Player movement (and how to influence it with the TC)

[Marsupian]

I recently started playing FM again and as such started creating my own set of tactics again. My style of giving instructions is more focused on what players do when they don't have the ball than what they do with the ball (I believe a player should always do what he feels he can do best and use the mentality slider to move him into more risky plays or more conservative play). Because of this style I'm more focused on my player movement (primarily off the ball but on the ball as well). I haven't done a great deal of experimentation and I find the wording of the TC quite vague most of the time so I struggle with translating how I want my players to move into TC instructions.

Basically my question is how do the TC movement instructions translate into on and off the ball movement in the match engine?

My current understanding is as follows:

Mentality: Higher mentality makes players take up more advanced positions off the ball when team is in possession and track back less far when not in possession. On the ball the player will take more risks and is more focused on getting himself or a teammate in a scoring position and less focused on keeping possession.

Creative freedom: A higher creative freedom gives the player more freedom to ignore instructions. As such his movement will become more varied as he does as he pleases (or less if he is not a player who likes to get out of position due to lack of flair or maybe off the ball skills).

Closing down: A higher closing down will see players get dragged out of position as they close down opponents higher up the pitch or track back further when closing down opponents who have advanced passed them (like an AML closing down a RB). I don't know of any influence when my own team is in possession apart from players still out of position in the transfer fase of play.

Run from deep: This is a big one and also one of the trickier ones to get right in my opinion. A high run from deep will make a player run forward towards defense when his own team has possession. A low run from deep will keep players in formation (and possibly drop deep?). The problem is that I have had an advanced forward with high mentality and forward runs often who almost never went up to the defensive line and always stayed a few yards back from defense in space. This made it impossible to get him on the end of through balls and crosses. Was this a player issue or do you have to use different settings to get players on the shoulder of the defenders?

Wide Play: Another big one. The problem I have with wide play is that it seems to effect the player both on the ball and off the ball. Also I find it hard to predict how they move exactly with the different instructions. Players with cut inside will walk horizontally over the pitch on the ball and off the ball stay wide forever not getting in a dangerous position at all (with fw runs set to often). I found that players on move into channels will drift wide a lot off the ball but I don't know if they try to do the same on the ball. Players with hug the touchline do so on the ball but of the ball they seem to get into more central positions. Players on normal will in my experience have very little horizontal movement apart from wide players who will move more central when they get into the final third. All these settings seem to only influence players when their own team has possession.

Swap position: No effect on movement apart from the moment the players switch (not 100% but fairly certain).

Marking: Man marking will have players follow their marker around longer and further away from their own position. Zonal will keep them in formation.

Tight marking: When opponent is in possession the player will stay closer to his opponent. Don't know if it influences players when own team is in possession.

Roam from position: I don't fully get how this works. I am playing a style with a lot of creative freedom so this could make it more difficult to observe the effect. I think this makes players move horizontally when their team has possession, either making them drift wide or getting more central. I don't know if it effects players dropping deeper or getting more forward but I haven't noticed it happening so I presume it doesn't. I also wonder how far it goes into getting players to move into space. It could be that it makes players look for any open spaces left by other players (or the formation itself). Also don't know if it effects on the ball movement but from description it doesn't look like it.

I left out passing, tackling, and hold up ball as I think it's very very unlikely they effect player movement.

So are my assumptions right? I feel I have all the tactical principals to make a good tactic but I'm just not 100% comfortable with translating my ideas into the TC so any help is GREATLY appreciated!

[isuckatfm]

Creative Freedom

Basically modifies the flair attribute. Flair is an 'on the ball' attribute so CF has zip to do with movement.

Roam From Position

Does what it says on the tin. Not just horizontal. For example an MC in a 442 set to RFD rare will make a 'run from deep' forward movement when given roaming instructions. Not 100% but more often than not it seems to be about 'positions' and 'space'. So with the MC example he'll be more likely to make that forward run if the striker in front of him has gone roaming out tp a wide position. Also worth noting when I was messing with that I did not see the opposite side MC move laterally like this to show when (say) a full back is in possession.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Not saying it won't happen or that another setting (set as playmaker?) or another player won't do it. I just didn't see it.

