How do you pick who to play?

Do you go with the players with better form, fitness, value.....

Or do you just let ass. man pick the team?

I would like to pick the players who are in form as long as they have at least 90% fitness but my ass. man always seems to do a good job, I just tweak it if he picks an unfit or out of position player.

Form and Fitness... but isn't that obvious?

Well I have always let my ass. man pick the team and it has led me to cups, titles and promotions over the diff fm's. I've just been thinking though whether I might enjoy it more if I was picking the team.

I always pick my teams. Never let the Assistant Manager make team selections apart from in friendlies where i let him control everything. I obviously go on player ability and fitness.

Form, fitness, morale. Morale is only very important for strikers. Those with levels at 'okay' or below may not take the chances that come their way or they might play poorly under the pressure.

Generally form and fitness, although I sometimes pick a player for a particular role/tactic/opposition. I.e. dropping a creative midfielder for an extra 'destroyer' if I'm up against a better team and away.

I've never let my assistant pick the team!

For a start the best XI they come up with is never sensible. The current problem is he reckons my best CB should play RB. He also rates one winger at 1.5 stars. Good job I know better since he's my 4th best player on ratings!

I go on fitness mainly. Form is temporary but class is permanent so while i look at form, if someone has better attributes but worse form i'll often pick them for the big matches. In addition ratings can be skewed by who they play against, for example last year my no.2 keeper had a higher average rating than my no.1, in no small part due to having kept 15 clean sheets in 20 games. These were the easiest 20 games in a near-60 game season though! Pretty much whenever my no. 2 played in a big match he'd concede and get a low rating, whenever my no.1 played in an easy match he'd keep a clean sheet...

Rotation. With a top club (e.g. Barcelona) I have two separate teams. One team for all the big matches and away matches (unless they clash), the other team for the home matches. The benefit of this is that my players never get tired and I perform well in all the big matches. With this strategy I won the treble almost every year on FM09.

"Form is fleeting, class lasts."

I have a First Choice XI in mind and try to use it when possible. (Allowing for morale & fitness.)

If we're going through a poor run, I sometimes pick a team based on morale only. Once my happiest eleven players have turned the season around, I drop them for the good ones.

I wouldn't let my ass man make the tea, let alone pick the team!

Ability is the most important factor. Fitness, form and morale all come into it as well class of opposition and upcoming fixtures.

Value is disregarded completely, it doesn't mean anything when picking my team.

Team I pick depends on the oppo, most of the time. Scout reports are fantastic, in that respect. Form has something to do with it, but not much.

Im with AsoluteGenius... I never pick anyone who is under 92% fitness (try if possible not to play if under 95%), if he is below then the backup plays, i rotate my team almost every game so that every one of my 25 man squad gets games (Ranieri style tinkering), but i always have a favoured starting eleven and that is the team that plays in what i believe to be the big games and it is just a case of managing their fitness prior to these games, i.e currently none of my preffered starting eleven will play in the premier league game directly prior to a quarter/semi final of the champs league, just the way i like to work it

Also I never let my ass man (Ciro Ferrara) pick my team as he always has 2 or 3 players that i wouldnt pick, you just have to holiday for a season to see how poorly the team perform if you leave your ass man in charge... then there are things like if your tactic has wingers cutting in from the flank, your ass man would generally play a RF on the right and a LF on the left when in fact i would prefer it the other way round...

Form primarily, then fitness. If I am confident of the win or feel like I can cope, I'll give someone else the chance to prove themselves.

I use 3-subs a game so players have plenty of chances to prove themselves.

I try to make minimal changes so as to maintain consistency.

When it all goes wrong and I am in a rut, I clear the squad and let the AssMan pick. Then I tweak a little and the cycle begins again!

I use a rotation system with the exception of the keeper and defenders.

I use creative midfield players in the home games and rotate them out with hard working determined bruisers coming in for away games. As for strikers, I just use whoever is fittest and in form.

I often let the Ass. Man choose and then i play about within what he has chosen to mix it up a bit

I select every game, for form fitness and i try to rotate the players i like to have around 22 players so i can use all my players...

I take current form, mental state, opposing teams strengths and weaknesses into account (defenders with good heading and jumping against a team with a striker with good attributes in these etc) but I try to do as little changes to the startup line as I can after I have gotten a decent run of games. Rotation seems to be often deadly to my teams, so I don't rotate just to give playing time for players to avoid them from whining for it.

I don't let assistant managers choose my main team ever in a competitive match, as their ideas with my reserve teams and youth teams are often bizarre. Playing central defenders as fullbacks etc.

I pick the 11 best players if they are fit enough.

I have a first choice 11. I will only change that if players aren't fit enough, or if one of the starting 11 has been on a bad run of form. And occasionally if I know following a easy match, I've got a tougher or more important game 3 days later.

As I don't rotate much, I tend to have squads with a very young bench (my regular bench has nobody over the age of 21) to avoid them getting annoyed as easily. And it's usually a small squad for the same reason. My Liverpool squad has 21 players with all of the none first 11 players being young. If I'm desperate for a player or two to make up the numbers after injuries, I'll pick from the youth squad to go on the bench. Where either I'll not need them, or it gives a youth player a beneficial taste of the real thing.