Signing a player with a learned position

Interesting one this, I signed a player a couple of seasons back who had the positions DC (natural) and DL (accomplished). I signed him as cover for left back and his position was listed as D LC.

Some time in the last week or so his DL position rating has dropped to competent and he is now listed as just DC. I can only assume this is because his old club had him learning DL as a new position and when he signed for me he stopped learning it and can no longer play as well when playing at left back (despite the fact he has only ever played at left back under me - 57 appearances in total, all at left back).

So, a couple of things. Firstly I think it is a bit odd that his rating for DL would drop like this. I could understand if I played him at centre half but has has only played at left back for the last two years, so why would he get worse at it? If anything his rating at DL should be on the up and his DC rating should go down, as he never plays there any more.

Secondly, would it be a good idea if we could somehow be made aware of which positions a player has learned and which ones he was "born with" so to speak?

Try to train him as a left back. He may get DL position nearer to 19/20. Plyaing in posotin has no affect on positinal ability, it has if player trains same position also.

Natural positions cannot (or should not, seen some cases they are) be trained. Others can be.

It's a flawed system but a difficult one to change.

For example, it's totally impossible for FM to recreate the 'Alan Smith' situation.

He is now in the database as a natural MC with an SC role that doesn't even show as a default position.

However, in real life he started as a natural SC.

It's years of playing MC that has changed this.

Now if this was the case in FM he would still have his SC rating.

Same with Mihael Mikic formerly of Dinamo Zagreb. Started out as a ST, moved to natural AMR, in previous versions even came close to being a natural DR

Yes. So real life proves that FM isn't accurate in the way it handles player positions.

I think the new version needs to look at this and make it a much more dynamic system based more upon where the player is currently playing the most.

So if I have an Alan Smith at 18, he should just be an SC. Training him should give him a 'weak' MC position - based upon his versatility stat which I imagine is high.

Then the ONLY thing that gets MC to natural is playing him there. Training alone shouldn't be able to do this.

To complete the cycle his SC position should diminish over time to 'competant', for example.

This would mirror EXACTLY what has happened to Alan Smith in real life and is a much more dynamic and realistic way of representing positions in FM.

Try to train him as a left back. He may get DL position nearer to 19/20. Plyaing in posotin has no affect on positinal ability, it has if player trains same position also.

The plot thickens! Due to an injury to my first choice left back I played this guy at left back in a recent champs league group game. Now his position rating for DL has jumped back to accomplished and he is listed as D LC again!

I am not training him at DL, just played him there for one game.

Natural positions cannot (or should not, seen some cases they are) be trained. Others can be.

They could be on 08 and 09, I don't know if 10 is any different (doubt it).

Players can get to natural through training

Players can get to natural through training

They can but they shouldn't be able to.

They should only be able to get to natural through playing that position, imo.

This would mirror real life more correctly.

They can only get to natural if they have a certain rating in that position already

(Like Babel at ML)

I have noticed that some of my youngsters have been coming back from loan clubs with new positions, nice touch imo.

They can but they shouldn't be able to.

They should only be able to get to natural through playing that position, imo.

This would mirror real life more correctly.

I'm quite sure that players shouldn't get any new position to natural, through training or playing on that position. Reading some manuals and other stuff from SI Games. This happens sometimes, seen evidence on it. To my players, it has never happened (at least 50 players played over 100 games in non natural position while training it also). So most probably bug.

And yes, according to Screenshot evidences it is a bug.

It doesn't help that half the worlds wingers who play regularly in a 442 are AMR/AML only with barely any ML/MR capabilities.

They can only get to natural if they have a certain rating in that position already

(Like Babel at ML)

100% certainly wrong, for FM2009, at least. I had Veloso become a natural DL and a regen natural DL and accomplished WBL guy get natural ML who did not have a rating for those positions initially. And I seriously doubt that players do go beyond accomplished in their learned positions just by training unless they consistently play that position, roughly over 75% of the time.

Interesting one this, I signed a player a couple of seasons back who had the positions DC (natural) and DL (accomplished). I signed him as cover for left back and his position was listed as D LC.

Some time in the last week or so his DL position rating has dropped to competent and he is now listed as just DC. I can only assume this is because his old club had him learning DL as a new position and when he signed for me he stopped learning it and can no longer play as well when playing at left back (despite the fact he has only ever played at left back under me - 57 appearances in total, all at left back).

So, a couple of things. Firstly I think it is a bit odd that his rating for DL would drop like this. I could understand if I played him at centre half but has has only played at left back for the last two years, so why would he get worse at it? If anything his rating at DL should be on the up and his DC rating should go down, as he never plays there any more.

Secondly, would it be a good idea if we could somehow be made aware of which positions a player has learned and which ones he was "born with" so to speak?

AFAIK, and this was the case for 2009, I cannot say if anything is changed for FM2010; a player isn't supposed to lose his learned position when he's being mainly played that position but there is a catch here. In June, when the number of games played each position count is reset sometimes the international game count stays the same, and if the player is mainly played in different positions in the international games, the game seems to assume the player not playing that position so he starts losing the ability to play that position. When this is the case, I re-assign the position training for the guy until his club game count in that position reaches a certain level, say 75%. That may be the case for your player too, perhaps?