and tested before with adjustments to different squads, nothing seems to work.

I think that my team is full of douchebags.

PS: I never go to tactical forums, I want to try to build my own tactic and not copy someone else's, although in this case, it is definitely not the tactic, trust me.

It is a tactical issue as it is quite simply possible to play defensively solid football, even with multiple styles variating from attacking and high-pressing football to defensive low-block. 

Going to the tactics forum doesn't mean that you have to use someone else's tactic. It's mainly to ask for ideas and then trying them out. I also like to make my own tactics from the scratch but I do read a lot of the threads related to the style of play I am trying to implement. Those threads often make it easier to spot the errors. 

[SpartanUTD]

41 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

I'm not sure what you want then. If you're certain it's not your tactic and you're not willing to share your tactic (or even the team you're playing) for suggestions, then you have decided it's a bug and you should therefore post it in the bug forum. Unless you just want to rant, in which case knock yourself out .

All I can tell you is that in multiple saves with different clubs in FM23 and 24 I have never had a particular problem with condeding goals.

I thought I posted in the general discussion?

I never said it's a bug!

All I said is thst I was 5th and then, with the same formation, I was 12th.

[SpartanUTD]

28 minutes ago, El Payaso said:

It is a tactical issue as it is quite simply possible to play defensively solid football, even with multiple styles variating from attacking and high-pressing football to defensive low-block. 

Going to the tactics forum doesn't mean that you have to use someone else's tactic. It's mainly to ask for ideas and then trying them out. I also like to make my own tactics from the scratch but I do read a lot of the threads related to the style of play I am trying to implement. Those threads often make it easier to spot the errors. 

I don't even know where the link is.

Tactics wise, I'll either be good defensively but score 1-2 goals every 3 matches, or I might score 1-2 goals per match but concede 2-4.

[NineCloudNine]

17 minutes ago, SpartanUTD said:

I thought I posted in the general discussion?

I never said it's a bug!

All I said is thst I was 5th and then, with the same formation, I was 12th.

What is it you want to achieve with this thread then? It's not a bug, it's not your tactic, you don't want advice, you haven't posted your team or players.

[SpartanUTD]

7 hours ago, NineCloudNine said:

What is it you want to achieve with this thread then? It's not a bug, it's not your tactic, you don't want advice, you haven't posted your team or players.

I said I don't want your advice.

[XaW]

2 minutes ago, SpartanUTD said:

I said I don't want your advice.

Well, what do you want by opening this topic then? Do you want people to advise you? Or are you just out to rant?

[Etebaer]

It only needs 1 bad player or 1 bad tactical instrution to make you eat goals like being the champ of an all american burger challenge.

Either that or your oponents have become better as you had a favourable shedule for a while and now meet the better teams, your players are exhausted, you made bad transfers, your Goalie is really a loser (i usually go through 5 to 10 goalies b4 i settle with one that is acceptable in the performance when i start a save and after that there is maybe 1 per season that i would make a transferbid for and sometimes none at all), your morale is broken, etc.

Highly likely that your broken morale exacerbated your bad performance and you are in the death spiral of bad morale reinforced by bad results increases the probability for more bad results.

[SpartanUTD]

14 hours ago, XaW said:

Well, what do you want by opening this topic then? Do you want people to advise you? Or are you just out to rant?

I always look for ideas and advice, it's just the guy above who gives me the impression that he just wants to say his own thing, instead of reading what I asked.

[SpartanUTD]

11 hours ago, Etebaer said:

It only needs 1 bad player or 1 bad tactical instrution to make you eat goals like being the champ of an all american burger challenge.

Either that or your oponents have become better as you had a favourable shedule for a while and now meet the better teams, your players are exhausted, you made bad transfers, your Goalie is really a loser (i usually go through 5 to 10 goalies b4 i settle with one that is acceptable in the performance when i start a save and after that there is maybe 1 per season that i would make a transferbid for and sometimes none at all), your morale is broken, etc.

