retired_jcmldev

This is a problem I've been coming up against for a long time now. I'm playing a pretty standard 442 formation with Birmingham City, and scoring plenty of goals. Defensively is where I'm struggling. The main issue is that I've no idea what instructions to set for my full backs. I know what I want them to do, but don't know how, or if, I can get it to happen. I want them to tightly mark the opposing wingers, but I'm finding a few problems with this. If I set them to zonal marking, their starting positions are always too narrow, in other words they aren't tightly marking the wingers. If I set them to man marking, the same seems to happen (they only move out to challenge the wingers once the ball is with them). If I set the instruction to mark a specific man, it works fine unless you play a team where the players swap positions, as Gerrard can do for Liverpool. Is there a way that I can get my full backs to stay tight on the wingers, or have I got to go back to the drawing board here?

retired_mat_tiff04

try putting zonal marking and tick the tight marking box and closing in between 10-14 on the sliders. Also put the wingers and strikers to high closing down as they will block crosses and generally annoy them.

retired_imoana

in this cases i put my FB with 5 closing down defendive mentality and mixrd forward runs so they are always in position. The key are your ML and MR. put them on with 18 closing down and soft tackling( so they will not tire to quick). it works with my AS Roma team.

retired_slayerbing

tight marking has the effect of blocking shots. If you high close down then you run the risk of the player beating your man and leaving him behind.

retired_jenngranados

Sounds effective, how many goals do you concede a match? I'm conceding 0.7-0.8 a match but scoring 2.7...I'm trying to work it down to 0.5

prof101

"Show onto weaker foot" helps if they are weaker on their other foot. Reduces the chances of a good delivery

retired_jcmldev

Cheers for the advice so far, I'll give it a go and see if it helps! Maybe I just need to get rid of Kelly and Quedrue sharpish!

retired_kellyk

The question here has to be

a. Are we trying to mark the wingers so that we get to the ball before them

or

b. Prevent the wingers from getting crosses in.

I've always thought there were two approaches each with its good and bad.

Approach 1
Low closing down on fullbacks and tight/manmarking.


This isn't bad..but it means that a defender will stay near his defensive line before closing down. So if the defensive line is set to deep, the fullbacks will stay deep allowing the AI to come at them so to speak.

Ok so if the defenders are not far from their defensive line...

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> 6 5 4 3 2 1 DL-----High defensive line----------Normal defensive line---- deep Defensive line----</pre>

Assuming 1 - 6 are the various positions of the AI. And the DL takes a deep defensive line, then his closing down instructions need to be low so that he closes the player down closer to his dline...then tightmarking or manmarking can work. But if you play with high closing down and tight or manmarking then you run into problems


Incidentally full closing down does not mean he will close down in every area of the pitch. He will close down in the area that is designated his and is within a certain "dangerzone" so the moment the AI dot enters it he closes down, which is why you often see two players go for the same player and then one tracks away, cos the dot has exited the danger zone.


Do I make sense?

oh yeah and the other is to use your wingers to do all the work, keep low closing down behind..that's not to say high closing down won't work, it may well work but like Dayle said the risk of getting caught out of position is high. If that's how you want to play then go ahead, I do the same sometimes

retired_anitarobinson

Does that mean that tight marking and/or man marking does not work with high closing down?

retired_kellyk

That's what I've been wondering. I'm not entirely sure since I've always only used zonal. Very rarely have i turned to manmarking simply because DCs get pulled apart so easily.

A good AM can always rip apart defenders set to manmarking. I did that once in an online game as well.