retired_autumn

DWood: I'm not entirely clear on what the op wants the MC to do, so if any of this misses the mark, it's because I'm misunderstanding what you're after.

To my mind, if you want the MC arriving late to the box, this might have more to do with mentality than anything else. If he's got a high (attacking) mentality, I assume this means he'll be at the forefront of attacks your team puts together. So far from arriving late -- he'll be one of the first on the scene. Players on a lower mentality will only join in if there is less harm in doing so, so maybe that helps them arrive late.

To me then, an attacking MC may be a bit ill-suited for *arriving late*, whereas using someone like a DMC for this might be more appropriate.

If what you meant was that the MC rushed forward to ignite an attack, but then hung back in the box, or if you're just trying to get the MC to get more action in the box, then it may help to give him a free role and low closing down, or whatever equates to high creativity/gets in space within your offense. If the player is capable of thriving in this kind of situation (i.e., Riquelme) you can see a lot of cool goals.

In my game he used to hang near the back of the box a lot, and when a defender made a bad (short) clearance, a decent number of times he'd be right there to smash it right back on net. (It may have helped his positioning that he is kind of slow, IIRC, which meant that my attack (slightly quick, direct, attacking) often started to develop before he was on the scene.) I don't think he was on the receiving end of too many crosses though, although his general inability to do much with them probably helped. In my experience, wingers rarely look to at an MC as a target for crosses, although a target man designation would obv fix that. As for Riquelme, I had him set on free role (high creativity, too, if that made a difference), low closing down, and long range shots often. Probably on forward runs often, although usually no farrow, and he played MC, not AMC.

Hope that helps with the ideas.

retired_kassandra

People say: Positioning is for defending situations (defenders?); off the ball for attacking.

Who is right?

retired_janellewood86

People say: Positioning is for defending situations (defenders?); off the ball for attacking.

Who is right? </BLOCKQUOTE>

Both, neither, one or the other.

Unless SI actually make some of their stats a bit clearer, we might never know. However, off the ball appears to be an attacking attribute (i.e. improved with attacking training) and positioning appears to be a defending one.

The difference in definition is a little subtle, but you can understand it. A defender needs to be in the right position to stop an attack, intercept a pass, mark and opponent. An attacker needs to go to the right position as he should be constantly moving and needing to pull defenders, create space and collect passes.

That's just my opinion. It could be, however, that the two work together. But I would say that John Terry, Bobby Moore are/were masters at being in the right place at the right time (positioning) whereas Ruud van Nistelroij, Gary Lineker are/were masters at creating space in the penalty area out of nothing for simple tap-ins (off the ball).

drewopel

I'm sure I remember the thing about positioning from an older version of Mark Vaughan's hints & tips document. I might have got it wrong though... off the ball would make more sense.

retired_abjanicki

Dayle:

Did you ever try this out as I think it would have a lot of potential. I was going to try something like this with my big taret man and play him in AM, no farrow. I will give him direct passing (to attempt flick ons) and play balls to his head. I will give him forward runs often so he gets in the box (he shouldn't become offside because he is in AM) and cross aim to target man (him).

Hopefully this will work, I shall report my findings.

retired_slayerbing

I tried it out but my results were mixed and therefore I was unable to confirm one way or the other whether it was a sound tactical idea. Probably need some input from others such as yourself to be more definitive.