Player position preference: observations and question?

[kbos80]

Hi,

I'm playing with Rennes in my first season and every week my assistant would advise that I switch my two central defenders Kehrer and Gnagnon, as Kehrer prefers to play on the right hand side of the central pair.  I ignored it because (1) Kehrer is better in the covering role and could cover for Kurzawa in a more attacking role, and (2) Kehrer is either footed and so I thought would be better equiped to handle balls coming in from the left of the pitch.  By mid season, I changed my assistant and the new assistant gave the same advice, so I decided to switch.  I put Kehrer on the right of the pair, still with a covering role, and Gnagnon on the left of the pair, still with a stopper role.  My defense was performing quite well, but I wanted to improve, and thought this might be the key.

The first game I played with the changes was away to PSG, hardest game of the season and a big mistake!  I lost 1-5!  I'd already played them three times this season with results 0-1; 0-1; 2-2.  So to be on the end of a battering was a real surprise.  I kept the save, but decided to go back and play the game again to figure out what I'd done wrong.  I played the game three more times, trying different mentalities, balanced and cautious, using counter-attacking, and trying out man marking.  I still lost 0-3; 1-4; 0-4.  Neymar and Mbappe were cutting through my team like I hadn't experienced.  (For context I'm otherwise doing quite well, 3rd in the league and my only loss against PSG as above).

Then I realised it must be the switch in central defenders.  So I reverted to the previous roles (as per attached image) and suddenly results changed dramatically.  I played the game another three times: 1-1; 0-1; and 3-3.

So, my observations and questions:

- changing side of a pairing can seriously disrupt the the team

- perhaps the side preference of the player doesn't affect their ability to perform the role ... does anybody else have insight on this issue?

- is their any way to train your players to prefer another side, or central positioning?

Cheers!

[HUNT3R]

Side preference has no 'penalty' in the game. It's just there to help the AI team selection process. I'm pretty sure newgens don't have these preferences.