Marking wide players, broken?

[Lord Dakier]

So I'm playing 451 as Port Vale 1st season and I'm constantly conceding from not being able to beat the wide players. My AML/R are too far forward to really help and I don't want to play them out of position. My full backs constantly try to tuck inside far too much when really I want my midfield to play behind the ball. How do I achieve this tactic wise?

My current tactics are
Formation: 451
Mentality: Defensive
Philosophy: Balanced

Instructions: Drop deeper, offside trap. high tempo, play narrow, exploit flanks, stick to position stand off opponents and be more disciplined.

Ideally I want to be defensively sound in all my matches. Yes my team in general would be overachieving if they hit mid-table, but I feel I can do better.

 

[Lord Dakier]

No one at all can help?

 

[Conn]

tried playing the wingers as defencive wingers?

 

[Lord Dakier]

tried playing the wingers as defencive wingers?

No, I haven't. The problem more so is the LB/RB becoming too narrow. I could try setting the wingers to DW's but I don't think thats my problem in all honesty.

 

[Shyftyy]

Tell your backs to play wider? By playing narrow you are pulling them in which is why the opposition wide players get space to work in.you should be able to set some position specific instructions.

 

[W4NKER]

Set full backs to play wider

 

[Lord Dakier]

See I thought play wider only applied for when you have possession rather than when your defending? I've been told so many different things on instructions I rarely know what's accurate anymore.

 

[TheBetterHalf]

I would say your whole approach looks really unbalanced. You play defenensive with the aim to sit with most players behind the ball, standing off and use a really low d-line..BUT you use the offside trap. You have AMR/L that will have a problem connecting with your fullbacks as you sit so deep. Here, you will see a team looking weird defensively.

 

[Tealc]

low d-line, standing off, offside trap.. Mourinho did it lots of times without any problems with Inter, Chelsea.

 

[Lord Dakier]

Well my biggest woe I think is possession away. Can't hold the ball. I switched to shorter passing and the more direct passes wasn't linking and that did help. Should I set my LB/RB to WB instead of CFB?

One positive thing I noticed is that doing that made me look a lot sharper in terms of keeping the ball. I really want the West Bromwich Albion defensive approach to work. As a fan and FM player I see us underpressure and we handle it so well, marking and pressing at the same time.

 

[TheBetterHalf]

low d-line, standing off, offside trap.. Mourinho did it lots of times without any problems with Inter, Chelsea.

I think you will find that he actually did not sit as deep when using the offside trap as you think , neither did they " stand off". The only matches I can think of with inter /Chelsea are their against Barca/top teams where he left the possession for them and then he certainly did not use an offside trap. Naturally, the defenders pushed up to make a player( read wingers) offside when they saw fit but it was not a core of the strategy.

Regarding his normal apporach, Yes, but that was in relation to his approach. When playing " Defensive", your already sit deep with a lower press by default( using more stratas/blocks like the DMC adds to it as well ) and with your instructions, you sit really deep and are acting passive, hence your defensive shape makes no sense to the players. The reason that he played this way was to lure the opponent up the field to be able to add more dimenssions to the play I.e to hit them on a direct counter attack as well as waning them to be more stretched. And... He knew he had the players for it..

The key here is to actually push up a bit and be more compact an aggressive whilst trying to hold possession in more advanced positions.