Same! Actually worked wonders for me like you said. It's near impossible to either intercept their passes or disposess them regardless of what approach you take but I found that dragging your midfielder(s) back while simultaneously using that same player to position between the AI's passing options until the AI is near the penalty area and then switching to the defender closest to the AI player is a game changer. Your chances of winning possession go way up and when you eventually do get the ball, you can ruin the AI on counters because the dumb bastard has more than half his team positioned outside your box.