The simple answer to that is to have a good organised defensive strategy. I dont mean play auto defense, play normal. but keep your two central midfielders on high defense play the ball around and drop all your team strategies to C, counter attack B and auto-defense if you're trying to keep tight . Dont just try and score by sprinting up the wings play possession football and keep the ball for a minute (literally...try it) moving it around, you'll get the breakthrough. I generally finish the game with half stamina for my players(wingers/Side backs sometimes slightly less), but they're not exhausted unless they're older have low stamina then they may be down to a quarter energy left. If you watch a real game you see that it is not headless chicken stuff all the time...take it easy and learn to be accurate with your angled passes not all 90 and 45 degree stuff you find you begin to play a more realistic game and its much more satisfying than sprinting all the time especially when you craft a great goal. Put your foot on the ball and look for a pass or wait for somebody to make themselves available spread the load. Hope that's of some help, dont change the edit options you dont need to, learning to play in a conservative way taught me that the game has much more to offer than i originally thought. Happy crafting. Scott PS i dont condition the team between games its too random. If you have a well balanced squad of thirty players with well chosen buys you can have cover in all positions and hardly ever have to play somebody out of position. Buy players who are fairly adaptable. The one thing i would say is that if a player plays in a position in real life; say O'Shea, and plays there effectively and regularly add it to his list of positions in edit mode, but i only do that when they are capable in real life for example giggs has recently played central midfield to good effect. ill probably never have to play him there but i added it. With O'Shea I added central and side midfield because he has played there to good effect in the past. I dont think that's cheating, its just making the game more realistic. Obviously i wouldnt add side back to Van Nistelrooy's positions..you know what i mean.
