What stats are needed for preferred moves to work?

Hello there

Im currently on my second season, and I have noticed that one of my young forwards currently has no preferred moves, so I was wondering how I would know whether to teach him to place the ball when shooting or whether I should teach him to blast the ball?

The same applies for defenders, how would I know whether the player should stand up to tackle or to lunge into them?

Thanks in advance

I was under the impression that they don't have to know anything, what learn moves mean is that they literally will learn how to be better at that aspect and the stats will increase accordingly.

may be wrong though

That's not quite right - having a PPM doesn't mean he's better, just that he prefers to try it. So a PPM of 'blast the ball' with a player who has long shot/finishing of 5 is not a great idea!

I try to get all my players to avoid lunging into tackles and to stay on their feet, but it's particularly important for a defender who is not great at tackling - that way they won't be so prone to giving away penalties or getting booked.

Finally, if you want to know which attribute makes it more likely that he will actually learn a PPM, it seems to be the hidden attribute 'professionalism'.

I think that what finishing PPM's to teach your players should be related to their attributes. So if your player has high technique/low strength tell him to place shots, whereas if he has high strength/balance tell him to blast it into the back of the net. The same with lobs keeper (technique/flair), dribbles past keeper (dribbling/acceleration), etc.

I could be wrong but this is what makes sense to me.

Oh, and with regards to lunge into tackles, I agree with phnompenhandy in that it is generally a pretty bad attribute in modern football. It is mostly a habit of latin american players and is frowned upon in european football. I guess if a player has a high tackling ability and anticipation and low speed it might be beneficial for him to lunge into tackles.

So I need to use common sense for these?

Oh dearrrr... Looks like I'm going to have to change some of the PFMs that I taught some players already haha

Thank you all for the tips though

As a rule of thumb, when playing FM always use common sense