Chat How to handle short players

[MohitMax Roy]

I recently got my hand on a messi regen with 5 aerial ability and 10 strength. I used him for some matches but he couldn't do well at all with my direct passing so I changed to short passing which made my target man become kinda useless but got 3 goals from 5 matches. My main gripe was that all the 3 goals were from outside the box with 1 a free kick goal. Now I know messi does score a lot from outside the box so I let the season continue but my goals per match reduced with most matches just going 1-0. I pushed him as a inside forward but that did nothing as stats showed him going for heading in crosses and he would basically never win them and his number of shots fell down to 1-3 per match. The season ended with 10 goals and 5 assists in 25 games,it looked good but the regen of suarez and cavani upfronts did far far better with both getting over 25 goals and suarez had 17 assists. The average rating of messi regen was also very low, just 7.13 whereas my sttikers had over 8. In general I am yet to form a tactic that works on short height technical players, which make my recruitment really hard as the messi regen cost me 171m whereas i got suarez and cavani at 80m each. I know people here don't like sharing tactics but I am asking for basic tips for me to improve my situation. 

[broodje kip]

Maybe use him as Poacher or Trequartista could work or even Advance Forward. Another is to train his role as Target Man and focus on Aerial with intensive training 

[MohitMax Roy]

1 hour ago, broodje kip said:

Maybe use him as Poacher or Trequartista could work or even Advance Forward. Another is to train his role as Target Man and focus on Aerial with intensive training 

playing as poacher sees him getting having very less touches in the game. trequartista or advanced forward gets more creative work from him but he shoot very less. I don't want to train him as target man as its highly unrealistic. 

[Scratch]

My current tactic is very TM-centric (I play them as an AF, but Aerial is key). Honestly, I've just stopped looking at strikers who don't fit my model. Too short? Too bad. I don't care if you're Messi's regen or not, move along. 😄

I do sometimes still take Messi's regen, but only if I can retrain him to another position, like a Winger or in the central midfield. He often works pretty well as a provider. Even then, I've stopped using him so much, because unless you are at one of the top teams (and I'm more likely to be at a mid level club), it's often wasted. He needs to play at a higher level to max out. 

For example, I'm currently doing a 'cheating' career with Celtic (ie using my under development scouting app) and have noticed that a PA150 player is likely to hit their max and be a better player much more quickly than the top players. They will have green all over the place within a year or two, whereas a PA180 player will take 4 or 5 years to max out and they will be less of a player than the PA150 player for most of that. It'd be different if I was playing at a top club of course.

Sorry, not really helping with your question, but personally I find it better to fit the players into your system than change your system to fit the players (even Messi)

[MohitMax Roy]

1 hour ago, Scratch said:

I find it better to fit the players into your system

I agree with that but sometimes I watch how pep guardiola managed messi and its sad I can't emulate the same here.

Edited June 4, 2020 by MohitMax Roy

[broodje kip]

31 minutes ago, MohitMax Roy said:

I agree with that but sometimes I watch how pep guardiola mamahed messi and its sad I can't emulate the same here. 

Maybe you could by playing him in the AMC position as Second Striker or as Trequartista too. Both seems to work just fine for me