3 Man Midfield Balance And Player Traits

[FMunderachiever]

Hello Everyone

Im taking a short break from my long term save to manage Liverpool at the moment, and im settling on a 4-3-3 formation.

 

I feel my central midfield however is a little unusual, in that the balance ive gone for to start with, is to set all three central midfielders onto CM (s).

 

I feel like the nautral player traits mean all three of them will act differently, whilst i didnt want to use a specific role because there is behaviour in those roles i dont want.

 

1) Henderson for example would be a good candidate for a BBM or Carilero role. However, i want him to support Salah but not take his space, and i dont want him to "stay wider" as a Carilero. So i am just using his PPM's of come deep for the ball and arrive late in the box, so he naturally behaves like a Carilero but without the staying wide aspect.

 

2) Fabinho has a PPM to come deep for the ball, so i feel he can initiate attacks from the back without being a ball magnet in the way a playmaker would be.

 

3) Wijnaldum has a PPM to arrive late in the box and play one twos. I think this would be ideal to link up with Mane naturally in the AM/L position. I dont want some of the hard coded behaviouur of the mezzala, so he is just a regular CM(s) but with PI's to run wide with the ball and get further forward, so when Mane comes inside he will take up his position and interchange.

 

On top of this, i decided not to use anyone in the DM position because i really want all three to work hard to win the ball back and join in with the high press.

 

Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this midfield setup and using all three players in the same role, but letting their natural tendencies dictate their positions.

 

 

The overall tactic looks like this:

 

--------------------------------------F9 (s)

IW (s)-------------------------------------------------------------------RMD (a)

-------------------CM (s)----------CM (s)-----------CM (s)

WB (s)-------------------BPD (d)------BPD (d)----------------------WB (s)

--------------------------------------SK (a)

[XuluBak]

1 hour ago, FMunderachiever said:

The overall tactic looks like this:

 

--------------------------------------F9 (s)

IW (s)-------------------------------------------------------------------RMD (a)

-------------------CM (s)----------CM (s)-----------CM (s)

WB (s)-------------------BPD (d)------BPD (d)----------------------WB (s)

--------------------------------------SK (a)

That is way too conservative for Liverpool. Most teams are going to sit back against you, yet you only have one player (excluding Alisson) with an attack duty. 

I think you'll be disappointed with Salah as an RMD. I get the rationale, based on the description, but from what I've seen of the role in FM20, his one-footedness and "limited" aerial ability would be problematic. It seemed like at least 1/3rd of my RMDs goals came on back post headers. 

I get your reasoning with a flat 3 in CM, relying on PPM and PIs, but I think that's a grave disservice to the best attack FB tandem in the game. I don't think there's a role that really fits how Fabinho is used. He's a Brazilian Tactical Fouling black belt (or is it red?), sometimes he drops back into a back three (i.e., HB) in possession, but he'll also play further forward and control the ball (i.e., DLP), and press further forward than Gini/Henderson. It's like he's a DLP/HB/BWM. Those roles completely contradict one another in the FM ME. 

[Overmars]

I would play them as:

• ST = DLF(s)
• AMR = IF(a) or IW(a)
• AML = IF(a) or IW(a)
• MCR = BBM(s)
• MCL = BBM(s) -- can go more aggressive here if needed
• DM = HB(d) or DM(d)
• DR = WB(a)
• DCR = CD(d)
• DCL = BPD(d)
• DL = WB(s) -- can go attack duty here if needed

The team doesn't have a traditional playmaking midfielder. No one has the vision to really do it an elite level. Everything is built around directness and speed of transitions from the back to the front. The midfielders should be industrious and ready to run from box to box. I think BBM(s) is ideal for this, though I would still keep a DM so the wingbacks and other midfielders can be very aggressive. Two attack duties on the right flank is going to lead to some problems without a HB(d) helping out.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Overmars

[FMunderachiever]

5 hours ago, XuluBak said:

That is way too conservative for Liverpool. Most teams are going to sit back against you, yet you only have one player (excluding Alisson) with an attack duty. 

I think you'll be disappointed with Salah as an RMD. I get the rationale, based on the description, but from what I've seen of the role in FM20, his one-footedness and "limited" aerial ability would be problematic. It seemed like at least 1/3rd of my RMDs goals came on back post headers. 

I get your reasoning with a flat 3 in CM, relying on PPM and PIs, but I think that's a grave disservice to the best attack FB tandem in the game. I don't think there's a role that really fits how Fabinho is used. He's a Brazilian Tactical Fouling black belt (or is it red?), sometimes he drops back into a back three (i.e., HB) in possession, but he'll also play further forward and control the ball (i.e., DLP), and press further forward than Gini/Henderson. It's like he's a DLP/HB/BWM. Those roles completely contradict one another in the FM ME. 

Hi thanks for the input.

The reason there are a lot of support duties is again due to PPMs.

On Alexander-Arnold and Robertson both have PPMs to get forward whenever possible and TAA also "runs with ball down the right" so he keeps natural width.

So theoretically they should get forward a lot with these tendencies, plus no one as a DM im thinking i dont want to be countered if we lose possession in the half spaces vacated by marauding wing backs.

Ive got mane as an IW/S just because for me, he seems to have a more all round contribution than Salah. On a support duty i potentially see him creating AND scoring goals. He has PPMs to cut inside from left wing and get into the box.

