Subject: Wingers - a discussion

I thought I'd start a series of discussions regarding what people look for in their various positions, and to start, I wanted to begin with my favorite, wingers.

My primary tactic relies on wingers to a greater extent than a lot of managers. My lone IM is basically just a speedy defender with pretty good PM and only moderate passing. However, since the wingers are played well ahead of him, he typically plays out to the wings rather than attempts to move upfield.

While I don't expect anyone else to reveal their players' stats, my primary wing:

Héctor Cesar, age: 24
value: 287 000 $, wage: 3 225 $
club: Saia`s Strikers, country: España
very good form, very good tactical discipline
bookings:

formidable stamina, tragic keeper
solid pace, weak defender
excellent technique, formidable playmaker
solid passing, very good striker

He doesn't use the striker except on set pieces, as I position my wingers wide enough that they rarely shoot. However, his technique is enough to overpower most of my opponents' wingers, since most teams appear to put crappy defenders on the wings and don't play wingbacks. I don't value defending very highly in my wingers, but I play with supporting wingbacks, which helps both wing attacks and my wing defenses.

Anyway, my next winger will probably look pretty similar to this one, with (if I can get it) the passing and striking switched.

What do you look for in wingers?

Basically i like your idea of winger use, and i think passing is more important, and it has to be at least formidable to be at good use.

Those are the stats for my winger, and he's still under training.


formidable stamina,
excellent pace,
good technique,
incredible passing,
hopeless keeper
unsatisfactory defender
excellent playmaker
hopeless striker
(edited)

Personally I like wingers that are fast and that have high enough tech to run through the defenders.....they also need good passing and some playmaking.....this is one of my players



Marcin Niedzielan, age: 23
value: 389 750 $, wage: 7 025 $
club: Aguilas son Campeones, country: Polska
tragic form, incredible tactical discipline


formidable stamina, unsatisfactory keeper
magical pace, good defender
formidable technique, solid playmaker
very good passing, good striker

You guys have some crazy good wingers.

and the guy I posted took only 4 weeks to pop from excellent to formidable defending.....so hes talented! :P

this is another one of mine

Franciszek Bujok, age: 23
value: 300 750 $, wage: 4 450 $
club: Aguilas son Campeones, country: Polska
average form, outstanding tactical discipline
bookings:

formidable stamina, tragic keeper
excellent pace, average defender
outstanding technique, adequate playmaker
formidable passing, weak striker

Your winger needs more pace and passing mostly, imho.

Lakay likes defense more than i do, and he probably can afford to do that :)

Here's my prototypical winger...

Emiliano Pardo , age 21
value: 369 250 $, wage: 4 475 $
formidable form


formidable stamina,
incredible pace,
good technique,
solid passing,
hopeless keeper
poor defender
formidable playmaker
poor striker


Training him a bunch in passing and then he'll be perfect. Mebbe even too fast (did i really say that?) :)

I focused on playmaking and a mixture of pace and technique, because I found that overkill on pace was really unnecessary, especially if the winger has decent technique. In addition, technique is generally undervalued by the market and pace is generally overvalued. If we were to play, I don't think my wingbacks would have much problem with your wingers, despite their pace.

And to clarify my earlier statement, I think it's fairly easy to defend against uber fast wingers.

when the ball's on the left side of the field...

---A---A---
----A-------
W--M-----W
WB---------
------D-----
----D----WB

If you're playing against an extremely fast winger, he's still going to have to break past the WB, who, if the ball is on that side of the field, is playing up, lessening the chance that the opposing winger is going to be in a position to make a play in the box.

That's my theory, anyway.

I agree that tech is undervalued/pace overvalued.

I disagree, its a very good, game, but i think donkey kong is the best game ever

I always liked pin the tail on the pig.

I agree that speed, tech and passing needs to be pushed for wingers.

Speed stretches the defense, tech hard to stop and I've suffured a lot from Fro's accurate passing.

In the ML, I've found defense to be very usefull for wingers as well. Don't neglect training your wingers in defense.

It's also worth noting that if you know you're going to be playing against high pace/lower tech wingers, it's worth playing your wingers a little further back from normal (and even that isn't always necessary). When the fast winger beats your winger to a loose ball, a winger with defense doesn't need to speed to make a breakaway... all he needs is the defense to take the ball.

I try to have at least solid defense on all of my players, including my strikers. I've turned away some very attractive striker trainees because they didn't have enough defense.