Player individuality

Are there any other factors which determines how a player behaves on the field. For example I have two left midfielders, one is pacy and the other is more technical. They both have no preferred moves.

I don't give them different instructions yet the one is pacy will go more up and down as a winger playing to his strengths while the other looks to cut in at a midfield level and always looks to pass to my striker from there who is on is favoured personnel list.

My question is do players automatically play to their strengths and use instructions as guidance and do they favour passing to people on their favoured persons list or am I looking too much into it?

I was wondering about this, too; I have two wingers who are, stat-wise, essentially identical (one's a smidge faster); when they're in game, though, one of them (the slower one) is leaps and bounds better.

probably due to hidden attributes, the other people he plays with, the opponents and the randomness of the game, i wouldnt read too much into it