Defending - Defensive Gap Being Exploited

The Issue

This seems to be one of the most common questions being asked. In particular it relates to how often the opposition team seem to be able to exploit a gap between the central defenders. I've seen on forums a lot of complaining about this, with some people saying the Match Engine is broken, because of how often the opposition get through. I don't hold with this idea, even though SI have apparently admitted there are a few too many clear cut chances being created at times, which is why sometimes keepers are occasionally behaving like Superman to compensate for this. I haven't seen an official acknowledgement of that though.

I believe that the right tactical changes, to suit your team can help to reduce the problem. The majority of tactical formations being used, tend to have a flat back four, with two central defenders and two full backs, and is therefore assumed to be so from here on, for the purpose of this post.

One thing you have to remember, is that no matter how good your players are, it is likely at some point they will be beaten, allowing an opposition player to get through with the keeper your last line of defence. Hopefully your keeper will do his job and make the save. What you're trying to do is make sure those opportunities do not happen very often. What I have noticed, is that if your defence is holding the opposition attackers well, they will then start resorting to firing long shots, or attacking down the wings and pumping crosses into the box. The AI will always look to adapt the approach to try and find a way through, and sometimes it can feel overly efficient at doing so. Teams in real life have to try the same thing, which is why sometimes it can take a long time for the first goal to go in, but once scored the flood gates can sometimes open.

What Is Causing This Gap To Appear?

There are many reasons why the central defenders can leave a gap for attacking players to run into. A very common reason is that the central defenders are being pulled out of their standard positions. Now we can investigate why the players are not staying where they should, or being beaten by a player running through onto a great pass.

There are several ways to set the two central defenders up, who you want to work as a pair. Their biggest responsibility is to deal with two furthest forward players from the opposition, often a pair of strikers, or a striker and an attacking midfielder. Sometimes it can be just a single striker, with a midfielder drifting forward to join an attacking. The duties are pretty clear, but there are several reasons why the defenders can get pulled from their position. Tight marking of a player can cause issues, if that player likes to drop deep to get the ball, or moves out wide. This can cause a defender to follow them, leaving a big hole. Asking the team to close down a lot can also have defenders rushing forward, with the same inevitable consequence if they don't win the ball for you team.

An opposition player arriving late in the area, can also cause a lot of problems if they have not been tracked by a midfielder. This can lead to them either having a lot of space, or one of your defenders moving to close them down, but leaves another player free to use the gap this created.

Playing too wide can also leave space between the central defenders, or between them and a full back. Rather than use the gap straight through the middle, this can leave the team more open to a diagonal ball from one flank or the centre into the gap on one side of the area. This tends to be more of an issue if you're playing against a team with a lot of creativity and pace. If you're playing a team with creative midfielders, who are just finding far too much space this gives them the time to make superb passes and throughballs.

The next one is getting caught too far up the pitch. This usually happens when your team is attacking, and compressing the play, which can make it hard for the central defenders to pick up which players are trying to making a run forward at the point your team loses possession. If they fail to pick up the run, it can leave you wide open, with your keeper the only hope of keeping the ball out of the net. This is always a frustrating goal to concede when an attack breaks down. It also looks so obvious as soon as you see the ball being fired over the top. Of course it's brilliant to see if your own team is the beneficiary.

Failure of the off-side trap is a common issue. I've seen goals scored, by both my team and the opposition where your initial reaction is that it had to be offside. Sometimes these are just perfectly time runs, with your defenders standing like statues, which is probably either a lapse of concentration, or poor anticipation. The other is much more frustrating, where the central defenders have stepped to play the runner offside, only to find that one of your full backs is still playing them onside. This appears to be largely down to teamwork and concentration. The aforementioned midfielders with too much space and time are most of the time the root cause, but you do expect your defenders to perform better than this.

The picture above shows a situation where we conceded against Sheffield United. Evans one of two strikers fed the ball through to the other striker to get clear. Nasuti has been drawn to Evans, which in itself wasn't a bad thing, however our other central defender, Puygrenier, had stepped up, to try and play the other striker offside, rather than move towards him. That would have worked if the two full backs had been paying attention, and also moved forward, but unfortunately they didn't, so played the striker onside. Fortunately this was the only serious mistake our defence made in that match.

What Can Be Done To Improve Things?

Having identified the issue, we now need to decide what can be done to improve the situation. You have to remember though that any changes can have an impact on other areas of the team, such as the attacking ability.

One of the biggest factors determining the positions that individual players maintain is down to the Philosophy you pick. With Standard Philosophy the players have reasonable freedom to move about, join in attacks, and away from the position they've been set. The more fluid the philosophy the more likely the shape of the team is to be lost, often creating huge holes at the back to be exploited. Going more rigid tightens up the shape, meaning players are more likely to stay in their respective positions. The lower the skill level of your players, the more likely you are to want to set the team to be rigid or very rigid. This does however take away from the attacking creativity of the side, which is the trade-off. Aston Villa are one such team that currently play a very rigid philosophy, which is why they can sometimes struggle to create chances. This can look quite negative at times, but when they do get the ball to their forwards, they can be deadly.

The problem of a player arriving late in the area, requires hard work from other players besides the central defenders. In particular you usually want one midfielder, either an MC or DMC to have a defensive role, so that they will track back, and help out more. Most players will track back, anyhow, but specifically setting one up for the role, can tighten things up more. That player does require a lot of stamina and good work rate and defensive skills. Good pace is not essential, but can be a huge bonus.

