Strategy Advice: Defensive Forwards?

[DukeRulesMAB]

I have an important match against the #1 team in my series that I think is winnable, but only if everything breaks right. One thing that has not broken right is my midfield

- One starter got injured last week
- Another starter (my best) is in poor form.

The team I play puts up a Weak midfield most weeks; I have been putting up Weak lately, as well, but that was before this. He is an otherwise ordinary team with one formidable wing attack.

I will be starting:

- The poor form middy (he should get me either low ** or high *~)
- My one unscathed middy (should get a decent to high **)
- A winger in solid form who can fill in (should get *~, toward the high end)

My normal midfield backup has to start at forward due to injury there. Here are his talents:

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: inadequate
Winger: weak Defending: weak
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: passable


In inadequate form (where he's been most of the year), he is a ** forward and a *~ inner mid. He just upped to passable form this week.

My question is, is it a wise move to play him defensively? I would love to get the bump to my midfield rating, and I expect to do pretty well on my wing attacks. But if I'm gonna get minimal middy gains at the cost of completely gutting my central attack, probably not the move I want to make.

FWIW, my other forward in the 3-5-2 I expect ** out of playing normally as always.

Thoughts?

[lytic]

From what I hear, defensive forwards don't add to the midfield than as they do from taking away from the attack. It all really depends on their line up and ratings to decide to use it as a boost.
You can also use a winger towards the middle for a mid boost, and/or offensive central defender.

[daedalus]

Darn, that's just hideous timing.

I don't know that I'd play him defensively. Even if he can contribute to your midfield, the contribution will be limited due to his stamina. You would probably be better off just doing whatever you can with his scoring since he looks like a pretty good forward.