Role: Inside Forward

[Pendraz]

Hello everyone!

This is something that has been bugging me since I started playing fm14.

I would like my two lateral AMs with great dribbling and acceleration/pace to actually converge towards the penalty area and look to score. That's why I have set their roles to IFs, and I gave them the player instructions to dribble more. I have also tried to add roam from position, I tried to set them with both S and A roles, but nothing changed.

They behave exactly like they do if I set them as wingers. Every time, and I mean EVERY time they get the ball, they keep running to the corner flag to then attempt an unlikely cross/probable corner kick. Aside from getting boring to watch (I tried early cross as TI, I tried cross from deep as PI, but they still seem to love waiting until the defenders have enough time to position themselves, maybe because they actually want to win the corner, but sometimes it's stupid when they prefer that to an obvious goal scoring opportunity), it isn't what I want them to do.

I want them to go and look to score. I want them to be egoistic, trying to dribble inside as soon as they get the ball, but they never do that no matter what instructions I give them.

Before someone asks me. No, they don't have any PPM.

I just don't understand what else I am supposed to do. Maybe there's a bug with the role? I mean that when you select the IF role, if you go in the player instructions, "cut inside with ball" will be grayed out because, in theory, it is automatically enabled with that role.

Should I teach my player as a PPM to actually always cut inside with the ball? I'd rather not have to, because I prefer to have flexible players that I can adapt depending on the opponents, but I guess I'll have to do that if there's no other way.

Anyone cares to explain me what I am doing wrong please?

Thank you guys.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

Is anyone occupying the space they need to drive into?

If there's players already there, they'll tend not to cut in?

[peleJunior]

Could be a number of things. Have you flooded the space between your forward line and central midfield that there is no space to run into? Are you playing too slowly allowing the opposition loads of time to get back into position and show your IF down the line? That's just a couple of reasons but it's hard to say for sure without seeing your set up and how the AI looks to stifle you.

[Pendraz]

Thanks for the answer.

It doesn't seem to be the case. There are certainly times, especially when the opponents are all behind the ball, when some midfielder may actually get in the way.

The problem is, they still prefer to go hug the line even during counter attack chances, when they have all the space and time in the world to actually attempt to cut in and try to score.

Edit for the second answer.

I actually (try to) play a fast counter attacking football.

My tactic looks like this:

GK

FBS CBD CBD CWBA

DMS AD

BBMS

IFS IFS

PA

Philosophy: Rigid-Counter

TIs: Much Higher tempo, more direct passing

[bigwoody]

So, I had your problem - and I think I see why you have it too.

I'd like you to try an experiment for me. It may not fit your players, but try it. Set your striker to be a false nine, set your IFs to attack. When I did this, AND THEY BECAME FLUID (not before), their movement became exactly what I wanted. The striker had a 20 Off the Ball attribute and not only dropped back, but moved up when the wingers went wide. It works.

That poacher, I suspect, is keeping the inside forwards wide or deep. The dribble more PI won't fix that. CMs set to attack are sometimes an issue also.

[bigwoody]

Once you've shown your players will move the way you want, you can tweak. Just make sure your striker is willing to roam.

[Guest]

I was thinking the same about the Poacher..........

[bigwoody]

I'm a bit concerned about the rigidity too. With a support mentality, they don't have much motivation to climb the mentality ladder.

[bluesjunior]

So, I had your problem - and I think I see why you have it too.

I'd like you to try an experiment for me. It may not fit your players, but try it. Set your striker to be a false nine, set your IFs to attack. When I did this, AND THEY BECAME FLUID (not before), their movement became exactly what I wanted. The striker had a 20 Off the Ball attribute and not only dropped back, but moved up when the wingers went wide. It works.

That poacher, I suspect, is keeping the inside forwards wide or deep. The dribble more PI won't fix that. CMs set to attack are sometimes an issue also.

