Freeing up your playmaker

[Andy 23]

I want my MC to bring the ball out and play forward passes to my wingers. However, I can't get him on the ball as much as I'd like to.

I have a midfield 3 with this specific intention, the MCL and MCR intended to block off the opposition, leaving my MC deep-lying playmaker as the free man in the middle. I could play with more width, but then I fear my MC will be isolated with the two opposition midfielders.

If I set him as Advanced Playmaker he bombs forward in line with my striker, which is not what I want at all; his job is to start moves feeding the ball from deep, not finish them.

How would you achieve this?

[Tom14]

In terms of getting the ball to him as much as possible try setting him as a playmaker in your team instructions. If you need him to find space them possibly try teaching him the PPM 'comes deep to get ball'.

[RTHerringbone]

What formation are you using out of interest?

I'm working on a flat 4-3-3 with a DLP (D) sandwiched between an AP (S) and a CM (A) and the DLP seems to be having joy with a few pinpoint through balls to a Poacher ahead.

He is set as the designated playmaker.

[lewis999]

What PPM's does he have? He might have "Get's forward whenever possible" or "Get's into opposition area" if you're finding he's in line with the striker a lot.

[SPDtrip]

There are a few things you could try.

Try playing your DLP in the DM position (not set in stone but could help) set his tight marking to OFF and make sure your other players are not overriding him as primary playmaker. If he's smart raise his CF, the better his decision attribute the more you can raise it. All this should enable him to see more of the ball and make high percentage passes (if you want even higher % passing, lower Through balls passing and perhaps even lower passing from mixed to short ish) . If you want to make him more "daring" you'll have to make a few more changes but if simple and sound is what you're after this should work.

[Andy 23]

Thanks for the replies, I'll try to answer them all:

I'm playing a 4-3-3/4-5-1, shown below. Basically six defensive players whose job should be to defend and give the ball to the DLP, who in turn should then give the ball to the front three to create a shooting opportunity. Very rigid!

My DLP is set as the team's Playmaker. His only PPM is 'plays way out of trouble'.

Not such a good idea for him to be dribbling from the DM position, he will be too deep and run into congestion. I don't want him in the AM position because then he will be facing back to goal, and require my defensive players to pick him out. I'd rather they stick to defending then give him the ball. MC is the perfect position because he can pick up loose balls or short passes and dribble forward into the 'hole', looking up for the attackers in front of him.

Here's his player instructions. A few things I'm considering: Should his mentality be higher, but through balls be lower? So he looks to play forward through his mentality, but isn't always looking for a through ball. My worry is this will make him move into attacking positions off the ball more, which I don't want him to do. Also, should he be holding up the ball?

[RTHerringbone]

Lots of slider tweaks make me nervous, but then again, I don't know what I'm doing!

What is the mentality of your CMs relative to the DLP? If they are sitting deeper than him, then they offer him less protection than if at least one of them had an equal or slightly higher mentality than the DLP. A risk is that the opposition can just sit an MC on your DLP knowing that your CM duo are still operating from a base 10-15 yards behind him.

On a general note, your Duties are really conservative. One guy on an Attacking Duty must get isolated up front, and I can't imagine there's much movement from front to back with those Roles and Duties, and this could be worsened with a Rigid Philosophy, which you arguably don't need with so few specialist roles.

[Andy 23]

The two midfielders are on default mentality, which is one notch below half-way. So their mentality is not quite as defensive as my DLP, although this wasn't really by design, just something I'd not considered.

My forward is deep-lying, so he should be linking up rather than playing on the shoulder. Also I don't want to give my wingers defensive responsibilities, so I've got three players ready to attack once my DLP carries the ball forward and picks them out.

[PeeKay]

You need to decide how you want your playmaker to act. At the moment he is trying to perform two roles; Advance playmaker and Deeplying playmaker. You are probably getting flashes of what you want with lots of actions that you don't.

The way I think about it is, a Deeplying playmaker will drop into the space between defence and midfield. On Defend duty, will contribute less towards the opposing area so more available to receive a pass (has the lowest mentality of all MC roles). Advance playmaker will move into the space between the midfield and forwards. He will pass more on support and run with the ball more on attack (I believe you are not looking for this).

