Barrows, Farrows and Sarrows, just what exactly they?

Do you really understand what the different arrows do on a tactic? Well if not, then this could be a useful thread to read. Or maybe you have a different take on arrows, if so then please post as it could create a goo discussion.

Barrows – backward arrows on a player - http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/401/barroweg4.jpg

Farrows – forward arrows on a player - http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/2619/farrowiu5.jpg

Sarrows – sideways arrows on a player - http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6774/sarrowld5.jpg

That is the basic terminology, however its not just as simple as adding arrows especially if you are unsure what they do. Each type of arrows has a different effect on how the player reacts on the pitch. So below, is my take on the different types of arrows and how they make players react.

Barrows

The good thing about barrows, is you can use them to make players defensive yet not give them defensive instructions. This is achieved because barrows only come into play when you loose possession. If you give a player a barrow, then when your team has possession of the ball, he will still use the instructions you set him and be in his natural position. However as soon as you loose possession he will fall back into the area the barrow occupies. You can use barrows on any player in any position and its not limited to just wide players only. Barrows works superbly on DMC's, MC's and AMC's too.

Important things to remember are, it only comes into play when you loose the ball. It takes nothing away from his attacking play, only adds to his defensive play. Also a diagonal backward arrow, works the same as a normal barrow.

Farrows

The total opposite of barrows, this is how farrows work. They are where your player will move to once you get possession. So you can make defensive minded players attack without using attacking instructions. Or use them to make attacking players even more attacking. These farrows can be used to create very effective counter attacking formations, where you need to get players forward very fast. Again a diagonal farrows works exactly the same as a normal farrow.

Sarrow

This is probably the most unknown of the arrows and not many people actually know what they do. Applying a sarrow to a player makes him play slightly wider than normal and is useful on strikers and midfielders. It can be applied elsewhere, but the ones I mentioned above seem the more used. Although I often use them if I use a back 3, as I find it helps me play slightly wider but still play as a tight unit.

I will add to this at another point and hopefully some of the others will aswell.

If anyone as any questions about the above, then please feel free to ask

Thanks a lot for that - pretty useful

So Sarrows are like individual settings that are always in place no matter who has the ball? So you can keep a wide formation, but move your defenders in with Sarrows or have a narrow formation, but Sarrow your strikers out wide?

Much better than what I originally thought which was that my players moved that direction only with a position change.

I use Sarrows on my 2 strikers when playing a wide formation and it encourages them to stay wide when they are breaking on a counter attack and try to get a cross in for the other striker-very useful IMO

Good post by the way, Cleon

I sarrow my left FC and he goes wide when we have the ball but what I am interested to know is what happens if say you have 2 MC's and you sarrow them to the LM/RM position does this mean that they will always look to go there both when in and possession and when not?

Reason I ask this is if this is the case then when do the MC's actually get to stay in there specified Central role?

I also use Sarrows on my wide strikers it helps in getting them to play wide and they tend to drop further down the pitch as well.

Sarrow midfielders to get them to protect the space between the sarrow and the point where it stops. Even if you have FWR on them set to mixed and depending on their mentality, they have a more defensive inclination.

what about sarrows that point inside the pitch instead of pointing wide? the same logic applies?

and what is the difference of a DMC farrowed and a MC barrowed?

But if I have the sarrows on my 2 MC's would that not mean that they play the whole game out wide?

Originally posted by praxiteles:

what about sarrows that point inside the pitch instead of pointing wide? the same logic applies?

and what is the difference of a DMC farrowed and a MC barrowed?

I would suggest people try things out themselves too, nothing we say should be construed as gospel.

Barrows and Farrows..are different...one is defensive the other offensive. Both take up different positions for defending. Barrows are more relevant without ball and farrows with ball

Originally posted by praxiteles:

what about sarrows that point inside the pitch instead of pointing wide? the same logic applies?

and what is the difference of a DMC farrowed and a MC barrowed?

My interpretation is this:

Barrow The MC will fall back to the end of the arrow (DMC position) when his side has lost possesion but will remain central in his starting position when his team has possesion.

Farrow The DMC will move from his starting position to the end of the arrow (MC Position) when his team is in possession.

