Subject: Midfielder Question

I am coming up on 2 years of sokker, I had an A league team I lost over the summer due to work and have just restarted. I am sorting through player stats and I am looking to acquire a new midfielder. Apparently things have changed because the skills people have on starting mid's are not the same as I remember.

Question: When purchasing or training a midfielder, what attributes should I be most focused on? Be specific please

Thanks

http://sokkerhelp.blogspot.com

the skills you are looking to buy all depend on what you are training. Mids need every skill and how you use them really dictates which ones you should focus on. the easy answer is all the primaries(pace, tech, passing) and playmaking. but defense is useful and so is a little bit of striking... and the ranking of importance of pace, tech, passing, and pm all depends on personal preference.

It also depends whether you want a defensive or an offensive midfielder.

In my opinion:

For defensive midfielders the order of importance is :
pace, def, plm, pass, tech

For offensive mid (winger):
pace, tech, pass, plm, def

Complete players are very expensive, so to start you have to pick players carefully.

whereas i prefer:
pace, pm, tech, passing, def

that's a defensive mid. again it comes down to preference.

it still comes back to what you are training. for example, if i was in a cycle of training pm, and i want to look for defensive mids, i am going to look for a mid with some middle level of defensive skill, etc. on the other hand, if i am looking for a middie and training passing, i want one with stronger pm so i don't need to train that immediately.

How much defense your midfielders need depends a whole lot on your formation and tactic. For instance, are you only playing with one inner mid? You probably want him and your wingers to have usable defensive skills.

Oh, you said be specific.

How much money do you have? What are you training?

If you're going to be training PM and pace over the next two seasons, a guy like:

tragic stamina hopeless keeper
weak pace solid defender
good technique unsatisfactory playmaker
good passing average striker

By midseason he would have average PM, has all the side skills to be a decent IM in lower levels, and could fit into your long term training program if you're training mids long-term.

If you're not training PM or mids, you can pick up a cheap older guy, like this one, for $1.

formidable stamina tragic keeper
weak pace good defender
unsatisfactory technique adequate playmaker
solid passing weak striker