2022-05-28, 12:07 AM - Word count:
Ok so lets get some things out of the way that I'm just going to assume we all know otherwise this will be extremely confusing. I'm going to use wingers interchangeably from wingers. They're all wingers but only a type of them are wingers. Now normally this makes sense when we're having a conversation but for conversation's sake every type of player I'm talking about plays as the most wide player in the formation at either the midfield line or the attacking midfield line. Wingbacks are the line just behind midfield wingers and then there are fullbacks. For this article, we're only talking about midfield and attacking midfield wide players. If you are confused at any point I'll be happy to explain.
Ok so the biggest thing I've learned in FM22 is that there an't no halfway anymore with wingers. One guiding principle that has served me well in football manager is that a player has to be able to do something. Bad players can make a team work by doing something. In FM16 I had a striker that was just a terrible player but somehow scored 20 goals a season in league 2. I kept him on in league 1 because he was doing something and we got back to backs because he was still scoring goals. In FM22 this has become even more important as the winger position has developed a whole new facet: defensive wingers.
Wide midfielders don't make geometric sense. Ramduter was put into the game because of a weird german dude who decided to just do what he wanted and no one ever told him not to, you do not have the player to do that role and no one in SSL will become that role. Wide playmakers are interesting but one of those super special roles that are moreso a product of your team than a product of the player. For the sake of brevity (I could go on for hours and hours on a podcast about my feelings on wide players and I just might crack one out one week) Lets divide wingers into what I consider the 3 standard winger groups and the new winger groups. Those 3 groups being Striker wingers(Christian pulisic), creative wingers(Breden Aronson), and zoomer wingers(tim "my dads the president of liberia guys no really" weah). One group has to be able to score goals, one group has to be able to create goals, and the third has to be able to be so fast that it really just doesn't matter. The new one is defensive wingers if you've forgotten.
Now striker wingers have to be strikers but they don't have to be able to either create space or find space. Being a winger means always having space. If they're fast strikers or strong strikers but don't do the concept of space an inside forward or inverted winger on attack will sit them in space for them to operate in.
Creative wingers are midfielders that you don't want getting hacked to shreds because they're small and/or are defensive liabilities. Wingers don't need to be able to do much other than be going somewhere near the ball and pretend to be a threat to take the ball away. Creative wingers don't have the ability to break into space like zoomer wingers but also need to be in an area to effect the game a lot. Wingers on support is not the role for this as they'll stick way too wide and by the time they're in range of a good pass time has passed and the defensive shape has reformed. Put them on inverted winger on support and call it a day. Inside forwards on support are an extremely werid thing that exists. I would need to be in real life to explain it as I would need to draw arrows and circles to explain it but its just werid and don't pick it.
Zoomer wingers
One of the rather bizarre developments about modern soccer is the fact that out and out wingers continue to exist. Without going much deeper into the larger context of football, just understand that they shouldn't exist in a world of inverted and inside forwards. Why they continue to exist is as simple as the position, because they're very simple. A winger goes up the field and down the field alongside the furthest part of the field. No fancy shenanigans no complex instructions just shuttling the ball up the field and either crossing the ball into the box or squaring a back pass to break an offsides trap. They need to be faster, they need to be faster than the other teams wingback/fullback thats marking them. Then they need to be able to do something with the ball when they get to the other side of the field. You combine those two features and you're worth at least 70 million euros every day of the week.
Now onto the new breed of winger. Now we should all know about the absolute lack of supply of the type of wingback that pep wannabe managers need to make their 4-2-3-1 system to work. If you try to play like man city without man city money you will lose. Jose is celebrating his 5th Euro title at the colosseum go ask him how much money hes spent on those squads. You either get a physical defender that doesn't know what to do outside of their own third or you get a downjumped midfielder that just had the nightmare of being told they're marking 2012 messi and is trying to figure out how to tell you he doesn't want to do that without breaking down and crying. Now we're pretty deep into this 4-2-3-1 business so a generation of players have now come up with the training to be both not a defensive liability and also able to do something on the attack with some pace added for spice. What do you do if you can't find one good player to do the job? You get two players to do something great and cover the others weakness. Now yes this might just be the resurgence of the type of players you'd see lined up in a 4-4-2 on the wings and these players may find themselves in better stead if they're in a more... exotic formation but this is a real big force to keep an eye on. This type of winger can press extremely well and then be relevant in the counter. This type of winger isn't a liability on set pieces. This type of winger is capable of blunting counters. This type of winger is going to be able to match up against the other teams wingback favorably. How many good wingbacks would just be even better as wingers? At the end of the day that sounds like a player that can do something.
