FM10: Tim Cahill

Player Attributes:

Player Position:

I have been a long time admirer of his mental stats since FM08 and 09, but never really had a chance to try him. So in the FM10 demo, I finally snapped him up while playing as free spending Spurs, offloading Keane and Defoe to make room for him. However, it is so frustrating to find the best position and settings for him. I didn't realize he was so slow (started off with 10 accel), and although he has decent passing, his low Creativity means that playing him in his best position AMC doesn't seem to be the best option. I'm looking for a way to take advantage of his excellent jumping and heading strengths. He does make runs into the box, and scored a couple of headers in preseason against inferior opposition.

So, any Evertonians here, or anyone who's also signed him, what's the best way to unleash his potential?

play him as a amc and as a Trequartista. he was awesome for my table topping everton team in the demo. he scored about 13 goals i think in half the season. him and vaughan seemed to play well together

trequartista or inside forward have both worked wonders for me with him.. world class player and one of my favourites in game and irl

Not sure if he is like it in the game, but irl he has a knack of just popping up at the right time.

He has saved Everton and the mighty Australia so many times by just being at the right place at the right time. Would that be his positioning?

Like the others have said, Trequartista works perfectly for him.

If you want to take advantage of his strengths (heading and jumping), maybe play wide and look to cross the ball in a lot. Cahill is very good at timing his runs.

Not the tallest of guys But still, he will win every header thrown at him! Still amazes me how high he gets to win some of his headers for Everton!

Has got a real nice set of attributes this year, has anyone tried to buy him away from Everton? How much does he cost? I would want someone like that for Man City!

As you can see from the screenshot he cost me 13.5m. I think the range is 13-14m, with a 50% sell on clause, i tried 12m with Man United and was rejected.

Cahill is wasted anywhere other than playing off the forward, looking to pounce on loose balls, or arriving in the box for crosses from the wide men. He's pretty useless as a creative outlet, as evidenced by low creativity and dribbling. Basically he needs to be in and around the penalty area.

You need to use him properly on your set-pieces to take advantage of his strengths, otherwise he's a wasted asset

The way i played him in FM09, was in central midfield but playing attacking with high creative freedom, and for some reason he couldn't stop scoring. Scored about 16 goals from midfield playing this way. Playing just behind the striker for me with the same instructions wasn't good.

Maybe someone should try using him as a poacher? Seems to have the right attributes for it and did a good job playing that role last season for the Toffees when they had about 27 injured players

I dunno about a poacher but Cahill plays amazingly well as a Trequartista. I tried him as an Advanced Forward (and Fellaini as AMC like last year ) and he scored a hat-trick. As a poacher, he might get a bit cut off from the rest of the team.

CM in the box-to-box role. He will play the simple pass to Bil or Pien and then get forwad.

I played him at CM as a box-to-box midfielder in a 4-4-1-1 with Feilaini infront of him at amc. i felt like you had to take advantage of his workrate. I also found that I had to limit his CF and make passing short or he just kept giving the ball away. fwiw he scored 12 in first season in the prem for everton for me (but also got sent off 3 times!!!). Love him IRL too so I guess you have to take the good with the bad