Highly likely that your broken morale exacerbated your bad performance and you are in the death spiral of bad morale reinforced by bad results increases the probability for more bad results.

This is exactly what I think.

They got a couple of bad results in a row, I started getting pissed off with the consistelntly bad performers and give them 2 weeks fines at the time and the spiral for destruction (back to job office I think), is with no return.

 

Then, I started playing very attacking with defence as high as possible and gegen press, as it was the only way I could score, but as you said, I turned to the champ of an all american burger challenge.

 

If i play defencively, I'll still loose, but 1 or 2 neel, still no points there and there's 4 matches left, trying to save the day and avoid relegation.

[Kickballz]

Chopping and changing is only going to make things worse.

Edited May 27 by Kickballz

[XaW]

5 hours ago, SpartanUTD said:

I always look for ideas and advice, it's just the guy above who gives me the impression that he just wants to say his own thing, instead of reading what I asked.

Well, I can tell you as much as this, it's either tactical or player related. The match engine does not differentiate between human or AI, and it treats every match on the basis of the same factors for all teams equal.

I know it's quite possible to rarely concede goals, while also scoring freely. How? Because I'm doing so in my save. I'm playing in Andorra, and I've got the 4th-5th best squad, but other than the only professional side (Inter Club d'Escaldes) I can go toe to toe against the rest and not concede much.

Here is an example of my matches. I lost big to the professional side, but they went with ALL wins last season, so what can I do (yet!)? Other than that I lost 2-in the semi final. Aside from those matches, I conceded 1 goal here (in the 3-1 win). As I said, my team doesn't have an amazing squad, we are semi-pro after all, but you can have runs like this. Do I have those all the time? No, of course, this is a cherry picked example from me, but it is possible. Also, screw Inter Club d'Escaldes. Screw them bad!

Enough about that rant!  

My question to you is, what do you do when you are up 3 goals? Do you stick to it? Do you pull back? I usually stick with my preferred tactic, but I have a "shut down" version of it I use when I want to see games out if we are up a single goal or so. Works often, but not always. I also tend to sub IN the older more experienced players to make sure younger and more inexperienced players make mistakes in the latter part. I also mostly sub based on FITNESS, not match rating unless I'm chasing goals.

Now, I might be lucky, and you might be unlucky, but this is at least an explanation of what I'm doing to not concede much.

[SpartanUTD]

16 hours ago, XaW said:

My question to you is, what do you do when you are up 3 goals? Do you stick to it? Do you pull back? I usually stick with my preferred tactic, but I have a "shut down" version of it I use when I want to see games out if we are up a single goal or so. Works often, but not always. I also tend to sub IN the older more experienced players to make sure younger and more inexperienced players make mistakes in the latter part. I also mostly sub based on FITNESS, not match rating unless I'm chasing goals.

Now, I might be lucky, and you might be unlucky, but this is at least an explanation of what I'm doing to not concede much.

FYI, after a few terrible latest performances, Unterchanging got relegated and I got sacked as a consequence.

"what do you do when you are up 3 goals? Do you stick to it? Do you pull back?"

When I have a strong, confident side, I might only pull back when the score turns to 3-1. From my long history in CM and FM series, counter-attack or park-the-bus tactics can be tricky and the time I might apply them, might mean a difference between win, draw, or loose. In the current save, every time I'd use a counter-attack tactic when I was 1 goal ahead (usually after 75th minute), then I'd always concede at least one. With stronger squads,, in older saves, it was also happening, but not at this rate.

I usually prefer a "contol possession", "vertical tiki-taka" and wuth Unterchanging, a gegen press tactic.

In another save, with Antwerpen, a 4-2-1-2-1 fluid counter attack tactic worked wonder with stronger teams at a 100% success in one season, winning away!

In my latest save in Liga 3, I started well with a 3-5-2 gegen press, conceding 2 or 3 goals, but scoring 3 or 4. When the downfall began, just before Christmas, I tried 4-2-3-1 vertical tiki-taka but it made things even worse,

The 4-1-2-2-1 gegen press/positive with defence half the way up because any lower, they'd score once every 3 matches, it seemed to be working and whenever I needed to score more, I'd use a very attacking 4-2-4 gegen press.

