How do I get my inside forwards to play narrower?!?!?

[jdmk88]

I give up, team instructions set to 'very narrow', player instructions set to 'sit narrower', yet my inside forward plays like a winger that's not allowed to cross. All I want is for my inside forward to come inside the full back and attack the centre back when we have the ball.

This is my biggest issue with FM this year. I want my players to do the simplest tasks, but this year, it feels impossible to translate this through your tactic.

I can't stand the options when you create a tactic, they just seem so lazy and unrealistic. I mean, could you imagine this in real life...

"how wide do you want us to play, boss?"

"narrow"

"how narrow?"

"very narrow!"

I miss the days of when you could put arrows on your tactics indicating where players should play whilst you're in possession. Simple, easy to understand and realistic!

[Nima2708]

Play wider
That make space, and ask your WB to cross far post. 
To make your IF work more narrow it helps to bring up your WB and have a striker that make space for them. So try maybe shorter passing and higher tempo. If your WB dont come forward your IF attack outside. 

[fc.cadoni]

The question is (are): If it's safe for IF to cut inside with the ball without losing possession, if it's faster than opp. defender (-s) (with the ball), if has the space to do that etc... The TI "Narrow" will make your players to play the ball in DM-CM strata; rather than on flanks regularly.

Arrows & sliders is now different and more complex.

[jdmk88]

9 hours ago, Nima2708 said:

Play wider
That make space, and ask your WB to cross far post. 
To make your IF work more narrow it helps to bring up your WB and have a striker that make space for them. So try maybe shorter passing and higher tempo. If your WB dont come forward your IF attack outside. 

I play standard width and my inside forward has an attacking wing back outside him. I'm not even exaggerating, 90% of the time my inside forward gets the ball, he runs down the wing with the wing back.

[Johnny Ace]

11 minutes ago, jdmk88 said:

I play standard width and my inside forward has an attacking wing back outside him. I'm not even exaggerating, 90% of the time my inside forward gets the ball, he runs down the wing with the wing back.

Is your game fully up to date? This was an issue early on but was fixed

[jdmk88]

5 hours ago, fc.cadoni said:

The question is (are): If it's safe for IF to cut inside with the ball without losing possession, if it's faster than opp. defender (-s) (with the ball), if has the space to do that etc... The TI "Narrow" will make your players to play the ball in DM-CM strata; rather than on flanks regularly.

Arrows & sliders is now different and more complex.

If TI instruction 'narrow' makes your team play down the middle, what's the point in 'focus play down centre/right/left'? 

I want my inside forward to sit narrower when we're in possession. To the point that he's not necessarily cutting inside, as he's already in a central(ish) position when we have the ball. When we lose the ball, I want him to move back out to the right wing. 

In a nutshell, like Salah. Salah comes out wide during a defensive phase but is always well inside the width of the penalty area when liverpool have possession in the oppositions half.

Cheers for the reply

[beverage1982]

I'd be interested in this topic too but for different reasons. I'm trying to get the two wide forwards to almost play as 10s. Recreating a Xmas tree formation without recreating an exmas tree formation. If that makes sense

[Andrew Marines]

I think you could just play the IF as an assymetrical shadow striker. If you never need width from him, it makes perfect sense

[Dutchy1983]

Doesn't an inside forward stay wide and dribble in, whereas the IW move inwards.. try the IW

[Andrew Marines]

44 minuti fa, Dutchy1983 ha scritto:

Doesn't an inside forward stay wide and dribble in, whereas the IW move inwards.. try the IW

No, you can set them to stay narrower but it doesn't work that much.

Stay wider:

 

Stay narrow:

 

Probably only the starting position is a bit wider but that's not much of a difference. Same with IW. They all behave quite the same

 

 

[DimitrisLar]

most times the positioning of a player is not down to the instructions but to the kind of roles the players around them have. The way other players occupy space is what make a role contribute different than you think it should.  

for example, i use a f9 in a 4-3-3. Fot him to come deep, i need to have a  midfield that gives him the space to make that movement. As a result i gave a PI of stay wider to my 2 MC players. With that way my IF goes behind my f9 a lot in a game and thats why he is my top scorer. 

A system is as its name strongly recommends. Think of it like the environment. IT works in a systematic way. In a chain of events.

 

[glengarry224]

I sympathize.  Though it's always good to post your tactic.

I'd always understood that without the ball, an IF, especially on attack duty, should attack the box more often than an IW, because he is a "forward" and the IW should start wider more often than an IF (but float inside more often than a W), but after getting the ball, move inside more often than a standard W, but still cross sometimes, because he is a "winger." 

