basically, he was using this formation- avg quality 21.2 :

4-1(DMC)-3(Wide)-2

so I played, avg quality 18.2:

3-2-2-2-1 butterfly

I used Short passing, down both the flanks, attacking mentality, zonal marking,
pressing whole pitch with offside trap and hard tackling at first but changed back to normal half way through due to the amount of yellow cards.

I changed the formation to 3-1-4-2 and normal mentality without offside trade+pressing own half after he scored three goals and managed to get back one goal.

So I lost 3-1 in the end

Is it the formation that let me down? or the quality of team?

I'm level 2 by the way