Playing out of position

[luckydutch]

How exactly does the penalty for playing a player out of position work?

I have a number of players that I wish to retrain and play in positions which they awkward or even completely inexperienced in because they have the attributes to be perfect for it just not the positional experience. My assistant says they'll go from 4 stars in their natural position to half a star or even no stars in one case but I know better than to blindly trust my assistant's ratings.

Has anyone ever worked out exactly how the positions work? I wan't to know how crippling it would be to play them out of position while they retrain.

I'm sure it doesn't work like this but I feel like being out of position should only affect certain mental stats such as decisions, off the ball and positioning but shouldn't affect technical or physical attributes at all. If I'm a striker but asked to play as a wingback I don't suddenly forget how to shoot or get weaker/slower but I will probably get caught out of position quite often.

[brawla123]

Well versatility will come into this kind of situation and that's a hidden attribute. So, just because a player has good attributes for a certain position it can still be tough for him to play there because of this and him simply not being experienced in the said position.

[Torskus77]

I have always believed it reduced mental attributes, the less accomplished in the position the bigger the hit.

I am not certain about this though, sure one of the big guns will be able to answer the question.

In FM12, I had this regen that was a center midfielder, but had a perfect set up of stats to become a world class full back. I re-trained him from scratch, and he played reasonably well there from the off, and did indeed become a world class full back who I had a bidding war on my hands for before he was fully accomplished in the role. I ended up selling him, and Bayern who signed him in the end played him at full back for the next 10 years.

[SnUrF]

From another thread:

Decision making is lowered when playing out of position.

-SnUrF

[Negatrev]

You can't trust the positional ratings from your assistant BEFORE retraining a players position as it takes their familiarity into account. If a players stats seem perfect for a different role, then it's usually worth training. The highest priority for stats spread of CA is altered when you make any dramatic change to a players trained positions (WBL to WBR makes no change for example, but WBL to DM would be far greater). So just keep in mind that after training a new position, you may notice the 'shape' of the players stats change a bit, so that may need managing with role training for example. Once a player is Accomplished (or even better natural) in a position, then you can start to trust the assistants positional ratings a little more. Although still take these with a pinch of salt as they aren't exactly perfect at this and I find sometimes the best position for a player isn't what the assistant says. I have quite often found Target Men play better in my formations as playing the Deep forward role instead. Although that is heavily steered by my tactics

[Wesley6]

I was watching my Arsenal u21 play Villa just now to keep an eye on some of my first teamers who were building fitness. Noticed a lad running the midfield for us called Martinez. Not being aware of any Arsenal midfielders with that name I clicked to check and found out it was our young Argentinian goalkeeper