Individual Instructions and Team Instructions

With Reference to the following page: Manual, I would like to ask a few questions.

1. Mentality

a. Assuming I had 4 defenders in the same line where my fullbacks have mentality: 20 and centrebacks mentality: 1. Would it mean the fullbacks will be more aggresive in terms of position and passing regardless whether the team is in an attacking or defending phase?

b. Is it wise to set a general mentality for the whole team or should I break it down?

2. Width

a. How does Width come into place when my team is defending? Will my fullbacks or wingers still stay where they should be(Assuming they had 20 width) and mark out oncoming wingers and fullbacks?

3. Defensive Line

If your team uses an attacking philosophy, the effect of the slider is lessened and players will advance – although a deeper line will see them err on the side of caution a little more.

a. I'm sorry but could someone explain the above quote?

4. Tackling

a. How do I employ hard tackling without getting disciplinary action, is there any stats that I must look out for?

That will be all and thank you everyone (:

To your first question, part b. I have found that setting a fairly general mentality for the whole team is quite useful. I've had real success with

CB - 12

FB - 14

CM (deeper) - 14

CM (forward) - 16

LM - 16

RW - 18

ST (deeper) - 16

ST (Advanced) - 18

I think having a gap of 6 isn't a huge gap between what should be your most defensive mentality and players who should have most attacking mentality. I score plenty goals, I keep plenty clean sheets and best of all, I win a lot of games, so it works for me.

Although really, I've seen loads of different ways of doing players mentality on this forums from having attackers with defensive mentality and defenders with attacking mentality. To me though, I wouldn't go have CB's 1, FB's 20 for example ....I think if the players all fairly similar mentality, it makes the tactic more effective but I really don't know how true that is.

3a) As you are attacking your team pushes up leaving less headroom which lessens the effect the slider has. I understand the differences between high and deep defensive lines, but not the "and players will advance" part in this sentence. Is there more to this explanation that might put it into context?

The mentality and closing down settings should be related to each other. The attacking mentality is about risk taking, so a defender with 15 in mentality will try sliding tackles, interceptions and body checks more freely than a defender with 5 in mentality (who will make sure there is less room behind him and avoid risking a total defensive breakdown if he loses the challenge). Closing down is about the timing of when attention is on the opposing player with the ball, or in other words: when he stops backing up and start running towards the advancing player. The defensive line is also having an influence on that decision.

A striker that is set to 20 mentality, max attacking, will be more eager to try shooting from any angle. He will be less interested in stuff happening behind him on the pitch. This is nice towards the end of a game if you are desperate for a goal. I would avoid using such attacking mentalities in general, as it often increases the amount of shots fired but not necessarily goals. I prefer my strikers to be cooler in their heads than that.

All in all Mentality and Closing Down on all players should be roughly the same as the Defensive Line (as a starting point before fine tuning, at least), that is in my experience at least.

3a) As you are attacking your team pushes up leaving less headroom which lessens the effect the slider has. I understand the differences between high and deep defensive lines, but not the "and players will advance" part in this sentence. Is there more to this explanation that might put it into context?

I actually quoted the quote from the manual directly, hence I am unable to put it into context, sorry about that. Lets hope someone else can help both.

All in all Mentality and Closing Down on all players should be roughly the same as the Defensive Line (as a starting point before fine tuning, at least), that is in my experience at least

@BiggusD: I'm sorry, I don't quite get you. Do you mean that the slider value of Mentality should be the roughly the same for all players? And this will also apply to closing down?

I think Biggus means that the mentality, closing down and defensive line instructions should correspond- e.g. when using a deep D-Line, use low mentalities and closing down. I don't do this directly, but my more defensive players have lower mentalities and less closing down, so it sort of happens coincidentally.

4a. That's hard to do, and you'll always get more cards with hard tackling than with easy. The "dirtiness" attribute is the main factor affecting how often a player gets cautioned, but that is hidden. Try low aggression players with high tackling and concentration.

[quote name=Navizarian;6917123

@BiggusD: I'm sorry' date=' I don't quite get you. Do you mean that the slider value of Mentality should be the roughly the same for all players? And this will also apply to closing down?[/quote]

As SCIAG said above, I meant that Mentality and Closing Down should be set to the same level in their respectice sliders for all players (except the keeper), and that level should also be the same as the Defensive Line level. The Defensive Line is a team setting so each player can't have individual settings there. So yes, Mentality and Closing Down should be roughly the same for the whole team.

The principle isn't that they should be the same, though. That is a result of how the game engine works.

I said above that a defender with a defensive mentality and low closing down would avoid risking everything high up on the pitch and therefore just follow the opposing player instead. He will also wait longer before approaching an opposing player advancing on you. This obviously works badly when you are pushing up! Therefore, defenders need relatively attacking mentalities and relatively high closing down levels when you are pushing up.

When you are defending deep, you'd want your defenders and midfielders to not rush towards the opponents because that leaves space behind them - something which defies the purpose of defending deep - and you'd dislike your players sliding into tackles because if they miss the whole defence could crumble. So then they need less closing down and a more defensive mentality.

This is why the "drop deeper" shout should probably be accompanied by the "stand off" shout if you go with TC tactics. I believe that shouts are useless once you have ticked off all the player and team instructions, though.

Hey people, I'm back after some testing! And I have some questions, I hope some of you may be able to help me!

1. Whenever my anchorman marks opposing wingers near my penalty box, I find that my Wingbacks actually run into the penalty box. I would like them to assist either by closing down the winger or closing down on passing options for the wingers.

2. My team's crossing options come mostly from my fullbacks, however, they have had terrible results hence I shifted cross ball option to a notch down. I was thinking of using my fullbacks to run the touchlines purely for passion options for the middle players. What do you all think?

1. It seems like only one of your players approach an opposing player advancing on you, at least most of the time. There isn't an option to have more than one player try to tackle an opponent. A more attacking mentality and higher closing down may help.

2. Crossing isn't as efficient in FM11 as in FM10. Mostly, it is the far winger/striker that arrives on the far post to score from close range. Setting your fullback's crossing aim to far post from deep may help. I don't know about the touchline strategy since I don't send my fullbacks forward.

1. Oh, I only need 1 person to tackle the opposing player but I don't want my fullbacks to run out of their original positions, meaning they could be marking the other team's fullbacks or something.

2. Yes, very very inefficient. Sometimes I find them taking too long to cross too, which is a problem.