[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Is there any way to force your under23/under18 manager to play a player in a specific position?

[Project Invincible - Recreating the Arsenal Invincibles]

I know how PPM's work thanks.

I'm still building the squad and looking for ideal players. You seem to have ignored or completely missed this though and have gave feedback as if the players I used are my ideal players or finished products.

It was not my intent to teach you how to play FM, nor patronize you in some way... And I know it's a work in progress... Sorry if it came up this way... It's in my nature, cause I'm a sick Arsenal fan, whose best friends are Spurs and United fans, and I see football (and its virtual twin) through a different type of goon For people like me the Invincibles squad is like the Holy Grail. Something so pure and godly that no one should ever mess with. Hence, my stubborn and probably unnecessary pedantry with mental attributes...

[Project Invincible - Recreating the Arsenal Invincibles]

Man, I just love reading your articles... Might I suggest you check how Iver Fossum, and Daniel Amartey have turned out in your save game - in mine they look almost like a perfect Vieira/Gilberto replica:

Fossum already comes with Vieira-sque PPMs. Unfortunately, Amartey's PPMs should be removed if he is to be anything resembling Gilberto. True, the aggression attributes should be the other way around, as I believe Vieira was far more aggressive player than Gilberto, but hey it can't be perfect With this PPM setup though, Amartey could also fill in an early-Arsenal-days Vieira role, when he played deeper and was shooting more frequently.

And a quick question for you. Are you considering player personalities and mental attributes, when choosing players for the long term, cause I believe that was also a big part of what the Invincibles squad was. I would not consider a player with less than 15 determination, unless I have a senior squad member that can change this through mentoring. With this in mind, a couple of inputs on your current long-term acquisitions:

Rajkovic's strenght is ok, but, mental traits look very far from Lehman, who I believe was a Perfectionist(good Ambition, Determination, Professionalism, low temperament), his tendency to punch also seems a bit high, compared to a keeper, who made a football seem like a handball, and was making some of the best one-handed saves ever seen in the game. Lehman was a dying breed of a goalkeeper, like Kahn, Schmeichel, Van der Saar even Friedel in his best days. There are not many like that nowadays. A physically strong keeper that cannot be bullied in the box, and that relies on his positioning instead of making showtime dives to keep the ball out.

Romero may be or train technically to become your Bergkamp, but he lacks the aggression and bravery Bergkamp had. This might seem unimportant if we concentrate on the attacking part of the Invincibles, but as far as I recall Bergkamp's role on the pitch was not just a pure number 10, especially when the team met opponents of equal stature like United, Chelsea, Liverpool. Bergkamp was then more of a defensive forward type, always looking to harass defenders and deep-lying midfielders in an attempt to disrupt the opponents' build-up play, and launch a counter attack. I doubt Romero will ever have that in your game.

Iheanacho is also far away from Henry, but well I don't know if there are any Model Citizens in the game at all. At least I haven't seen one. In terms of technical - obviously he will not be your main set-piece taker, and looking at his teamwork and mental attributes he's not suited for the Henry role, by a mile. People often get carried away by Henry's goals, forgetting that he still holds the Arsenal record for most assists in a season(though probably Ozil will surpass that this term), and he provided to his teammates as often as he scored. If you could switch the physical attributes of Romero and Iheanacho, I'd say play Ihe as Bergkamp, and Rom as Henry - and it would be the almost perfect replica. Now, you've got it a bit mixed up, but there's not much you can do.

On Wingers - apart from the rather mediocre personality traits, I think both Pereira and Thauvin lack the finishing, teamwork and workrate of Pires and Ljungberg. The Swede was probably the more industrious of the two with better defensive attributes and off the ball movement, while Pires was more of an on the ball runner and was better technically, with superior passing, vision and decisions(which by the way you should also take into account when training PPMs to your youngsters. I'd say no player in the invincibles squad had less than 13 on Decisions).

Those are my two cents... Eagerly waiting on the next update...