No matter what the tactic or mentality was (my full-backs, especially the right ones were useless and slow), they'd concede extremely easily from the middl if my defence was set at middle width or more and they'd concede from wingers if it was set at tight defencing.

The repetitiion of the same mistakes no matter what I was changing, was inuriating me, I then started fining them week in and week out, till I ended putting half of the squad for sale and another quarter to be released at the end of the season.

This must have been by far, my worse season and defencive performance, since I first played CM1998 or 1999!

PS: I will look for ideas online on how to play efficient defence with gegen press, if this is applicable!

[XaW]

18 minutes ago, SpartanUTD said:

FYI, after a few terrible latest performances, Unterchanging got relegated and I got sacked as a consequence.

"what do you do when you are up 3 goals? Do you stick to it? Do you pull back?"

When I have a strong, confident side, I might only pull back when the score turns to 3-1. From my long history in CM and FM series, counter-attack or park-the-bus tactics can be tricky and the time I might apply them, might mean a difference between win, draw, or loose. In the current save, every time I'd use a counter-attack tactic when I was 1 goal ahead (usually after 75th minute), then I'd always concede at least one. With stronger squads,, in older saves, it was also happening, but not at this rate.

I usually prefer a "contol possession", "vertical tiki-taka" and wuth Unterchanging, a gegen press tactic.

In another save, with Antwerpen, a 4-2-1-2-1 fluid counter attack tactic worked wonder with stronger teams at a 100% success in one season, winning away!

In my latest save in Liga 3, I started well with a 3-5-2 gegen press, conceding 2 or 3 goals, but scoring 3 or 4. When the downfall began, just before Christmas, I tried 4-2-3-1 vertical tiki-taka but it made things even worse,

The 4-1-2-2-1 gegen press/positive with defence half the way up because any lower, they'd score once every 3 matches, it seemed to be working and whenever I needed to score more, I'd use a very attacking 4-2-4 gegen press.

No matter what the tactic or mentality was (my full-backs, especially the right ones were useless and slow), they'd concede extremely easily from the middl if my defence was set at middle width or more and they'd concede from wingers if it was set at tight defencing.

The repetitiion of the same mistakes no matter what I was changing, was inuriating me, I then started fining them week in and week out, till I ended putting half of the squad for sale and another quarter to be released at the end of the season.

This must have been by far, my worse season and defencive performance, since I first played CM1998 or 1999!

PS: I will look for ideas online on how to play efficient defence with gegen press, if this is applicable!

Well, you can look at tactics, but it's easy to remember that you need the players to fit into the tactic too. If you want to use a gegenpress tactic, you need players with high work rate and stamina, as well as good decisions and determination, of course in addition to whatever you want them to do on the ball. If you have players not fit to play a high press tactic, then it's not wonder you are overrun, especially towards the end of matches, and even worse towards the end of a season. And I mean "high" comparable to the league you play in.

If you don't have that skillset in your players, you might try to not be as aggressive in you press. And I don't mean no press and just be passive, but dial it back a bit towards the end of the game. As well as making sure you have as little tired players on the pitch as possible at any given time (medical centre can help with fatigue. Note NOT condition%, those are two different things).

You can't necessarily just slap on a tactic that has worked in another save, or with another set of player and expect it to work wonders with anyone. If you have good and versatile enough players, then it could work, but it's not a guarantee.

I'm not saying you are doing anything wrong, mind, but you have given very little of the actual pieces of the puzzle, so it's all guesswork for anyone reading in here. What I'm trying to get across, is that it might not be a single reason for why it happens, but a combination or many factors. And I give examples from my own save to show it's not impossible. Here is the current standing in my save now.

