Receives Passes to X as a Player Instruction

[Slippy_]

The tactic creator has really come a long way in terms of ease of use but there is one area I always find lacking – attempting to distribute the ball to specific players in certain ways.

An example – I am playing a 4-4-2 formation with a 6 foot 5 DLF and a 5 foot 4 speedy AF. The ideal situation would be for my team to distribute to the head of my target man and to space for my advanced forward. However currently that isn’t possible.

I can select the ‘pass into space’ team instruction but that would mean that we wouldn’t be providing the correct service to my DLF. Meanwhile my advanced forward, who will be the furthest ahead player, might get targeted for headers which he will never win if I don’t select it. In either situation I don’t win. In the real world the team would know not to direct high passes to the head of the small players (if they are going to be challenged for the header) and would know to direct passes to the tall strong forwards head.

There are also situations where I might have an enganche style player with little pace/acceleration. For this kind of player I want the ball played directly to his feet rather than into space, in order for them to quickly make an decisive pass.

In order to rectify this I would suggest making ‘receives passes to X’ an instruction on the player instruction screen, with the player trait further increasing/modifying the frequency of how a player receives passes. A list of options could be:

·         Receives passes to head (automatically selected for target forward & wide forward)

·         Receives passes to run onto (automatically selected for poacher, maybe shadow striker)

·         Receives passes to feet (automatically selected for playmakers, enganches)

·         Mixed (default setting for most roles)

Most roles probably wouldn’t need a specific instruction but they could be added to suit the specific player.

This would make it easier to make use of fast pacy forwards who perhaps lack size in roles outside of poacher, while also helping the team not make long passes to heads of players who have no businesses challenging for headers. This is specifically useful for goal keeper distribution as well. In FM23 if I am playing a small striker as my most advanced player the keeper will often seek them out, which will almost always result in a lost aerial duel and lost possession.

Finally an examples:

This is my advanced foward on one of my saves. For the clubs level he is a pretty solid advanced foward just with no physical presence. In match he loses nearly all his headers (which makes sense) but as my most advanced forward he will often find himself getting picked out by my keeper who is aiming at him rather than into space. In an ideal world the goalkeeper would instead look for his DLF teamate if it looks like it will be a contested header (but is a deeper player), look for a different option or instead play it into space.

 

[Zachary Whyte]

Thank you for the detailed suggestion. This will be put under consideration by the developers.