How to Play FM13: A Twelve Step Guide

[llama3]

I suppose I should have said I don't want to change the other positions. They are CD, FB, IF, DLF AND WINGER and they suit what I am trying to achieve with this formation so would it be ok to play a DLP, APM AND BWM in a midfield 3 together?

Depends on personnel and other team instructions but it can work. A DLP to hold position, BWM to win the ball and support attacks, and AP to create.

[Mark.]

I suppose I should have said I don't want to change the other positions. They are CD, FB, IF, DLF AND WINGER and they suit what I am trying to achieve with this formation so would it be ok to play a DLP, APM AND BWM in a midfield 3 together?

I have used this midfield triangle to nice effect in my first season with Arsenal. I used it like this:

BWMd (Fellaini) APa (Wilshere)

---------DLPd (Arteta)

I try to avoid touching sliders, but without being able to check, I think I changed the BWMd to have run from deep often or mixed, but this was just as I saw Fellaini as a good target for crosses if he was arriving late in the box. Also I would advise the AP to be on support dependent on your other roles.

But as llama3 said, it depends on personnel. I couldn't really find anyone else in the team that did as well as Fellaini in that role, and have been working hard on training Ramsey to fill in where Arteta is.

[nie jem frytek]

I have small question which isn't worth new thread. Would tactic with two deep-lying playmakers, one defensive midfielder with defend and one central midfielder with support make any sense?

Well, actually I'm creating a tactic which would look like this:

Goalkeeper - Defend

Libero - Support

BPD - Defend

Central Defender - Stopper

Wing Back - Attack

DLP - Defend

Wing Back - Attack

DLP - Support

Attacking Midfielder - Attack

DLF - Support

Complete Forward - Support

-------DLF----CF-----

-----------AM---------

--------------DLP------

WB---DLP---------WB

------BPD-----CD-----

-------------L----------

------------G----------

[jujigatame]

I'm not sure about this idea that more specialists should mean a more rigid philosophy. In the case of a Barca I think you have a lot of guys with well-defined "specialized" roles but at the same time I'd think the philosophy would be fluid. Most players are expected to take part in all phases of play. Pique supports the attack just as advanced players like Fabregas are expected to press and close down when they're not in possession.

[11v11]

You have three specialist roles in midfield, which is quite a lot for a fluid philosophy. Other than that, nothing seems problematic.

thank you for this input, team has improved. I guess fluidity equates to freedom so having roles neglects freedom. understood. I play a smiliar formation as you as well, 4-2-4 but with two DM and FB's that are only limited to support however, not much success yet. currently enjoying loading the game without saving

[Fabian Jonsson]

I'm not sure about this idea that more specialists should mean a more rigid philosophy. In the case of a Barca I think you have a lot of guys with well-defined "specialized" roles but at the same time I'd think the philosophy would be fluid. Most players are expected to take part in all phases of play. Pique supports the attack just as advanced players like Fabregas are expected to press and close down when they're not in possession.

You say that the Barca players "have specialized roles" and "are expected to take part in all phases of play". That is basically a contradiction.

Thus, specialized roles and a fluid philosophy are counter productive in most cases.

Edit: besides, the Barca players will most likely have lots of characteristic PPMs that make them play the way you expect them to play even with very generic roles.

[jujigatame]

You say that the Barca players "have specialized roles" and "are expected to take part in all phases of play". That is basically a contradiction.

Thus, specialized roles and a fluid philosophy are counter productive in most cases.

Edit: besides, the Barca players will most likely have lots of characteristic PPMs that make them play the way you expect them to play even with very generic roles.

Well of course it could be a contradiction, depending on how we define "specialized roles" which could mean different things to different people. I mean, for a "total football" based club like Barca I'd say that almost every player on the pitch is expected to take part in both attack and defense. So if you were attempting to model Barca's style using the TC, I think you'd probably say "very fluid" would be most accurate, yet at the same time I don't think you'd be wrong to set players like Iniesta and Xavi to playmaker roles, which are "specialized" as defined above.

I've always thought that your fluid/rigid setting should have a lot more to do with the quality of your players. The higher their mental attributes are, the more they can be trusted to make the right decisions when switching from attack to defense, and the greater their physical and technical attributes, the more equipped they'll be to effectively make the transitions. I always thought rigid tactics were for clubs where your players are relatively poor and need to be told "stay in your place and just do the 1 thing you're decent at" in order to have them keep their shape and not make mistakes.

[Fabian Jonsson]

Well of course it could be a contradiction, depending on how we define "specialized roles" which could mean different things to different people. I mean, for a "total football" based club like Barca I'd say that almost every player on the pitch is expected to take part in both attack and defense. So if you were attempting to model Barca's style using the TC, I think you'd probably say "very fluid" would be most accurate, yet at the same time I don't think you'd be wrong to set players like Iniesta and Xavi to playmaker roles, which are "specialized" as defined above.

