EPL tactics for relegation candidates

[eupheus]

5th season and just got Portsmouth back in the EPL.

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Mainly used these tactics to help me progress up to the EPL but I'd like some advice to improve it because in the Championship, performances always seemed to be quite inconsistent.
Also have this formation which I recently made for future matches against EPL big teams,
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Played my first game against Bournemouth at home and got absolutely dominated in terms of stats, but lost 1-0 only.
Second game was away against Derby, I used the 4-2-3-1 with a defensive mentality and got dominated again. I understand that going on defensive actually invites pressure but can't think of other ways to avoid conceding.
The game finished 3-3 and the stats are as below:
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I'm uncomfortable with the fact that the opposition is getting so many shots away but I can understand that you can't paper over cracks. I just want to be able to avoid relegation this season so that I can improve the squad further the next.

Any feedback on the tactic I use would be much appreciated.

 

[caldotman]

I'm in literally the same situation, took me 6 seasons but I got there with Portsmouth too! I've been having the same trouble where I'm just being dominated every game.

I got frustrated and made a basic 4-4-2 formation where I was able to get a quite comfortable 2-0 win against Reading:

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However, the formation didn't work in the slightest in the following games so I got rid of it.
From what I remember I had:

both FB (Att)
both wide midfielders on WP (Att)
CM's on BWM (Def), BBM (Sup)
Strikers on CF (Sup), DLF (Att)

I'm only a casual player so I have no idea if this is any use but from my experience on FM16 I've had the best luck just throwing together formations that utilise the players I have in their preferred position/role.

I'd love to see a tactic that will be able to solve the whole getting dominated every game problem too.