The mechanics of the playmaker

There is no doubt that the successful use of a playmaker in any team can and will contribute to success in itself. You only need to look at modern day examples of how a team has been built around one single player. With all focuses on passing and build up play usually revolving around him. It is a myth to say that the modern day playmaker has to be your typical No.10. The marauding AMC who will create as well as finish chances. Many teams over time have used players in other positions to act as this playmaker to great success. However this isn't intended to be a discussion based around historical examples of great playmakers. Nor is it my intention to talk about what positions are best used for a playmaker type.

Its been in the back of my mind to create a discussion based all around the functions and mechanics of the playmaker for some time now. Ever since Nacer Barazite single handedly won me promotion for FC Dordrecht with an outrageous supply of goals and assists. This feat some might say was down to the simple fact that a player of Barazite's obvious ability would always succeed in a league like the Jupiler (Dutch 2nd tier), this may in some parts be true. However what I achieved that season with Barazite was down to my intense studying and analysing of his game.

I'm not going to go into a discussion of exactly what I did or how I did it as I want this to be a discussion based around everyone's ideas and concepts when considering the use of the modern day playmaker. However, reminiscing on this season I had made me come to the conclusion that a discussion on these principles could well be worthwile for the rest of the community. You only need to take a look around at various other forums as well as this one to see many topics all about 'How to get player x to perform' or 'I can't get player y to play like in real life'. It is clear that some are struggling in these instances, and whilst we acknowledge that may be the case for other positions, I want to only talk about how to understand and apply the principles of using a playmaker effectively.

Whilst I will contribute the idea's and principles I have had success using, I hope that others too will chip in with their views on this subject. Then hopefully we can give other members a concise and understandable approach to dealing with and getting the best out of a playmaker.

Understanding The Player

Going back to my FM example of using Barazite (on loan from Arsenal) for my Dordrecht team. I took over at Dordrecht at the start of the first season, at this time the club was struggling financially and many players were constantly linked with moves away due to the 'perilous financial state' of the club. The starting squad itself wasn't of a high standard and I genuinely though to myself that a solid mid table finish would be a job well done. Due to lack of funds I couldnt really sign anyone of any worth and so had to rely on loan deals. Getting Barazite on loan changed my season. I knew that he was easily the most talented footballer in my team and possibly one of the best in the league. Because of this I had to exploit it and use this hugely talented footballer to my benefit. Immediately during pre-season I built everything around him. The way the team played, from formations to style was all engineered to get the best out of him.

I knew that if I was to have success using this player then I would need to be able to fully understand his personality and the way he played. There is no other way to do this than to watch the full 90 minutes of a game and intensely follow his movement, both on and off ball as well as the area's he was most successful and dangerous in. To make sure I understood this player fully, I had to make sure I understood his attributes and not only understood them but figured out how they related to his on-pitch demeanour. Looking at his attributes they show that firstly he is a very creative player, creativity of 15. However he has low decision making, only 8, aswell as low positioning. These 2 low attributes are clear negatives when looking at getting the best out of a playmaker. Not only does it mean that his decision making (making the right passes, runs etc) isn't good, but his positional awareness is equally poor. These 2 attributes are clearly important for a player who is going to be the crux of a team, the player who 90% of attacking moves are going to go through. Now it is clear to state that the system I was playing allowed Barazite to play in his favoured AMC role. In this role he would be given high creative freedom (flair 13 + creativity 15) and would virtually neglect any defensive duties he may have had (teamwork of 10, workrate of 9). Of course this decision to play him in this manner took into account his poor teamwork and workrate as much as it took into account his high attacking attributes. I knew that if I asked him to try and track back and help break up opposition attacks that the likelihood of him doing it was slim anyway. His stamina and natural fitness were also both low (Both 11) which again meant that if he had been asked to cover larger portions of the pitch then he would have been less effective as the game went on due to him being tired and fatigued.

So what was my solution to trying to negate and diffuse the negative attributes (decisions + positioning)? Well I knew he had high creativity as well as high finishing (14) and decent composure (11). For these reasons I made sure that I played him as advanced as I possibly could without him turning into a striker. He played almost as a deep lying forward from the AMC base position. In these area's he would constantly be closed down quickly by the opposition's CB's meaning the time frame to make decisions was less, hopefully neutralising that bad attribute a little. His high determination attribute (14) meant that he was constantly integral to the game and rarely went missing or got lost. He was always involved and always looking for the ball. His high finishing and composure allowed him to score regularly as well as create bucket loads. He also had reasonable pace (12) which allowed him to get forward into the ST positons quickly, often leaving trailing CB's for dead. If I felt the need to mix it up a little I could as he had a high attribute for long shots (14) aswell as extremely good technique (16). This meant that if needed he could drop a little deeper and surprise the GK with a testing long shot, rather than getting his head down and looking for the through pass or run.

Conclusion

As I said, this introductory post was just designed to get the ball rolling on this discussion. I hope to be able to talk more about the FM match engine and how to identify if the playmaker is working or not in regards to that. I hope others will contribute and feel free to pick apart anything that I've said if you disagree with it.

