Hardcore WE6ers, pass along some of your expertise --

What are some of the best ways to pick apart that tough defense?

Paco

Using one-twos and good through balls.
Look for a foul and take advantage of free kicks.

Lots of varied crosses.

look for little triangles developing within your players and just pass with 1-2s and look for the spot where a thru ball with pace will send your player right on goal for a good shot....hope you understand

Use attacking formations, and use the counterattack strategy on and off. With a really attacking formation, you can force defenders into mistakes, then use the through ball to direct the open man into space. The defence will cave in. Just make the shot.:)

With the counterattack and a three striker formation, you can play the ball up to the centerforward, have him control it and just through pass it to one of the wingers into acres of space. you just need a good long ball out of defence and a quick glance at the radar to get you started.

Use wingers with high short pass speed and accuracy. Play the ball out to them and let them bring it down the wings, then as the defense spreads to close you down play a diaganol pass to your striker who should be on one of the top corners of the box. As soon as he gets the ball, immediately cut the other way leaving the defender a half step behind and when you get in a good position have a shot. This works best if the winger is passing to a forward who will be cutting back onto his stronger foot (i.e. giggs coming down the left and playing the ball into RVN who is right footed).

Create your own formation, the preset ones seem to be the ones that the cpu defenses are designed to stop, be creative and put dangerous people in places were they will be difficult to mark because this messes up opposing formations, and put the dangerous attackers (especially 1 good midfielder somewhere that he will not be required to play defence-> this is how I use Beckham)

Also don't be afraid to shoot from distance, the keeper will spill as many as he catches and you'll either get a corner or maybe someone can sneak in and tap the rebound in.

One more thing, the cpu does a great deal of man marking, so if you use a midfielder and beat your man, alot of times the guy chasing you is the only one who will try to stop you until you get near the box, but by then you should already be celebrating because of the goal bonus claus in you contract!!!

***And here is a cheap trick, if the ball is up in the air and the keeper is coming to get it, you can affect the way the keeper plays the ball by running into him by using the manual control of your player instead of just going for the ball. The keep will usually try to punch it out instead and sometimes you can get a cheeky goal off of a poor clearance.

That's like asking: How do you dominate a soccer game; it really depends on a lot of things.