Winger Question
 

Looking ahead to next season, I'm seeing a few solid wingers going cheap. However, they don't have any side skills better than Poor. Assuming I train them to Solid/Excellent stamina between seasons, and they are in good form, are these players worthy cheap acquisitions, or do wingers really need either PM or passing to be really useful?

I have one Solid winger (my best player), a Passable with no other skills( but who brings my AoW up to Solid), and an inadequate with Passable PM that I play to middle when I want a midfield boost. Any point to a one-skill Solid winger? At any age?

Stamina doesn't matter unless you have PM skill.

Really, for your offensive winger, no other skills matter. That's less true as you advance up the ladder, but for the start, it's the case.

If you're willing to go with 2 offensive wings (something I did for two seasons), then those solid wingers are fine. If you want a TM winger, though, gonna need to find someone with PM and at least some stamina.

I'm a recently converted winger trainer. Thanks for the info. :)

I switched because I had an opportunity to buy a U-20 winger from the Ukraine. I way over paid but I'm happy with it.

How quickly do wingers pop? I think I've asked before...but I've forgotten.

I've got a solid winger with solid pm and passable passing as well as stamina and he gets 3-3.5 stars regularly. i haven't had good TS this year but i imagine it would just be that much better. I bought him for 400k which i thought was pretty cheap for a 3-4 star winger

DukeRulesMAB - Doesn't a winger's Playmaking skill help the midfield regardless? The way I see it -

Normal Winger -
1) Winger Skill contributes to wing attack
2) PM/Stamina contributes to midfield
3) Defending contributes to wing defense

Offensive Winger -
1) Winger Skill contributes more to wing attack
2) PM/Stamina still contribute to midfield with no penalty
3) Defending contributes less to wing defense

Towards Middle Winger -
1) Winger Skill contributes less to wing attack
2) PM/Stamina contribute more to midfield
3) Defending contributes less to wing defense

So a winger with no PM/Stamina will just fail to contribute to your midfield...your attack will not be compromised, and your midfield will only be less if the Winger is significantly worse at PM than his predecessor.

Caveat - I'm not sure this is correct, but this is how I believe it works. I've been wrong before (often :)).

so AE, you're falling to the dark side, good to know :)

From Hattricks, wingers pop in 5 weeks at 17, with 9 assistants and a solid coach. According to them, add a week per year of age and per level under solid for your coach. The one week per year above is somewhat untrue, here's how I think it should be

17 - 5 wks
18 - 5.5 wks
19 - 6 wks
20 - 7 wks and from then on, add one week per year

Oh, and I will be switching to winger training definitely at some point next season, with a pre-run during my cup run...

OG, to answer your question, I agree with Duke about stamina only if he has any PM skill, and also on the fact that you can have a winger without too much PM and he can still be effective. Played offensive, a winger gets a boost to his winger skill and loses some defending skill, so a solid winger played offensive is kinda nice for a young, somewhat not yet mature team.

As for a toward middle winger, I have always used a pure inner mid in there, one without too much winger skill, but a lot of playmaking and plenty of stamina. I usually go with one of my inner mid trainee.

FM

Winger pop like keepers, 5 weeks at 17 YO, add a year thereafter.

Really, for TM winger, I've come around to believing that passing is more important than winger skill, because passing's effect isn't diminished by the positioning.

Though we all know stars are evil, I've found PM to be more important than passing starwise, even for an offensive winger. My future trainees will all have at least inad PM, and I think I'll likely ignore passing for my offensive wingers, while emphasizing it for my TM wingers.

A final note on wingers: Quick is a great specialty for them.

Vince - That's why I said at the start (I know OG is just starting his team). Definately, as I said in my subsequent post, PM is great for offensive wingers, too, just it is clearly a secondary thing and tends to add a ton to cost for a team with a limited budget.

all you people need to stop talking about switching to winger training.... cause thats what i wanna do!! :) But not for awhile since i wanna have a Div. II capable midfield (3 middies with supernaturel - ET PM) first.

thanks, that's what I was hoping to have confirmed. Budget constraints definitely keep me from having Solids with any secondaries right now. Offensive wingers fit my team, at the moment. The best winger is excellent stamina, Solid winger, and passable PM, so he's far and away the best player I have. And solid form right now is gravy for me.