For me it gets mroe complicated when you give a MC a sarrow as I do not understand properly if he goes there regardless of his side being in posession or not.

Sarrows definitely force a player wide when both in possession and out of it.

How do farrows interact with forward runs? Should I use one or the other or do forward runs then start from where you end up with the farrow?

Ok this might seem really simple and 'nooby' but how do you set barrows, farrows and sarrows?

Right click and drag

It seems to me that sarrows only come into affect when your team HAS the ball, feel free to say you have experienced otherwise.....

When I played a back 3 using the Ajax formation I had sarrows on the outer DC's. When in possession the DC's would stay tight and when I had the ball the outer DC's would then play as fullbacks. Of course if a winger was attacking down one side then the DC on that side would move out to close him down, HOWEVER, this happens in a back 3 even without sarrows. This leads me to believe that sarrows are only in effect when my team has possession.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed this.

Originally posted by panomaniac:

It seems to me that sarrows only come into affect when your team HAS the ball, feel free to say you have experienced otherwise.....

When I played a back 3 using the Ajax formation I had sarrows on the outer DC's. When in possession the DC's would stay tight and when I had the ball the outer DC's would then play as fullbacks. Of course if a winger was attacking down one side then the DC on that side would move out to close him down, HOWEVER, this happens in a back 3 even without sarrows. This leads me to believe that sarrows are only in effect when my team has possession.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed this.

I have my DC with a inside sarrow because that way they don't allow a hole in the middle of my 4-back. So you made me doubt and I decided to do an experiment: I moved up my FB and place my DCs as FB the I sarrow'ed inwardly to see what would happen. Without possession they took their usual position as DC's. I think natural position of the player plus space allowed by teammates could have an influence in sarrows (maybe in farrows/barrows?). But anyway, sarrows work defensively as well.

Originally posted by Garate:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by panomaniac:

It seems to me that sarrows only come into affect when your team HAS the ball, feel free to say you have experienced otherwise.....

When I played a back 3 using the Ajax formation I had sarrows on the outer DC's. When in possession the DC's would stay tight and when I had the ball the outer DC's would then play as fullbacks. Of course if a winger was attacking down one side then the DC on that side would move out to close him down, HOWEVER, this happens in a back 3 even without sarrows. This leads me to believe that sarrows are only in effect when my team has possession.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed this.

I have my DC with a inside sarrow because that way they don't allow a hole in the middle of my 4-back. So you made me doubt and I decided to do an experiment: I moved up my FB and place my DCs as FB the I sarrow'ed inwardly to see what would happen. Without possession they took their usual position as DC's. I think natural position of the player plus space allowed by teammates could have an influence in sarrows (maybe in farrows/barrows?). But anyway, sarrows work defensively as well. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cheers for clearing that up with your experiment.

However, I still find that with strikers if I have a FL with an inward sarrow, he stays wide in defence and then moves infield in attack.

Maybe this has something to do with the FL recognising that he can help out in defence by closing down the fullback, I'm really not sure to be honest...

panomaniac...brilliant.

You're right, whenever you play a forward with an inside sarrow, he does drop back as far as to support the midfield. I found that out too when I was working on my tactics. The Forward with the sarrow outwards, however does not seem to go down as deep as the insarrowed one

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this, cos I tot it was maybe my player..now I'm certain thats the way it works cos you've seen it happen as well.

Originally posted by rashidi1:

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this, cos I tot it was maybe my player..now I'm certain thats the way it works cos you've seen it happen as well.

Yes this also happens for me with my trident setup. The FR with the sarrow inside runs back to help out the midfield and even goes as far as enarly the edge of my box when defending to help out.

Maybe a good setup might be having an FL FC FR, sarrow both the FL and FR and when without the ball they BOTH will race back to help out the midfield thus ineffect if you were playing 433 the formation when without the ball would become 451.

I've never used an inside sarrow, but i will go try in a bit

Originally posted by rashidi1:

panomaniac...brilliant.

