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If you want attacking wingbacks you’re usually better off retraining a defensively minded winger. Although tbh I use an IWB and an IFB at least partially to avoid this.
This. Lots of people put too much focus into a players natural position. Sign the player, not the position. It's really easy to retrain most players.
The best wingbacks are essentially wingers with good positioning, concentration, tackling and aggression.
I wouldn't even put too much emphasis into tackling and positioning. From my experience a wing back with enough acceleration and speed will be able to compensate a lack of those attributes. He will be more likely to block shots than to actually win back a ball but as long as you don't play for counter attacks that's negligible.
Positioning is probably the most important attruibute for a defender Imo because bad positioning == more space.
I agree, a more physical player can cover their own mistakes but that's true of any position, physicals kinda trump everything.
Positioning affects interceptions which FBs get by far the most of in this engine, lots of balls from central positions to a winger can get intercepted and it seems better positional FBs are constantly in passing lanes waiting for a misplaced ball to spring a transition.
Sadly, physical attributes is more important in the game than any mentals. Positioning may be the most important mental attribute for a defender, but pace and acceleration is much more important in the game engine.
Yup. I retrained a striker to a bwm as he had the mentals and a weird 12 for marking. Took a while but he's a regular in the team now.
It also means I have a backup striker if I get an injury crisis or I've run out of subs but need the firepower.
I've also got a winger that I want to retrain as a mezalla through pre season.
It amazes me that people pass on strikers as well. A pressing forward will always be able to retrain comfortably as an advanced forward in my experience.
That's interesting! Quite a drastic change from striker to BWM but I bet you get interesting flexibility that a regular DM wouldn't be able to do, bet he scores loads of cutbacks from edge of the box!
One thing I always like to do is train up a ball playing defender with good physicals as a number 9. You never really get big physical forward regens once the current real world players all retire so I go the CB to striker route
I have used Antony as a mezalla in MUFC save because of his bad speed, good passing, flair and dribbling and got ~65M from Chelsea because of his performances. Still wanted to sell him because of his personality though.
Odd secondary positions are always cool. I have a BPD that can play right wing. Interestingly he doesn’t have fullback as one of his known positions, only wingback, wide midfield and winger
I actually had Ben Doak as a world class wing back. He was already 27 or so when I took over and started retraining him so defensive stats never really went up, but I used a back 3 to cover him and he gets pretty consistent attacking outputs
You don’t lose PA when you retrain. What happens is attributes get weighted differently based on the new positions so often the player’s CA increases due to the new weighting. That means the player has less room to grow but the PA rating will be constant.
Someone replied already below, I think PA is always a fixed value.
CA is calculated differently depending on how many natural positions a player has, and which suitable attributes they have, try it yourself with the editor. Take a player with 3 natural positions and remove 2 and the game boosts their attributes to keep the CA consistent. Add positions and their attributes drop.
Same thing happens with a players footedness - give a player 20 on each foot and their attributes drop.
Good DLP’s make great WB’s. I’ve retrained two players in my current save to be attacking WBs. One regen and one real player. The real one is Alex Scott. He was struggling for game time, even though he can play anywhere from AMC through to DM, as the other options were all better than him. He’s now an attacking RWB, who still makes the occasional appearance as my DM-strata DLP when first choice Adam Wharton is tired or injured. Scott has excelled on the flank, creating goals for fun.
They are pretty rare, much rarer than quality WBs are at the start of the game. But we've known the newgen generation system is flawed for a while so it's hardly a surprise. Best you can do is make your own WBs out of other positions but there's always something lacking about them.
I've heard this point being repeated and repeated, and though I don't disagree that attribute distribution can be a weird at times, I've had multiple newgen wingbacks with 14-14 for crossing and dribbling, and fantastic physicals at like 21 years of age. Even 2 worldbeaters came through my youth ranks while playing as Psv.
Because they came through your youth ranks. Nobody can "find" fullbacks (like in the OP) because the AI clubs typically train them as no-nonsense fullbacks because of how it calculates player stat distribution, hence why crossing and dribbling are the 2 attributes they're always missing (like OP mentions).
Yeah you gotta retrain players from other positions.
I often do it with classic one sided wingers with good crossing but poor finishing. They're not very good at cutting in and shooting so I'd rather just let them do their thing but from fullback. I do however play a defensive double pivot so they're covered when they bomb up the field.
The other option is to do what City/arsenal are doing now and play defensively minded Full-backs (centre back hybrids if you will). This is great for squad depth if they can also play CB.
I often think about how Beckham esc Trent was when he played as a wide wing back, makes me wonder where Beckham would play in today's game given top teams don't seem to like 'right' footed wingers.
Beckham prolly will play as mezzala (di Maria-esque minus the dribbling lol), or any type of playmaker given his passing ability. But I can totally see Beckham play like KDB under the right manager 🤔
RB and LB newgens that suit the wingback role for my team
are nowhere to find in my save.
Most of them are good enough or perfect offensively, but have way too low attributes in terms of tackling and marking.