Playing too wide is not always obvious, but the signs I've taken to looking for are wingers being allowed to run onto far too many diagonal balls in a space between one central defender and a full back. By playing narrower, you can tighten that gap, but it does of course mean the opposition have more opportunity to reach the byeline on the outside and pump crosses in from there. This is where you have to decide which is the better of two possible evils. It comes down to how much of an aerial threat the opposition pose, and how good they are at crossing the ball, and how good your full backs are, and how confident you are that your team can cope with crosses.

Being too far up the pitch can be a tricky thing to resolve. Changing to a more rigid philosophy will tend to stop your defenders joining in attacks, and going too far up the pitch, but cuts attacking options down. Taking one of the defensive strategies will move the backline deeper, but this tends to invite pressure from the other team, and leaves you more open to conceding a goal from a striker who has a lot of strength, waiting for a ball to be played into the area, either looking to set up another player, or an opportunity of their own. If you believe your team can defend against this, then a counter attacking option is available. Another issue with dropping deeper is that you also open up more space for the opposition midfielders to try long shots, which they have an unerring accuracy with at times. A slightly different option, if you're ahead is to try and frustrate the opponents by taking a control strategy, in which you're attempting to hold as much possession as possible. This can make the opposition more desperate, and their throughball attempts get more wild. While this doesn't fix the issue of pushing too far up the pitch, it changes the problem for the opposition, and your defenders are not committing so much to attacking.

There's not much you can do about the failure of the offside trap. I never set my teams up to explicitly try and play it. I think if you have a backline with really good teamwork and work rate, you can enjoy success with it. I don't feel my team are competent enough at playing the offside trap, because if that step forward is not timed right, they don't have much chance of getting back, and it's all down to your keeper to help you out then.

Other options to try and change up the play, are to try touchline shouts to attack down the flanks, or through the centre. These will cause players either in the centre or the flanks to track back, which can make a big difference in how the opposition mounts attacks. Even swapping that in a match can confuse the opposition for a while, and sometimes that's all you need to allow your defenders to regain their composure. It's all about adapting to the changing situation, because the AI will always look to alter things to try and take advantage of any weakness in your setup. If you can be the team making problems for the other side, it can sometimes give your defence a much easier ride.
Midfielders that are finding far too much space can cause a lot of problems, because that gives them time to make decisions on what passing options they have. Fabregas is a prime example of a such a player, that if allowed the space, can punish you severely. This is the type of player that you can often stop by setting his opposition instruction to Always Close Down. If you have a defensive midfielder with excellent marking and tackling attributes you can even try to tackle him hard. There is always the option of using the Hassle Opponents touchline shout, which will cause your team to close down more. Sometimes you only need it for a short while, but it does have a downside, in that you could start to concede a lot more fouls, so use it with caution. On the whole with Arsenal, if you can keep Fabregas quiet, they struggle a lot more to create chances.

Sometimes just slowing the tempo down and asking to retain possession can be what you need, or asking the players to pass to feet. If you're the team pulling the opposition players out of position, you can make it hard for them to attack. Even seemingly silly ideas like, pump ball into box, can give you much more control, because the opposition are then having to move back to defend more.

It's Down To Your Players

How well your team can defend ultimately comes do to the quality and attributes your players have. Once your signings are confirmed, all you can do is then work out how to get the best from the players you have. In the lower leagues the quality of the players will be lower, so don't expect miracles from them. If necessary make the philosophy more rigid, so the shape of the team is maintained. Even some premiership teams go with a rigid philosophy, understanding the limitations that some of the squad members have. If you can get away with playing beautiful football and still keep tight at the back, then you've really achieved something great.

Even the best players make mistakes sometimes, but you hope those don't prove to be important ones. All you do is try and build up the best squad you can with the transfer budget and wages allowed, and then hope to get them motivated come matchday.

Conclusion

There is no magic setup that will give you a cleansheet every game, while always maintaining a powerful goal scoring ability. It's one of our natural instincts to want to create a setup that fits all situations, and leave it alone. The bad news is, that if you keep that one tactic, and never make any changes during a match, the likelihood is you start to lose matches. It seems that the longer you maintain a tactic the quicker teams will work out what to do against you. However you can maintain the same formation and strategy, but what you must do is keep the opposition guessing about what changes you will make during a match.

Be prepared sometimes to change the formation. If you have a 2 goal lead and the opposition start pressing hard, think about whether removing a striker and putting a DMC on is a possible solution. Don't just sit there thinking, "How can they suddenly be playing this well?" I've done that in the past, and not reacted sensibly, and suffered draws or even losses because of it. If the game didn't make it challenging, it wouldn't be half the fun it is to play, even if at times it's frustrating causing you to shout at the screen, even swearing at times. If you can react very early to any changes the AI makes, and spot the signs, it can make a huge difference, or just changing the problem you give the opposition, can be the right thing to do. Don't be frightened to experiment when the opposition is showing signs of being on the rampage. Not doing anything could be an even worse choice.

This may sound crazy, but if you team are looking complacent, it can sometimes to be good for them to concede a goal. It can sometimes help bring them to their senses.

Just remember that most teams in real life are going to still play for pride even if they're being thrashed. Grabbing a consolation goal can make a big difference to how a team bounces back from a big defeat, and sometimes can change a match completely. The African Nations Cup threw up an example of just what can happen in football, when Mali came back from 4-0 down against Angola, with 4 goals in 15 minutes right at the end of the game, with 2 of those in injury time. I also remember a QPR match against Newcastle in the 80's where QPR were 4-0 down at Loftus Road at half time. The match finished 5-5, so all sorts of astonishing things can happen in football. I'm sure there must have been even bigger comebacks than these.

If anyone spots something that isn't correct, or any additional things they feel could be added, please leave a comment.