I also noticed that you have manually changed you player mentailities and that can make it hard to provide positive help. The most people strongly suggest to keep the default setting as it will break the synergy between roles and should only really be done by people that know what they are doing, even the experts on these forums trust the TC more than themselves when it comes to changing the default settings.

Your tactic has your MC's with very similar mentalities (you effectivitely have 3 holding midfielders) and this makes it harder to find players for a pass. I personally always try to have 3 midfielders on 3 different mentalities but this depends on what you want to achieve.

[Andy 23]

Thanks for the reply PeeKay. I think you may have spelled out to me that I actually don't want my playmaker to be a 'deep lying playmaker' or an 'advanced playmaker'. In fact, Central Midfielder on Support duty sounds about right. Of the default settings, I would change tight marking to 'no' and perhaps adjust creative freedom and runs from deep. Other than that, it looks good to try out.

[RTHerringbone]

The way I think about it is, a Deeplying playmaker will drop into the space between defence and midfield. On Defend duty, will contribute less towards the opposing area so more available to receive a pass (has the lowest mentality of all MC roles). Advance playmaker will move into the space between the midfield and forwards. He will pass more on support and run with the ball more on attack (I believe you are not looking for this)

These are all very good points. I play a DLP on (D) as I wanted to play someone in the MC strata who will drop back to fill the gap between defence and midfield - he regularly positions himself as a DMC when the situation demands it.

My AP on Support does exactly as you say, so I end up with a sort of relay with the DLP dropping deep to supply the AP who will look to play the final pass, or will switch play to the CM (A) who will run with the ball or try a killer ball of his own.

[Rashidi]

Andy tbh just looking at the roles this is what I see happening most of the time in your game, please correct me if i am wrong.

Whenever you have the ball in your half you will almost always see Aluko close to the opposing defensive line and looking to make runs in, and the right winger usually only does that when you have the ball in their half.

The challenge lies with your two fullbacks who don't really get in on the act with overlapping runs. And since they don't the two AMs spend most of their times pinging crosses in, And when one gets in to cross you see the other cutting in to make 2 in the box, by then you should see your MC lurking around the edge of the box. Because you want your MC to support play he does his runs very very late, and you won't see him carrying the ball as such. He's not involved much in the play except for ball distribution.

For me the key lies in your fullbacks, and converting your wingers into defensive wingers, or at least one of them

You can untick everything ..you have ticked so far...

The one who is turned into a defensive winger will now close down in the opponents half. Now when you have your fullbacks or at least one I would prefer the right one since he can overlap against a supporting AM who can now cut inside since he can make space for the fullback to launch attacks. The central MC should be changed to a playmaker with an attack setting, he will now have forward runs and will join in the attack the moment the fullback goes forward, since you have two defensive pivots who don't venture forward in your MCs. The 2 MCs are pretty static and the formation does look a bit staid and lacking in terms of forward movement for your players to exploit. As it stands now the happy beavers are probably the two wingers.

[Andy 23]

Focusing on my playmaker, now in a CM Support role, he's actually getting into lovely positions just behind the opposition midfield... but his midfield teammates are bypassing him and pumping the ball long. Their instructions are short passing, very little creative freedom, no through balls, and it's not in their PPMs to do this. Their lack of composure may be the reason, because the easy pass looks on to me.

[PnyX]

Had been using a much developped Thiago as my DLP on support duty. His allround play was okay but nothing outstanding and then he gets injured for 4 weeks. So I turn to an 18 year old MC/AMC/FC in my U18 to fill that role for a cup game and he hasn't left my first team since, creating and scoring loads (compared to my other MCs).

What I noticed is he would pick up the ball from a deep position and the runs made by my attacking players will create space in the middle and since he has the ppm run with ball, he just runs right through the midfield into the opposition and usualy lays a nice pass on or tests the keeper!

Just to say, ppms can be crucial in how your playmaker reacts to space and movement, so you might want to have a look at your PM's ppms and see if they'll let him play as you want him to or they just contradict your intentions.

[Andy 23]

What I noticed is he would pick up the ball from a deep position and the runs made by my attacking players will create space in the middle and since he has the ppm run with ball, he just runs right through the midfield into the opposition and usualy lays a nice pass on or tests the keeper!

I could understand DMs leaving space if they follow the players they are marking, but surely any midfielders will close down the man on the ball..?

Also, PPMs is something I'll look at. My man doesn't have any contradicting what I want him to do, but he could learn some that would help.