understanding the roles of the sliders

[andrjam48]

Hope this is helpful for anyone who like myself has found a new love for creating tactics through the TC and have decided to have a go tinkering with the sliders

Mentality: This dictates how the team or a player will play. More attacking will pressure the opposition. More defensive play will allow you force the opposition to play your game. Both have pros and cons. Defensive will tighten your team up but it will invite the other team on to you more, its not a way I like to play unless we are ahead and need to hold on to a lead late on. Never been too generous with this setting, it will leave you open more to the pitfalls of either being too attacking or too defensive. Remember, sometimes leaving this setting in the middle isnt a bad thing.

Creative Freedom: Not every player is Kaka. “Creativity should be used sparingly” - that comes directly from Sports Interactive and SEGA. Only give a winger, or indeed any player, a creative license if he has a high creativity stat. Otherwise youre telling someone like Tom Huddlestone to go out and try a rabona in the middle of the pitch - thats only going to lead to Thomas falling on his backside and an opponent getting the ball and doing something useful with it, like maybe keeping possession?

Passing Style: This is vital. You should be adjusting this before every match. Read the scout report and adjust it accordingly. Shorter, narrow pitches require shorter passing, you have less space to move and to attack, you need to keep the ball and build up play. Longer pitches will allow you to be very direct, you can go long too if you have a fast forward and a slow opponent.

Width: How wide you wish to play. Playing wide means better wing play and attacking. Playing narrow is best for defence. If you go wide make sure that you are playing with wingers. If narrow you wont want attacking fullbacks, you will leave your defence open to attack. But you will want wingers to get out wide and stretch the play.

Speed: Fast passing means quick attacks but more mistakes in passing. Slow passing allows the opposition to close you down more but you will keep the ball better. Look to go mid-range. Dont go too aggressive and dont forget to look at these before every game, you might need to alter them depending on the opponent.

Closing Down: If you close down a lot you pressure the defence, you however will use up a lot of energy of the player. Players with high stamina are only really capable of doing this. Closing down is essential unless you want to counter-attack. Dont go too crazy though, it can have bad effects.

Time Wasting: This isnt something you should encourage your players to do. If they are wasting time they are wasting opportunities. Keep it fairly low.

Defensive Line: High up the pitch means less space for the opponent but you can also get caught out by quick attackers. If you play too deep you give your opponent too much space and you allow them to come on to you. Its a double-edged sword. You have to assess the opposition before the game and see if they have fast players. Also check to see the kind of pitch you are playing on, it could be bad to play high on a wide pitch if your opponent is ultra attacking.

Tackling: We go in hard and we come off early, we go in soft and they will not be afraid to attack us.

Focus Passing: This states where you want the ball to go more often. It best to play it outwide in my opinion but some of you will want to exploit the middle of the pitch, if thats the case hit the middle.

Marking: Man marking. Obviously its smart to set this individually on each of your players and not just general settings. You will want some of them to man mark and you will want some of them to zonal mark. Man marking will keep your player focused on an individual, this is great to make sure all players are picked up but it has its flaws such as players getting dragged out of positions - that leads to holes in your formation and its a big flaw. Zonal marking will get the player to pick up the opponent nearest to them, this has its flaws too as everyone doesnt always get marked. The best thing to do is assign Zonal to center-backs and the DMC. The others including the wide men can man mark but ONLY if the opponent doesnt appear to be swapping wingers. (If that happens your FB/WB will be out of position constantly. You will get killed).

Target Man Supply: You should look at your target men. Set your best headers as target men. If you have good headers the put the ball to their head. If not, play it to feet. You will keep possession much better. Playing it ahead of the player will mean he will run on to the ball, this can be good if the player can find space. You will need a good passer and creator to do this though.

Tight Marking: Id tick it but only if you arent playing against people who have an excellent first touch and dribbling ability. Great players will always get past you so you dont want to make it too easy. If they are great you will need to stand off them more.

Target Man: Tick it. Select your best headers and make sure you get the ball to them.

Playmaker: Ticking this tells the team to look for specific players. You need to set them in the Play Makers list. Id pick the best headers and get them the ball if you want to use this. Using it could make you more predictable though and selecting too many players will make it more ineffective.

Offside: Tick it. You might as well. At the end of the day it secures you more at the back. You just need to make sure your defenders have good concerntration, if not they will fail.

Counter Attack: It invites pressure on you because you allow them to attack you before you attack them. Great if youre playing a superior oppenent and your settings are quick, direct passing. If not dont use it.

