I find the game sluggish even in offline mode. Its like there was an input lag on the game, but i think its just badly designed, because the player skills are fairly unbalanced. Its relatively easy to win the ball from the opponent, because tackling skills work a lot faster than those that make it possible to keep the ball(like turning, swerve, acceleration, body balance etc )
This makes build up play cumbersome and interceptions and pressing easy, so the game turns into a constant fight for the ball, unless your opponent is really bad.