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In a thread in General Discussion chilly1173 wanted to know why his defenders kept just hoofing the ball upfield. I offered a few possible solutions and to show him in more detail I've shifted this to the Tactics forum.
Quote:
originally posted by chilly1173 in GD forum:-
you put (((If you have a midfielder capable of it then assigning a playmaker can be useful, but you need to set his instructions so that he is in space (change his mentality so he takes up positions that create a distance between him and the opposing player in the opponent's formation))))
How do you work out how to put your player in space away from opposing player?????
It depends on what formation the opposition is playing. Within the first ten minutes of a typical English game involving a 442 vs a 442 you should be able to see how the opposition midfielders are set up relative to your current midfielders mentality.
For example if they are consistently close to your player the second he gets the ball, then lowering his mentality should result in him dropping deeper off the opposite midfielder who is marking him.
The same applies to your strikers. If their mentality is too high they will be pushed right up to the defenders. This is a viable option if you have pacy strikers and have your defenders set to play direct passing coupled with target man run onto ball.
But if you want strikers to offer a linking option you need to drop their mentality so that they sit off the opposition defenders. In the following screenshot it is the standard 442 Normal from the tactics selection. See how the two strikers set to normal mentality are sitting off the opposition centre halfs as Gallas clears the ball:-
Whether or not the centre half makes the right pass depends on all the different variables at play but in that screenshot he has the option.
In this screenshot Man Utd are also playing the standard 442 normal with short farrows added to the wingers. Silvestre at left back has just picked up a header from Pique (no 5 black).
Ronaldo (no 7 black) has just made the run as indicated before Silvestre picked up the header from Pique. The forward run is governed by the short farrow and being set to forward runs often. But the general direction of that run would also be determined by the team ‘width’ setting.
I would look at that and say I would like Ronaldo to take up a position as indicated by the black circle and arrow I have drawn in. So based on this and where the Arsenal players are positioned/closing down I would increase the team width to improve the chances of Ronaldo spreading further to the wing and offering a better passing option for Silvestre (whether or not he takes that option will depend on his settings and his attributes).
Now look at this screenshot. Fletcher no. 9 for Man Utd is set to all out attacking mentality and Carrick no.8 is set to normal mentality
Silvestre has these two as an option and makes the pass to Carrick based on this. He seems to see Carrick has more space around him and makes that decision.
If I go back to first of the last two screenshots and draw a line from Fletcher then if Carrick was also set to ‘all out attack’ he would probably be positioned where I have drawn the black circle in the following screenshot:-
If Carrick was in the black circle position this would probably have resulted in Silvestre hoofing the ball up the pitch. But since I can’t replay the exact event and change Carrick’s mentality, this is just conjecture based on my observations of the game.
These are just a few events but different uncontrollable factors will affect this. In particular a player’s attributes will affect whether or not they make a forward run if set to do so thus removing themselves as the deeper passing option. It also depends on the positions the opposition players take up and how the previous sequence of the match played out. All of this will also impact on what options the defender has available to him.
So all you can do is look at the match, try to set up the positioning of your players using mentality, forward runs and arrows in such a manner that it increases the likelihood of your defender having options. It won’t mean that every single time the defender won’t resort to hoofing the ball.
12-10-2007, 08:58 PM
Chilly1173’s defenders hoofing the ball problem Post #2
Chilly1173’s defenders hoofing the ball problem 
:thup:
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