I'm 2nd behind the only pro team, who are about to go their 2nd season in a row without losing a game... And I've conceded 22 goals in 25 matches so far, 7 of those goals came against the unbeaten giant (who are the only team to beat me...). So excluding those, I've conceded 15 in the other 22 matches against comparable teams or lower. So it is possible to create defensively solid tactics, at any level. But to find out why you are not succeeding, you need to actually look at WHY you are conceding goals. Where do they come from(crosses, through balls, set pieces, etc)? Are there any trends or players involved in many of the goals? If so, are you asking the players to do something they are not capable of doing? Are the same space being exploited? Are your midfielder being dragged out of position to create space? Any of these things are things that can happen and that you can solve. Perhaps you need to get a CM or DM that holds the position better when you want to concede. Something small like changing from a BWM-S to a BWM-D can make the difference if you see the player being dragged away to create space, just as an example. But these are the things YOU need to find out, the rest of us can only guess.

[SpartanUTD]

4 hours ago, XaW said:

Well, you can look at tactics, but it's easy to remember that you need the players to fit into the tactic too. If you want to use a gegenpress tactic, you need players with high work rate and stamina, as well as good decisions and determination, of course in addition to whatever you want them to do on the ball. If you have players not fit to play a high press tactic, then it's not wonder you are overrun, especially towards the end of matches, and even worse towards the end of a season. And I mean "high" comparable to the league you play in.

If you don't have that skillset in your players, you might try to not be as aggressive in you press. And I don't mean no press and just be passive, but dial it back a bit towards the end of the game. As well as making sure you have as little tired players on the pitch as possible at any given time (medical centre can help with fatigue. Note NOT condition%, those are two different things).

You can't necessarily just slap on a tactic that has worked in another save, or with another set of player and expect it to work wonders with anyone. If you have good and versatile enough players, then it could work, but it's not a guarantee.

I'm not saying you are doing anything wrong, mind, but you have given very little of the actual pieces of the puzzle, so it's all guesswork for anyone reading in here. What I'm trying to get across, is that it might not be a single reason for why it happens, but a combination or many factors. And I give examples from my own save to show it's not impossible. Here is the current standing in my save now.

I'm 2nd behind the only pro team, who are about to go their 2nd season in a row without losing a game... And I've conceded 22 goals in 25 matches so far, 7 of those goals came against the unbeaten giant (who are the only team to beat me...). So excluding those, I've conceded 15 in the other 22 matches against comparable teams or lower. So it is possible to create defensively solid tactics, at any level. But to find out why you are not succeeding, you need to actually look at WHY you are conceding goals. Where do they come from(crosses, through balls, set pieces, etc)? Are there any trends or players involved in many of the goals? If so, are you asking the players to do something they are not capable of doing? Are the same space being exploited? Are your midfielder being dragged out of position to create space? Any of these things are things that can happen and that you can solve. Perhaps you need to get a CM or DM that holds the position better when you want to concede. Something small like changing from a BWM-S to a BWM-D can make the difference if you see the player being dragged away to create space, just as an example. But these are the things YOU need to find out, the rest of us can only guess.

As I just got sacked, I don't have access to the tactics panel for more details.

I'll agree that it is a few factors combined, in my cases all nasty stars alligned (with my bad temper too!).

My squad was rather slow, average stamina, not high enough workrate which I chose to ignore as I had no option for transfers, very average positioning, dribbling and passing skills, low intelligence and in general, an average "thicky" Liga 3 farta-lavista squad.

I attempted for the first time ever, to start without the access to make transfers during the first summer and this was hard, as I didn't really have a proper and able right back (this is how I ended to 3-5-2 with DWLeft/sup and WingeRight/ratt.

It looked like this:

---------------AF-DLPs--------------

 

DWLs-APa-BWMd-MCs-WRa

 

-----NCBst-BPDco_NCBst*-------

 

-----------------SWKs----------------

He was set to stay wide, in order to cover the right winger's gap when he was making forward runs, but it didn't work because of my CBs slow speed.

I later changed the APa and the MCs both to MCd and the BWMd to MCa, as any more specific role to my thicky squad, seemed to be an impossible mission.

