Sorry for the title of the post but I think I listened to this classic song about fifty times while writing this post. If something is 100% clear description in terms of me & my tactical thinking within the Football Manager and a real-life football, it’s the fact that I’m quite conservative when it comes to the moment when I select the player roles.

This is just a short post with examples of how I’m using the simple individual instruction for the Central Midfielder role with the support duty within my FM22 save with Warta Poznan.

🤝 WB(D)

My starting formation was with two wing-backs and both had the support duty. But that was before I decided to use the run wide with ball instruction for my right CM(S) player. Before you will ask, yes, I tried it both together but I decided to turn my right wing-back’s duty to defend.

Some of you will think that it’s a shame to sacrifice one wide/wing option, especially as the FM22 can be nicknamed Crossing Manager 2022 but it works very well together for several reasons.

• When the wing-back has the support duty with the gets further forward instruction, they are together in the same area very often.

• If the wing-back has the defend duty, he is instructed to hold position and that allows my CM(S) to run wide with ball.

• + the CM(S) has the option to cross but he also has the option to pause his run(s) and pass the ball back to the WB who is almost every time available to receive the ball due to his deeper position.

• Importantly, the fact I’m using a wing-back with the defend duty doesn’t mean he 1) can’t cross or 2) he can’t move forward. It can be very effective against high pressing teams as my defensive-minded wing-back has more space ahead of him.

Stay Wider instruction ❌ and Why not Mezzala?

At the beginning of using the run wide with ball instruction, I thought it will be useful to combine it with stay wider instruction too. But it was not a good idea. The stay wider instruction tells the player “to stretch the game over the full width of the playing surface rather than staying central”.

I realised quite fast that it’s illogical to use both of these. It’s simple. If you are already wide, you can’t run wide with the ball. You would end up on the bench every time if I will take it to the extreme example.

And yes, that’s also one of the main reasons why I’m not using the Mezzala role as it has the stay wider instruction set by default and I can’t remove it. The other reason why I’m not using Mezzala (or Carrilero) role is that I will probably always rather customise the CM(S) role with the individual instructions and develop my player(s) with the specific play traits.

My main player for this role is Szymon Czyz. He developed three traits during the two and a half-season of this save: Moves Into Channels, Comes Deep To Get Ball and Looks For Pass Rather Than Attempting To Score. His Dribbling attribute value is 12 while I’m writing this post. I’m sure this instruction can be even more effective if I would have (or try) some player with an even higher Dribbling attribute value.

But my main player is Szymon and I will use him there until he will be in the club. I saved some screens from the analysis and his dribbles from various matches.

On the other side of the pitch, we have also CM(S) but this player is used with the Hold Position instruction and the wing-back is with the support duty. It’s a nice mix of both sides and not be so stereotypic at both wings. The left wing-back has more assists (usually the double amount of what the right wing-back has) but that’s probably somehow expected. The left wing-back and both CM(S) has the highest amount of assists during the third season and that’s a perfect combination.

But it’s not only about assists straight from the specific player who is playing in this role with this instruction. Many goals were scored after a cross deflection or this player would have the second assist if it would be an ice-hockey.

The testing and playing the game can continue…

Thanks for reading.