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Now, the most fruastrating thing I come up against in FM is when the smaller clubs get 10 men behind the ball and look to grab a 0-0 or 1-0 win. When they do this , even if going gung ho with mentality, creative fereedom forward runs etc it is still often very hard to create chances.
What I want is to create a tactic that is as effective agauinst the AI when playing away at the big boys. I have experimented with very, very defensive mentalities and a deep defensive line, high closing down, low closing down, man and zonal marking but can never achieve a defensive tactic that limits tht opposition to maybe a couple of good chances.
Im sure there is a way to do this but just cant crack it. Have people come up with sucessful tactics like this? What have they found effective in terms of closing down, marking etc?
Dont know if this is useful to you but in my AI tactical behaviour thread I found out that the AI uses free roles to unlock those kind of games. e.g. playing a 442 formation the AI gives free roles to both wingers and strikers
Right, after readin my post back...I haven't made it very clear what I was asking, apologies!
I want to be able to make a tactic that is very defensive, gets all players behind the ball and limits the opposition like the AI does when it goes ulta defensive. I feel I can just about unlock games when I am favourite so thanks for your tip Abramovic, but it's not what I am after (my bad posting at fault!)
So, how does the AI defend so well when playnig for those 0-0's? What sort of marking should you use? Should you continuously close doen to limit chances or have very low closing down to get men sat behind the ball?
I did notice that if you put hard tackling on, they block a lot more shots and passes than normal (as well as clattering the odd player from time to time lol)
Essentially, the game is won in midfield, so gaining territory in the middle of the park is really the key. As such, I like low mentality and CF on my centre-mids, with one making FWR mixed, and one rarely. Closing down across the whole midfield (centre-mids and wingers) is 10 for me - too high will give away all the space in the middle, too low will allow the opposition time to pick out the killer pass. So, in my opinion, middle is the happy medium.
One mistake people make is too limit attacking outlets completely, under the belief that getting 10 men defending will secure the win. This is rubbish. All this does is allow the opposition to push up further, since they know there are no attackers to watch for, and you will be overloaded. Instead, I like to still have attacking wingers and forwards - I actually give both forwards 20 mentality in this situation to make them ruthless in grabbing a goal on the break. The wingers should still have attacking mentality too, but low CF. The key is lowering CF for everyone except the forwards - lowering CF means no straying from positions, which means little space for the opposition. This works hand in hand with making the play narrower, and checking counter-attack.
JohnPM - I didn't mean literally, I meant that usually you'd only give a free role to a good quality player with high decisions, creativity etc.
As for parking the bus you don't want to get too deep because your're just asking to concede. As neon says make sure you still have an attacking outlet for balls that you clear away and you might nick a goal. Another thing I do sometimes is give FB's barrows and lowers FB's and wingers mentality. Also, I sometimes put a barrow on my more defesive CM or just bring on an extra CM/DM for cover to the back 4.
'Parking the bus', AI Style........ 
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