This correct for me too. In my 4-1-2-2-1 line up I have my striker as an F9, my two widemen as IF/Att ( More Risky Passing+More Direct Passing) + I also have the FB's with Attack mentality with (Run Wide with Ball + Close Down More) In my Team Instructions I set Look For Overlap and if I see I am being man marked I add Allow Wide Players To Swap. My Team play Counter Attack and Very Fluid and it is great to watch when they attack as the FB's get to the byline, the IF's cut inside and the F9 in the centre.

[Pendraz]

Wow thanks for all the answers guys.

I tried to use my forward as a F9 before, it looked like the optimal choice to me as well, but probably because my striker isn't that good (only 16 off the ball) he didn't perform as expected, at all, also because he has a low passing attribute.

Why do you play him at all I guess you are wondering, well because my team is "poor" and I preferred to get a striker with good finishing, composure and decent physical attributes. Getting something better was gonna cost too much, not so much on the budget but on my very tight payroll.

It's incredible how much even very mediocre players can ask you as salary!

But I digress.

I keep the rigid mentality because I noticed that with a fluid mentality I was conceding too many goals, and I actually thought that with a rigid mentality, the players would have followed my instructions (like the player instructions) more closely, but maybe I am missing something here.

I will try to put the forward again as F9 and will try to keep one IF as S role (the one with decent defending attributes) and one as A role, and let's see if things improve a bit.

I also thought about giving them the PI of staying narrower, but I am afraid they would just get in conflict with the forward even more and attempt to go wide even more in an attempt to find some space for themselves.

[bigwoody]

I understand that a F9 doesn't always work - it isn't plug and play.

All I'm asking is that you TRY to use a F9 with the wingers both playing an IF-A role. Just to see if it gives you the movement you want. If it doesn't, come back and tell us more. If it does, then you can tweak from that starting point.

[Pendraz]

Hello,

I tried as suggested. F9 and attack duty for both IF.

Sadly it didn't work as hoped. What's annoying is the fact that they do good OFF the ball movements, attacking the box, but they just don't want to do it when they do have the ball at their feet and space to dribble in. They almost always prefer to go to the outside, and I just can't understand why.

The very few times they actually "cut inside" is at the beginning of a counter attack, when the ball has just passed midfield, and they actually start to dribble horizontally, but just because they decide to wait for other team mates to join the attack (Or so I guess. And no, they don't have the hold ball instruction)

It "seemed" to go a little bit better when I used the TI exploit the middle + play narrower. When they receive the ball close to the edge of the box they actually attempt to cut inside more.

But at this point, it simply becomes a different play style, and the IFs become almost CFs.

What I would like to see is stretching the opponent defense by receiving the ball wide, and then cutting inside. But I hardly ever see any attempt to do that, only off the ball.

Any other ideas of what I may try?

[alinp]

I know this may sound obvious, but have you got them on the wrong foot as it were, i.e. right foot at AML, left at AMR.

[Pendraz]

Not at all, it's a good point. In fact I tried to make them swap sides also to check if that would make a difference, but unfortunately not any noticeable.

[Jenesis33]

Try to set them to AP(S? maybe try A too) I think that can work.

IF is bit broken in my view..

Like i struggle to get them to work as well.. In fact my W(A) on one wing probably score more than the IF(A) on other wing.

But yes I tend to find out AP cut in more..

[playmaker10]

Try AP(a) with PI fewer risky passes and preferably with wrong foot on the flank he is playing. That way your players will look to pass the ball to him and he will ran at defense without only looking to pass the ball but to finish it also. Havent tried myself but just an idea!

[Pendraz]

I tried both AP and WTM roles with different duties and PIs, but no way, they just don't want to do what they are told to do :/

[okd]

don't complicate things with their role, IF(a) is fine (I wouldn't use both on (a) though)

instead, you should look elsewhere,mainly space and style

space:the ST should create space for the IF(a),not occupy it,so he needs a supporting role;I would use DLF(s);other can work,but be careful about roles with roaming or "bad" PPM's because such ST's could mess up this setup

style: I see you're playing this: "Philosophy: Rigid-Counter TIs: Much Higher tempo, more direct passing"

this is just the opposite I assume you're trying to achieve,because this setup needs classic wingers all day long; basically,you're playing long fast balls to the ST and wingers;also,by playing rigid you're asking the wingers to pick up this balls,run with them (mostly wide because there's the space) and put it in the box for the ST and midfield runners

you should consider a balanced philosophy so the IF(a) will have the highest mentality in your team and an attacking style that feeds the ball to the IF(a) on the last attacking phase,making him a scorer,not a creator

[Pendraz]

Thanks a lot for your contribution okd.

