When To Play Defensive?
September 11th, 2008 by goldfriesWhen you’re the weaker team of course!
Anyway it’s not going to be a simple as that.
When Should I Go Defensive?
Going defensive direction is best when it comes to games that you know for sure you’re going to lose. There’s no reason to go defensive when you have some chance of winning, or clearly winning.
The sign of a game you’re sure to lose is when you know you’re going to lose when it comes to possession and you don’t have enough defense rating against opponent attack ratings.
Why Go Defensive?
Damage Control! When you’re losing, your job is to ensure that you lose with as little margin as possible. Losing 0-1 is better than losing 0-5, the crowd hates opponent goals.
Yes, thank them for having such loyalty.
How Should I Go Defensive
Use PRESSING tactic? Yes, it’s a good option but it’s not going to help when the team is really confirmed winning.
So what can you do?
2 things - BOOST your midfield as best as you can, and boost your defense rating.
You can do so by having
- Wingers set to towards middle, boosting midfield as long as they have playmaking skills.
- Forwards set to defensive, boosting midfield even with their usually negligible playmaking skills.
- Inner-midfields set to defensive, contributing to defense rating with their defending skills.
- All defenders on defensive, as usual. If the opponent has strong central attack and weak wing attacks, then you MAY consider wingbacks towards middle.
Want a defensive formation? There’s always 4-4-2. Just play it with 3 inner midfielders, 1 winger towards middle. Forwards being defensive and that’s it. If you feel lucky, you could also play Counter-Attack but that would reduce your midfield (eg, give opponent more chance) in hopes of getting yourself some free chances.
Now You Know
So now you know about being defensive, so put it to practice and you’ll see it actually being helpful to your league ranking.
Let us know what are your experience, do share. Me? I played defensive often, I’m sure many local HTers remember the 4-4-2 Counter-Attack team. 
September 11th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Kota Damansara plays mostly 4-4-2 CA with 3 IM for the past 3 seasons. Main reason was due to its weak midfield as a result of revamp of its playmakers. The results, well, good enough to stay in Div II.
At least for now. We’re really lacking in many area and have no great goalkeeper like goldfries had before. 
September 11th, 2008 at 10:07 am
In my first season promoted into IV.33, I was the real underdog and had to play a very defensive 4-5-1 or 5-4-1 formation all the time.
I also kept defenders with at least solid passing to ensure that CA would be more effective and survived…
September 11th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I miss those days, (few years back) where I use 4-4-2 CA with 2 IM. rarely used formation.
rromie - you guys have better team. I had a good keeper but my other players were average.
I could stay in Div II but lazy to manage la, that’s why now demoting myself. Last season fail to reach Div IV.
mrjefe - how was CA with 541 / 451? from what i know, CA would be most effective with at least 2 decent areas of attack.
September 11th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
mrjefe relies mostly on winger I think.
September 11th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Ahh speaking of that, i miss my winders. I purposely bought formid PMkers with solid winger skill and train them to like 20 or so.
September 11th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
yes, 2 decent areas of attack is preferable. But I did pretty fine then with a single point of attack cos I was training keeper and my def ratings weren’t too shabby…
September 13th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I prefer a 5-4-1 to be honest, if you want to go defensive i reckon that is the best way that CA would most likely work, that is if your 2 wingers are super strong too :P. I miss those days it was really fun!
September 13th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Well, if you’re going 541 with 2 wingers, I’d rather 532 with 2IM.
Given a choice of having 2 strong points of attack, I’d rather have Central + Wing over 2 Wing.
If your defense ratings are good, 442 with 3IM would be even better for more midfield control. You get more normal chances, opponent lesser chances and of course, CAing benefit with it.
I went for 442 2IM CA which most people won’t do because I had good defence then and my midfield wasn’t shabby……..oh well it was, but the 3 areas of attack helped a lot.
September 13th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
But what i find is that for those who have really good CA ratings you dont really need a strong midfield. I never really liked the idea that midfield is king… i still think HT has to change this area of the game. IMO 5-3-2 is also another good choice but id say that you really need a good strong defense with PMs that have high passing!
September 13th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
You don’t need strong midfield but you still need decent amount of midfield, for CAing the closer to 50% the better.
I also lazy to play PM game so now i play 532 most of the time and demoting.
And why did you say need PMs with high passing? Or did you mean to say defenders?
September 13th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I meant defenders sorry
September 15th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Actually goldie, I am also thinking if Div 3 is as far as I will go for several seasons. Is it just me or is the general standard of Malaysian teams coming down? I think it’s partly due to the ultra high economy… but I may be wrong.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Actually I think the overall Hattrick world-wide standard is coming down…
September 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
yeah. it is down long time already la. I feel so tired of playing Div II simply because by the looks of it, without midfield pretty hard to survive.
With midfield, hard to save.
somehow in HT, you can’t be like those big EPL teams where wages are high and earnings are high.
in HT, the higher you are the more difficult it is to save.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Actually goldfries, my experience is that possession itself is not sufficient. The current emphasis on multi-skilled players has resulted in some reversals for me…
What’s really tough is to build a team of multi-skilled with the prices being what they are… add to that, the economy which truly widens the gap between top teams and those below the mean…
September 15th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Even without going into multi-skilled players, my point is that to get high midfield ratings is sort of a killer already. what more you have to spend on defenders, forwards and wingers some more.
Really costly to maintain, it’s practically impossible to maintain (in the long run) a strong team while having savings. It’ll just drain.
September 15th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Can’t disagree with you. Anyway I am all for wage efficiency and that is really tough given the economy… trouble is, if you don’t spend, you don’t win. If you lose, the fans dessert big time… double whammy.
Alternatively, one can demote in Div 4, save and sell… then do a Hye Kyo… not sure if that is what I want or can do… darn… I am beginning to sound like a whiner…