Are wingers dead?

[Konfuchie]

I'm really sorry I double posted this by mistake. I can't find delete button, so if some of the moderators would delete it, I don't mind of course.

 

stopped following football almost 10 years ago. But I always came back to the game of FM as it was kind of strategic challenge for me. I have to admit this World Cup reinvigorated my interest in football.

Being old school I was happy when inside forwards were introduced in the game but soon I became desperate as later versions of the game seemed to favour IF and IW much much more in the match engine than traditional wingers.

I agree this correlates with real world football (especially top teams) but just for a sake of an old stubborn guy is there a way to make wingers in attacking midfield work? I especially mean 1 striker formations like 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 DM wide.

I watched some Rashidi video from FM21 where he suggests playing very narrow in possession, but it was still much worse than playing them on opposite sides with opposite foot even they were just accomplished there, and had more of a winger attributes (if we can agree that they are somewhat different than IF favoured attributes).

Edited January 8, 2023 by Konfuchie

[TigmarPT]

I feel like wingers work when you have someone else attacking the space a IF would attack. So a W(S) and a CM(A) work really well for me in a 433.

Also you need to think about your LB/RB. It's going to depend on your system, if you want to stay back or play with quick transitions I think FB/WB work well. However if you intend to hold the ball or play against low blocks a lot I think it's a bit too unidimensional to have two players on the wing that just want to stay on the wing. This can probably be fixed by doing something like: play narrow + W stay narrow + WB stay wide (to force an overlap)

In previous FMs I hated the W(A) because all they did was: run with the ball, cross, cross is blocked, get a corner, repeat. For this reason I haven't used a W(A) yet, but wingers feel better this year so maybe a W(A) is viable.

On my 433 I play on the right side with a W(S), CM(A) and IWB(S). Works well, really pressures the opponent's half space and frees the winger (that is always the widest player on that flank) for 1v1s. Can be a bit weak against counters if they have a wide player up front, far away from my IWB