AMC in a 442 Diamond. Help required?

[mag man]

I am currently playing with an attacking 442 Diamond. All my players apart from the AMC get a rating of around 7.0 whilst he gets a rating in the low 6's to 5's.

Here are his instructions:

I was wondering if any of you could provide suggestions?

[Son_Of_William]

Closing Down looks too high for me.

Maybe Forward Runs to Often to support the ST's

I Use Short passing also. Not a fan of Free Roll but it's your choice.

[mag man]

Free role has been off mostly, I just turned it on to see if it makes a difference.

Ive also tried short passing but I find that since the new patch direct works better.

Im going to try more forward runs. Thanks for quick reply.

[Son_Of_William]

No problem my man.

If I were you I'd try sticking to Short passing. I think Direct passing is the worst passing mode on the game. But thats just opinion. Stick to what your happy with.

I'd deffinetly drop the Closing Down.

[grozavu07]

FwR rarely,Cross ball rarely and mixed passing

And maybe RwB often

[mag man]

Ok, I just dropped closing down and also got short passing. Also have often forward runs and TTB on mixed. Got a game to see how it goes.

5.9 Rating at half time.

[higgins]

Ok, I just dropped closing down and also got short passing. Also have often forward runs and TTB on mixed. Got a game to see how it goes.

5.9 Rating at half time.

Who are your Amc and your Dmc?

[mag man]

AMC's are:

or

DMC's are:

or

The DMC is also set as playmaker.

[higgins]

I think that the problem could be that setting your dmc as the playmaker, your amc is not so involved in the game as he should.

Try to play without a playmaker, try also to set your amc to forward run rarely.

Leave him on free role.

[The_Kman]

There's something wrong with the AMC rating. Switch him during a match with one of the wingers and instantly his rating will go up, and that without even touching the ball. Now that can't be right?

[kennec]

try one or several of following

- try move down the amc to mc with fwrs on to get him more involved

- remove free role, only for the best of flair players and doesnt always work

- reduce closing down

- increase or reduce mentality so hes on pair or about same as your support striker or wingers

- are u playing through the flanks? go to mixed

- reduce the passing style to short so he doesnt make to many attempts with through balls and direct hard passes to strikers. they get rating after completion of passes so short should be better for your amc s mayby.

[Murchadh]

- try move down the amc to mc with fwrs on to get him more involved

This only works if you have a lightning quick AMC since slow players will find that they cannot get up fast enough to support the striker/s if there are other players (wings) bombing forward from advanced positions. Also, shifting the AMC into central midfield will probably promote an increase in possession but will result in less goal scoring opportunities and may also congest the midfield which is not always good. What's more, the point (as far as I can tell) of playing an AMC is to provide a short outlet for other players to pass to and for him to pass from. AMCs are space fillers. By not filling the AMC position you are left with a longer pass to be made to the main attack (strikers and wingers) which is almost always more difficult and has a higher risk of not being completed. Also, the AMC serves to force the opposition to strengthen their defense in order to cope with the space that he fills. This means that the opposition is by default less of a threat to you. When the opposition does not counter the AMC space you have a big advantage in attack.

- reduce closing down

This may help, but by doing so you are removing a potent defensive weapon. Having the AMC close down heavily serves to (1) pressure the opposition into keeping the ball in their half and (2) sometimes the AMC is able to nick the ball off an opposing player in a VERY advantageous position. If you set tackling to hard the closer will attempt to tackle an opposition player (diving in) and sometimes they get to nick the ball which may lead to very good attacking positions for you (you have the man over); if the tackle leads to failure though, the closer is left out of position and they immediately have the man over. If you set tackling to easy, they mostly won't actually attempt tackles but will "shadow" the opposition player, making it difficult for that player to move forward, either via pass or movement. The downside to this is that you have to cope with the opposition having more structured attacks against you instead of more counter attacks.

- increase or reduce mentality so hes on pair or about same as your support striker or wingers

I have tried every and all combinations of mentality for my AMC and none of them have the effect of boosting rating. Like the old science thing goes. "for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction". If you lower mentality, you may get your AMC more involved, but will leave him with less attacking options. If you increase mentality, you are left with more attacking options but less involvement.

- are u playing through the flanks? go to mixed

I would agree with this. I play extensively with true wingers so logic would dictate that I should play via the flanks. Yet, on mixed the AMC seems to get more ball directly, which he floats into the paths of the wingers anyway.

- reduce the passing style to short so he doesnt make to many attempts with through balls and direct hard passes to strikers.

I would say yes to short passing, coupled with high creative freedom and often through balls. The thing with through balls is that a good AMC will not often connect with them, but when he does, they turn out to promote great goal scoring opportunities.

they get rating after completion of passes so short should be better for your amc s mayby.

This is not true. Pass completion ratio has nothing to do with ratings. If it is part of the formula then it has only a slight impact. All three my central midfielders top the tables in pass completion (over 85% the lot of them) and get 5+ key balls per game, yet they all suffer from low ratings.

Currently there is most assuredly a problem with ratings in the game. I would say that as long as your team is playing well, forget about the ratings.

[Noel Gallagher]

I am also playing a 442 diamond and was having issues with my AMC getting low ratings. I realised that this was because I was focusing my passing down the flanks, so he wasn't getting much of the ball. I have now instructed him to make forward runs often so that he can get into the box when the crosses come in from the wings as he does not get involved much with the build up play due to the ball being played out wide. How are you focusing your passing?

[Murchadh]

As a rule I start every game with "use both flanks" because my shape is set up to work best with this option. I do this regardless of pitch size. If (1) the opposition is very defensive and I struggle to make an impact through crossing and/or (2) the opposition is killing my wings, I switch to mixed.

I have experimented with mentalities over the last couple of games and the "golden middle" (for me) seems to be in having the AMC with the same mentality as the MCs. I still get bad rating games but now only 1 in 3.