Any tactic involving passing and possession, didn't seem to be a good fit, I tried it during friendlies, as well as for a few matches in the winter time and they were just hopeless.

So, I thought that direct long balls forward and press to steal balls, might be good enough to make it through season 1.

What I didn't know was, how many players started reacting at my team talks, when I was demanding more, or kick their butts in the dressing room during halftime.

That starting spoiling the soup, then heavy fining followed and the disastreous spiral was impossible to stop.

Till now in FM2013 and 2021, I was quite good with defence at a team that I would work for at least a couple of seasons, usually in the best 5 defences of my league, with tiki-taka, disciplined and balanced/positive mentality.

What I'll try next is, to create a tactic (not sure about formation yet), where the defencive line will be 3/4 high, but with defencive mentality and if it works, I'll be adding bits every season.

Let's start by finding a new team though (I hope I will soon).

 

"Are your midfielder being dragged out of position to create space?"

Do you mean wingers running forward?

Edited May 28 by SpartanUTD

[XaW]

16 hours ago, SpartanUTD said:

As I just got sacked, I don't have access to the tactics panel for more details.

I'll agree that it is a few factors combined, in my cases all nasty stars alligned (with my bad temper too!).

My squad was rather slow, average stamina, not high enough workrate which I chose to ignore as I had no option for transfers, very average positioning, dribbling and passing skills, low intelligence and in general, an average "thicky" Liga 3 farta-lavista squad.

Well, in this case, it seems like going very high press would lead to exactly what has happened in your save. You are asking players to do something they are not able to do. You can't ask a slow player to mark a quick and agile player, this will lead to your player losing all those duels all match long, at some point that will lead to chances. Not just because of this one duel in isolation, but if a player breaks lose another player have to figure out if he should leave his own player to cover or not. So you are essentially helping the opposition to create numerical superiority in key parts of the field.

16 hours ago, SpartanUTD said:

I attempted for the first time ever, to start without the access to make transfers during the first summer and this was hard, as I didn't really have a proper and able right back (this is how I ended to 3-5-2 with DWLeft/sup and WingeRight/ratt.

It looked like this:

---------------AF-DLPs--------------

 

DWLs-APa-BWMd-MCs-WRa

 

-----NCBst-BPDco_NCBst*-------

 

-----------------SWKs----------------

He was set to stay wide, in order to cover the right winger's gap when he was making forward runs, but it didn't work because of my CBs slow speed.

I later changed the APa and the MCs both to MCd and the BWMd to MCa, as any more specific role to my thicky squad, seemed to be an impossible mission.

The formation is not the key here, but the roles and instructions. I'm not the best at detailed tactical setups, that's something you will get better answers from in the tactical discussions sub forum (where you don't have to look at others, but rather ask how yours can be improved if you explain what you want to do and why it doesn't work).

16 hours ago, SpartanUTD said:

Any tactic involving passing and possession, didn't seem to be a good fit, I tried it during friendlies, as well as for a few matches in the winter time and they were just hopeless.

So, I thought that direct long balls forward and press to steal balls, might be good enough to make it through season 1.

And that might be a good choice, I don't know, but what is your setup for when you lose the ball? Counterpressing means everyone pushes UP towards the ball, and then you leave gaps somewhere. If you have a low backline, the space will be between the midfield and defence (where an advanced midfielder or striker dropping off can wreak havoc), or if you have a high line to compress space, you will leave that behind the defenders where a quick striker can run through and be 1v1 against your goalkeeper. If you want to press high, you need to look at how you will look when the press fails, because it will at times no matter how good your team is at it. And if your team is not good at it, which it looks like based on your descriptions, then you will see it often. If you have a good enough rest defence who can clean up while the pressers come back into position, then perhaps you can leave the space somewhere. If not? Well, you are creating chances for the opponents. There is a reason why Liverpool under Klopp had massive issued with counters against before they signed a player like Van Dijk. Once the press failed it was a 3v2, 3v3 counter, and all opponent managers knew it. Then Klopp got the defender he thought could handle that, and they won the league once and challenged many times.