I'll definitely try that, even if I still don't understand something about the philosophy. I mean, from the way you explained it, I am guessing that you are referring as the "highest mentality" to the maximum position they'll be willing to occupy on the pitch. If that's right, then my question is: wouldn't I achieve the same exact thing by directly moving the attacking midfielder up to external forward position in the tactic screen? (thing I tried by the way, with no success, actually it was a disaster since like I imagined, they would never even receive the passes, always intercepted)

I thought that the philosophy meant how closely the players would stick to the tactic plan, meaning that if i tell a player to be an IF and to cut inside with a rigid mentality, he should focus to do that all the time without leaving space to his "creativity". Am I misunderstanding something here?

About the setup: What I am trying to achieve is simply a fast counter attacking. No time wasted on the ball, no possession game. We are (supposed to be) a team that feel more comfortable without the ball, defending with order (we hardly get scored, mostly from inactive balls), and the counter attacking with my offensive trio set to dribble more and look for the goal thanks to their personal skills instead of waiting to try and build up the play.

Unfortunately the only player attempting to do what I ask is the CF, the two IFs act as wingers, always trying to cross for the CF or the other IF on the second post.

Concerning the forward, I will try different roles with supporting duties, so far I tried only the F9. My forwards do not have any PPM aside from dribble more, places shots and likes to round the keeper, and I didn't put any roam from position instructions, but I guess the F9 do so on its own.

I will also try a change of philosophy to balanced, but I am afraid the defensive setup will fall apart.

[okd]

the philosophy is pretty well explained in the TC; in your rigid setup,the wingers will focus more on transition,picking up the ball,run with it and put it in the box, just like you describe it above, and the ST,even with (s) duty,will mostly try to finish those moves; basically,the more rigid you go, midfielders will act like creators,forwards like scorers, if you know what I mean;

regarding the highest mentality,let me put it in numbers for you,maybe you can have a better understanding of it:

let's take this scenario: IF(a) and DLF(s); their mentality will be like this:

rigid: If(a) - mentality is 8 ; DLF(s) mentality is 10

balanced:If(a) - mentality is 10 ; DLF(s) mentality is 8

fluid:If(a) - mentality is 10 ; DLF(s) mentality is 10

I think it's obvious what you should choose to make your IF(a) main goalscorer ; I'm not saying it can't be achieved otherwise, there are examples on this forum,but this is the easy way

don't worry about defensive organization,you can defend even with more fluid philosophies, just manually limit creativity if your players aren't composed,intelligent,etc

regarding the style you want to play,you should consider what kind of counter attacks you want to achieve, because your current setup is "Tony Pulis" style , and it suits classic wingers; if you want last year Real Madrid style,first you have to ask yourself if you can do it, because they weren't hoofing the ball

[jpcote09]

okd has got it right. Do not think that 'Philosophy' means 'Craziness'. It does affect Creative Freedom though if you really want to affect Creative Freedom, you are better off using 'Be more disciplined/expressive'. Philosophy will, to some extent, affect the positioning and defensive movement of your team, but in very subtle ways that you might not even notice. It will not make or break your tactics. But as okd said, it will change the scale of your players' individual mentalities. So yeah, try Balanced, or even Fluid could work, but Rigid will make your IF "think" too much about creating, and not enough about scoring.

