Law_Man

Well I'm sure the gurus know much better than me, but for now try turning on counter attack, increase time wasting, maybe even playing a narrow 4-1-3-2, team mentality set to defensive except for maybe one striker on normal, and sort your set pieces out.

isuckatfm

Are you openly admitting reloading to get the result you want? I admire your chutzpah good sir
Or if you are saying you need a draw in your next match I withdraw that comment and apologise sincerely.

As for tactical advice I am the last person to accept it from (although I am more than willing to give it). It is probably more perception than anything but I have always felt that the game rewarded you more for taking an attacking stance.

The best defensively minded AI tactics I've come up against are the 4141 and the 4222 (2 DMs and 2 wingers). Essentially it has been these two tactics that have resulted in possession dominance for me and more shots than the AI team. But these shots are mostly from outside the area making it easy for the keeper.
This often resulted in the 'AI cheats' match statistics which pop up in threads from time to time.

What I would say from my experiences of 'trying' to be defensive is that setting the defensive line too deep is tantamount to suicide. It is best to watch the match on full and if you are attempting to restrict the AI to long shots then adjust the defensive line/closing down so that they are long shots from a 'safe' range. This safe range will depend on the quality of your keeper and also the long shots attributes of the opposition.
I found it was basically 'trial and error' and hope the AI didn't score before you found the sweet spot.

A good indication that you have gotten it right when playing on highlights mode is if the AI shot count is going up without you seeing highlights while anytime you have a chance it is a highlight worthy one i.e. more clear cut.

The type of player also has a huge impact on the effectiveness of a defensive-counter tactic and how you set up.

For instance if you have the 4222 with two DMs and a big man/little man combo you would be looking for passages of play where the DMs win back possession, hit it to the big man up front, who holds up while the wingers advance, distributes to the wingers who can then hit the pacey guy hanging on the opposition cb's shoulder with a quick cross from deep or a through ball. Or the DMs/defenders hitting direct through balls onto the strikers. With this one you can create two mirror image tactics and change in the quick tactic section so as not to get repetitive. And also because the AI will switch it's centre backs to put it's stronger guy on your lump up front. With the mirror tactics you can gain greater control over which side of the pitch you focus on as well.

To be honest alot of this is theory and my attempts to recreate it have failed (probably more to do with my lack of understanding of the sliders than anything). So maybe one of you slider geniuses can make my vision a reality. I'll dig up my attempt at the 4222 and post them.

If I remember correctly I had instructions as follows

FBs and CBs standard defensive instructions.

Two DMs
Zonal Marking, Tight, High Closing down, Mentality first notch of defensive, RWB mixed, FWR rarely, TTB often, cross ball rarely, HUB No.

Two wingers
Zonal marking, Not tight, closing down a few notches from normal, RWB mixed, FWR often, TTB mixed, cross ball mixed. cross from deep.

Target Man: usual settings + normal mentality

Pacey striker: usual settings + 2nd notch of attacking mentality

Team: a couple of notches below normal mentality, 2nd notch of narrow width, passing 2nd notch of direct, tempo 2nd notch of quick, creative freedom 2nd notch of little, time wasting rarely, target man, counter attack, focus passing mixed, defensive line 2nd notch of deep, tackling normal.

I had mixed results with this. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't and I could never really tell why but that's probably down to my inability to read the game. If you wanna give it try and see what happens but I would recommend saving your game in case it goes tits up and you come back here flaming me for getting you relegated/fired

I would say my biggest concern about playing defensive on FM 08 is the fact that the match confidence section seems to focus alot on how you won and it appears to do this by looking at shots to judge how many chances you created. It appears to be a balance between quality of chances and a decent number of chances (inability to convert...lack of chances created etc).

Pipson

actually ive always preferred a tactic that was good defensevily and at the same time good in attack, in the past ive had records in the records thread for most clean sheets and game without loosing and Ive always thought that 442 is the most complete tactic has it has no weakness and has a lot to offer.

Will post something more useful soon.

Law_Man

Will look forward to it :thup: And yeh I agree the four four two offers probably the best combination of stability and flexibility.

McNugget™

At the moment, im trying to work fix my current tactic to get more clean sheets if it means dropping a goal or 2. My last season I scored 68 and conceeded 24.

Mind you that I am Chelsea and will be testing with other teams.

