How to create a successful tactic on Football Manager

Player skills

Written by _Man_u_barmy_army_

Every position requires a different set of skills, some skills are more important than others, for example a striker’s finishing is more important than a striker’s tackling. If you can get the players with the right skills for the positions where you need those skills, you can succeed.

To find out what are the key attributes for a certain Player Role, go to your Player’s Profile and underneath the Attributes, click the box labelled “Highlight key attributes for role”, and select a role from the drop down menu. Always keep your player attributes in mind when setting player roles. If your wide midfielders lack pace, don’t set them to play as wingers. Try to give your players roles which suit them, so that they can perform well in those roles.

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Make sure to read the excellent guide to player attributes and roles to learn what each attribute means and which are the key attributes for each role and duty on the field. It's updated with all new Football Manager 2014 player roles!

To have a certain style requires the majority of players to have a set of skills which correspond with your strategy, e.g. Barcelona requires high passing, composure, technique, and vision among others, and enables the team to work effectively as a unit if told to play to those strengths. Or the counter attacking style, where acceleration, off the ball, and work rate are often used.

Player skills determine everything in a game, for example set pieces; although a free kick taker requires a high free kick taking skill, they also require good decision making, long shots (if the free kick is far out), technique possibly, and not to mention aerial ability for free kicks which are whipped into the box and are just waiting for a header. Many of these skills influence the result of the free kick.

You can increase certain player skills through individual training, on the training tab. This can be useful In some situations where, for example, a winger has poor dribbling, which is usually a requirement of a winger, so to increase that will increase the effectiveness of that winger. You could also have a senior player mentor a younger player to develop certain skills of the younger player, which the senior player is quite capable in.

When a player gets older, his mental skills increase due to experience. This often does not decrease, whereas physical skills will obviously decrease with age. Natural fitness often plays a part on how slowly players lose their ability with age. Make sure to keep this in mind when piecing your squad together, as age does make a difference to a player’s development and how their skills are spread out.