I think it works more on the principle that 1 strategy don't work as effective against everyone, like you might have a great setup with which you beat teams even stronger than you, then you run into a team, a weaker team than yourself and the teams you usually beat, and they just run straight through your players, the setup clearly don't work well against them, but if you have other setups and try them, you highly likely to find another setup works well against this team again.
My team don't really perform different in home or away matches, if i play the same team with a setup, if i beat them in a home game i would usually beat them if they challenge me as well, that's why I think if you loose games when you offline its not so much because its an away game as the setup just isn't the right setup against that team. I have a setup, didn't originally create it as a setup for away games or games when I'm offline, but after creating it, i realized that it works really well in defending games when I'm offline, it sucks as a setup to play with and with it i will very seldom score any tries, i might make some points from penalties but with it almost no-one can get through and score points either, even teams way stronger than mine. So on this setup when i come online I will always find matches played while i was offline which is almost always draws 0-0..