Jeztah

Assumptions:
- At least 4 players are needed in a backline
- DMC needed to connect midfield and defence while protecting the centre defense.

When I build tactics that are sound defensively, I use those principles. Solid backline and a good defensive midfielder will provide cover for your goalie and will minimize the danger of opponents. I think that the role of DMC is crucial in this because he is the one who will prevent your opponents from making those through passes and also trying to tackle those who try to shoot from the distance.

I haven't yet build a defensive tactic in FM08 (Because I play as River Plate in Argentina and therefore, defensive tactics are out of question), but in my current 4-1-2-1-2 (DL-DC-DC-DR; DMC; MC-MC; AMC; FC-FC) setup I have been conceding quite a low amounts of goals after I installed the patch. I have a material advantage, that has to be noticed but still opponents haven't been harassing my goalie too much.

Sorry about the little derail there. But now back to the topic. I think 4-2-2-1-1 (DL-DC-DC-DR; DMC-DMC; ML-MR; AMC; FC) would be a good base to start build on. Reasons:
- Solid back four
- 2 DMC's taking the space away from the opponents attacking midfielders
- ML-MR will handle opposition fullbacks and also support the attack
- AMC to break up opposition defence and also to support the lone striker.
- FC to cause problems on opposition defence together with AMC.

The key thing would be quite laid back and passive defensive department (back 4 + 2DMC). They will stay in your own half and will start harassing the opposition just before the last third. This way they don't leave too much space behind them for long balls/ through balls and will stay as a compact unit. ML and MR will try to harass opposition playmaking a little bit earlier. They should be able to prevent the opponents wide players getting too much space for crosses. Then the AMC. He would be your playmaker and the key man when going forward. When your team will get the ball, the ball is launched quickly to AMC who will then distribute the ball either to the FC or to the wings for upqoing ML/MR. They along with FC should be your only attacking force.

The aim is to frustrate the opponent players by sitting deep and then close them up aggressivily in the last third. This way they don't have the space to make the key passes. Maybe they go and try to play the ball to their forwards with long balls. Those shouldn't be a problem if you have DC's who are good in the air. Even if the opponent has a good towering FC, you still have 2 DMC's to support your DC's and picking up loose balls. Maybe opponent will try to overnumber you by bringing more players upfront? Well, that really doesn't matter because of your defensive 6 and the support of ML/MR. Also the AMC could be barrowed to support more defensively. By bringing more players upwards, the oppositions defence is vulnerable to quick counterattacks.

I not sure how many chances this kind of playing style would generate in a match, but I see a great potential in this approach. Feel free to comment my gibberish.

Goober

I have to say i quite like the sound of this, i think it might be worth a go with liverpool.

What tempo would you use?

Also passing style, short or direct or a mixture of the two?

Jeztah

The tempo issue is a tough one. Some part of me would suggest that playing slow tempo would be better so that your players wont give too much hurried inaccurate passes that will give the ball away to opponents. On the other hand, that tactic relies a lot of counter attacking game, so the ball should be quickly distributed forward. I guess I'll have to lean a little bit on the latter one, so quite fast.

When it comes to passing I guess a mixture would be better. The catalysts to attacks are probably the DMC's who should quickly send the ball forward for counter attack. So direct passing to them. ML/MR on mixed passing because they need to connect with both DMC's and AMC/FC. Short would take chackle them and direct would be too much I guess. AMC also on mixed so he can distribute the ball. I would also suggest that DC's would be on quite short passing, because they rarely have the passing ability of DMC's so their passes would just probably end up straight to opponents.

I forgot to mention in the earlier post that ML/MR should obviously be running forwards often. Also, it might be an good idea to set one of the DMC's to mixed forward runs so he can make runs from the deep and offer an option for long shots (obviously he would need to have the ability to shoot from the distance).

Goober

Thanks for that Jeztah!

I will start a game tonight and give a update after a couple of months.

It will suit the old Liverpool style of play, defensive, counter attacking.

My only concern will be when we play defensive minded teams.

Any suggestions?

Wielerfan

I don't want to hyjack your quest for a ultimate defending tactic. But (being dutch) the best defence is to attack. With that i don't mean nevemind defending but good defending starts up front with your strikers putting pressure on your opponents defenders and push far up the pitch to allow them no time witch lead to errors.