Wingback Toward Middle
 

I'm in a very important game this week, and am tryng to pull every advantage that I can. With that in mind, here are the typical ratings of my opponent:

Vampires
Player rating and Team formation
Team Attitude: (Hidden)
Tactic: Pressing
Tactic skill: passable

Midfield: poor (low)
Right Side Defence: solid (high)
Central Defence: passable (high)
Left Side Defence: inadequate (high)
Right Side Attack: poor (very high)
Central Attack: passable (low)
Left Side Attack: weak (low)


I have no idea why they press, but let's leave that aside.

They abandon both of their wing attacks, by playing a 3-5-2 with two WTM. They do have a very strong central attack. I should note that they almost never log in, and have never made changes to their formation as far as I can tell, so them "mixing it up" is not a serious risk.

I'm a wing trainer, or else I'd play two central defenders. Maybe it's silly to be that stubborn about a half week of training, but that's me. :)

My left side wingback (the one who'll be going up against his worst attack) is a formidable defense/passable wing. I generally play him defensively.

My question for the group: Do you think it would be worthwhile to play him toward middle? Or is that such a silly instruction that I'm better off using my base formation?

I'm not much of a tactician, but I'm bored :) , so... Why not? At passable winger, especially if you usually play him defensively, it's not like you'd be losing any wing attack. Might as well get him into the middle, although I'd think it would be a very small edge.

I tried the towards middle option once and I found that the hit on the wing defense was bigger than the gain to the central defense. Therefore, normally I would just play a second CD instead of the wingback. However, if you want training (which I agree with) just play the guy towards the middle. You'll get a small boost to the central defense and still get training.

I was in a similar situation last season, during the U.S. Open Cup. I played a wingback (Tyler Willard) towards the middle to help counter a strong central attack. It worked...sort of. Like Masked said, the penalty to the wing defense is greater than the benefit to central defense, but in your situation it still sounds like it would be worthwhile. With your opponent having such a discrepency in their attack ratings (abandoning the wings), the smaller benefit to central defense is still probably in your best interest. Add to that the fact that they press, and you can pretty much ignore their wing attacks altogether.

I would play

K
OffWB-CD-CD-ExIMF
OffW-IMF-IMF-OffW
F-F

but for training you could flip the CD and ExIMF and play him TtCD

What about a 4-5-1? do you ahv experience in that?

No, and when I tried it about a season and a half ago for a while, it was a near disaster.

As for the offensive WB, that's something to which I'm giving consideration . My best offensive WB with my best offensive winger would combine for an ET (maybe higher) rating in the old system. My concern isn't that wing defense, but the hit to the central defense is not something I'm sure I can give up.

I am confused due to the fact I don't know your team. Can you play IM's defencive and play two offencive wingbacks to avoid having to play wingbacks tm? I'd like that myself. Also, you haven't mentioned the midfield, do you think you are going to win the midfield? Or do you need to add to your midfield?

I have one IM I play defensive, one offensive. Anyway, I don't really have the players to do anything fancy there.

I don't want to play wingbacks offensive because that doesn't just kill your wing D, it hurts your central D, too. Besides, I expect my wing attacks to be plenty strong.


Thanks everyone for the advice! I'm gonna go with playing him TM. Even if it hurts the wing D more than it helps the central D, I think that's worthwhile for this specific situation.