Playmaker with poor decisions

[Cal585]

I know in lower quality teams that you often have to take players with weaknesses and make the best of them. Something that I've been thinking about a lot recently are those players who have quite good technical stats but are let down by a poor mental, often decisions, which would seem a fairly major issue. My question is, can these players be useful or are they too flawed?

Great example: Charlie Adam, a player listed at the start of the game and a viable option for Championship sides. He's got good passing, technique and vision, along with playmaking PPMs but poor decisions. What do you do with him? He can see good passes and pull them off well, but you don't really want the focal point of your team being a bad decision maker. I can only assume that would result in missing some good passing options and playing risky balls that aren't on.

Are decisions less important for a DLP (who might be primarily rotating the ball around than creating chances) v a AP (who needs to create)?

Is playing a different CM role viable (CM or BBM) even with playmaking PPMs or will it just cause the same problems as he tries to be a pseudo-playmaker with his attributes and PPMS?

I'm interested to know what others think as I'm going around in circles in my head. I'm not sure if the technical ability mitigates the negative impact of the poor decisions or if it's unfixable. I have tried watching the ME but I'm not very good at reading it and pinpointing a cause.

[themadsheep2001]

One of the key aspects of a playmaker is the ability to make the right decisions. It's important for both types of playmaker. He'll be capable of magic, but will make poor choices too.

Personally I would never have a deep lying playmaker with poor decisions, as he dictates the whole rythym of the team

[enigmatic]

I'm under the impression Decisions is a little overrated for central midfielders (even ran an experiment with sides whose players and tactical base were identical except for some of them having three Decisions 1 players in central midfield and some of them having three Decisions 20 players; the difference between them really wasn't as acute as you'd expect or as clear as some other attributes stand out. Maybe it would stand out a lot more if they were playing at a high tempo) 

With Adam I'd suspect he'll err on the side of being a little overambitious with some of his passes and shots, but that's not the worst thing in the world, particularly if you're playing in the Championship where your opponents aren't always fantastic either

[westy8chimp]

I'm not that fussed about decision making in attack... but I insist on it being a key attribute for my defenders.

It's all a bit confusing when he can have high passing and technique ... seems like even with a bad decision he would be picking out a good pass to someone. Suck it and see, give him a one year contract, or loan for a month first.

Enigmatic probably right that the decision making might have more to say about the rest of his game... when to make runs, where to make tackles, when to pass instead of shoot.

PPMs have quite a lot of power though and you tailor his PI to aid his decision making.

[PonjaConRulos]

For AP, I don't think decisions are so important. He's meant to take risks all the time in the final third, so he will make mistakes and it's normal. I think Flair and Vision are more important. 

For a DLP, I prefer decisions over flair. He plays in a deep zone, so his mistakes are probably more dangerous. 

[Cal585]

Some interesting comments! It seems decisions are a bit nebulous, but it's generally not worth it for a deep midfielder but could be worth the risk for an advanced. I did try Adam as a rotation option for a season with my Villa save in a BBM/CM(a) role and he was ok but didn't do a heap. Will probably discard him before the PL campaign. So I suppose my experience with him was that the lack of decision making balanced out his good stats to make an ok player.

[talhak]

Decisions and vision are key for all types of playmakers. Positioning is also key for deep lying playmakers in my opinion.

[Rashidi]

2 hours ago, talhak said:

Decisions and vision are key for all types of playmakers. Positioning is also key for deep lying playmakers in my opinion.

As far as positioning goes, that's really only important if you want them to play defensively. As far as playmakers go, the more important attribute is off the ball, because its that movement they need to make themselves available to their team mates for the pass. I have seen plenty of pkms belonging to people who have playmakers who either suffer from poor first touch, balance or off the ball, which is usually the cause of them either losing the ball or not making themselves available for the pass.  Positioning only comes into play if you are looking at them from a purely defensive point of view