The maxed out player experiment, number 10 and ME

[Icy]

Quick background:

I took over as Crewe manager, developed a 4-3-1-2 tactic, positive mentality, short passing, narrow and central play, both wingbacks on support, midfield trio is DLP and two mezzalas on support, AMC as AP support (all roles tried tried), forwards are AF and DLF attack or support (similar to @Rashidi one for what I discovered later in his youtube channel).

First two years promoted to League 1 and then to Championship where I'm a middle table team for two seasons. I'm having a great time, developing young players from the academy or buying only under 23 players to develop them and then having to sell some due to bad economic situation, similar to Crewe in real life and historical philosophy.

The tactic works well, strikers score even on 1 on 1, midfielders do as well, my two wingbacks are great performers, etc. My goals come both from controlled game, or from counters (deep pass usually from my wingers or mezzalas to the strikers that get on an 1 on 1 and score).

My only issue is the AM or number 10, that is a position I love despite being used less and less at the top level. I have tried different players and roles (AM on support, attack, Avanced playmaker on supprot, attack, trequartista, etc. And the result is always the same, total inconsistency from any player slotted there and low ratings in general. If they score once in a while, usually from a rebound, they get the 8, else they usually get a 6.6 or lower as they are barely involved in the game, other than a few passes from time to time to the wings and some defensive help.

I thought that maybe my problem was that my AMs were not good enough for the level I was in, and that one day I could develop or manage to sign a great one to push my game to the top.

Then I decided to do an experiment, to edit my AM and set all the positive attributes to 20, plus consistence, big games etc, and played the same game three times, vs another middle of the table team.

The results were good,  I won the three times, scores were 1-0, 3-1 and 3-2, but in all three, my edited AM was still irrelevant and got a 6.3 rating. the main difference I saw is that with the 20 acceleration, speed, agility and dribbling, he tried to dribble way more and ran with a ball a few counters, his speed and agility were noticeable in the game, his passing was not dangerous at all, not a single through pass to the strikers. It was for me a nasty surprise as it means that for some reason, the ME will play the same no matter who i put in that position.

I decided to try another thing, I edited one of my strikers to all 20s setting the AM back to what he was, and in the first game the edited striker was noticeably better, receiving the ball a lot, being a constant danger, having multiple chances and scoring 2 goals for an 8.2 rating (after missing a penalty).

So... does it mean that the current ME won't use a number 10 as I think it should?

Of course I know that 3 games is nothing statistically talking, and that this test should be run hundreds of times and still wouldn't be relevant but... I really hoped that a top player at the 10 position in a 4-3-1-2 would make a difference and I'm disappointed that it doesn't seem so, on the other hand the maxed out striker was noticeably better.

What do you guys think? worth a long test recording all the data, saving pkm etc? our would it be a waste of my time?

Edited January 6, 2020 by Icy

[ChitownCch]

To get a 6.3 rating means he's either botching plays (unlikely in 3 consecutive games), or probably not involved in many plays as you intended (more likely). Do you have the analysis portion of the matches saved? Check the heat map and the passing. Odds are your instructions send the balls to the wingbacks, who do back/forth passes with mezzalas up the field, while the AM is just kinda sitting there. With shorter passing enabled, your wingers are probably opting to do shorter/safer passes to the mezzs, who in turn take shots or pass it forward to the strikers. 

[spiritdonkey]

May be try to give him a "shadow striker" role? 

I think, the mezzalas are doing all passing and creating chances job

[sporadicsmiles]

You may not like to hear it, but if you are getting consistently poor ratings with players in a specific position of your tactic, then likely it is something with the tactic. Likely you are not set up to use the player as you think you are. In your formation, it looks like you want to make him the central part of the team. Having the ball and being able to make passes to everyone? I'd think he would be better suited to an attacking duty if that were the case, and probably does not want to have another playmaker behind him. The DLP is going to get the ball first in almost all your attacks (since you play from defence) and so he is going to be the one making riskier passes. Your AP feels like an afterthought in that case. As others noted, your overlap instructions are going to leave your fullbacks in space often, and they will see a lot of the ball. Couple that to zero central penetration from your roles, and yeah, there is nothing for the AP to do other than ping the balls wide. Since the MEZ will also go wider, the AP is left alone in the centre and is an easy target to simply mark out of the match. You need to provide people running beyond him through the middle, and also find a way to keep the AI midfield occupied without having to go wide and cross the ball. I'm not the one to help you there, mind. It is rare I use an AMC these days.

[Tiger666]

There has been some discussion in the tactics forum about the number 10 performing badly in this match engine.

https://community.sigames.com/topic/508416-4-2-3-1-in-version-202/

Edited January 6, 2020 by Tiger666

[permanentquandary]

On 06/01/2020 at 21:49, sporadicsmiles said:

You may not like to hear it, but if you are getting consistently poor ratings with players in a specific position of your tactic, then likely it is something with the tactic. Likely you are not set up to use the player as you think you are. In your formation, it looks like you want to make him the central part of the team. Having the ball and being able to make passes to everyone? I'd think he would be better suited to an attacking duty if that were the case, and probably does not want to have another playmaker behind him. The DLP is going to get the ball first in almost all your attacks (since you play from defence) and so he is going to be the one making riskier passes. Your AP feels like an afterthought in that case. As others noted, your overlap instructions are going to leave your fullbacks in space often, and they will see a lot of the ball. Couple that to zero central penetration from your roles, and yeah, there is nothing for the AP to do other than ping the balls wide. Since the MEZ will also go wider, the AP is left alone in the centre and is an easy target to simply mark out of the match. You need to provide people running beyond him through the middle, and also find a way to keep the AI midfield occupied without having to go wide and cross the ball. I'm not the one to help you there, mind. It is rare I use an AMC these days.

Mezzala support has gets further forward as a default PI afaik.

In any case when playing 2 strikers is having 2 deep runners necessary?