I'd like to make a point about ADVANCED FORWARDS, please!

[rocheyb]

I have made this point before in other threads, but now I have a groovy graphic to go with it!

If you play with two up-front, one of whom is an Advanced Forward, then the AF should always play on his preferred side; left-footers on the left and right-footers on the right.

"Why?" you ask. Well, I'll tell you why. It has to do with the relative positions of the ball, the AF and the opposition's closest central defender - as this helpful graphic depicting the plight of the left-footed AF demonstrates (especially if you click to enlarge it):

View attachment 363282

When attacking in the inside-left channel, the Advanced Forward is between the ball and the defender and has the whole of the goal to aim at - including the option to shoot into the far corner?

But when in the inside-right channel there is nothing between the defender and the ball, making the last-ditch sliding tackle that much less prone to conceding a penalty, and your forward's range of motion is restricted to shots into the near side of the goal unless he's happy to try a shot into the far corner with his weaker, less accurate shooting foot - either way, making it a potentially easier save for the Goalkeeper or more likely to miss the target.

And vice-versa for the right-footed Advanced Forward.

"Range of motion, rocheyb?" I can smell your ridicule from here! But, I have watched enough matches on the Comprehensive View during my mammoth (domestic and European silverware-laden) Southampton save to assert that I reckon SI have actually factored this into the game:

Advanced Forwards are more effective when attacking whichever inside channel corresponds to their stronger foot.

 

[Igneos79]

So, when you play with a dlp to send him a through killer ball, should the dlp be below to the left, or below to the right of adv. for? And does it even matter?

 

[rocheyb]

So, when you play with a dlp to send him a through killer ball, should the dlp be below to the left, or below to the right of adv. for? And does it even matter?

I'm not sure it makes a massive amount of difference, but I would still favour playing the Deep-Lying Playmaker on the same side of the field as the Advanced Forward, to facilitate straight balls into the channels between the full-back (who is often taken out of the game by the pass itself) and on the wrong side of the centre-back, from his defensive point-of-view. But the DLP will move around during the general run of play anyway, so he'll come over to the other side at times and initiate attacks from other angles, bringing other team-mates into the game, or play angled passes into the AF.

I usually play two-left footers up-front but the other two in my rotation are both right-footed. When I play a right-footer as AF, I switch the AF and F-9 over so that the AF is on the right - but I leave the midfielders where they are. It works well enough. The DLP is not the only midfielder who can play through balls, of course; he's just more prone to look for the opportunity.

In my Southampton team, I have James Ward-Prowse (or while he's been injured recently, a decent academy regen) playing on the centre-left of a flat midfield-5 as Deep-Lying Playmaker, with an excellent academy regen striker working the left side of a front-2 as Advanced Forward_Attack. In fact, here are some screenshots of my two first-choice forwards, as of 21st February 2023 and 5 days prior to my 6th consecutive Capital One Cup Final appearance (going for a record-breaking 5th consecutive victory):

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Kingsley Idris is the Advanced Forward (he's the best academy regen striker I've ever had in any version of FM, and I've got a potentially even better one in the U18s); Christoffer Jorgensen is the False-9 - his aerial ability is important, particularly with crosses coming in from the left-hand side from Tom Ince or Luke Shaw in the WM_S role.

You can see my preferred formation below, in which the Advanced Playmaker_Attack is also very important; he is also left-footed and likes to run at teams from deep, carrying the fight into the final third and by-passing two-or-three opponents at a time to set up overloading attacks where he can then spread possession wide, play short balls for either of the front two or continue on his own. It helps, of course, that my AP_A and the right-sided WM_S are the previous and current holders of the World Player of the Year award (4th attachment below), which they both won while playing for me - though the fact that the latter has just broken his ankle and will be out for the rest of the season is not so pleasant!

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I'm unbeaten in 25 matches in all competitions (****** Norwich!), I'm scoring shed-loads of goals and but for Chelsea's excellent season, which I can't do much about, I would be one game in-hand away from getting to the top of the Premier League and claiming my 3rd title. Fingers still very much crossed for a West London implosion, though!

You can follow my current season as a Manager Story, if you like, though my writing style is certainly not for the ADD sufferers among you - as my rather unnecessarily full answer to your straight forward enough question no doubt demonstrates!

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot.../163194-diary-season-st-marys-redemption.html