You're right, whenever you play a forward with an inside sarrow, he does drop back as far as to support the midfield. I found that out too when I was working on my tactics. The Forward with the sarrow outwards, however does not seem to go down as deep as the insarrowed one

Cheers mate, not an isolated incident either, tried it in my new game with Carlisle just now and had a similar effect so it looks as if this is how it works - for the inside sarrowed forward.

The Sarrows definitely work defensively too, to give you another example I gave both my FC's a short SBarrow (thats a new one) to the AMR/L position and they dropped back and to the wings when I didn't have the ball.

You've got to remember too that other factors influence all of this debate, namely a players favoured moves i.e moving out to the wings

Originally posted by Buxton:

The Sarrows definitely work defensively too, to give you another example I gave both my FC's a short SBarrow (thats a new one) to the AMR/L position and they dropped back and to the wings when I didn't have the ball.

You've got to remember too that other factors influence all of this debate, namely a players favoured moves i.e moving out to the wings

Thats how I have the the FC's set up for the W-M, or atleast i think it is.

Like this?

So why is it we can't put a farrow and barrow on the same player since one only applies when possession is lost, and the other only applies when we have possession?

The sarrowed forward is my favourite for my trident set up, but I'm waiting to see how the patch will affect the movement of players.

Originally posted by Cleon:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Buxton:

The Sarrows definitely work defensively too, to give you another example I gave both my FC's a short SBarrow (thats a new one) to the AMR/L position and they dropped back and to the wings when I didn't have the ball.

You've got to remember too that other factors influence all of this debate, namely a players favoured moves i.e moving out to the wings

Thats how I have the the FC's set up for the W-M, or atleast i think it is.

Like this? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep

Fair enough

I know what farrows and barrows do, what the inwards Sarrows does...the Outward Sarrows I'm not to clear on and definitely the Darrows...hmm still trying to figure things out...

Offensive

Farrows and Darrows Up

Offensive and Defensive

InSarrow

Defensive

Barrows

What about the

rest?

Would it be useful to be able to give a player more than 1 arrow??

e.g. your strikers could have sarrows to get them to run wide when the team has possesion (to make space or drag defenders out of position) AND barrows so they dropped deeper and helped out the midfield when possesion was lost.

Am I taking this arrows idea too far, or does it have some merit???

really interesting thread. Actually it helps explain what i've been seeing in my current game- i have a MC with a barrow and a slightly defensive mentality, and i've been surprised at how often he's still able to join the attack and pop up with goals from late runs. I suppose the answer to this is the combination of a barrow with FWR set to 'often', and a player with good mental attributes to know when to make runs and when to sit. So the use of arrows alongside individual instructions might be a good way to create 'box-to-box' CM roles.

i've also got a quick striker with a sarrow out to the left- great for counter attacks, as against a 442 he often manages to make runs inbetween the CB and RB. In my experience, he stays wide-ish regardless of whether we have posession. This might be because he's got an attacking mentality (16) with high CF and low CD. Might try adjusting this for tough games and see if it encourages him inside more when we don't have the ball.

Originally posted by achilles elbow:

Would it be useful to be able to give a player more than 1 arrow??

e.g. your strikers could have sarrows to get them to run wide when the team has possesion (to make space or drag defenders out of position) AND barrows so they dropped deeper and helped out the midfield when possesion was lost.

Am I taking this arrows idea too far, or does it have some merit???

You cant have a player with two arrows although that would be a nice addition

They are family names of Borrowers, tiny people.

Thanks Cleon, I was just about to ask a question about this

so hang on, you're saying that If you have an FL running into the, say FC position, he will drop all the way back and help defense as well?

Must experiment on this now...

Originally posted by robin.v.persie:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by achilles elbow:

Would it be useful to be able to give a player more than 1 arrow??

e.g. your strikers could have sarrows to get them to run wide when the team has possesion (to make space or drag defenders out of position) AND barrows so they dropped deeper and helped out the midfield when possesion was lost.

Am I taking this arrows idea too far, or does it have some merit???

You cant have a player with two arrows although that would be a nice addition </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

FWRs seem to work as a positional tool in this version. Barrow and Often FWRs: there you'll have your two arrows.

Originally posted by nonleague:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by praxiteles:

what about sarrows that point inside the pitch instead of pointing wide? the same logic applies?

and what is the difference of a DMC farrowed and a MC barrowed?