16 hours ago, SpartanUTD said:

What I didn't know was, how many players started reacting at my team talks, when I was demanding more, or kick their butts in the dressing room during halftime.

That starting spoiling the soup, then heavy fining followed and the disastreous spiral was impossible to stop.

If you are down and struggle, do you really want someone to yell at you? Or do you want support and belief that you can turn it around? Honestly, when we are losing I almost never give bad feedback. I do when we draw a team we should have beaten, or narrowly beat a team when I think we should have dominated. The team talks should be around effort, not results. If your team plays a great game, but the opponent scores from a free kick and a dubious pen and you lose 1-2, I would console and motivate them. If we draw 2-2 against a poor team because my defenders screw up and my strikers miss sitters while their body language shows they are not giving their all, then I pull out the hairdryer. Kicking people who are down is not a good way of getting them back to their feet...

16 hours ago, SpartanUTD said:

"Are your midfielder being dragged out of position to create space?"

Do you mean wingers running forward?

No, I'm talking about an opponent midfielder who invites pressure from your players, then plays a pass to another player who are running INTO the space your players left to press. I'm talking about space being exploited because you don't cover it.

[XaW]

Ok, since I'm on a roll. Let's look at it in detail. Here is a screenshot from my save. My team is the ones in white.

Here, we are in a bad spot. Can you see why? Because my right winger is pressing there, while the opposition central midfield are BEHIND my midfield line. However, we could perhaps control it if the players had followed players like this:

But that is not hat happens.... let's move forward a couple of seconds.

Ruiz sends a risky pass to Tcham, passing through essentially my midfield line and dragging my central defender (Reina) uptowards him. This opens space for one of their players to move in the channel that opened by by Reinas pressure. Also notice that is Tcham sends a good pass now, we are essentially in a 5(red) vs 3 (white). So we are in a very bad situation here. 

My right back makes the decision to cover for my central defender and tries to follow the run into the channel, which I agree with, but it also does mean he opens up the wide position for the extra wide attacker which Tcham finds. If Tcham had found the run into the channel and my right back didn't do the right thing, we would be in an even worse situation.

From here we are in a better spot because I have, comparably, high work rate players who are quick to run back to try to help out in this situation, and as well as the poor choices made my Arlik (the attacker). Eventually Gallego manages to close him down and gain possession of the ball.

Now, we can do what we do best, counter, since they have committed for what looked to be a decent attack and Gallego sends a very risky, but also very rewarding ball up my midfielder.

A short pass over to my left winger and some attacking runs and we suddenly have control over the majority of the centre of the pitch and are looking to create a chance.

From here, this is what I would have wanted to happen, but my left winger makes a poor choice and it all fizzles out.

My point is, you need to look at what happens in your saves and see where you are opening chances up and where you can exploit things. For every reward you need to weigh the risks, and try to figure out if it is worth it. Some times you are wrong and some times you are right, but it's all a learning experience. Still, if you never look at these things, you'll probably never really understand why things happen. And if you opt to NOT look at it, then you just have to accept that some times it doesn't work out as well as you would have hoped. Many people have a lot of success without doing this, but if you are having issues, I'd very strongly advise you to do this.

And for what it's worth, I'm much better at spotting these things than fixing them. I found a general idea of a tactic back in FM17 that worked and have worked ever since, and right now, I'm an expert of how my own tactic works and what risks I offer and what rewards it brings. I tend to slightly overachieve in most saves, but if I don't have the players to play this, I very often struggle. And I don't mean general quality, I mean the specific things I need for each and every player to make this work as well as I want it to. I need a left back who loves dashing forward, I need a DM who can defend, but also work as a pivot. I need a central midfielder who can score from late runs into the box, and I need an left winger who knows when to pick the right pass (not cross!). And in the example over, most worked out well, but the left winger picked the wrong pass. The reason he plays is because my 1st choice is injured and I haven't gotten in a better 2nd choice since I'm semi-professional playing in Andorra!

