The Fellaini problem

[L2FM]

Cesson-Sévigné,october 2006. Dying from boredom, a benefit from working abroad. Wandering around in some Auchan, I stumbled upon Football Manager 2007. Me, a football manager? Me, a passionate Standard de Liège fan? Me, who is now given the chance to proof the wrongs of all those self proclaimed messais that were in charge of my club? HELL YEAH.

Back in my hotel, popped that disc in my laptop, installed it, selected Standard,...here we go.

Defour, Jovanovic, Witsel, Onyewu,...yet my eye dropped on 1 player: Fellaini, one of the coming boys back then. Strenght, air, tactics, fitness...I always had an idea(sorry,Boloni,Moyes,Van Gaal...I was the first) for him. What if I could give him 2 duties? When not in possesion, fighting for each ball in front of our defence. When in possesion, figthing for each ball around and inside the box and maybe even score a few? So, 4231, place arrow, hold ball for wingers...done. It worked like a charm. Together, we won 4 Belgian titles, 4 Belgian cups, 4 Belgian supercups, 1 UEFA cup and reached the Champions league semi-finals.

WHY CAN'T I DO THIS ANYMORE? Why am I restricted to SI interpretation of what football is? Why was the classic mode removed? Why do I only have these templates to work with? Current tactic mechanics are very restricted. To make a strategy or solution as effective as possible, there must be creative freedom...

[treble_yell_:-)]

You can do almost everything you could before, you just need to go and read a few hundred pages of guides and blog posts to properly understand what the options *actually* do rather than what they say they do.

[forameuss]

You can do almost everything you could before, you just need to go and read a few hundred pages of guides and blog posts to properly understand what the options *actually* do rather than what they say they do.

But you don't. The only time I visited the tactics forum was on FM14 when I was at a low ebb with that. I spent twenty minutes or so reading a guide, and put some of it into practice. I haven't used once since, and I've got on fine with FM16 - not overly successful, not overly terrible. The assertion that you have to read lots of guides is just false.

[Neil Brock]

Sounds like a box to box midfielder to be honest.

[treble_yell_:-)]

But you don't. The only time I visited the tactics forum was on FM14 when I was at a low ebb with that. I spent twenty minutes or so reading a guide, and put some of it into practice. I haven't used once since, and I've got on fine with FM16 - not overly successful, not overly terrible. The assertion that you have to read lots of guides is just false.

He's not askng if you can take a quick look at the game mechanics and bumble your way to a "not great, not terrible" tactic. He's trying to do specific stiff he feels you could do with the sliders, and you can do all that in 16, you just need an inherent knowledge of the tactical systems.

[Welshace]

Classic mode removed? You mean Touch?

[L2FM]

Sounds like a box to box midfielder to be honest.

No, just no.

FM16 BBM is always trying to get himself involved into the passing game. No matter how bad he is at passing, he will always try to get himself involved. If you've ever seen Fellaini play in his best years when playing at Standard and Everton, you would have seen that he never got himself involved in the passing game. He would win the ball back from the DM position, play it towards a creative player, that player would slow the game down to make sure Fellaini can get as close to the box as possible without ever recieving a pass. Those teams their gameplan revolved around the idea of getting Fellaini inside the box. Not lurking outside of it, not just penetrating it when a cross is made, but getting him inside the box at all times when in possesion. Definitely not the BBM how SI is using in FM16. FM16 BBM seems to chose its position depending on where the ball is, always making himself available for a pass. Fellaini, De Rossi, Cabaye, Cambiasso,...all BBM's with very different styles. FM16 generic, one size fits all BBM will never show you these different styles.

[ac13]

No, just no.

FM16 BBM is always trying to get himself involved into the passing game. No matter how bad he is at passing, he will always try to get himself involved. If you've ever seen Fellaini play in his best years when playing at Standard and Everton, you would have seen that he never got himself involved in the passing game. He would win the ball back from the DM position, play it towards a creative player, that player would slow the game down to make sure Fellaini can get as close to the box as possible without ever recieving a pass. Those teams their gameplan revolved around the idea of getting Fellaini inside the box. Not lurking outside of it, not just penetrating it when a cross is made, but getting him inside the box at all times when in possesion. Definitely not the BBM how SI is using in FM16. FM16 BBM seems to chose its position depending on where the ball is, always making himself available for a pass. Fellaini, De Rossi, Cabaye, Cambiasso,...all BBM's with very different styles. FM16 generic, one size fits all BBM will never show you these different styles.

Didn't watch him at Standard but he didn't play like that for Everton at all. He either played as a defensive/ ball winning midfielder but far more often he played as an attacking midfielder. He never did all the things you said at the same time.

[Svenc]

Regardless of how he actually played, both the b2b roles as well as naturally the more generic midfield roles (CM/DM) can still be tweaked to extents, the more generic roles in particular. Giving a b2b the "gets further forward" instruction will cause him to always make surges forward, same you could do on any of the midfield roles (except for defend duty players). Probably worth a try? "Get further forward" is basically the same as setting "runs from deep" / "forward runs" to always previously.

The arrows were taken out like ages ago, FM 2009 I think, and they didn't work as positioning tools as much as letting players inhibit two positions at once. Like: If we're without the ball you're here and when we're with the ball you act the same but immediately straight out of the bat inhibit this spot over here. Positioning doesn't work that way in football it's a bit more fluid than this, about space opening up and players either able to assess it or not. And it typically doesn't completely ignore the play, like the arrows did. Not to be confused with the arrows in the optional "classic tactics" interface up until FM 2013ish. Like these:

Those were simply visual cues on the tactics board indicating which players were given license to bomb forward (forward arrow: RFD always) and which ones were supposed to strictly hold position always (backward arrow: runs from deep never). Llike half the team here, a part of FM 2012's most championed AI exploit thingamabob. Setting a player to "get further forward" in current editions is the same as drawing a forward arrow on this one.