Also, if you want to play fast explosive counterattacking football, don't use Counter. i know it seems counterintuitive, but actually Counter encourages your team to build up patiently and slowly (although looking to counterattack more often than say, defensive or standard mentalities). Of course, the Much Higher Tempo TI would override the tempo, but not the actual mentality of your IFs, which will be more cautious by the nature of your overall mentality. I would go for something like Control-Balanced, Drop Deeper (or much deeper), maybe Stand Off, Clear Ball to Flanks, maybe Higher Tempo if it's not fast enough. I remember having a similar setup some time ago and my IFs were doing the Robben stuff a lot (okay, Ronaldo if you prefer).

[Pendraz]

Thank you very much to the both of you. As soon as I can play I'll try to tweak my tactic based on your suggestions to see if I can make it work!

[Pendraz]

No luck

I can't make it work.

It's not like I can't get results in other ways, but I would really like to make the team play as I envision it, or it becomes pointless for me to play this game.

I think part of the problem is a constant double marking on my IFs. I tried everything I could think of to help them be 1vs1 more often, telling them to play wider, making the wing backs in both attack duty or support hoping that they would take away at least one marker off them, but with no results.

I also noticed that the opposing teams after I collected some decent results (won a couple of titles in the previous two years) have started to play more defensively, and we can't seem to find the space or the opportunities to effectively counter attacking anymore. I tried to change from more direct passing to a work ball to the box/pass into space combo, as I do have fairly good technical passers in my team, but we can't seem to find good breaking chances often enough.

In fact I was even starting to think about playing with a striker less formation to help with the counterattacking, even if I am reluctant about it because I dislike it, and because I have a couple of fairly good pure strikers, and I wouldn't be able to field them anymore.

All in all though, even in situations where the opposite defence has the time to position themselves, I would still like to see my players try to dribble their way out of opponents.

I just don't know anymore what to try though.

[jpcote09]

It's sad that it didn't work for you. At the end of the day, IMO all wide players are in need of some sort of improvement in the current ME, and IF's are no exception to that. I'm not totally sure what it is that you wanted to achieve exactly, but in the end if you want a guy who will ALWAYS cut inside in possession, it will be very difficult to achieve.

For the sake of comparison, we will consider top-class players who play a bit like (I think) you want your IFs to play : Robben and Ribery at Bayern, CR7 and Bale at Real Madrid. If you watch games from those teams carefully, you will realize that those players are a threat centrally, but they still spend most of their playing time in wide areas. That way, they are also posing a threat down the touchline, as they can also run down the flank and supply a cross/pass. The dual threat and those players' extraordinary speed and technical ability is what makes them tremendously dangerous. Their inside forward role (also known as inverted winger) will be more focused on cutting inside, yes, and that does not always happen on the ball. Of course, when we watch football matches, we tend to be more focused on where the ball is, so we notice 'on the ball' movement much more, thus we tend to think those guys cut inside very often with the ball at their feet. While it does seem to happen a little bit more often IRL than in FM, I wouldn't say the difference is huge.

On the other hand, if you select an AP in the wide positions, they will be less prone to go down the wing since their role is solely focused on creating plays "from the hole" rather than the dual threat posed by an inside forward. So if you combine AP with dribble more and cut inside you might have more consistent results. Then you could counteract their playmaking nature by adding PIs such as fewer risky passes, shoot more often, etc. Moreover, since they will still be playmakers, your other guys will possibly look to supply them the ball more and you might see more runs from wide to the inside. Also consider that all actions and decisions are influenced by the player who is selected in the position, their attributes and preferences.

I just started a save for fun to see if I could get Inside Forwards to work again. I selected a random Italian team and it happened to be Inter Milan. I set up a quick 451 with IF(s) on both sides. I tried to give them as much space as possible by using the STC as a P(A) and the two CMs as deeper more defensive roles. I didn't see 50 cutting runs per game, but I can say I've seen an average of 4 from each side. There were not much dribbles down the flanks either (one of the players had ppm 'Cut Inside' though)

TIs were this : Attacking - Very Rigid

Be More Expressive

Run at Defence

Drill Crosses

Drop Deeper

Offside Trap

Clear Ball To Flanks

Play Narrower

PIs for the IF's

get further forward

dribble more

cross less often

cross from deep

fewer risky passes

pass it shorter

shoot more often (one of them)

They were also a big threat around the box since they cut inside a lot off the ball.