Would you perhaps play Salah as an Inside Forward? Raumdeuter is a role ive barely if at all used

 

Thanks

[zyfon5]

11 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

Hello Everyone

Im taking a short break from my long term save to manage Liverpool at the moment, and im settling on a 4-3-3 formation.

 

I feel my central midfield however is a little unusual, in that the balance ive gone for to start with, is to set all three central midfielders onto CM (s).

 

I feel like the nautral player traits mean all three of them will act differently, whilst i didnt want to use a specific role because there is behaviour in those roles i dont want.

 

1) Henderson for example would be a good candidate for a BBM or Carilero role. However, i want him to support Salah but not take his space, and i dont want him to "stay wider" as a Carilero. So i am just using his PPM's of come deep for the ball and arrive late in the box, so he naturally behaves like a Carilero but without the staying wide aspect.

 

2) Fabinho has a PPM to come deep for the ball, so i feel he can initiate attacks from the back without being a ball magnet in the way a playmaker would be.

 

3) Wijnaldum has a PPM to arrive late in the box and play one twos. I think this would be ideal to link up with Mane naturally in the AM/L position. I dont want some of the hard coded behaviouur of the mezzala, so he is just a regular CM(s) but with PI's to run wide with the ball and get further forward, so when Mane comes inside he will take up his position and interchange.

 

On top of this, i decided not to use anyone in the DM position because i really want all three to work hard to win the ball back and join in with the high press.

 

Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this midfield setup and using all three players in the same role, but letting their natural tendencies dictate their positions.

 

 

The overall tactic looks like this:

 

--------------------------------------F9 (s)

IW (s)-------------------------------------------------------------------RMD (a)

-------------------CM (s)----------CM (s)-----------CM (s)

WB (s)-------------------BPD (d)------BPD (d)----------------------WB (s)

--------------------------------------SK (a)

Seems like an interesting experiment to me. In my FM18 long save, players that play the same role often play very differently at least from what i can observe due to their different attributes and traits so there is definitely some validity in your argument.

[Hilly1979]

Would love to see the results you get with this, purely letting player traits dictate how he plays and no other instruction be it hard coded ones or manually added is something I’ve always thought a lot about but guess I’ve never been brave enough to try it and also as it seems to go against the “rules” that many of the experienced players seem to have here, but to me this would be a more realistic way of playing, having 11 players rather than 11 near robots.

[XuluBak]

6 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

Would you perhaps play Salah as an Inside Forward? Raumdeuter is a role ive barely if at all used

Probably. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed experimenting with the RMD, but from what I saw over three seasons (coincidentally, with Liverpool, in the 2030s), I think you'd be disappointed with Salah's productivity there. 

I didn't mean to sound discouraging to the idea. I'm curious how it would work because, the pre-defined roles are too limiting. I think that's especially true for the way Liverpool actually uses their midfield. I can't help thinking having 7 players on support will become maddeningly frustrating though.

I think people are generally too conservative with their FB/WBs. I'm using a 4312 with Milan, with marauding WBs (did the same thing previously with a one-season Atalanta save) and love it. Yeah, we get caught out sometimes, but they more than make up for it going forward. My CBs have cover from a DLP-D in the center of it all. I also don't have VVD though. 

 

[FMunderachiever]

26 minutes ago, XuluBak said:

Probably. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed experimenting with the RMD, but from what I saw over three seasons (coincidentally, with Liverpool, in the 2030s), I think you'd be disappointed with Salah's productivity there. 

I didn't mean to sound discouraging to the idea. I'm curious how it would work because, the pre-defined roles are too limiting. I think that's especially true for the way Liverpool actually uses their midfield. I can't help thinking having 7 players on support will become maddeningly frustrating though.

I think people are generally too conservative with their FB/WBs. I'm using a 4312 with Milan, with marauding WBs (did the same thing previously with a one-season Atalanta save) and love it. Yeah, we get caught out sometimes, but they more than make up for it going forward. My CBs have cover from a DLP-D in the center of it all. I also don't have VVD though. 

 

Something ive said on other threads and i really do hope its looked at for future versions of the game, but i wish more emphasis would be placed onto PPM's within the attributes screen when you click on a player.

It (to me) feels like they are hidden away in the middle right of the screen, almost unnoticed in a highly complicated page of stats, attributes, sub menu's etc. I think they should be given more prominence.

In terms of picking roles, id like a little more clarity on how PPMs and roles fit together.

For example, if you have a wide attacking player in the AMR or AML position. If you set him to support but he has a "get into opposition" area PPM, i could interpret this a nmber of ways and watching the matches im still not absolutely sure

 

1) will his PPM just override everything, and he will run into the area as often as he can?

2) Will his PPM only be "released" if i set him to attack and give him the freedom to run into the box, or that if i dont pass it into space, he will have nothing to run into the box to latch onto?

3) Is support with "get into opposition area" a kind of half way between a support duty with no PPM, and an attack duty?

 

Its always been explained in various ways that "attack" duty players tend to attack space, whereas support duty players want the ball into feet more and want more touches/want to be more involved in the buildup.

Then increasing team overall mentality then raises a support duty player into a "positive" or "attacking" mentality.

 

It gets really confusing at times.

Really appreciate all the inputs