Ok so the biggest thing I've learned in FM22 is that there an't no halfway anymore with wingers. One guiding principle that has served me well in football manager is that a player has to be able to do something. Bad players can make a team work by doing something. In FM16 I had a striker that was just a terrible player but somehow scored 20 goals a season in league 2. I kept him on in league 1 because he was doing something and we got back to backs because he was still scoring goals. In FM22 this has become even more important as the winger position has developed a whole new facet: defensive wingers.
Wide midfielders don't make geometric sense. Ramduter was put into the game because of a weird german dude who decided to just do what he wanted and no one ever told him not to, you do not have the player to do that role and no one in SSL will become that role. Wide playmakers are interesting but one of those super special roles that are moreso a product of your team than a product of the player. For the sake of brevity (I could go on for hours and hours on a podcast about my feelings on wide players and I just might crack one out one week) Lets divide wingers into what I consider the 3 standard winger groups and the new winger groups. Those 3 groups being Striker wingers(Christian pulisic), creative wingers(Breden Aronson), and zoomer wingers(tim "my dads the president of liberia guys no really" weah). One group has to be able to score goals, one group has to be able to create goals, and the third has to be able to be so fast that it really just doesn't matter. The new one is defensive wingers if you've forgotten.
Now striker wingers have to be strikers but they don't have to be able to either create space or find space. Being a winger means always having space. If they're fast strikers or strong strikers but don't do the concept of space an inside forward or inverted winger on attack will sit them in space for them to operate in.
Creative wingers are midfielders that you don't want getting hacked to shreds because they're small and/or are defensive liabilities. Wingers don't need to be able to do much other than be going somewhere near the ball and pretend to be a threat to take the ball away. Creative wingers don't have the ability to break into space like zoomer wingers but also need to be in an area to effect the game a lot. Wingers on support is not the role for this as they'll stick way too wide and by the time they're in range of a good pass time has passed and the defensive shape has reformed. Put them on inverted winger on support and call it a day. Inside forwards on support are an extremely werid thing that exists. I would need to be in real life to explain it as I would need to draw arrows and circles to explain it but its just werid and don't pick it.
Zoomer wingers
One of the rather bizarre developments about modern soccer is the fact that out and out wingers continue to exist. Without going much deeper into the larger context of football, just understand that they shouldn't exist in a world of inverted and inside forwards. Why they continue to exist is as simple as the position, because they're very simple. A winger goes up the field and down the field alongside the furthest part of the field. No fancy shenanigans no complex instructions just shuttling the ball up the field and either crossing the ball into the box or squaring a back pass to break an offsides trap. They need to be faster, they need to be faster than the other teams wingback/fullback thats marking them. Then they need to be able to do something with the ball when they get to the other side of the field. You combine those two features and you're worth at least 70 million euros every day of the week.
Now onto the new breed of winger. Now we should all know about the absolute lack of supply of the type of wingback that pep wannabe managers need to make their 4-2-3-1 system to work. If you try to play like man city without man city money you will lose. Jose is celebrating his 5th Euro title at the colosseum go ask him how much money hes spent on those squads. You either get a physical defender that doesn't know what to do outside of their own third or you get a downjumped midfielder that just had the nightmare of being told they're marking 2012 messi and is trying to figure out how to tell you he doesn't want to do that without breaking down and crying. Now we're pretty deep into this 4-2-3-1 business so a generation of players have now come up with the training to be both not a defensive liability and also able to do something on the attack with some pace added for spice. What do you do if you can't find one good player to do the job? You get two players to do something great and cover the others weakness. Now yes this might just be the resurgence of the type of players you'd see lined up in a 4-4-2 on the wings and these players may find themselves in better stead if they're in a more... exotic formation but this is a real big force to keep an eye on. This type of winger can press extremely well and then be relevant in the counter. This type of winger isn't a liability on set pieces. This type of winger is capable of blunting counters. This type of winger is going to be able to match up against the other teams wingback favorably. How many good wingbacks would just be even better as wingers? At the end of the day that sounds like a player that can do something.
