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Cant hold a lead

Started on 2 November 2011 by psah
Latest Reply on 14 January 2012 by chumbawamba88
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I'm in my first premier league season with Leeds and it's not going too badly. I'm 24 games in to the season, but I'm having big problems with holding a lead until the end. We lose most of our games after 85 minutes and I just cant figure out what the problem is since second half display in general is usually very good.

For example, I was up against Bolton and took a good lead of 2-0 in the first half, controlled posession and in every way played very well. I told my team not to get complacent and got a good response. We started the second half off really well, having a good amount of scoring chances and then at 70ish minutes added another to make it 3-0. Bolton took one back at 80 minutes and I could feel it that this would not end well. I subbed one of my strikes to bring in a defensive midfielder, but it didn't help as Bolton scored one from killer through ball and then from a corner on added time.

It feels like my team could be doing so much better, but we're losing or drawing all the games just before the final whistle.

Thanks in advance if you can help me!

Edit: I forgot to add that my goalkeeper's(Fabianski) concentration is miserable 10. Could that be the problem? I was very happy to sign as he's other attributes are very good.
Other that subbing a forward for a more defensive player, do you also tweak the team mentality? Going to a "defend" mentality and ordering the team to keep possession might help.

It was known that in FM11 opponent teams got a power-up during the last 10 min or so of play; judging by how FM12 tries to unbalance things when human teams are playing away, I wouldn't be surprised if the game gave an extra magical advantage to losing teams during the last minutes.
Yeah I did switch to defensive. It does actually feel like a magical advantage, but I dont want to blame the game straight away and rather work out a solution. It's just frustrating when you just know that you'll concede goals in the final 10 minutes unless you get lucky. These things do happen in real life, but not THIS often.

Against Aston Villa, I was leading 2-1 at 80 minutes, switched strategy to contain, brought in an extra CB, changed one MC to DMC and they went on to win the game 3-2 >.<.
thing is though changing formation isn't always good, players wont be used to it and usually u will see players positioning get worse.

what i usually did in FM 11 is just change slight player instructions to a bit more defensive.
I believe in attack is the best form of defence, just keep throwing everything at em.
Well I've tried a few things, but it keeps happening. I think i'll just blame my goalkeeper and his poor concentration. Cant figure out what else it could be.

If a team leads 3-0 at 70 minutes, you should be able to be almost 100% sure you're going to win, but no. Newcastle scored 4 against me in 20 minutes. I dunno if I should laugh or cry :D. I keep giving away free wins.
# RedArmy20 : thing is though changing formation isn't always good, players wont be used to it and usually u will see players positioning get worse.

what i usually did in FM 11 is just change slight player instructions to a bit more defensive.

As RedArmy20 says if you're changing the formation and tactics so dramatically from what your team is used they are not going to play anywhere near as well. I would suggest training a second 'defensive/hold on' tactic in the tactics screen. This way your team would get used to this tactic and you can employ it towards the end of a game. It does sound unusually often this is happening to you, I've seen it happen but not as much as you are saying. What is the average concentration, determination (more for being down in a match than leading but still important) and stamina in your squad?

Because I wouldn't jump straight to blaming Fabianski, I'd say it was more to do with your defensive shape and closing down. I'm playing as Newcastle with Krul still my first choice keeper, but I bought Kaboul and Bassong to tighten up my defence and I've got the best defence in the league at the moment second season 12 games in.
Pick some players with higher concentration. Lower concentration means they will throw away leads or make more mistakes towards the end of the game.
I would make sure that you sub tired players, have a defensive tactic learned and ready to use and towards the end of the match slide to counter, defence and finally contain(right at the end) - Oh and time waste at the end too.
i know this sounds as a cop out - but i blame Leeds Utd, seriously... i started when demo came out as Crawley Town, after just missing out on promotion next season got Crawley to 2nd by Jan and i had job offers from West Ham, Reading and Leeds i said was interested in Leeds, maybe shouldve kept quiet Crawley sacked me, so i took the Leeds job - their loss... or so i thought, exactly same situation you're in, couldnt hold onto a lead, by about march i thought sod this, ill start a new game start as Leeds - same happening could hold on to a lead, got sacked, now at Las Palmas and cant stop winning - therefore it's Leeds not me :))
Thank you all very much for you replies and sorry for the late response. I got through the season and finished 14th in the end and I'm satisfied with that since it was my first season. I'm not sure what what solved this problem(mostly atleast) in the end, since I have now started a new season and signed quite a few new players.

I have another 4-4-2 tactic, in addition to my usual one, trained now. I made it a lot more defensive regarding players roles, style and overall strategy and it seems to be working. I usually use it after 80 minutes and the late goals seem to have almost stopped. Of course there are some expeptions like in real life, late goals are part of the game.

It now feels like I i'm winning most the of the games I lost due to late goals and hence i'm now 7th with 31 games played and am very happy :).
anytime i sit through the match there always seems to be a late goal conceded even if i go defensive but when a choose to go on holiday for the match day usually a different result btw i would tick choose current match tactics and team selection when ever possible the down side to doing this is the assistant manager would get all the credit and receive manager of the month

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