FIFA 14 - High pressure, unbalanced

I'm a football fan; the expression and creativity that can be achieved in the game make it a worldwide phenomenon and is mirrored by the popularity in football games.

In FIFA 13 it was clear that team-mate press was dominating the opposition and was made more effective by auto-tackle; FIFA said in 14 auto-tackle would be barely noticeable (and it is less of a feature) but when you face an opponent that uses high pressure auto-tackle is twice what is was in FIFA13 and more annoying due to the different dribbling in this edition.

I personally like the new dribbling motion, it's more realistic, but high pressure make games a real chore and for the vast majority of players a ridiculous feature to play against.

If you have one of those games where you simply can't get past the opposition, especially in the middle of the pitch, and need to put together 20 or 30 passes, or many switch of plays just to work your way up the park you're probably playing someone using a custom tactic of high pressure and aggression.

Basically this custom tactic tells his computer controlled players to get in your face, and if you've ever played single player mode on Legendary or Ultimate difficulty you'll realise how excellent the CPU AI is at closing down play and getting the ball.

If by this point you're shouting 'bloody hell yes, what's up with those games?' you're probably losing them to counter goals that usually finish with a lobbed ball, this is the other problem with high pressure, it is a constant counter creator. Mix those facts with how awful change player is and you're getting a raw deal from the game.

For those of us who don't contain defend this is even more frustrating as we struggle to change to the correct man, who is usually lying down on the floor after a barge from the opposition.

So what can be done? Well throughout FIFA13 I was present on the EA FIFA forums and continually made the point to the community manager Robb (decent guy actually) that one idea would be to drain the containing or pressuring players stamina by huge amounts.
Or to reduce their concentration stat/increase their error rates. In real life when players pressure highly they do lose concentration, do get tired and do make mistakes yet EA and FIFA haven't seemed to realise this.

So what are FIFA/EA's options?

1. Highly drain the stamina of containing and/or high pressuring players.

2. Reduce concentration/increase error rates.

3. Remove auto-tackle entirely thus an onrushing player is useless unless selected.

4. Make every high pressure player miss the tackle entirely unless selected

5. Remove the high pressure option

6. Remove custom tactics

I have listed them in preference order, personally I'd destroy the concentration and stamina of those people using high pressure and contain and I'd also continue punishing contain until it became the same as defending by selecting a player. Some AI is fine, but all AI is dictating how the game should be played and creativity is the beauty of our beloved game.

FIFA needs to change, the football is dwindling and we've been left with a gamers game, if Konami are around perhaps it's not just about licensing; someone needs to put the football back into football games.