I'm not saying this would work for everyone but this is close to what I would see from a guy like Robben or Ronaldo or Bale in real life. Not exactly the same, but somewhat close.

[okd]

I've mentioned it before,your current system suits classic wingers, because you are sitting deep and the ball reaches your AMR/L in the early stages of your attacking play, so they will be "transition" players no matter how you set them up; your midfield runners will be your finishers; I assume you want exactly the opposite

to acomplish this, you must find a way to get the ball forward through your midfielders,then reach the IF's with a final pass

[Pendraz]

Thanks for the input guys, especially to jpcote09 for taking the time to make a test.

I will make other attempts when I come back from work tomorrow morning.

Cheers

[Overmars]

I've mentioned it before,your current system suits classic wingers

Yes, I think the OP is looking for his inside forwards to do too much. Only rarely can they get the ball and pull off video game moves to dribble past defenders and score alone. Inside forwards are more likely to score when they move first and then receive the ball. So to do that, you have to facilitate them via use of a support striker, playmaking central midfielders, and a slower style to allow for probing passing/movement.

[okd]

I've started a save to see if I can create a decent counter attacking style that uses IF's,playing as Everton

here is the tactic http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281888758

I had no problem getting the IF's cutting inside on a regular basis;of course it was not all the time, but they moved inside whenever they could find space

half way throgh the season,my main goal scorer is Kevin Mirallas at AMR http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281891830

he could have scored more, had the chances , but I'm pleased with him, after all he's not C.Ronaldo and he's not getting the best support in the world

league table http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281893122

could have been a little better,unluckly dropped some points , but I was pleased afterall

The tactic definitely could be improved, Pendraz you can take it from here

[Pendraz]

Thank you so much for the detailed guide okd! I am sure your tactic works well, probably better than mine, but I don't want to play a possession game, it's what I do most of the times, I want to try a different approach this time

This is my latest attempt, I hope the link to the screenshot works I had no idea of how to do it

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/81379041916362535/8DB45B4092EBBD83BA769BAC8999C6BF08A558BA/

So far it's working moderately well considering that we are still not fluid in the tactic because of my constant tweaks we are still going fairly well, 3rd in the liga and qualified for the next round of europa league with 2 matches still to play

I am a bit sad to not have any TI or PI to tell the players to switch the ball to the other flanks, I'll be forced to teach it as a PPM. But so far isolating my IF seems to be working much better, he actually doesn't really score, but he does what I hoped, gain lots of fouls and cards from the opposition and provides space for my wb.

I think there's still room for tweaking, so any more advice is still more than welcome

[okd]

I wasn't playing a possession game at all, shorter passing doesn't mean possession football

I was playing deep and narrow and if I would had selected "direct passing" I would have turned my wingers into "transition players" just like you did; by playing shorter passes, it encourages the ball to be first channelled trough the CM's and reach the IF's in the final stage of the attack

That's why I would never use IF's with counter strategy and direct passing

Regarding your Verona tactic, I really can't comment because it has nothing to do with my personal view on football but as long as it works for you, it's ok

[Pendraz]

But wouldn't doing that go against the whole idea of playing counter attacking football since it would take longer for the ball to reach the final third, giving time to the opposition to reposition themselves?

From what I have noticed, shorter passing means they will prefer taking their time to build up a move, passing backwards more often then normally, which is why I thought it goes against the idea of a counter attacking strategy. Am I wrong?

And about my tactic, it doesn't reflect my idea of football at all, it's just a different style to try something new from what I use most of the time

[okd]

no,it doesn't; it's more about the opportunity and players pace and quality; in fact,the greatest counterattacks I have ever seen didn't involve direct passes (the ones you get in fm by playing counter-direct)

it's also about the tempo, because by using counter strategy, tempo increses to max when the opportunity is "on"

you should read Cleon's thread http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/391083-The-School-of-the-Defensive-Arts

[Pendraz]

That topic was a great read, thanks