[SpartanUTD]

3 hours ago, XaW said:

Well, in this case, it seems like going very high press would lead to exactly what has happened in your save. You are asking players to do something they are not able to do. You can't ask a slow player to mark a quick and agile player, this will lead to your player losing all those duels all match long, at some point that will lead to chances. Not just because of this one duel in isolation, but if a player breaks lose another player have to figure out if he should leave his own player to cover or not. So you are essentially helping the opposition to create numerical superiority in key parts of the field.

- I watched a couple of videos about gegen press, read a few articles and I realised that I was actually trying the impossible with my team! Couldn't have got it more wrong than I did.

3 hours ago, XaW said:

 

 

 

[SpartanUTD]

"No, I'm talking about an opponent midfielder who invites pressure from your players, then plays a pass to another player who are running INTO the space your players left to press. I'm talking about space being exploited because you don't cover it. "

This was actually happening all the time, this is why the opponents were scoring from all possible positions and angles!

[SpartanUTD]

45 minutes ago, XaW said:

Ok, since I'm on a roll. Let's look at it in detail. Here is a screenshot from my save. My team is the ones in white.

Here, we are in a bad spot. Can you see why? Because my right winger is pressing there, while the opposition central midfield are BEHIND my midfield line. However, we could perhaps control it if the players had followed players like this:

But that is not hat happens.... let's move forward a couple of seconds.

Ruiz sends a risky pass to Tcham, passing through essentially my midfield line and dragging my central defender (Reina) uptowards him. This opens space for one of their players to move in the channel that opened by by Reinas pressure. Also notice that is Tcham sends a good pass now, we are essentially in a 5(red) vs 3 (white). So we are in a very bad situation here. 

My right back makes the decision to cover for my central defender and tries to follow the run into the channel, which I agree with, but it also does mean he opens up the wide position for the extra wide attacker which Tcham finds. If Tcham had found the run into the channel and my right back didn't do the right thing, we would be in an even worse situation.

From here we are in a better spot because I have, comparably, high work rate players who are quick to run back to try to help out in this situation, and as well as the poor choices made my Arlik (the attacker). Eventually Gallego manages to close him down and gain possession of the ball.

Now, we can do what we do best, counter, since they have committed for what looked to be a decent attack and Gallego sends a very risky, but also very rewarding ball up my midfielder.

A short pass over to my left winger and some attacking runs and we suddenly have control over the majority of the centre of the pitch and are looking to create a chance.

From here, this is what I would have wanted to happen, but my left winger makes a poor choice and it all fizzles out.

My point is, you need to look at what happens in your saves and see where you are opening chances up and where you can exploit things. For every reward you need to weigh the risks, and try to figure out if it is worth it. Some times you are wrong and some times you are right, but it's all a learning experience. Still, if you never look at these things, you'll probably never really understand why things happen. And if you opt to NOT look at it, then you just have to accept that some times it doesn't work out as well as you would have hoped. Many people have a lot of success without doing this, but if you are having issues, I'd very strongly advise you to do this.

And for what it's worth, I'm much better at spotting these things than fixing them. I found a general idea of a tactic back in FM17 that worked and have worked ever since, and right now, I'm an expert of how my own tactic works and what risks I offer and what rewards it brings. I tend to slightly overachieve in most saves, but if I don't have the players to play this, I very often struggle. And I don't mean general quality, I mean the specific things I need for each and every player to make this work as well as I want it to. I need a left back who loves dashing forward, I need a DM who can defend, but also work as a pivot. I need a central midfielder who can score from late runs into the box, and I need an left winger who knows when to pick the right pass (not cross!). And in the example over, most worked out well, but the left winger picked the wrong pass. The reason he plays is because my 1st choice is injured and I haven't gotten in a better 2nd choice since I'm semi-professional playing in Andorra!

One thing is, real life stress, causes me more temper while playing the game, which is supposed to take my head away a bit and help me cheer up, that caused lack of patience.