Wide Play

Cut Inside + Roaming => wide player will come in more narrow 'off the ball' (see 11.3 patch changelist)

Hug Touchline = 'off the ball' makes them play wider than nominal width setting. Also has an influence on dribbling path but is not an overarching determining factor

Move Into Channels => 'off the ball'; makes them go wide seeking out space

Very little if any difference between 'hug' and 'channels'. Think it's there to separate central from wide players so that the wording makes 'football sense' i.e. you wouldn't choose hug the touchline for a central midfielder.

===========

None of that is gospel so experiment for yourself.

For your striker with max mentality and RFD Often who wouldn't stay high, did he have any PPMs? PPMs modify tactical settings. It's known that 'tries long shots' increases the long shot slider by +1 so it's a good bet that striker PPMs like 'comes deep to get ball' modify RFD settings (in this case probably a -1 effect)

[Marsupian]

Thanks a bunch. Really appreciate the work you put in. Good to know that roaming also influences forward movement. The wide play makes sense as well. One thing I still wonder is whether setting run from deep to rarely will make players drop deeper from there position.

As for the striker he doesn't have any ppm's. I suspect he was being lazy or had a few lapses in his concentration.

[mojojojo101]

Wide Play

Cut Inside + Roaming => wide player will come in more narrow 'off the ball' (see 11.3 patch changelist)

Hug Touchline = 'off the ball' makes them play wider than nominal width setting. Also has an influence on dribbling path but is not an overarching determining factor

Move Into Channels => 'off the ball'; makes them go wide seeking out space

Very little if any difference between 'hug' and 'channels'. Think it's there to separate central from wide players so that the wording makes 'football sense' i.e. you wouldn't choose hug the touchline for a central midfielder.

My Personal understanding of the difference between 'hugs touchline' and 'moves into channels' is quite slight. As far as I know if you give a player 'Hugs Touchline' they tend to stay wide off the ball and when they get the ball very venture outside of thier channel. 'Moves into Channels' is far as I know makes central players have a prefernce to move into wide positions compared to central positions (Obviously it's highly dependant on where the ball is and how much space is in either area)

One thing I still wonder is whether setting run from deep to rarely will make players drop deeper from there position.

As far as goes my genral understanding is that in order to make a 'run from deep' then first they have to be in a deeper position. Therefore If you want your strikers to stand well up against the defenders then RFD should be set to rarely.

Bare in mind though I have done no testing to prove or disprove my theories, they are basically just from me noticing things during matches and imposing common sense where it may not exist.

[furiousuk]

The ME in FM11 seems to be far more player dependant than previous FMs i.e. the ME seems to favour player decisions over tactical ones, particularly given a balanced or fluid mentality (as you would expect). I'm not the only one to notice this, both WWFan and SFraser have also written that the players are slightly more important than the tactics and they know more about the intricacies of the ME and the TC than I do. I've noticed this effect all over the pitch, I'll give an example:

I use the TC to create a fairly generic tactical set-up which dictates the formation and general assumptions about my style of play (i.e. shorter passing, balanced or fluid mentality etc). I sometimes play around with the wide play settings but normally set my wide players as either wingers or inside forwards (depending on formation) but set their wide play to normal - for me this allows the player to make decisions. If I play 2 out-an-out wingers then they will choose to stay wide and whip crosses in which plays to their strengths. If I play 2 playmakers with good long shots on the wings then they will naturally play narrower and cut inside more to play to their strengths. It's most fun when I play one winger and one creative player (or striker type) as they tend to shift around more in order to find space and it is often the creative winger on the end of crosses from the winger type. All of these different play styles are ONLY dependant on who is playing, aside from touchline shouts to change strategy (i.e. standard to control) there are no other tweaks to the general tactic.

Note that this is playing with the balanced or fluid (or very fluid) mentalities and generally the wide players will have roam from position set (this is set by the TC). I try to get players with half-decent mental stats so creativity and decisions (as well as work rate and teamwork) are important for getting players to express themselves. Also, PPM's seem to make a difference although I can't confirm this as my players who like to hug the touchline have the relevant stats to do this so I'm not sure if the decision is made from PPM's or from their stats (I would suspect its the stats). I would imagine that with a rigid philosophy with no roam from position that you wouldn't see this player dependant positional changes as much.

Oh, forgot to mention, footedness seems to be a key indicator as to what they will do. A left-footed winger on the right flank will play slightly narrower and tend to cut in more even though he's more of a scampering and crossing kind of guy.