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Any successful club needs to have a good strong back line that can defend and start quick counter attacks. Hopefully in this thread I can explain a bit about defending and the many systems you can play. Some people might agree and some not, either way i am sure you will find something useful from this.
So first things first, what is the defensive line? The important thing to remember here, is that the defensive line only comes into play when your team doesn't have the ball.
Defensive Line
Deep:Your defensive line will sit very back. They will not venture forward. Works well when against a pacey attack.
Normal:Your back line will play in the middle of their own area. They won’t push up or stay to far back.
Push Up:Your defenders will play close to the half way line. They will put pressure on the opposition’s players. This however is risky on the counter attack so fast defenders are needed.
That is the manuals description now I will expand a little on deep, normal and a pushed up line and try and explain the advantages and disadvantages of each one.
Deep:Your defensive line will sit very back. They will not venture forward. Works well when against a pacey attack. Very true, but you will also be sat very deep so you are inviting a lot of pressure. Also by having the defensive line deep you might create a big gap in-between the defence and midfield, if this happens you will leave your opponents a lot of space to play in and the AI will quickly exploit this. If you have very slow and old defenders then having the line deep may help them from running about much. But they will have a lot of defending to do so need very high teamwork, work rate, concentration and tackling.
Normal:Your back line will play in the middle of their own area. They won’t push up or stay to far back. I would recommend everyone to use this one when first creating a tactic. And then once you’re in a game and have the player instructions you want to use, and then experiment if you need to push it further up or further back. I always use this as the base and vary rarely go and deeper than normal as I am not one for soaking up pressure when there is no real need. This also provides a good base for playing counter attacking football without any real problems as there would be sat any deeper.
Push Up:Your defenders will play close to the half way line. They will put pressure on the opposition’s players. This however is risky on the counter attack so fast defenders are needed. Every single defender must have good positioning, pace and concentration for this to work as you will be playing a very risky game. The pushed up line is ideal for playing the offside trap, and it can be very effective with the right players. Id recommends only doing this with highly intelligent players. The major downfall with this is sometimes you will get caught out and if the opposition break fast your keeper might find he is in a one on one situation.
Each of the different markers each slider for mentality, width, tempo, defensive line etc... is a value between 1 and 20. So for example if we take player mentality and push the slider to the left (1) then the player will be very defensive minded and stay back all the time. Were as if you set it to the right (20) the player will be very attacking minded and get forward at every opportunity. The same for defensive line (1) the team sits right back and (20) the team will push right up towards the halfway line like was explained in part one.
The higher mentality you give a player, the further forward they will play from their assigned position and the more attacking they will be. So if you set a deep defensive line but put the player’s mentalities on a more attacking one they would still be playing attacking football but doing it from a deeper position. If you were in possession you would be very attack minded, but once you lost possession the defensive line would tell your defenders were bouts they should fall back.
But playing like this can be very risky especially if one player gets caught out of position or gets dragged wide or inwards. So before you play this way make sure your defenders can cope with attacking and defensive duties every single one of them. As having one weak link can make all the difference to how strong you are at the back. Using backward arrows (barrows) can also have a bearing but I will get to them in a different article later on.
There are many ways you can set out defenders on FM, in fact I even made a very successful formation using just 2 defenders with 3 DMC's in front of them. This was very solid when I had the correct players for it to work. If you’re using less than 4 players at the back it might be an idea to deploy at least 1 DMC in front of them to help protect against quick attacks. If you’re using 3 defenders at the back it is always a good idea to have the outer two defenders close down more, and on a slightly more advanced mentality than the centre defender.
*Note - These are just my guidelines and what I base things on, you may agree or disagree. I will use the English leagues as examples
Tackling Stats
Easy: Your players will take it easy when entering a challenge. They will only commit if they believe they will come out on top.
For easy tackling anyone can do this and it is recommended that to use this if your player has very poor tackling stats.
English Premier League
Any player under 13 for tackling stat should be placed on easy as this number is really poor for the quality of players you will be playing against.
The Championship
I would say any player under 11 tackling should be put on easy, I know the gap doesn’t seem that big compared to the EPL but you have to remember the quality is not as good either.
League One
Again not much of a difference but I would say 8 for a promotion chasing side and anything under for a bottom of the league side.
League Two
I would say anything under 6 and for the Conference sides the gulf is not that different.