I've just started a new game with Bordeaux with the sole purpose of trying my luck at using Gourcuff as my playmaker and trying to see if I can get him to perform in similar ways to Barazite, albeit at a higher level. I will use this thread to post how I get on with Gourcuff and not only considering how to play him but also how to set up my team so as to allow him to play in the way I hope he can.

Very good analyse of Barazites strengths and weaknesses, I'd like to see what settings you ended up giving him

Interesting that you consider less time to make decisions a good way to neutralize a low Decisions rating, though. Some might argue that a low rating might suggest more time needed, if anything. But it's working for you, so I can't really object

Another highly interesting thread recently is the "Creating Space" one, and I think that's very important for a team utilizing a playmaker as well. Do you play wider and/or have a wider pitch to give him more room to wreak havoc?

What about your other players, I assume they have to work harder to cover for him defensively.

Space and ball-winning are key for using a Playmaker well, something I'm sure you realize. I've always liked the idea of a ball-winning Playmaker, so the whole concept of getting the ball to him takes care of itself at times, though this of course means he will naturally be close to the opposition and perhaps closed down.

I personally love the idea of a Playmaker, though there is also a tactic floating around here which is a 451 where each Winger is a PM and TM, and it works well. Many also play Barca with Messi as the TM as well as PM, at times. With that in mind, I begin to wonder how the game treats the PM and TM roles, given they are the same player/have the same instructions.

Interesting that you consider less time to make decisions a good way to neutralize a low Decisions rating, though. Some might argue that a low rating might suggest more time needed, if anything.

I have to say that this thought did cross my mind when I was setting up my system and I did toy around with different settings in pre-season. However I found that given more time he often wasted possession as he had the time to think and make a decision. When I played him more advanced, which in turn gave him less time to make a decision because of being under more pressure, he used the ball better as his creative instinct helped him make the right choice. He seemed to play better under a bit of pressure, which again I think is down to his higher footballing education at Arsenal. Who are famed for playing their way out of tight area's.

What about your other players, I assume they have to work harder to cover for him defensively.

This is what I'm looking at with my new game with Bordeaux. At Bordeaux they have a very good defensive minded CM in Diarra. Now he has all the characteristics of a world class DM coupled with the PPM of 'Stays back at all times'. This is like heaven to me, as it will mean I can utilize Gourcuff in a pure attacking sense. The fact is now im playing with Bordeaux, it is more of a higher risk/reward game as they are a higher reputation team playing in higher reputation competitions. For these reasons the natural and logical thing to do would be to play Gourcuff in more of a defensive minded role than Barazite on my previous game. However having Diarra in the team means that he is my insurance. He is the player that is going to enable me to use Gourcuff to the best of my ability. The likelihood is I will play Gourcuff in a similar role to Barazite, with him being so advanced he almost acts as a Defensive forward.

Time will tell. I'm still testing several things out at the moment.

Hmm, alright. Hope it works out for you.

I tend to see Gourcuff performing well for me in the saves where I manage to bag him, as a deep-lying playmaker, rather than being higher up, but maybe that's just due to the rest of my squad. Good luck!

Goede morgen Menz,

It would be interesting to see a tactical view of your Dordrech team, as we can see directly where you put Barazite on the pitch. and if you can show us his individual instruction too. can be interesting too.

Met vriendelijke groeten

Goede morgen Menz,

It would be interesting to see a tactical view of your Dordrech team, as we can see directly where you put Barazite on the pitch. and if you can show us his individual instruction too. can be interesting too.

Met vriendelijke groeten

Unfortunately I no longer have the save game file as it was one of my first saves on FM10. I was just thinking about that save game the other day and that was what inspired me to begin a discussion all about the use of a playmaker. However, this is why I'm starting a game with Bordeaux to try and recreate what I achieved with Barazite. I've been playing some tester games at the moment and will post an update on how I've got him playing soon.

Oh and thanks for the Dutch phrases

So I've been playing around a little bit with Jussie here at Bordeaux and trying to emulate what I had going with Barazite. He is quite a similar player in many ways in that he is naturally a creative player but lacks some footballing intelligence, and like Barazite has a low decisions attribute (just 10).

Have a look at the below image:

Now what you can see from this image is just how advanced Jussie is playing. As I stated earlier, I had a lot of success playing Barazite as a very advanced playmaker, almost acting as a second striker. Here you can see that Jussie is in an extremely advanced position and in the 'hole' that Barazite used to work his magic so well. He is so advanced that he is actually playing higher up the pitch than my second striker, No. 12.

Again, playing him so high up the pitch means that he will constantly be under immense pressure from the opposing CB's, seen here as their No. 4 is almost on top of him. In one touch, after receiving the ball from my No. 17, he turns and immediately plays a neat through ball to my other striker.

This is an example of what I was trying to get at in the opening post. Only through understanding your players, and in this case your playmaker, can you utilize them to their fullest. Knowing that Jussie has a poor decisions attribute meant that I would try something similar to how I used to play Barazite. Playing him so advanced that the pressure he would be put under playing in the small hole in front of the CB's would hopefully negate the negative attribute and instead let his naturally creative personality take over. In this instance it does as he has one touch and then immediately after plays the creative ball leading to a chance.

This is just a small example of what I was trying to get at and I just hoped that through posting a visual aid as to this subject It might help people understand what I meant.