A guide to choosing player roles in the attacking quartile - with fancy tables!

[Yurt]

I am doing this 'guide' partly for my own future reference, and partly to help anyone interested. I often find that, particularly if you are aiming to create a fluid tactic with a focus on shared responsibility and teamwork, over-analysing and over-specialising the roles you ascribe to your attacking players (those in the last two 'bands') can be a hindrance. Therefore, instead of scrutinising every last instruction and player attribute to try and work out some magic formula, I often find it best to think roughly of what sort of goal-threat each attacking role you are selecting offers, and then try to find a balance between them. This is pretty basic FMing, I'm sure, but this resource could be useful to anyone not quite sure if their attacking set-up possesses the required amount of either creativity or potency to be effective. The ratios, obviously, are a rough guide, and it can be interpreted really as just More Assists:Less Goals vs Equal Assists:Equal Goals vs Less Assists:More Goals.

As I say, this is partly just for my own reference, but I don't think there's a lot in here that can be disputed, so there's no reason the below can't be a useful tool. Also, it needs to be remembered that roles and duties do compliment and supplement one another in different ways, so the Assists:Goals ratio for a certain role will change depending on the players around him and your general instructions. Anyway, enjoy...

 

[Yurt]

The Wide Roles

Role	75% Assists:25% Goals	50% Assists:50% Goals	25% Assists:75% Goals
Winger	Support	Attack
Advanced playmaker	Support	Attack
Inside forward		Support	Attack
Defensive winger	Support
Wide Target Man		Support	Attack

Note: The Defensive winger - Defend will very rarely provide a goalscoring threat, and so, for the sake of keeping in tandem with the quarterly fractions, can be understood to offer 100% Assists:0% Goals. Also, the Wide Target Man is difficult to classify, seeing as the role in game is not strictly defined and is open to customisation. Because with an Attack duty he is set to be the focal point of a team's attack, and because I have little experience with the role myself, I have worked under the premise that the Wide Target Man is intended to be a goalscoring threat.


The Central Attacking Midfield Roles

Role	75% Assists:25% Goals	50% Assists:50% Goals	25% Assists:75% Goals
Attacking midfielder	Support	Attack
Advanced playmaker	Support	Attack
Trequartista		Attack
Enganche	Attack
Shadow Striker			Attack

Note: Though the Trequartista and Enganche are expected to have similar attributes and contribute to the game in a similar way, the Trequartista's increased roaming allows him to find himself more often in goalscoring positions. This means he will often score a similar number of goals to how many he assists, whereas the Enganche tends to sit back and take more responsibility for creating chances, as opposed to finishing them.


The Striker Roles

Role	75% Assists:25% Goals	50% Assists:50% Goals	25% Assists:75% Goals
Deep lying forward	Support	Attack
Advanced forward			Attack
Target man		Support	Attack
Poacher			Attack
Complete forward		Support	Attack
Defensive forward	Support
Trequartista		Attack
False Nine	Support

Note: Again, the Defensive forward - Defend's goalscoring contribution is so comparatively minimal that he can be roughly understood to offer 100% Assists:0% Goals, as with the Defensive winger - Defend. Also, the Assists:Goals ratios of your forwards are subject to change (more so than those of the other attacking players) depending on whether or not you are playing with one or two strikers, and what their corresponding roles are. For example, when paired with a Poacher or an Advanced forward, the Target man - Support will most likely drop down to 75% Assists:25% Goals.

 

[MisterBurkes]

Good read, though from personal experience I think I can refute your F9 statistic. I like to run 3 strikers with 2 F9's, and they are my top goal scorers lol (one of them finished 5th in league rankings, the other finished 9th). My attacking CF on the other hand, has about equal assists and goals (maybe slightly more assists, even).

The reason this happens is because two F9's disrupt the opponents d-line far better than one, and the CF can often place a nice through-ball to one of the two instead of trying to beat his own marker.

I used to also run a 4-2-3-1 with a F9 in front, who was also my top goal scorer. I'd say a lone F9 is more 50% goals 50% assists, and multiple F9's = 75% goals, 25% assists.

 

[andrichbrand]

This forum needs more of these guides to help new and old players. Well done mate.

 

[Yurt]

Good read, though from personal experience I think I can refute your F9 statistic. I like to run 3 strikers with 2 F9's, and they are my top goal scorers lol (one of them finished 5th in league rankings, the other finished 9th). My attacking CF on the other hand, has about equal assists and goals (maybe slightly more assists, even).

The reason this happens is because two F9's disrupt the opponents d-line far better than one, and the CF can often place a nice through-ball to one of the two instead of trying to beat his own marker.

I used to also run a 4-2-3-1 with a F9 in front, who was also my top goal scorer. I'd say a lone F9 is more 50% goals 50% assists, and multiple F9's = 75% goals, 25% assists.

Interesting. Like I say, a role's impact definitely does alter depending on the general setup, so thanks for your very good example of this. I can't say I have loads of experience with F9, so perhaps I ought to change it go 50:50, especially as I was generally considering the forward roles as if they were lone strikers. Though I have found that when I use a F9, they very rarely pop up in goalscoring positions, and are served best by numerous overlapping players to latch on to their through balls. I'm not sure if this has changed post-update, but I couldn't seem to get them to stop shooting from practically the half way line, too! Cheers for the input anyway man; I might well change it after some experimenting myself.

This forum needs more of these guides to help new and old players. Well done mate.

Thanks a lot, much appreciated to hear that it's at least been a smidge of use!