Multiple playmakers in formation- why does it work?

[Bunkerossian]

Many of the excellent guides on Football Manager emphasise the varirty of roles in midfield as important for a good tactic. Yet, I see plenty of tactics with more than one playmaker in them. My reasoning is that this would cripple the team by slowing everything too much, and confuse the players, as they would not know around which playmaker to construct the attacking phase. Am I not understanding something obvious?

[Cleon]

Many of the excellent guides on Football Manager emphasise the varirty of roles in midfield as important for a good tactic. Yet, I see plenty of tactics with more than one playmaker in them. My reasoning is that this would cripple the team by slowing everything too much, and confuse the players, as they would not know around which playmaker to construct the attacking phase. Am I not understanding something obvious?

Why would it make things slower? Multiple playmakers can work fine but it's how you set the rest of the side up to take advantage of all the creativity that is important.

[Bunkerossian]

Why would it make things slower? Multiple playmakers can work fine but it's how you set the rest of the side up to take advantage of all the creativity that is important.

Playmakers generally keep the ball for longer than other roles.

[Cleon]

Playmakers generally keep the ball for longer than other roles.

That's not true. A playmaker might seek the ball more than other players but that doesn't mean they always dwell on it or break up fast attacks. If anything, they can enhance the style and make it go faster. It depends how poor your playmaker is and the options he has around him though. If he has no-one he can give quick balls too then it's natural he might dwell on the ball a while. However if the playmaker is placed so he always has available options then there is no reason for him to slow play down.

[Thunder88]

Just think of Coutinho when Liverpool had Suarez,Sturridge and Sterling in front of him,Coutinho had options all over the place for him to either play killer passes or dribble into the space the 3 players I mentioned had created...Coutinho never slowed Liverpool's attacks down..

Now look at Coutinho this season and you'll see a different player as Benteke isn't mobile enough to create the space Coutinho needs..this has made Coutinho dwell more or try more long range efforts that have all usually been wasted..

Liverpool also play with 3 playmakers right now with Coutinho,Firmino and Lallana...as Cleon said above if you don't have runners off the ball then it won't work as Liverpool are finding out.

[ugen64]

Many of the excellent guides on Football Manager emphasise the varirty of roles in midfield as important for a good tactic. Yet, I see plenty of tactics with more than one playmaker in them. My reasoning is that this would cripple the team by slowing everything too much, and confuse the players, as they would not know around which playmaker to construct the attacking phase. Am I not understanding something obvious?

I think if the playmakers are at different 'levels' (like AM vs CM vs DM) then they can coexist with one another. I played a tactic with Arsenal that was very similar to what they play in real life using a 4-2-3-1 formation - Ozil had an AP (A) role and Cazorla had a DLP (S) role. Cazorla would drop deep to receive the ball from the defenders / defensive midfielder but generally hold a deeper position. Meanwhile Ozil would make more forward runs and get involved in interplay around the opposition penalty area. Both players had very good ratings.

In my current save I'm managing DC United which is obviously a much less talented team but I'm using an AP (S) at the right wing position and a Roaming Playmaker (S) in central midfield (formation is 4-1-2-3 DM). Again the players are far enough apart that they don't get in each other's way and since I don't have anyone in the central attacking midfield position the right winger comes infield a lot when we have possession and participates in buildup play that way.

I think you'd start running into trouble if you had, say, a 4-2-3-1 formation and made your CAM and RW both playmakers. Or if you played a 4-4-2 with both central midfielders as advanced playmakers (if one was deep-lying and one was advanced that might work although I can't imagine it would be good defensively).

[Bunkerossian]

I tried adapting one of my existing formations that wasn't doing well, into a formation with 2 playmakers. Disaster- lost both games I tried it. I even had the game on Comprehensive, to spot problems easier. I'm starting to think I'm perceptively challenged...