Normal:Your players will go into the challenge if they believe they have a good chance of retrieving the ball. They wont be to hasty and will try not to be to reckless.
English Premier League
Any player with 14-20 for tackling can use normal tackling and be very effective.
The Championship
12-20 for the players in this league are able to use normal tackling, although it might be rare to find anyone with more than 15 tackling in this league.
League One
9-20 should be ok for this league
League Two
Players who have a range between 7-20 should easy cope with a normal tackling setting.
Hard: Your players will rush into any challenge no matter what. If there is only a small chance of retrieving the ball your players will take the opportunity.
English Premier League
Player in the top level should have at least 17 for tackling as well as a high decision stat.
The Championship
Players who have 15 for tackling should be able to pull this off without too many consequences.
League One
You want players in this league who have a tackling stat or around 12
League Two
Players should have at least 10 for tackling at this level.
1: Reduce time wsting for defenders so they don't dawdle on the ball and give away interceptions
2: Reduce passing for defenders to short (why I don't know, but it was given as a possible solution)
3: Reduce closing down
4: Increase closing down
5: Deepen the defensive line
6: Increase the defensive line
7: Loose-mark
8: Tight-mark
I think we can see the confusion here. Each defensive theory may work well for a specific tactic and a specific system, but they are mutually exclusive. All point towards a prevention methodology, i.e. follow this instruction and a certain element will not happen. I would like to suggest a move towards a cure methodology. The assumption here is simple, opposing teams will create chances against us. It is impossible to prevent every cross, every mistake, every through ball, every wonder goal, so what do we do to minimise the symptoms.
My theory is simple. To reduce the likelihood of goals against, you should, as Jose Mourinho memorably put it, 'park a bus in front of the goal'. Therefore, you must design a system that is compact, holds shape and guarantees as many of your players as possible being in your penalty area and protecting the goal for every AI chance. Cleon has pretty much covered defensive line, so let's look at a few other determinants.
Width: Simply, the narrower the team plays, the more men you will have in the box when defending. That is self-explanatory. There is obviously a degree of risk in going too narrow, as it will expose your flanks, so you'll need to stay away from extremes.
1) Preventing big gaps from developing in between strata (front, mid, rear) of your formation, which can happen if your front line players are playing well forward and your defensive line, on the other hand, is set up really low. Depending on the mentality of your midfielders, you may have a situation where midfielders on lower mentalities hang back with your defense, leaving your forwards cut off and difficult to support, or flying forward (high mentality) with your attackers, leaving all sorts of space for counter-attackers to fill in behind most of your players. Both of these situations are unbalanced and a problem.
2) The second thing to accomplish, though, is to ensure that the formation isn't *too* compact. If a formation is too compact, the same three strata will get crushed together, and playing on top of one another will throw your team into disarray.
Since too much *and* too little space is a problem, coordinating d-line and positioning helps give you a proper, tight balance to your formation's overall spacing. (posted by bflaff)
Low Forward Runs: If you stop your Full Backs and covering midfielder going forward you guarantee 5 players in the box when defending.
Marking: Tight marking limits space, so is the best bet for the back five. It is probably best ignored for creative players as they should be in space to collect clearances. Man-marking is currently flawed, so zonal is the way to go. This should be fixed in 7.0.1 so new methods will need to be developed.
Counter-attack: This is counter-intuitive. It does not mean that your team will counter at every available opportunity. Rather, it means that decisions will reflect a greater awareness of risk vs. reward, and thus the team will only counter if there is little chance of losing possession and being caught out whilst breaking.
Applying the above will minimise AI forwards ability to get into space and convert the chances the AI constructs. It will, however, limit your attacking options. You will be forced to play a tight, counter-attacking game, which should do wonders away from home. At home, a totally different methodology will be required. That, however, is another story.
How times have changed since all that was expected of a centre back was for him to boot the ball up field at every opportunity. The big physical type of defender is still in the game but some players nowadays feel comfortable with the ball at their feet and actually like to bring it out from defence and venture forward. The game is forever changing and no doubt that will always be the case, players develop over time and we demand more from a player. Long gone are the days where defenders just concentrated on defensive duties it seems now that more and more managers want that bit extra out of players (defender's particularly). A lot of defenders are a pivotal factor of a manager's set piece routine, whether it is a free kick of corner. In this day and age defenders are expected to score a few goals in a season mainly from set pieces.
