Players out of position

[joshb729]

This is a lesson that took me 14 seasons playing this game to learn.

NEVER, EVER, play a guy out of his natural position. I don't care if he's "Accomplished" at that position and you get the light green dot on your position screen. Only use players at "Accomplished" positions if its an absolute must!

I was using a wingback in my 3-4-3 The Snake formation. (thread around here somewhere) There's hardly any natural wing backs in the game so I used a very talented DR (one of my best overall players) at WBR because he was accomplished. I had okay results but I felt I should have been doing much more with my team with the talent level we had. I tried moving him back to DR and increased his attacking mentality to still get that pushed-up wingback effect and my results improved ten-fold! My defense shored up and he's still getting into the attack the way I wanted him to.

If you try to cram natural DMC and AMCs in at MC, you're making a mistake. You're far better off either A) Sign natural MCs to fill these roles on your team or B) Change your formation to have AMC and/or DMC and adjust the sliders and player roles to get the desired effect you wanted out of him at MC.

[Cleon]

It doesn't make as much as an impact as you claim above. The reason why it affected you more could be due to other issues. Playing someone accomplished in a position will hardly make a noticeable difference to someone more natural.

You're issues could be more to do with the balance and by moving him back to DR you've could have (unknowingley) covered over some of the cracks you had defensivley. It could also mean he had better options in front of him when in attacking positions. And by moving him back to DR with attacking mentality gave him more room to play in and bring him closer to others so he can play off them.

[Benoit2]

Your logic is flawed and your analogy to dm/mc/amc holds no bearing.

Cleon has explained why.

[SFraser]

Playing players out of position only affects decision making and positioning, or so the wizards at the FM Tactics Podcast say, and even then I am not sure if Accomplished suffers from this drawback. Certainly not to any degree worth talking about.

[Tubey84]

I feel it does make somewhat of a difference, but it is nowhere near as extreme as what you're suggesting I'm afraid.

I do tend to make sure my midfielders are naturals in their positions, because ball retention and distribution seems to fail a bit if they're even "sort of" out of position (A natural DMC in the MC role is usually terrible, as are AMC's). But saying that, that may be my own mind playing tricks and thinking that - so I just think it happens out of habit now!

[Sussex Hammer]

I played Diamanti as a wide ALM and his dot was red and he got more crosses in than anyone and got a rating of 7.6 in that game. I was surprised to say the least!

[Cleon]

Playing players out of position only affects decision making and positioning, or so the wizards at the FM Tactics Podcast say, and even then I am not sure if Accomplished suffers from this drawback. Certainly not to any degree worth talking about.

From what I've seen and studied myself this is true. And someone who is accomplished won't play any different than someone natural. Not enough to notice visually anyways. You'd have to study the stats and it might just be he makes 2 passes less a game or somthing else so little.

[Altazar]

Yeah, after all if a player is natural on a broad position (left or right), he may be red on the other flank and still produce very good football, depending on how you set his passing/crossing instruction.

Now, if you have a player with strength of 18, tackling of 18, marking of over 15, team work of over 15, positioning of over 15, heading of over 15, reasonable decisions and good concentration, do you care that he is NOT a natural DC? You really think he'll be crap in DC compared to a natural DC having substantially lower values in the above attributes? Nah.