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In my first season at Aston Villa,doing ok only lost 2 out of 8 games,last one being 4-3 at Liverpool away which was so frustrating...hadnt conceded a goal in my last 4 games.
Problem was i got completely destroyed by Peter Crouch...is there a set way to defend against big gangly target men?
1. Mark him with your biggest centre-back, i.e. with your best jumper.
2. Tightly mark him and close him down, so that your centre-back is always challenging for the headers.
3. Try to prevent him getting the ball in the first place, i.e. close down their wingers and mark them with your wingers, put barrows on your fullbacks.
I just played Watford in my game with my St. Albans City side and they have a player with jumping of 20 who always normally murders me. I took all of the preventative methods of above and managed to reduce him down to only winning 6 out of 7 headers - thus I lowered his impact on the game. However, I still only managed a 2-2 draw, my team are a complete bunch of wasters! No transfer funds until I get a new stadium next season though, so it's fighting for relegation for me!
I find that is is a nessessity to have defenders who are very good in the air. At top level I want both of my centre backs to have at least 17 in jumping.
Apart from that I can't give advice really. IRL you often see defenders deal with big target men outside the penalty area by not challenging for the high balls at all. Instead they concentrate on picking up the runs of the players around him. Perhaps this might be appliable to FM by lowering the closing down slider on the DC:s? Then again, perhaps not.
i started a similar topic like this a while back and i didnt really get any answers. you either need a DC whos even bigger and stronger! which cant always happen. or as crouchaldinho says, cut off their supply. if the team heavily depends on their target man, focus on closing down the wing. sometimes i'll have the individual instruction against him as 'tight marking - never'. if he's gunna win everythin, might as well have your DC stand off him ready to intercept the ball
Originally posted by Cereal_Dave:
i started a similar topic like this a while back and i didnt really get any answers. you either need a DC whos even bigger and stronger! which cant always happen. or as crouchaldinho says, cut off their supply. if the team heavily depends on their target man, focus on closing down the wing. sometimes i'll have the individual instruction against him as 'tight marking - never'. if he's gunna win everythin, might as well have your DC stand off him ready to intercept the ball
Nice Idea but the problem with that is that on set piece or in the box generally you players with get crusified and he's score bag fulls,
once i attempted to just get my centre halfs to kick chunks out of zigic it work for zigic then a 17 year old who i'd never heard of came on and scored his first goals like ever, what gutted but its the way goes. My preffered tatic is to score more goals than they can if those situations as my defence at Birmingham is good in the centre yet havent got the funds, but if you centre half cnt deal with him you want either a goal kepper who can save anythin or a nice 6ft 8'' keeper who canb fly, doesnt hang about and intercept the high crosses to the big men
This tatic doesnt always work as most tatics arent 100% but its works successfully for me, why not give it a go.
Originally posted by Cleon:
Dont swear in your posts or topics, if you try to get around the profanity filter again it will be a warning
But you can say 'bastard' without it being *-ed out, which means SI don't recognise it as a swear word.
I agree with most (if not all) people here by saying that you should tight mark the big men with your best jumping DC by specifying tight marking in opposition instructions.
I never tight mark quick and/or skillful strikers as they turn defenders too easily, but if you're playing against a big guy who's also quick e.g. Jo, Mpenza (or Aaron McLean at lower league level) then I find it's still better to tight mark them.
Originally posted by crazy gra:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Originally posted by Cleon:
Dont swear in your posts or topics, if you try to get around the profanity filter again it will be a warning
But you can say 'bastard' without it being *-ed out, which means SI don't recognise it as a swear word.
I agree with most (if not all) people here by saying that you should tight mark the big men with your best jumping DC by specifying tight marking in opposition instructions.
I never tight mark quick and/or skillful strikers as they turn defenders too easily, but if you're playing against a big guy who's also quick e.g. Jo, Mpenza (or Aaron McLean at lower league level) then I find it's still better to tight mark them. </BLOCKQUOTE>
Marking against big ba$tards 
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