Closing down: Is a double sided sword. You can close down all over the pitch and that will put pressure on the opposition which will lead to mistakes but you will also tire your players and being a winger he will need to do a lot of running. This isnt a setting you need to frequently change or adapt. You need to decide what works best for the player and the team rather than just one or the other. You want to have him close down but not tire him so much that he will stop working half way through the second half.

Tackling is another tricky option. You go in hard on a player and you can be sure he wont want to see you very often but chances are you will take a shower before anyone else on the pitch if you continue to tackle like a rugby player. Id say for a winger that you keep it simple, keep it midway on normal setting. If he is a very poor tackling winger then let him make light challenges. No bookings is a good thing.

Tight marking - The third of the tricky defensive instructions. Its a complex thing, this football management job but you need to assess your opposition. Are the other teams wingers talented enough to take the ball around your winger like he isnt even there? If so, dont select tight marking. Tight marking will allow you to keep the opposition under pressure and to force an opponent to pass the ball without being able to contol it first, it will also allow you to intercept passes better and to keep the opponent out of the game. However, if youre marking someone like Messi, you need to be aware that by marking him closely that he can get around you better with you closer to him.

Player Instructions won’t differ from the team settings too much. Here are the rest that dont feature in the team instrucion panel..

Forward Runs: This will obviously dictate how often the player goes forward. Again it has its pros and cons. Going forward takes the player out of position but it will also drag his marker with him also. If the marker doesnt leave him and he cant make space for himself you can guarantee he will make space for another player to run into. It also gets the player into better attacking positions. Its best used for Wingers and Wingbacks. Fullbacks should use this too much, neither should you have it on lots of midfielders. Maybe on just an AMC and a forward.

Run With Ball: Again its pretty basic stuff. You only want the better dribblers in the team to use this. Anyone else is likely to lose the ball. Look for dribbling and balance too.

Long Shots: As above, you need to assign this to someone capable of shooting from distance but beware it will gift possession to the opponent if you use this on average players or too much. Id limit it on all players and have it mid-way on an AMC who is capable of long shots.

Though Balls: Only ever want to use these on attacking players in a position to put the ball through the defence on to a man who can get behind them. Its a massive tool in your arsenal but dont overuse it, as above its likely to give possession away cheaply.

Cross From: Deep or Byline? Well Deep is really more for Wingbacks or Fullbacks imo. You rarely see goals from deep crosses. I always use byline, this way you have time to get the other players in the box when the ball comes in. Of course crossing from deep can be quicker than the byline so it may be more useful to counter-attacks.

Cross Aim: I always go for the target man, its ultimately your call though.

Swap Position: This is useful for wingers. Very useful in the new edition of Football Manager as you can really open up teams by using this. If the opponent is man marking you, then you will be dragging their markers all over the pitch by moving around. You will cause mayhem. You can exploit this in two ways. Swap your winger with your wingback (remember we talked about this! - a wingback is more attacking than a fullback. A fullback is used in a 433 situation where you are overly attacking on the flanks and dont want to be exposed in defence and a wingback is where you want more presence on the wings in a formation like 442). Dont swap with a fullback, just the wingback, its not going to have the same effect. You can alternatively swap with the winger on the other flank. Both options are good ways to pull teams about the pitch but you have to think about your settings. If your winger is right footed and crossing the ball frequently then putting him on the left isnt the best of ideas really. Its not going to lead to a lot of successful crosses. You would want to make your wingers pass the ball more and cross less, and maybe hold up the ball if you are going to do this. It will create pressure on the opposition but your team settings will have to be playing the ball at a high speed to make use of the opposition out of place when youre attacking.

Free role: The free role isnt the same as lots of creativity. An FC is a player with a 15+ rating for Free Role. But AML, FC, AMR, FC and AMC/FC may not have 15+. So if they are just an FC then they are perfectly suited for a free role.

This is a common mis-conception. The free role is giving the player carte blanche to go anywhere he pleases. You only ever want to use this on an attacking player. Think of Kaka or Gerrard. Its really not for a winger, they wont stay in position much and you will lose your width.

Hold up Ball: Its really just a tool to help wait for backup to arrive. Not useful unless you have a slow midfield. Probably best used on wingers or strong strikers if you are going to use it.

Goalkeeper Distribution: Ask the defender to collect the ball to keep possession but a mistake could be made at some point to allow the opposition to get the ball, check the GK’s distribution statistics, a quick throw is best for counter-attacks but it could result in a poor throw if the GK is a poor thrower of the ball. Long kick is obviously route one, over the top.

(source FmFanboys)

[chronic haze]

nice but think this has been copied and pasted

[andrjam48]

nice but think this has been copied and pasted

it has mate if you notice at the bottom i say where i got it from

[wwfan]

Interesting take on the sliders