zenith

Well this post will start a discussion about the implementation of a winger that is more then a crossball machine. The behavior of the winger should be much like Ronaldo (Man Utd), ofc there is other players out there in the world that should fit on this description, but with Ronaldo's preformances this season he was the first one that came to my head.

Background

I currently play a 4-3-3 formation with wingers in the AML and AMR position. The main purpose for the wingers in my tactic is to take on the defender get by him and then send a cross into the area. Since im a big fan of football i often watch the game in full detail until i get a grip of what is working and what is not then i use to switch to extended view. Very rarely i see the winger do anything other then stay out wide and wait for the ball, when he gets the ball he starts taking on the defender get down deep and cross the ball. Just the way i like him to do in the tactic. This has worked out well so far this season, my wingers have also been able to score a couple of goals, right winger has 4 goals and 9 assist in 28 games and the left one have 5 goals and 7 assists in 22 games. Most of the goals the wigers have made comes from cross balls from the other winger that goes for the far post where he can tap it in or from counter attacks where a long ball sets them free of the last defender.

What im looking for now is to implement one of the wingers to be more creative and be a bigger threat to the opposition by contribute with more goals. I think this will add another dimesion to the way my team plays.


Behaviour

As i wrote in the beginning the winger should behave much like Ronaldo in Manchester United. I like him to try to cut inside the pich once in a while and go for a shot from the edge of the area or set up the striker with a short pass instead of always go down to the corner flag and send a cross in.

Implementation

Lets ignore the stats for the players and just try to find the ideal instructions for this type of winger. Right now i dont have any player in my squad that have the ability to play like Ronaldo. But if we find the ideal instructions then is down to find a player that have the attributes to play in this way.

Well i have just started to test this out, have only played like five games so i dont have come anywhere near the ideal instructions.

This is how i have set up one of my wingers.

He plays in the AML position, in the original tactic he have a forward arrow to the FL position but now i have changed this one to point inside the pitch.

AML --->

This way i belive he will tend to move more inside the pitch and be a bigger threat to the opposition with shoots and short passes to the striker.

Mentality: Attacking (15)

Creative Freedom: High (18) - Want him to be creative and move cut inside as much as possible and go for shoots and through balls to the striker.

Passing style: Short (5) - No need for long or direct passing since he's team mates should be close to him for playing the short pass.

Closing down: Often (15)

Tackling: Easy

Forward runs: Mixed - Dont want him to get to much forward, he should get the pass then start running with the ball taking on the defender or cut inside with it.

Run with ball: Often

Long Shots: Often - Is often now while im testing to see if he tries to cut inside and go for a shoot, Will perhaps lower to mixed later to get a bigger variation on his play if it works.

Through balls: Rarely - Will perhaps go up to mixed later if is works with the winger moving inside the pitch. If it works this will be set to mixed along with long shots mixed to give some variation to his play.

Cross ball: Rarely - Having it for rarely right now while testing to se if this encurage him to cut inside the pitch a bit more, later of if all works this perhaps can be set to mixed so he sometimes moves inside going for goal or set up the striker, and sometimes taking on the defender getting down deep to cross it for the striker.

Swap position: AMR - Swap the positon with the other winger just like Ronaldo and Giggs does in Man Utd. Anyone know how this works? If a player is told to swap positions, does he swap the position and keep his individual settings or does he get the individual settings for the position he swapped to?

Free role: ON - I like the winger to have a free role so he can move around the pitch. And this perhaps this encurage him to move into the pich more.


Well this is my testing setup, as i said i have only played a few games with it so i cant comment yet on how it works. Is there other ppl that have tried to create the same type of winger? Then i would like to know about your experience with it and how it have worked.

If there is others that want to try this out let me know how it is going for you and we can help eachother finding the ideal settings for the winger.

Quarkz

Sounds very interesting i must say....i will look forward to hear about your results with this setup. Maybe even give it a go myself, if so i will let you know how it goes.

Kozma is god

:thup: Another excellent post Zenith, I might give this a try. How has it worked for you in the 5 games or so you have tried it?

zenith

Well right now i can't say so much about the result from it. I have had some very hard games in the leauge and then i used my original setup just to be on the safe side. Have about 10 games left in the leauge now and am pretty confident im going to win it. So during this last ten games i will test this out and look how it works. One problem for me is that i lack the quality on my wingers to be ideal for this type of winger. But i will try it out anyway and see how they act and from that i can probably tell if it is going to work with better wingers or if it isnt going to work as i had thought.

zenith

As i said i would try the instructions for the games that where left in the leauge to see how my winger act under these instructions.

What i did was to leave one of the wingers as the "classic" type of winger that would try to get down deep and cross the ball for the striker. And the other winger was given the instructions to be more of a winger that has a free role and is encuraged to cut inside the field and go for goal. The set up i used for this type of winger is the ones in the first post in the thread. The wingers i used was of equal quality imo, i used Tobias Hysen and Liam Lawrence playing with Sunderland for his. Lawrence was given the instructions of the old winger and Hysen was given the free role.

First i will sum the stats for the games i tried this out. Lawrance is the AMR and Hysen the AML.

Pos Goals Assists Shots/(on target) Runs
AMR 0 0 7/0 25
AML 4 3 22/10 22

This is the stats for the eight games i tried it out. Intresting that Hysen scored 4 goals and made 3 assists in this 8 games, and as you can see he also had 3 times more shots then Lawrence had during the same games. Before i changed his settings Hysen had played 28 gamas and produced 5 goals and 7 assists. Suddenly he seem to score a bit more and still producing assists. One of the goals he scored came from him cutting inside the pitch and hit it from long range, the rest of the goals came after he had run into the box from his left flank and got the ball from the striker or midfielder and put it in from close range.

Problem for me with this testing is that i dont got any high quality winger with high stats in creativity and long range shots etc that would ssuit for this type of player. Would be intresting to see how Ronaldo played with this settings. Im going to continue testing this and play with one classical type of winger and one with the settings Hysen has since i think this bring another dimension to my tactic. I also hope to get the hands on a better winger until next season so i can se how that player preform under the same instructions.