retired_anitarobinson

I thought I’d share my thoughts regarding a good striker partnership with everyone; seeing that the forum is a bit slow these days. It’s also based around my efforts to get the best out of Billy Sharp.

The usual things apply here; big credit goes to Rashidi, otherwise to whomever this is relevant to.

Ok, so here we go.

What is a good partnership?

Setting up a striking partnership using 2 quick skilful strikers was always an area that I didn’t really know what to do with, but while reading through some of Rashidi’s theories one post inspired me.
It said something along the lines of: ‘The best way to set up strikers these days is to have one feeding and another finishing, ala Tevez and Rooney’. Inspired by that I set out to try and implement it into my Sheffield Utd game.

The leading man

So, you have your finisher, in my case obviously this is Billy sharp, but what are his best settings? Well, how did I want him to play? Well actually, the fast target man settings in the FAQ fitted the bill perfectly.

These of course are:

POSITION FWR RWB CROSS TTB HUB Supply

Fast Striker YES YES RAR RAR NO Run onto
Ball

But what do these settings mean?

They are saying that you want your fast striker to be constantly making darting runs either in front of or between defenders (FWR Often), You want him to stay pretty central on the pitch (Rarely crossing), he wont look to play others in that often (Rarely TTB), and he will look to latch onto through balls and then be very direct towards goal and get an effort in (RWB often + run onto ball supply). Sounds perfect to me, just what I am looking for.

Ideal attributes? Pace, acceleration, composure, OTB, finishing, strength.

So that is your ‘Leading man’. So what about the support act? Here is how I do it.

The support act

My other strikers are Andy Keogh, Danny Webber and James Beattie, Keogh being the usual partner for Sharp. Webber also works well however.

Ok, so how do you set up your ‘feeder’? Well, ideally he would be slighter deeper than the finisher, he would not make as many runs as the finisher, as you would want the feeder to link more with the midfield players and be available for a pass (Therefore you don’t want him RWB often), you want the feeder to play through balls to the finisher. You may also want him to go a bit wider than the finisher.

My settings are:

POSITIONFWRRWBCROSSTTB HUB

FeederMixMixMixMix NO


Basically his actions will be governed by his decisions.

Those are for Keogh and Webber. A personal rule is to drop the feeder mentality to 2-3 notches below that of the finisher, this means he drops deeper. I don’t follow the ROT, if you want players to play together effectively big gaps in mentality is counterproductive. This also makes him a natural link player for the midfielders, as he is a bit more ‘in the hole’. My midfield and fast target man are usually mixed mentality.

You obviously have to take attributes into consideration here, Keogh is a great dribbler, but that doesn’t mean I would set RWB to often, as it would make him less inclined to play Through balls. Saying that, if I had to play Beattie as the feeder, he is lousy at dribbling, so I would set him up to not dribble, hold up the ball and the to TTB often. Either methods work. Both Strikers are set to direct passing.

Ideal attributes? Well, any really, but decisions would be good, as all settings are mixed, passing, creativity, flair

The result? 42 goals in the championship for sharp, 28 in our first prem season. This was also enough to get him the golden boot and a respectable position of 10th .

Try it, see what you think.