AI defenders straight up don't work on old gen (Clubs)

Title. I'm on PS4 and have been playing the new EAFC 25 for over 2 months now, and the AI defenders absolutely suck on clubs. They don't defend, they barely win any headers, their passing is awful and for some reason they tend to ignore pass requests a lot, even when I'm completely free and not being blocked by anyone. Not to mention the fullbacks, who are so useless that removing them and playing with 9 players makes absolutely no difference. Sometimes, a player gets the ball in the middle of the pitch and all they have to do is just run straight to the net because there's so much space in the middle and the defenders jog instead of run to block the path.

Everytime I start a new game, it's 50/50 on whether the defenders will work or not. You can tell from the 1st minute if they won't work since they struggle to do basic things. They don't even tackle, they just watch the ball and getting past them is extremely easy, you don't have to do a skill or anything, you just have to run to the side and you're through.

The tactic right now is to basically send a through ball to your striker. AI defenders can't defend that. I've played many games with my club and I genuinely don't think any of them ended with less than 7 goals. We're just spamming through balls and so is the other team. Can't be a tactical issue because it happens in both pro clubs and drop-in with both teams.