No one is mentioning passing with regards to wingers, but it is trained with wingers so I assume it helps in some way, right? Or am I confused?

Answered my own question:



Sorry, I'm a little tired and started worrying when it was left out of Vince's post.

Whew,

That's enough to confuse AE. What the heck?

I sure it helps, but I moved my left side attack from passable to solid by replacing an inadequate winger (passable PM and weak passing ) with a passable winger having distrous PM and poor passing. So I"m certain the bump in winger skill overwhelmed a slight drop in passing skill.

One thing I sort of just realized lately, and remember that I've been playing this game for almost a year ;), is that winger passing is only third on a side attack and isn't used anywhere else, look at this again:

Attack Left wing

Winger Left winger Scoring forwards Passing left winger Passing left inner midfielder Winger left wing back

So, based on this, it would make more sense to pay a bit more for a higher scoring forward, since his scoring is the #1 skill for central attack and the #2 skill for the side attack on his side...

FM

Like I said above, I really believe passing is only highly important for Toward-Middle wingers, because their Winger skill is neutered, but their passing skill remains untouched. I've come to believe that although it certainly doesn't hurt, passing for an offensive winger isn't all that important.

As FM says, getting a high "scoring" forward is much more critical to your wing attacks than paying extra for more passing from your offensive winger.

Wow, my post made absolutely no sense. Thanks for formatting the information Froggie. I just wanted to point out that winger's passing is used on the side attack. Winger is more important, for sure, but when comparing 2 wingers, I would give half a point for each level of passing and a full point for winger. I.E. A solid wing/poor passer is less effective than a pass wing/pass passer. That has been true in my experience, anyway.

I guess we disagree, as I said in my post above.

My experience is based on two guys I'm currently training, a Formid Wing/Wretched passer and a Excellent wing/Solid passer. The Formid guy is actually more like 1.5 to 2 levels above the Excellent, but I have reason to believe that the latter's Solid passing is very, very high solid (his value is really high for a Exc/Solid with zero other secondaries).

Anyway, the Formid guy consistently puts up a level better wing attack than the Exc/Solid guy when in similar form, and thus the latter only plays in league games when I need his Quick specialty.

edited for stupidity

soryy, misread your post

I would also point out that depending on what level of forward you are talking about, getting passing with your winger could certainly be more cost effective.

Editted for your edit. ;)

Fair point on the passing winger if you have a severely limited budget, but also remember that a scoring forward helps all three attacks, so until you get to the really high levels (prolly outstanding scoring plus), I think you get more value there if you have the cash to spend.

Acutally, he only helps 2, he wouldn't help on the opposite side.

Your point is still valid, but it was at these higher scoring levels that I am talking about. If you can afford an outstanding scorer, stick with your formidables until you can get a well rounded winger. He will help in 3 categories, side attack, midfield and a little bit of defense.

No, I'm reasonably sure any forward helps all 3 attacks. Doesn't matter which side he's on.

EDIT: Otherwise, the above chart would distinguish between left and right forwards like it does for wingers and inner mids.

I think the forwards' scoring help all three sides since the Rules file never mention sides.

As far as wingers goes, these are just my less-than-humble opinions . . .

I wouldn't bother with a "well rounded winger". They'd cost too damn much. If you play a formation with multiple wingers, I'd go with a "passing" winger and a "possession" winger. Go with as high a combination of passing and winger as possible on the "passing" winger and go with some playmaking in a decent combination with winger on the opposite side with a "possession" winger. I'd play 'em both offensive just for the bonus.

Mind you, I'm of the the mindset that I think winger skill on fullback is wasted money. I just go for as good a defense as I can get, play them defensive and take my offense from my inner midfielders, wingers and strikers. So, y'know, mileage and all that may vary a smidge.

There's an awful lot that the rules never mention.
:mad:

And the rules are misleading, vague and just plain wrong in many places, too. ;)