Rio Ferdinand and Lucio are two extremely talented people who like having a lot of possession and bringing the ball forward. To be able to do this you need a defender who is very well composed and has a good all round technical ability. However if he loses the ball high up the pitch you need to know he can win the ball back or someone else is covering at the back. On FM if you lose the ball high up the pitch you could be in a lot of trouble especially against good counter attacking or very fast sides. To get the defenders to play this style on FM I would recommend this as a base;
Required stats Positioning, tackling, decisions, anticipation, concentration, marking, acceleration, dribbling, composure, pace and strength
Not so vital stats but useful would be; Jumping, aggression, bravery and heading
Recommended settings
Mentality -defensive to normal (5-8) Closing down - rarely to normal (5-8) Creative freedom -low (1-5) Tackling -Normal Run With Ball - Often
For your defenders to be more "old skool" in the Pallister and Tony Adams mould I would set up as follows;
Peter Shilton, Ray Clemence, David Seaman, Peter Schmeichel, Bruce Grobellar, in fact the list could go on and on. All the goalkeepers I have just mentioned are legends of the game in their very own ways in some way or another. I would also go as far as saying they are still missed and have not been replaced by their clubs properly and probably never will. Why I here you ask? Well one reason is because every single one of them had a presence about them on the pitch and a character and to be a world-class keeper you need this to differentiate yourself from the others.
Let's take Peter Schmeichel for example he is one of the best goalkeepers I have ever seen in my life time and I will never see another Schmeichel type of character either. You see he was a leader and he lead the team from the back when things were not going right he would voice his opinion and was not bothered if he upset a team mate. If you played under Peter's reign then at some point no matter who you were you would have come in for a tongue lashing off him. That was his own team-mates so imagine how the opponents felt playing against him if he treated his own team-mates like that. I bet people used to look at him on the pitch and become intimidated by him because of his presence. He could command his goal like no other and spread himself across the goal when needed. He stood tall until the very last minute and made himself big, his own defenders used to be very confident that if they made a mistake Peter was more than capable of saving their blushes.
Well FM 2007 is no different you need a goalkeeper who you can rely on and know he won't let you down. Don't expect to find one straight away though you might find a talent but it might take a couple of seasons for him to come into his own. The goalkeeper is and always will be your last line of defence, if the opposition breaks through your midfield and defence then you need to be confident your goalkeeper will not let you down or get beat. He is not going to save every single shot or attempt at goal as that would mean he was super human, there will be times that he does let goals in and make the odd mistake, but as long as it is not all the time then there should be no need for worry. When deciding on a goalkeeper there are a few things you should check first and these stats are what I call "core stats" and these are essential for any goalkeeper to stand a chance of being half decent. The stats you should always look out for are handling, reflexes and agility. If the player as good stats in these areas to begin with then with the right training you can improve him quite a lot and make him better.
There is only two ways you can play a goalkeeper really, you can set him up and act as a sweeper keeper meaning he will come off his line and out of the box at times and clear any balls that your defenders fail to deal with. Although this is very risky if you get it right you will benefit a lot.
Recommended Stats for a Sweeper Keeper are; Acceleration, decisions, composure, anticipation, concentration, Positioning, command of area, agility, stamina, jumping, strength and aerial ability
Other Throwing, pace, concentration, composure, bravery and anticipation.
Recommended settings
Mentality -At least 10 or above (the more attacking though the more risky) (just my personal preference)
Closing Down -This should also be around 10 any less and the keeper will not close down when balls are outside the 18 yard box.
Tackling -Easy so he doesn't get sent off
The second way is the more so called "normal approach" where the keeper is quite reserved about coming out of his box and is slightly more cautious than the sweeper keeper.
Recommended Stats for a Normal Keeper are; Decisions, composure, anticipation, concentration, Positioning, command of area, agility, stamina, jumping, strength and aerial ability
Other Throwing, pace, concentration, composure, bravery and anticipation.
Recommended settings
Mentality 6 Closing Down -4 Tackling - Easy so he doesn't get sent off
Originally posted by blab:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Originally posted by wwfan:
1: Reduce time wsting for defenders so they don't dawdle on the ball and give away interceptions
How does someone reduce time wasting for defenders only? Isn't time wasting a global setting only? </BLOCKQUOTE>
Defensive Tips - Stating The Obvious 
Linear Mode
