Cover and stopper

Am i right in thinking a cover defender should be pacey and good at marking etc, but a stopper should be big and strong and have good anticipation. is there anywhere that shows what stats they need to be good at to do well in these roles?

The tactics creator will highlight the important attributes for the two roles.

And what it will tell you is that they're the same except for:

stopper: bra, agg

cover: ant, acc

I like the cover to be an accomplished full back, the stopper is more a DMC.

It shows you in game

Example

While he's a DM/CM, you can still see what stats he has that are relevant to his role on the pitch.

For me, it's more important for stoppers to have good jumping, heading, strength and bravery. Covers need good pace, anticipation, positioning and concentration.

Playing stoper/cover doesnt seems to work as it should and its exploited very offen by AI .For me defence is more stable when both defenders play with same mentality,also is very important for defenders to be pacey.Pace it seems an overpowered attribute in fm 11 and its maybe to effective.

While we're on the subject of cover and stopper, would people still play an offside trap with a covering CB? I would have thought the covering CB would be a bit of a liability if he isn't pushing up all the time.

While we're on the subject of cover and stopper, would people still play an offside trap with a covering CB? I would have thought the covering CB would be a bit of a liability if he isn't pushing up all the time.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Care to elaborate?

Care to elaborate?

A covering CB is a player who is meant to stay behind the rest of the defensive line, sweeping up any through balls and cutting out long balls over the top of the defence. If you get your team playing the offside trap with a covering CB then you will have 3 players in a line with a nice gap between the covering CB and the rest of the defence for the striker to sit in, leaving him with only 1 player to beat. Only use the offside trap if your CBs are on the same mentality as then they will form a straight line across the pitch, rather than having 1 player hanging back a long way.

Thats pretty much what I thought. The reason I asked is because I've seen so called great tacticians playing offside traps with a covering CB which always baffled me. Either they aren't great tacticians or the match engine is seriously flawed.

All a bit off topic I know, but it's something thats been bugging me for ages.

While we're on the subject of cover and stopper, would people still play an offside trap with a covering CB? I would have thought the covering CB would be a bit of a liability if he isn't pushing up all the time.

I do. Surprisingly still quite effective despite having a cover cb. Just got to make sure all defenders are quite fast so that if does go wrong they can recover.

Exactly that, you'll be telling your defenders to do two contradictory things.

I started using the stopper/cover to make my deep defence more pro-active. I have to say, I always have one of the meanest defences in any league I play in but I won't win any prizes for high-scoring.