My interpretation is this:

Barrow The MC will fall back to the end of the arrow (DMC position) when his side has lost possesion but will remain central in his starting position when his team has possesion.

Farrow The DMC will move from his starting position to the end of the arrow (MC Position) when his team is in possession.

For me it gets mroe complicated when you give a MC a sarrow as I do not understand properly if he goes there regardless of his side being in posession or not. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Isn't that the exact same thing? Without possession the MC with barrow stays at DMC, the DMC with farrow stays at DMC. With possession, both goes to MC.

I thought that it may be quite useful to actually name all of the arrows that are in teh game so here goes....

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

Siarrow

Soarrow

FarrowDarrow

BarrowDarrow

Originally posted by nonleague:

I thought that it may be quite useful to actually name all of the arrows that are in teh game so here goes....

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

Siarrow

Soarrow

FarrowDarrow

BarrowDarrow

How about

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

SIarrow

SOarrow

FaDarrow

BaDarrow??

People are going to get confused and start checking the manuals now...LOL

Originally posted by rashidi1:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by nonleague:

I thought that it may be quite useful to actually name all of the arrows that are in teh game so here goes....

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

Siarrow

Soarrow

FarrowDarrow

BarrowDarrow

How about

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

SIarrow

SOarrow

FaDarrow

BaDarrow?? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Extended further.....

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

SIarrow

SOarrow

FaDarrow

BaDarrow

FaDOarrow

FaDIarrow

BaDOarrow

BaDIarrow

Originally posted by nonleague:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by rashidi1:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by nonleague:

I thought that it may be quite useful to actually name all of the arrows that are in teh game so here goes....

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

Siarrow

Soarrow

FarrowDarrow

BarrowDarrow

How about

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

SIarrow

SOarrow

FaDarrow

BaDarrow?? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Extended further.....

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

SIarrow

SOarrow

FaDarrow

BaDarrow

FaDOarrow

FaDIarrow

BaDOarrow

BaDIarrow

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is getting insane

Hell I'm confused and I was one of the first couple of people to start the whole thing off with Barrows etc

Farrow

Barrow

Sarrow

SIarrow

SOarrow

FaDarrow

BaDarrow

FaDOarrow

FaDIarrow

BaDOarrow

BaDIarrow

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre"> Farrow Forward Arrow

Barrow Backward Arrow

Sarrow Side Arrow

SIarrow Inside Arrow

SOarrow Outside Arrow

FaDarrow Diagonally Forward Arrow

BaDarrow Diagonally Backwards Arrow

FaDOarrow Outside Diagonally Forward Arrow

FaDIarrow Inside Diagonally Forward Arrow

BaDOarrow Outside Diagonally Backwards Arrow

BaDIarrow Inside Diagonally Backwards Arrow </pre>

That should help explain things for all.

Oops!!

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Farrow Forward Arrow

Barrow Backward Arrow

Sarrow Side Arrow

SIarrow Inside Arrow

SOarrow Outside Arrow

FaDarrow Diagonally Forward Arrow

BaDarrow Diagonally Backwards Arrow

FaDOarrow Outside Diagonally Forward Arrow

FaDIarrow Inside Diagonally Forward Arrow

BaDOarrow Outside Diagonally Backwards Arrow

BaDIarrow Inside Diagonally Backwards Arrow</pre>

I think it's going to be far, far easier if when people are describing their tactic and where they've got their players running if they just say an arrow from FC to AML or MR to MCR to be honest.

Originally posted by Buxton:

I think it's going to be far, far easier if when people are describing their tactic and where they've got their players running if they just say an arrow from FC to AML or MR to MCR to be honest.

I guess you failed to see the sarcasm from me as..

as..

Not sure how that got there!

Originally posted by nonleague:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Buxton:

I think it's going to be far, far easier if when people are describing their tactic and where they've got their players running if they just say an arrow from FC to AML or MR to MCR to be honest.

I guess you failed to see the sarcasm from me as.. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just imaging all the people you have confused though now The topic was kinda meant to answer peoples questions about them, not confuse them with sarcasm