The game stresses attributes to support this conception.  The IW(s) stresses wide player attributes like crossing, decisions, work rate and stamina as secondary (blue) importance:

And from the tactics menu, the game describes IW as:

[sorry I don't know how to copy the moving gif,] but the moving gif, in the game, shows the IW receiving the ball on the wing then cutting inside

vs the IF(s) does not stress crossing, stamina, work rate or decisions but does stress finishing, composure, flair and balance, which I think are more important for goal scorers and players playing in and around the box:

and unlike the IW, the moving gif [if i could copy it] shows the IF cutting inside, then receiving the pass:

Any player will perform certain situations the same, regardless of IF or IW, but should show different tendencies.  But anecdotally, it doesn't seem to  work that way often enough in FM22.  

The first few months of FM22, there were threads on how IFs and IWs were playing too similarly.  Don't know if updates fixed that or not.

[jdmk88]

On 12/05/2022 at 07:49, Andrew Marines said:

I think you could just play the IF as an assymetrical shadow striker. If you never need width from him, it makes perfect sense

I tried this but a shadow striker doesn't track back. I even tried asking him to man-mark the opposing wing-back/full back but this never worked (maybe because all my inside forwards don't have good marking). 

[Andrew Marines]

9 ore fa, jdmk88 ha scritto:

I tried this but a shadow striker doesn't track back. I even tried asking him to man-mark the opposing wing-back/full back but this never worked (maybe because all my inside forwards don't have good marking). 

They gotta have workrate, team play and other mentals too to actually being able to track back and man-mark successfully. If you're not playing on full match, the player could track back often but you see only the highlights where he doesn't

[Nima2708]

On 11/05/2022 at 14:11, jdmk88 said:

I play standard width and my inside forward has an attacking wing back outside him. I'm not even exaggerating, 90% of the time my inside forward gets the ball, he runs down the wing with the wing back.

if you want them to always be inside when you have the ball, go for the raudm. 
They attack that space and stand wide in defense

[(sic)]

Essentially what you want is a wide player that occupies the channel in possession. I feel for you, as it is something I wanted to have as well, for years. The closest thing is the Raumdeuter.

The only problem is, when do they occupy that space? In the final third they will pretty much always do that, even regular Wingers will come narrower and occupy that space often. 

The issue comes from the earlier buildup phase, where IFs are pretty much sitting wide (with attack duty they might sit a bit narrower, but are much further up the field, pretty much in line with a striker).

No matter the instructions, you can't tell them to be as narrow in the buildup, as the roles are simply hardcoded to behave like that. They will sit wider, until at least the middle third, and often the final third.

You could try playing with any of the playmaker roles (TQ, AP), as they will tend to move more centrally.

 

A lot of roles suffer from this issue of being hardcoded to behave a certain way in certain phases of play. Usually there are no problems, but when they do rise, it's mostly in the buildup (that's my experience at least). For example Wingbacks in Wingback spots. You'd often see them sit at the half-way line (or a bit higher) during buildup from GK. In FM they're sitting much deeper, and the only way I've found to make them sit higher is to use players in ML/MR spots - but then defense becomes an issue).

Edited May 23, 2022 by (sic)

[DarJ]

On 23/05/2022 at 09:05, (sic) said:

The issue comes from the earlier buildup phase, where IFs are pretty much sitting wide (with attack duty they might sit a bit narrower, but are much further up the field, pretty much in line with a striker).

No matter the instructions, you can't tell them to be as narrow in the buildup, as the roles are simply hardcoded to behave like that. They will sit wider, until at least the middle third, and often the final third.

That’s how I want my IFs to play 90% of the time since they tend to be better dribblers than my fullbacks I want them to stay wide in buildup and revive the ball wide then dribble in with it. IFs in FM have always started their inside runs too early for my liking

[(sic)]

14 minutes ago, DarJ said:

That’s how I want my IFs to play 90% of the time since they tend to be better dribblers than my fullbacks I want them to stay wide in buildup and revive the ball wide then dribble in with it. IFs in FM have always started their inside runs too early for my liking

 

Yes, that's the other side of the issue. It's especially the case with Wingers, where they go narrow in later stages of the attack, instead of providing width.

What you are looking for sounds more like a IW rather than an IF. IFs are more focused on off the ball runs and getting into the scoring chances, rather than staying wide and dribbling inside (at least in FM22).

 

If I'm playing with an IF, I'd pretty much always have a WB on that side as well. He's the one that should provide the width at all times, even in the buildup, sitting high and wide - but what happens is that IF is wide and high, and WB is wide and inside of our own half, so I end up having 2 players occupying the flank, at least until the ball progresses into the middle third, and that's something I don't want. 

I do get them to perform how I want in other areas of play (somewhat, can't expect it to be 100% like in Real-life), just not in the buildup phase. They do occupy the half-space in middle and final thirds. I guess having a WB who's pushing forward on that side and having focus play through the middle helps somewhat with that.

Edited May 24, 2022 by (sic)