Chat FMM20- No.1 Most Important Attribute- If you had to choose?

[SSolas]

Good Evening All,

The reason for this post was to discuss Attributes on Football Manager Mobile 2020 & actually look at which one is the most important when aiming to take your club to the top. I have been doing a range of research recently - on the blogs on this website,  into tactics such as Tiki Taka as well as Football clubs themselves. I started thinking to myself, is there only ONE attribute which could be used for success and build a club upon. 

Firstly, Barcelona FC state on their website that Teamwork is one of their Key Values at the club. There definition of this indicates that the group is stronger than the sum of the parts. When you look at their unselfish passing style, you can see it in action. So, would this be the One attribute you would want to build a team upon?

Secondly, I started looking at Tiki Taka itself which is the style of football I love.Tiki Taka is about Short Passing and movement, but requires great Technical skill. So, in this example, would I choose Movement, Passing or Technique as the attribute that would define the club? You can see how this can be a difficult thing to find.

Finally, I looked into this with Science and the Barcelona squad which was on FMM11. From this research, the top 5 Attributes I found were:

1. Decisions
2. Stamina
3. Passing
4. Movement
5. Teamwork

As a result of this research, I decided to do a quick career with Swansea University FC - Buying in only those players with the best Decision stats. To my absolute shock, We actually won the league!!

 So, to conclude,  I have one example of winning the Welsh South league using only Good Decisions from my players to guide us.  Different Philosophies & Clubs have qualities which they focus on to build a club or a style. If you were allowed only ONE attribute to base a Club,System or Style on..Which one would you choose?

I am looking forward to hearing what you all think and say...

Many Thanks,

Edited July 31, 2020 by SSolas

[Mr Tree]

I always search for Decisions, Passing and Teamwork, and then I work from there...

[SSolas]

Many thanks @Mr Tree,

IF you were forced to choose one of those? 

Which is most important to you.

Ta,

[Mr Tree]

I voted Teamwork, but it's very marginal.

[AdamNufc]

I wouldn't say you could pick a single most important attribute as to me it's more relative to position and you can't really base how good a player is or who you should target over just one attribute 

For instance a defender might have amazing tackling but poor strength/aerial ability or vice versa , if the player didn't have both good attributes for these then I would not sign them 

Or a poacher you want pace and shooting both good but if they only have one of the attributes good and the other poor you wouldn't sign them 

I hope you understand what I mean , in short I don't sign players based on one or two attributes , I decide on several attributes I want in a player for each position and then filter my searches for players based on this 

[Alistair 3432]

I sign players off movement and tacking because you could go tika taka. I want somebody to try this 

you really wont 

[SSolas]

10 minutes ago, AdamNufc said:

I wouldn't say you could pick a single most important attribute as to me it's more relative to position and you can't really base how good a player is or who you should target over just one attribute 

For instance a defender might have amazing tackling but poor strength/aerial ability or vice versa , if the player didn't have both good attributes for these then I would not sign them 

Or a poacher you want pace and shooting both good but if they only have one of the attributes good and the other poor you wouldn't sign them 

I hope you understand what I mean , in short I don't sign players based on one or two attributes , I decide on several attributes I want in a player for each position and then filter my searches for players based on this 

Hey @AdamNufc,

Thank you so much for your reply and I 100% agree which what you say.

First,I was intrigued to see if you could win with only one attribute and found out, yes you can.

 Secondly, IF that was all you were allowed, which attribute would symbolise how you wanted to build the Club & Squad.

It's a bit of fun really but also really gets you thinking, like, IF you were only allowed one as a stipulation...which one?

[SSolas]

1 minute ago, Alistair 3432 said:

I sign players off movement and tacking because you could go tika taka. I want somebody to try this 

you really wont 

Yeah Movement seems to be a good one for possession based football. 

You can already set the tactics to short passing so if all outfield players were good at movement, it would definitely allow for a more Tiki Taka based style....interesting..

Would you put Movement over Tackling?

[SSolas]

Interesting..Decisions,Teamwork and Movement winning at the moment.

Love that a few in the community have gone for fitness stats

[Alistair 3432]

2 hours ago, SSolas said:

Yeah Movement seems to be a good one for possession based football. 

You can already set the tactics to short passing so if all outfield players were good at movement, it would definitely allow for a more Tiki Taka based style....interesting..

Would you put Movement over Tackling?

Movement. I said tacking to gain back possession  but overall i love the movement stat

[Cockers2505]

I always search for Stamina, Pace and Teamwork

If searching youngsters I would also select Technique

Stamina - obviously you can get nearly 90 mins every game, usually I can only have to rest those for 2 or 3 games if they have a stamina 15 or over

Pace - as I play fast Tempo pace makes up my mind on the type of players I buy

Teamwork - always try and get this over 10 for each player, especially if your trying to feed your strikers as I find high teamwork proves to be more passes for the team and not as much selfishness throughout the team

Technique - I find searching this helps weed out possible superstars, not always as other attributes are needed, but youngsters who become stars always have high Technique IMO

My last option is not an attribute as such, but I only buy players who don't have any red, even lower League players, so I get a lot of reserves promoted if they have ALL attributes not RED, then I'll give them a chance, if it doesn't work I find I can really easily sell them on with those amount of reasonable attributes

Thanks though, a nice write up and my vote was Stamina 100%

Edited July 31, 2020 by Cockers2505

[SSolas]

Great write up @Cockers2505,

Loving all these opinions.

