Wingbacks vs Defensive Wingers

Currently I've been in a small dilemma when lining up my squads. I tend to prefer playing with wingbacks to provide me width and restrain using wingers in general, but from current experience, I am doubting the whole wingback role and opt to use Defensive Wingers.

Why?

It seems that wingbacks get a negative "finishing modifier". It might be pure luck or not, but I have only seen my wingback score twice withing 3 seasons, and one of the goals was an "accidental cross". They flop every single time they get infront of the goal. (I instruct them to move into channels so it happens more then you might expect).

The moment I switched to using Defensive Wingers, I've had more goals scored and much better accuracy by my wingback which is retrained to wide midfielder. He gets forward much much more effectively, and surprisingly, moves deeper into defense than a wingback does when the team is on the back foot. His defensive abilities were not compromised at all in general, and it tends to just bring out better performances

Note : I certainly do not have nearly enough information to make an educated report on whether the Wingback position lacks differentiation from the defensive winger, this is why I want to bring it up for discussion.

Defensive wingers attack better than the wingback, they also drop deeper and get back asap. If you run a 3 man back line, as soon as you lose the ball, you'll notice a back 5.

Does that mean Wingbacks in the game are essentially obsolete?

Maybe the defensive winger settings suit your tactic better?

If i remember correctly a defensive winger will have a very high closing down and tackling on hard to win the ball high up the pitch.. if you are playing a offensive tactic with a high line it will probably suit you better than the regular wing back.

Just compare the different settings on advanced under the hood and see what fits you best.

Right now i'm playing a 352 and using wingbacks and they are serving me well, to get the right role is also quite important.. the wingback on a support role is completly different than the attack one.

The thing that I found awkward is the fact that I actually modified my WB's to hard tackle and push up the pitch often, but it just didn't work out nearly as nicely as playing him as a defensive winger. Though I do agree WB support is a completely different role and i suppose that would make sense.

I'm just surprised that wingback attack doesn't work nearly as smoothly as defensive winger support.

The thing that I found awkward is the fact that I actually modified my WB's to hard tackle and push up the pitch often, but it just didn't work out nearly as nicely as playing him as a defensive winger. Though I do agree WB support is a completely different role and i suppose that would make sense.

I'm just surprised that wingback attack doesn't work nearly as smoothly as defensive winger support.

if you're still curious how to make your wingbacks a little more "productive" maybe you should try this:

use wingbacks with high off the ball, high teamwork, high work rate and maybe decent composure will suffice, set them to "roam from position", set their passing style to short (like maximum to left), tell them to "cut inside" then put them in full attacking mentality. it would be best to use a formation that provides them with wingers in front of them, like 4-2-3-1 (i mostly utilize 2-2-3-1 instead) or 4-3-3 (with wide forwards), and things will go smoothly if they already got "gets forward whenever possible" and "plays one-twos" in their preferred moves or simply retrain them that way.

i always use this, this will give them more opportunity to move forward and score since they will made their way into possible "holes" or spaces by means of off the ball movement or by doing one-twos (note that in 4-2-3-1 i always had my AMC and trequartista ST roaming all the way so they will most likely leaves enough space to exploit), just make sure you set the instructions with "work ball into box" first. i managed to get my van der wiel and panda (real name : Márcio Gama Moreira) to score 11 goals in a season (van der wiel himself got 7) mostly from open build-up play situation; not bad for wingbacks, since you don't ALWAYS to rely for speed to create attractive football. note that attractive football for me is when you don't have to always rely on forwards to score .

i'm not very familiar with defensive wingers since i often failed miserably to utilize them properly :o, but i figured it would be much easier for my wingbacks to get into "holes" or spaces if the wingers in front of them were defensive wingers since it will give the team necessary pressure towards opposition full-backs and thus leading the defensive wingers to eventually get the ball and therefore give the unnoticed wingbacks behind them more opportunities.

cheers mate

ive only ever used wbk support as i feel they have a good starting position and with the support role on they (mine anyway) get forward enough to help in attack while still being able to do their defensive duties. Obviously the better the player the better this will work. With the defensive wingers i have been tempted to try it but just having them that high up (and with me playing a back 3) and leaving alot of space behind them really puts me off. So i wouldn't use them in a 3 at the back set up but i would consider it in a formation with a flat back 4

ive only ever used wbk support as i feel they have a good starting position and with the support role on they (mine anyway) get forward enough to help in attack while still being able to do their defensive duties. Obviously the better the player the better this will work. With the defensive wingers i have been tempted to try it but just having them that high up (and with me playing a back 3) and leaving alot of space behind them really puts me off. So i wouldn't use them in a 3 at the back set up but i would consider it in a formation with a flat back 4

even though i set their mentality to maximum attacking, i always set their role as WB automatic, so that you can really rely on their decision-making to assess the situation before they launch forward, not charging ahead like headless chicken, even though they will probably end up charging upfront most of the time due to their attacking mentality and preferred move.

the problem is, i generally don't use this tactic against opposition in long pitch as i would leave too much space behind the wingbacks, instead i prefer this tactic in relatively short pitch and set one of my CBs in covering duty (obviously the fastest one, with minimum 14 in both anticipation and acceleration), so that he will cover the spaces left behind in case i got counter-attacked, hell i once had myself using this tactic with 2 CB set in covering (with the expense of dropping one of my midfielders into defense to compensate for another space the covering CB left when they're chasing down the through ball). so i guess that's pretty much sums up the answer to the "space" problem in case you wanted to go with 2-2-2-3-1 (WBs one step ahead the CBs; sorry for my last post's typo, it should've 2-2-2-3-1 instead), or maybe you can go with the relatively "risk-free" 4-2-3-1.