Should I Set All My Players To Their Preferred Roles & Duties?

[Vanchatron]

I'm fairly new to FM and when I bought 2012, my first ever season went amazingly. I went on a 28 game unbeaten streak, won the Serie A & Italian Cup, and gained a **** of a load of Steam Achievements. Then came the second season & it all went downhill from there. I started messing around more with the tactics etc, and I think I've probably messed things up a little too much as I've been playing terrible recently & I'm hardly winning any games.

I have a feeling one of the problems is down to the fact I never know what Roles/Duties to give my attackers. I don't mean positions, I mean their actual "roles". If you use 4-1-2-1-2 for example, it sets the two strikers to AF(A) & DLF(S). Now when I check my two strikers, it says that one of them plays best as a Trequartista(A) and the other plays best as a Target Man(A).

So what am I meant to do in this situation? Should I set them both to their preferred roles & duties or should I leave it as it is? And should I do this with the rest of the players in my team aswell? I just don't want anything to get gimped from doing this, such as it producing gaps on the field for the opposition to exploit etc.

If I could get some advice or tips here I'd appreciate it, thanks.

 

[Cerpy]

Tough question to answer. You obviously wouldn't want to force a poacher into a target man role just to keep your tactics the same. There is usually quite a bit of overlap between the different roles, so if you have a preferred style of play you can certainly use a player in a role that isn't 100% suited to him. It's hard to answer definitively without seeing which players you have and what sort of tactic you are using. For example you could change your striker to play as a target man, but this would only be helpful if there are players who are able to provide service for him to get his head on and hold up play for his partner. It's difficult to strike a balance until you can really overhaul your squad and get players best suited to the roles you want.

Also the assistant reports where you are shown the players ratings in stars and their preferred roles should be seen as a starting point only. As you become more familiar with the game you will learn which attributes you value most for each position. For example I have a player who is currently rated 2.5 stars as an AML yet he has been great for me and has won league player of the year two years in a row.