Back in the days, after a bad run of 3-4 games, I'd always go back andcheck how they mostly score against me and try to correct, something which I didn't do with Unterchanging and paid dearly for it.

After my tutorials on gegen press, in real football and FM2021 (I jumped from FM2013 to 2021, massive shock!), I realised exactly what you're describing above.

I had set 'urgent pressing', 'prevent GK short distribution', 'get stuck in', 'always high pressure' on midfielders, plus gegen press and hard tackle for half of the opponents.

All these settings, created a team with the highest rate of yellow and red cards, as well as fouls against and of course, they were pushing to much forward and leaving plenty of areas to explore behind my defence.

By the way, having a relegation from Liga 3 in my CV, I doubt if I ever find another job in this save, I might start a new one soon.

[XaW]

15 minutes ago, SpartanUTD said:

"No, I'm talking about an opponent midfielder who invites pressure from your players, then plays a pass to another player who are running INTO the space your players left to press. I'm talking about space being exploited because you don't cover it. "

This was actually happening all the time, this is why the opponents were scoring from all possible positions and angles!

Well, there you have a thing you can influence. You can do this by tactical change, player change, or a combination. That's what you need to do.

8 minutes ago, SpartanUTD said:

One thing is, real life stress, causes me more temper while playing the game, which is supposed to take my head away a bit and help me cheer up, that caused lack of patience.

Back in the days, after a bad run of 3-4 games, I'd always go back andcheck how they mostly score against me and try to correct, something which I didn't do with Unterchanging and paid dearly for it.

After my tutorials on gegen press, in real football and FM2021 (I jumped from FM2013 to 2021, massive shock!), I realised exactly what you're describing above.

I had set 'urgent pressing', 'prevent GK short distribution', 'get stuck in', 'always high pressure' on midfielders, plus gegen press and hard tackle for half of the opponents.

All these settings, created a team with the highest rate of yellow and red cards, as well as fouls against and of course, they were pushing to much forward and leaving plenty of areas to explore behind my defence.

By the way, having a relegation from Liga 3 in my CV, I doubt if I ever find another job in this save, I might start a new one soon.

I always tell people, if you get annoyed at a game, go do something else for a while. If you don't enjoy playing a game.... then stop until you can enjoy it again. Or play it differently. Think about what part of the game you enjoy and find a setup that allows you to do the things you enjoy most and not focus on what you don't. If you love finding and developing wonderkids, then find someone elses tactic and plug and play, since you don't care about the tactical part anyway. Others love the tactical setups and tinkering, and just buys whoever the scouts recommend and try to utilize that. Most are in the middle somewhere. I love developing player, and enjoy watching matches, but I'm very good at tinkering with tactics and I can also be frustrated when I can't find the answer to certain things in the game. My solution was to develop a tactical setup in a save I had no intention of playing long term.

I thought about what I want to see on the pitch, and I wanted to replicate Klopp anno 2017. So I tried my best to create something that would emulate it as well as I could. It kinda worked, but not well enough, so I created a thread in the tactics section where I asked for help.

As you can see in there, I outlines what I wanted to do, what I thought worked, and what didn't work. I got some pointers from other that I tried (or didn't based on my own judgement) and eventually got something I liked. Then I revisited a few months later when FM18 had come along and I replicated it there. And I still use about 95% of the same setup ever since. I have made small tweaks and changes, but nothing big. So now, I know the basis of the system works, and I just need smaller tweaks to fit the players and I also know what type of player I need in each role and position. So now I can mostly let the tactic play out (and only react when I see issues like I outlined above), and rather focus on the development of my players. So I have much more fun playing by getting the focus onto what I like and enjoy doing. Some people love hardship and failing, and I can do that too, but when I sit down and want to play my game, I'm in a life situation where I want low stress, so a decent level of mastery fits me perfectly at the moment. I won't win all matches, but I know why I win and why I lose, and that's good enough for me right now.

So I would recommend that. Find out what you want to focus on and try to make it fun. A game shouldn't feel like a chore, it should be fun and engaging.