Why am I "asking" my players to do things? (Mini Rant).

So recently, after getting to grips with the newest patch, I decided to try and make Spurs an all English footballing force. Not being a tactical whizz kid, this has basically meant that I'm slowly building a team that can guarantee a European place by shipping out existing decent foreign players and replacing them with promising but as yet inferior British players. So far, so frustrating.

Spurs lack of pulling power for the really world class English players has meant that I've had to pay over the odds for the next tier down, such as Ashley Young for a whopping £29m upfront. Ashley Young by the way, is a naturally right footed left winger, with the PPM "Runs with ball down the left". Problem is, he doesn't do this. He prefers to take advantage of his oh-so special right foot by cutting inside, dribbling horizontally across the field and trying to "place" a shot from 35 yards into the top corner. When I asked him if he might think about perhaps not doing this, he decided it wasn’t in his best interests, and carried on as if nothing had happened. I guess I can understand that, after all I made him a big star when I forked out such a big fee for him, problem is, and it’s not just him.

I signed James Vaughn from Everton for a few million at the end of my first season, and in his defence he’s done well, he's kept Defoe out of the team for two seasons since. However, he’s not scoring as much as he should, and I think one of the reasons for this is his PPM "Hits shots with power", which he seems to take as permission to close his eyes and wallop the ball straight up, Rugby style, whenever he’s through on goal. Again, I wondered if he would mind awfully to stop doing this, to which he replied that "He didn't see how doing so would benefit his game". AAAARGh!

This is not how I saw the conversation going frankly, and has more or less guaranteed a career of ruinous intensive physical training for him as soon as I can scrape together money for a replacement. Why am I ASKING these players to change how they play? I'm their BOSS. They should be bending over backwards to please me and avoid being touted around the most inhospitable regions of Russia (Only wish I could load the Mongolian league) like their good pal Ash. Frankly, unless you're Pele or Craig Bellamy, I should have no problem convincing you to take fewer long shot for example.

While I agree on principle, think about what would happen if SI were to have all-but-the-brightest-stars say, when asked to jump, "Yes, sir, how high, sir?" on the way up. Soon enough, everyone on a human-controlled team would have as many or as few PPM as the human would like. Sure, it's a 20% training hit for a few months, but in the long run, whole squads would be placing shots, diving into tackles, moving forward when possible, and so forth. PPMs are special. Making players too agreeable to them would lessen them considerably.

So, it may not be "realistic", but it balances the gameplay nicely. And, making the players more agreeable may be more realistic, but to expect a human FM player to play realistically is asking too much. Look at how many people put 2 men Stay Back, 6 men on the Far Post in FM06, with 1 man Attack From Deep, and then shoot the corner to the deep man for 30-40 goals a season...

I signed James Vaughn from Everton for a few million at the end of my first season, and in his defence he’s done well, he's kept Defoe out of the team for two seasons since. However, he’s not scoring as much as he should, and I think one of the reasons for this is his PPM "Hits shots with power", which he seems to take as permission to close his eyes and wallop the ball straight up, Rugby style, whenever he’s through on goal. Again, I wondered if he would mind awfully to stop doing this, to which he replied that "He didn't see how doing so would benefit his game". AAAARGh!

This is not how I saw the conversation going frankly, and has more or less guaranteed a career of ruinous intensive physical training for him as soon as I can scrape together money for a replacement. Why am I ASKING these players to change how they play? I'm their BOSS. They should be bending over backwards to please me and avoid being touted around the most inhospitable regions of Russia (Only wish I could load the Mongolian league) like their good pal Ash. Frankly, unless you're Pele or Craig Bellamy, I should have no problem convincing you to take fewer long shot for example.

agree with everyhing here, i have exactly the same problem with altidore

Completely agree with the OP, but understand the second view as well. I think it should just take longer to learn the PPM, or there should be a reason as to why they reject. For example; a left sided player refusing to dribble down the right is fair enough. I am yet to actually get a player to stop doing something, even if it is stop arguing with officials. Whilst realistic in certain cases (Rooney comes to mind irl), surely this cannot be the case for everyone?!?

But IRL you hear every day about how players don't respond to the manager and do what they say, don't turn up to training etc., so getting players who do not want to learn new PPMs is not that unrealistic rally.

So, it may not be "realistic", but it balances the gameplay nicely. And, making the players more agreeable may be more realistic, but to expect a human FM player to play realistically is asking too much. Look at how many people put 2 men Stay Back, 6 men on the Far Post in FM06, with 1 man Attack From Deep, and then shoot the corner to the deep man for 30-40 goals a season...

I guess I can understand if its an engine limitation thats causing it. To me, making it impossible to unlearn most PPM's isn't a real solution though. If the match engine can't be built up in a way that can handle managers giving actual detailed instructions to players as opposed to a team, they should drop the concept or limit it to special cases (ie, Dribbles down right and beats players repeatedly restricted to Ronaldo style geniuses). Maybe add a random chance of a player to attempt an appropriate PPM in a move to add any lost variety to play.

Its an abstract thing anyway, a player with 15+ dribbling, acceleration and agility is realistically always going to take on his man on the wing for example. Not being able to tell a 21 year old prospect to stop blasting the ball over if he want s to keep his place is just a bit of an immersion breaker.

What I think they should remove is players spending months learning a PPM only to fail to master it (and it doesn't even remind you which PPM it was!). That is just unnecessarily stressful.

Players should always be looking for something new to do as after abit,their PPM.S become know and other teams should know how to deal with them.

I'm guessing that Player Reputation and your (Manager) Reputation play a role in how likely a player is to listen to your suggestion that they master a PPM (or unlearn it). This might limit the effectiveness of asking a well-reknowned player to learn a PPM unless you have a Reputation the equivalent of SAE.

What I think they should remove is players spending months learning a PPM only to fail to master it (and it doesn't even remind you which PPM it was!). That is just unnecessarily stressful.