[jaysdailydose]

I haven't gotten enough games into FM16 to really say if anything has changed drastically in that regard, but I played a two playmaker tactic nearly exclusively last year to great success (League 2 to Premier League/Europe in 5 seasons.)

As others have said, it is the players around those guys and what you have going on around them that makes the bigger difference. My tactic last year had a DLP/s as a CM and an AP/s or AP/a at AMC. The DLP, especially, helped out a ton with depth.

It can definitely work... perhaps you could post a screenshot of your tactic for us to see if we can figure out anything, Bunker? But I will say that two games isn't really much of a sample size to see if a tactic will work or not...

[Bunkerossian]

Since I had discontinued the save due to disappointment in myself (it happens, I have actual depression), I'll offer a graphical presentation of what was I trying to do. It was an attempt to use the many playmakers found in my squad.

--------------------GK(D)

R FB(S)-----LD(D)---------CD(D)------ L FB (S)

--------------------DLP (D)

-------------AP(S)-------BWM (S)

W S(A)*------------------------------- IF S (a)

----------------------TM (S)

The right wing spot with the asterisk had a variant with the player being an inside forward on either Support or Attack duty. Since I want this tactic to work with crosses, I was using high tempo, and direct passing. The left winger is actually left footed, but is set up to cut in because he has good enough ability to both be a threat by crossing or shooting. I find that the defenders do not tackle urgently enough unless set to Hard tackling, but even then, some counterattacks go through because a player was not putting a tackle in even though the opponent was very close by. Players wait too long to cross the ball from the wings. I am not using anything resembling a slow buildup, so the number of blocked crosses and even shots infuriates me.

[jaysdailydose]

Any other team instructions other than tempo and direct passing? What team shape and mentality settings were you using?

[Bunkerossian]

Any other team instructions other than tempo and direct passing? What team shape and mentality settings were you using?

Structured shape, mentality is standard, then when I concede, attacking.

[jaysdailydose]

Structured shape, mentality is standard, then when I concede, attacking.

Well, you say you want to score from crosses, but I'm not guessing that tactic has too many willing runners to get on the end of those crosses. You have literally no one running from the midfield as your BWM and playmaker are both on support duties, and on a standard mentality, I'm not guessing they are getting into the box. Especially on high tempo and the other settings you've described, I'm guessing you see scenarios where the ball gets up to one of the attack duties on the wings quickly, maybe even bypassing the midfield entirely from the directness... and then when you get the ball up on a wing or in a spot where you want to cross, the only people that may near the box would be your TM/S and your IF/S if the cross is coming from your W/S or W/A. Especially if that winger is on attack, I could see you possibly having link-up problems with the AP/S from the CM strata as well.

You've said you've abandoned the save, so its more just ideas of some things that may help down the road for you.

[Carles Alena]

First of all why TM?There are many other better roles to spearhead ur attack.Also ur duo midfield strata of ap/s / bwm/s is not what ud call runners off the ball.They will not be the ones on the receiving end of a header.Rethink what the roles mean.Thats my advice to u, then try to figure out how to play.I can see from now how chaotic ur attacking execution must be.

[Bunkerossian]

The thing is, I am trying to cobble up a tactic that fits the players I have. At that point in the save, I was trying to find the best tactic to utilize players who aren't great goalscorers. My best striker was severely injured, so I had to play a target man. In case it occurs again, I wish to have something that works. The player at BWM (S) can also play a BBM, would that work better?

[Conflictinbanno]

I think one thing that doesn't help with this is your Target Man was possibly isolated in the area, I'd probably use the IF on the left on Attack duty rather than Support to encourage him to be in the box and near the target man. With the BWM I'd of also been tempted to try a CM-S or BBM as both of these would encourage him to run when in possession a lot more than a BWM (I think, someone might want to correct that if I'm wrong), while the DLP will sit deep and the AP will probably look to control the middle, so could do with a BBM, IF running into the box to join the TM while your winger sits out wide to cross to those 3 players up top.