I've always thought that your fluid/rigid setting should have a lot more to do with the quality of your players. The higher their mental attributes are, the more they can be trusted to make the right decisions when switching from attack to defense, and the greater their physical and technical attributes, the more equipped they'll be to effectively make the transitions. I always thought rigid tactics were for clubs where your players are relatively poor and need to be told "stay in your place and just do the 1 thing you're decent at" in order to have them keep their shape and not make mistakes.

I think this is primarily a case of you interpreting the instructions based on their names (which is of course very logical and understandable). What wwfan suggests is instead based on what the instructions actually do. The descriptions are pretty much useless, and from what I've heard the same can be said for the ones in the FM 14 beta. That's a problem, since they've removed the sliders from our view, giving us even less information about what the different instructions actually do...

[jujigatame]

I dunno, all fluidity does is increase creative freedom across the board and push mentalities closer to the middle so attackers defend more and defenders attack more. I still have a hard time seeing how this has any relationship to how many poachers or playmakers or target men you have in your squad.

[Cleon]

I dunno, all fluidity does is increase creative freedom across the board and push mentalities closer to the middle so attackers defend more and defenders attack more. I still have a hard time seeing how this has any relationship to how many poachers or playmakers or target men you have in your squad.

the more creative freedom throughout the team the less the roles are prominent. So for example if you use a DLP and every bit of play is going through him when you change to more fluid everyone around him also becomes more creative and tries to express themselves more, meaning it takes focus away from the DLP and he isn't as effective as he was. When you increase CF across the whole team then everyone tends to play slightly different and do different things. Where as with a more rigid set up only those with the high CF should be the more creative players in the side, hence why rigid = more specialised and fluid = more generalised.

So if you want to set up a specific way and have Busquest play out from the back, Iniesta and Xavi to spread the ball about and Messi to be a creative outlet in the latter parts of the field then it makes more sense to allow these players to do that and is the reason why a rigid set up would be better to allow these players to express themselves more.

[jujigatame]

It still doesn't make that much sense to me. The "specialized" roles that have been listed have vastly different amounts of creative freedom. A playmaker will have a lot. A poacher will have almost none. So I'm not really seeing the value in grouping them together in such a general way.

On a team like Barca, Xavi and Iniesta may be the chief playmakers, but in some sense all the players are playmakers. Busquets and Pique will get into the attack and are expected to make creative, incisive passes when possible. That's why it makes little sense to me to set the philosophy to "rigid". When you have a versatile and creative squad, it makes sense to give them all a boost in creative freedom, across the board.

[Cleon]

It still doesn't make that much sense to me. The "specialized" roles that have been listed have vastly different amounts of creative freedom. A playmaker will have a lot. A poacher will have almost none. So I'm not really seeing the value in grouping them together in such a general way.

On a team like Barca, Xavi and Iniesta may be the chief playmakers, but in some sense all the players are playmakers. Busquets and Pique will get into the attack and are expected to make creative, incisive passes when possible. That's why it makes little sense to me to set the philosophy to "rigid". When you have a versatile and creative squad, it makes sense to give them all a boost in creative freedom, across the board.

It's also about what the specialised roles actually offer a team. It's not just CF but its what the rest of his settings allow him to do and play the role. Specialist roles explain what the player does, i.e (playmaking, anchoring, poaching). Generic roles focus only on the players’ position. You are thinking about this as attack vs defend. Players in a rigid shape still attack, do those game changing passes etc. The reason why you'd set rigid philosophy is the players are more of a focus when they are the ones doing the stuff you want, hence why they are specialised. If everyone in the side is doing this stuff then the role is not as important because it won't be the same. If everyone is doing this stuff then you have no chief playmakers because everyone is more generalised in their play.

If you have a highly creative squad and want to give everyone a creative freedom boost then you no longer require a specialised role in the set up because you are expecting everyone to be involved in all aspects.

[jujigatame]

If you have a highly creative squad and want to give everyone a creative freedom boost then you no longer require a specialised role in the set up because you are expecting everyone to be involved in all aspects.

Just because you want to give everyone a boost to CF doesn't mean you want everyone to have equal CF.

Of course a rigid formation will still attack. After all you can still front-load your formation, set your strategy to "attacking", use attack duties, etc. However, if you want to get your defenders and DMs to get into the attack a little more (and vice versa for strikers and AMs) fluidity is the way to do it, especially now that the sliders are gone.

I mean, as far as I can tell, the primary function of rigidity is to tie your squad's individual mentalities more directly to their position. So if I have 3 BPDs at the back, I don't see why I'd want more rigidity than if I had 3 CDs. If anything I'd want the opposite to be true. I'd want more fluidity so my BPDs will be encouraged to try more attack-minded moves.