Day 2 – Player Definitions

tactics...oh dear

It’s day two of my blog, I’m sat at home in quarantine drinking Covonia by the gallon, the perfect day to write about my latest Football Manager exploits. Just like yesterday, I will be spending your time talking to you about another new feature in the game. I told you all yesterday how I had managed to use the Meet The Staff feature in a way which gave me a big advantage over certain opposition, unfortunately, due to my lack of tactical nouse and general idiocy when it comes selecting the right players to play in the right formation, I can’t promise the same success today.

Player Definitions

I was of course talking about the new Player Definitions, the thing we have all been crying out for since the stone age. I’ve constantly moaned on about how mechanical the game comes across, not only in the Transfer Filter but in the Tactics system of previous years. For once we can make use of our box-to-box midfielder and our poaching center forwards without them god damn sliders. I was surprised at the amount of options I had to choose from, I even had the option to transform the goalkeeper into a sweeper, although I’m not sure Brad Jones and his stupid uncoordinated size 12 feet are quite right for that role…

I was determined to make use of this new addition and create a killer tactic out of it, after all I had cried out for it for so long. In past games I’ve never got the ‘Big man – Little man’ partnership to work, maybe the new Player definitions would solve that. I had the midget poacher, Leroy Lita, a proven championship goal scorer. Next on the list was a target man who would win the ball in the air and put the ball on a plate for Leroy to hit home! I didn’t have much to spend and Middlesbrough weren’t the most attractive prospect at this moment in time so I had to look through the transfer and loan list and eventually found the right man for the job. I’d managed to nab Joe Garner on loan and I was hoping he would turn out to be a successful acquisition.

Instead of going through my entire team and listing the instructions to my new tactics, I think it’d be better to explain the player definitions in a few positions and what I have went for. Not everything is as clear as it first looks, I mean what the hell is a Traquartrista? Moving on to the winger positions I noticed that you had the option to choose the ‘Defensive Winger’ option which I think is great, a lot of wingers today earn their brownee points by working hard in their own half of their pitch as well as well the other teams, James Milner for example. However, I had my wingers placed in between my midfielders and strikers, as attacking wingers, yet I till got the defensive winger option. Would playing just behind the striker nullify the defensive winger or would it just mean that they push extra hard to get back and work extra hard going forward? Interesting. Not that any of that interests me as I just wanted a standard winger who would run down the line and cross the ball!

What I wanted from my midfield pairing was pretty simple, someone to win the ball and create possession for the team and someone to do something with that possession. These options were clear conveyed with the Ball-Winning midfielder option and the Advanced Playmaker option, although I had to choose whether they would ‘attack’ or ‘support’, not fully understanding what it meant by ‘support’ I went for the safe option and chose attack. Now I felt I had achieved that balance in midfield, I had the tackler and the passer combination I wanted. It was going to be interesting see how they stick to their position and seeing how they take to their new role.

I really do like the way it has all been incorporated and the vast amount of definitions you get to choose from makes sure that you get your player to play the exact way you want and the exact way he does in real life. I haven’t had enough time to see if the tactic I have created is actually any good, that will take time, but one thing for sure is that the individuals in my team are excelling in there exclusive roles.