I'm having a similar bad dream.

For your situation against nd, I would go 3(dc-dc-dc)-1(dmc)-3(MC)-2(aml-amr)-1(st)

Since he has no wingers in the midfield, I go with no wings on my defensive line. You'll have more people in the midfield (6 vs 4), so hopefully you can hang on to more possession. And you can try to exploit his wings. If you want to be a little more defensive, push the attacking midfielders back (3n-1-5-1).