Fullback as playmaker?

On my longterm FM14 save I have retrained Lucas Romero to right back. It's now 2018 and he looks to be close to having maxed out his PA so he's quite the young god. He is doing quite well there and save for his crossing and maybe his tackling his stats really line up perfectly for the job.

Now the thing is Romero can do way more than just run up and down the line win balls and cross them to the box but I'm having a hard time getting him to do anything else. And was hoping folks here might provide me with some input on how to get a bit more out of a right back. But first a few quick words on my setup.

I'm playing what I'd describe as a rather british 4-4-2. Very physical squad with tall, fast and hard working players all over the pitch. A fairly defensive setup that relies on direct passing and fast breaks mainly down the flanks. 4-4-2 Balanced Counter with a few minor tweaks essentially.

Romero is set up as an attacking wing back (get forward more often, play thru balls often and cut inside with ball), the winger in front of him (usually Andre Hahn) is set up as a defensive winger and the idea is that they attack and defend in tandem down the right flank. My right hand side midfielder is a classic b2b player.

So this is all fine and dandy and and works nicely as defensive winger and b2b midfielder cover nicely for romeros runs and despite his poor crossing he has a rather canny ability to deliver deadly crosses behind the last defender. However what I'd like to see is for romero to get more involved in the center of the pitch as oftentimes he has acres of space in the center of the pitch he could dribble or run into off the ball to get into good positions to play nice through balls or defty longshots (both of which this beast of a player is competent in). Also having an additional player in the centre of the pitch occasionally would really help me when I face the top teams in the EPL most of which play only 1 striker and thus outnumber me in midfield.

Anyways thanks for reading and thanks for any input you can provide.

Just checking but do you have him as a complete wingback? Also, if you are looking to give him a playmaking role, you could set your GK distribution to him so at least he will be seeing some of the ball starting out from the back. You could also try giving him a "roam from position" PI. One other thing occurred to me- can you train him in the PPM runs with ball through centre? Also there is a PPM "cuts inside" though if you have him set to that already, it might not add anything meaningful.

As far as I know, there's no real way to do it through instructions aside from what you've done (cut inside, play through balls). Your best bet might be by training PPMs (cut inside (again), run with ball through the centre, maybe dictate tempo for the playmaker side of things), but as I recall there's no real way in FM 14 to model a wing/full back who tends to cover the centre of the pitch too.

Yeah currently I have set him as complete wingback. Also fidgeted around with some instructions the last few games and it looks like sit narrower helps in him playing more inside and leaving the wing more to the winger.

Also looks like CWB already has roam from position set. Guess I could instruct the GK to pass to him but in my experience from FM14 that seems a dangerous proposition.

As there's no way of increasing creative freedom manually I'm assuming that CWB prolly gives him the most creative freedom of all FB roles.

You could play him from left flank and he should naturally gravitate more towards the center with ball, assuming he's right footed. Teach him to avoid weaker foot to maximize the effect and to run with ball.

But it rather sounds like he'd make a great central midfielder for your system.

What more can you do with him as right back? You can try to set the rest of the team up in a way that maximizes the chances for him to get involved. Direct counter style may not be the best fit. I'm not exactly sure what I'd do though.

Hehe actually he'd make a great central midfielder for pretty much any team. However in the way my squad is currently set up (and imo the ME works) central midfielders need to be tall to be effective as there are so many aerial battles going on in the middle of the pitch many of which can lead to fast breaks and thus chances.

Having realized this I moved Romero who essentially is the best player at the club and prolly among the 10 best CMs in the world to right back.

However in the way my squad is currently set up (and imo the ME works) central midfielders need to be tall to be effective as there are so many aerial battles going on in the middle of the pitch many of which can lead to fast breaks and thus chances.

lol, I play with Illarramendi and Isco in CM in a 442 and they do fine but I get your point.

In my opinion, if you want him to have a bigger impact in your game you have to play him in central postions.

To me, having your right back be your playmaker seems like a daft idea, if you'll excuse my language. Use Romero centrally. He's a BBM in my Arsenal team at the moment, and he's a very fine central midfielder - and a bargain, if you're the first to get him over to Europe.

Get ppm - tries long range pass for him, tries killer ball often

and maybe "run with ball more often" if you really want him to be your main man to lead the attack,

but his dribbling and balance is quite sub par as i recalled ..so you might as well expected him to lose the ball a lot.

And then use wingback/Cwb roles(use attack if you want him to be the main man to lead the line, use support and dribble less if you want him to pass it when he has the ball) with sit narrower+cut inside+more direct pass+more risky pass+get further foward+cross less often+shoot less often,

then he would act like another support player near the final third.

Btw i think if you really want a playmaker fullback(or more precisely an attacking wingback), you should get Lucas Evangelista or Koke, although they are less creative wise but their stats are better for a supportive/attacking player on the final third.

would it be possible to give him the Dictates Tempo PPM, that could help?