Stamina and Teamwork top at the moment.

 

[samhardy]

Pace for me. Good all round physical attributes are important though. In recent years the match engine has been heavily slanted towards fast players (especially attackers) and I find that average players with great physical attributes regularly outperform more skilful players who have poor physicals.

[SSolas]

Nicely put @samhardy, 

I agree again and have also noticed that better physical players seem to bring success quicker than more technical players

[Ashez]

I'll go for the odd ball option but I rate positioning very highly. It's vital for 90% of a formation and what's the point in the other stats if they aren't in the right place to use them. Defence to midfield positioning is always the first I look for, tackling doesn't matter compared imo. 

Then like @samhardy I'd say pace and stamina. Purely because those are what the engine cares about. 

[gunnersaur]

I think it's different for every part of the pitch for me but  I do like 1 for all over the pitch and that's decisions I like to think that in the game if my midfielder has the ball and looks up ad there's no pass on he might turn back and keep the ball instead of launching it and trying to make a Hollywood pass that probably isn't on. It's the same thing for my defenders I like to think with better decisions they might go this lad is quick if I step off him I wont get turned and we might have a better chance of defending ... I'm probably way overthinking how the game works but I do like to hope it does or will work that way at some point 

[broodje kip]

I tend to look for someone with 13+ technique. It’s minor but really do some difference when playing

[SSolas]

Hm interesting..Really enjoying this post.

[Ian]

I’m having trouble picking one but I will do and be different for the sake of the discussion and pick movement. It’s mainly because I’ve found it to be very important in a number of system I’ve been using recently. Even with top teams I’ve found the systems can just flat out fail if that attribute is not up to scratch throughout the attacking players and certain roles in particular like the AP role.

I’ve picked movement just to be different but I guess I’d probably go with one of the physicals and more than likely pace in truth but it’s so difficult to just pick one.

In the lower leagues my searches tend to be based on much less as you know you’ll never get the complete player so I’ll prioritise certain things. I have a system I like to use in the lower leagues and if I’m looking for a striker, winger or inside forward I’ll just search for pace. I’ll then look at other things after but pace would be the priority. My search for midfielders would basically be passing and then I’d look at the physicals and decisions after. It’s this that I’ve thought about when it comes to this discussion as with top teams it’s rarely just the one attribute I’m focusing on.

[SSolas]

Decisions has taken a sudden lead 😃

[Scratch]

This is really an impossible question! 😄

The last couple of versions, the most important attribute to me has be Aerial - there's no way I could have got a striker to 2K without that. But of course that's only important for the striker and the defence, not so much for the midfield positions.

I'd possibly say Movement, but that isn't so important for the defence. Likewise, I'd say Positioning, but that's not important in the final third.

I guess Pace is a benefit in all areas of the pitch and it's been super important in recent years, but I have a feeling it's less important this year (at least it seems that way to me).

Decisions is important, but while I still value it in defence, it's not as important in attack as it used to be (I mean I can score a bucket with a striker with good Aerial and Movement, but poor Decisions). 

As recently as the start of this version, I highly valued Teamwork (which is made up of two hidden attributes: Unselfishness and Work Rate). However, now that I know I can improve the Work Rate by fining players for ratings of 6 or less, it's not so important when I'm signing someone.

At the start of this version, I thought the hidden Professionalism attribute was most important, because otherwise players get complacent about upcoming games. It was hard to find players who had a Personality type of Professional or Strict Professional, but that's what I was looking for for a while (and avoiding players with Relaxed like the plague). But now that I know you can increase that by fining players, I'm not worrying about it anymore. 

I used to worry about Stamina a lot, but in this version it doesn't make a huge difference. Your tactic seems way more important. With my particular tactic, I can have left back with 9 for Stamina and they never get below 80% in a game and are always 100% for the next game, while I can have a midfielder with 18 for Stamina who ends up at 70% by the end of the game and will only be 92% for the next game.

And I've never particularly worried about Technique. I'd prefer it to be high if I can get it, but if the player has poor Technique, but otherwise has good attributes for their position, then that won't turn me off them.

And the rest: Obviously I like Shooting for attackers, Crossing for wingers, Passing for midfielders, Tackling for defenders (not that important though), etc. But most of those things don't count so much for some positions. 

So much depends on the team and the level and position and the tactic, and even then there isn't one answer.

So basically, my answer to "which is the most important attribute" is "None of them!". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