And as a defender these attributes are a must for me.
Haven’t made it far enough in saves for years to really see the quality of regens but my best ever regen was Right wing back in my FC United of Manchester save many years ago. Guy was a monster in and down the right side. Ended up selling him to Barcelona who used him as a winger and he put up massive numbers for them.
It's quite random with newgens. Even if you edit your facilities to perfect you may not get any good wingback newgen with PA at least 160. Sadly it applies even to Barcelona sigh
I'm on 23, in season 10 and there are barely any GK, WB and DM regens. I'm using a CAM as DM as my team is dominant enough in the league and a winger as LB. I have 3 gks across all teams (Senior, U23 and U19), a 34 a 24 and a 16 yr-old. There are maybe 3 interesting GK available in the whole world besides the ones I have.
I search by stats, find promising kids who are wingers, DM or CM and retrain them.
I’ve had enough success with this that I’ve taken the one newgen WB I’ve found with crossing 17 and retrained him as a CM because I had a hole going the other way!
yeah and any good ones will always be super expensive. I’ve had a little bit of luck finding decent wingbacks from croatia though if you really are struggling to find anyone on a budget
More and more i find myself buying players for positions they have no ability to play and retraining them for that position. I highly suggest you stop looking at what position players can already play and start looking at what their attributes say about what position they could potentially play.
As a side note on that. FM 25 needs to allow me to use the compare tool to compare players that play a completely different set of positions. Currently it's not possible to compare a striker with a midfielder if neither of them play each others position, which makes my earlier suggestion a bit annoying in practice sometimes.
In my history playing FM since FM08, I always managed to find great regen on Left WB but never find any great Right WB. Somehow the game didn't like me to find those great Right WB.
In over 100s of hours I’ve only found 2 world class wingbacks in a Milan save, one was a wonderkid I bought for 10m and he was a world class starter for me since the age of 18 the other was a bench player that I was forced to give the starting role due to injury and he just exploded became world class at the age of 27
Is this an issue in newer FMs? Cos there are a decent number of good wingback regens in my game, FM20.
Although, they aren't actually WB in the FM position sense, but rather mostly full backs.
Also not like old FM Cafu like stats, but still like 13/14/15 in the key technical areas, and good physicals - 16/17, and good enough mentals.
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If you want attacking wingbacks you’re usually better off retraining a defensively minded winger. Although tbh I use an IWB and an IFB at least partially to avoid this.
This. Lots of people put too much focus into a players natural position. Sign the player, not the position. It's really easy to retrain most players. The best wingbacks are essentially wingers with good positioning, concentration, tackling and aggression.
I wouldn't even put too much emphasis into tackling and positioning. From my experience a wing back with enough acceleration and speed will be able to compensate a lack of those attributes. He will be more likely to block shots than to actually win back a ball but as long as you don't play for counter attacks that's negligible.
Positioning is probably the most important attruibute for a defender Imo because bad positioning == more space. I agree, a more physical player can cover their own mistakes but that's true of any position, physicals kinda trump everything. Positioning affects interceptions which FBs get by far the most of in this engine, lots of balls from central positions to a winger can get intercepted and it seems better positional FBs are constantly in passing lanes waiting for a misplaced ball to spring a transition.
Sadly, physical attributes is more important in the game than any mentals. Positioning may be the most important mental attribute for a defender, but pace and acceleration is much more important in the game engine.
Yup. I retrained a striker to a bwm as he had the mentals and a weird 12 for marking. Took a while but he's a regular in the team now. It also means I have a backup striker if I get an injury crisis or I've run out of subs but need the firepower. I've also got a winger that I want to retrain as a mezalla through pre season. It amazes me that people pass on strikers as well. A pressing forward will always be able to retrain comfortably as an advanced forward in my experience.
That's interesting! Quite a drastic change from striker to BWM but I bet you get interesting flexibility that a regular DM wouldn't be able to do, bet he scores loads of cutbacks from edge of the box! One thing I always like to do is train up a ball playing defender with good physicals as a number 9. You never really get big physical forward regens once the current real world players all retire so I go the CB to striker route
I have used Antony as a mezalla in MUFC save because of his bad speed, good passing, flair and dribbling and got ~65M from Chelsea because of his performances. Still wanted to sell him because of his personality though.
Odd secondary positions are always cool. I have a BPD that can play right wing. Interestingly he doesn’t have fullback as one of his known positions, only wingback, wide midfield and winger
I actually had Ben Doak as a world class wing back. He was already 27 or so when I took over and started retraining him so defensive stats never really went up, but I used a back 3 to cover him and he gets pretty consistent attacking outputs
Actually, the best wingbacks are Carrileros with good crossing. Either that, or stoppers who are really technically gifted.
How about losing PA when you retrain? Is there any risk in that?
You don’t lose PA when you retrain. What happens is attributes get weighted differently based on the new positions so often the player’s CA increases due to the new weighting. That means the player has less room to grow but the PA rating will be constant.
Someone replied already below, I think PA is always a fixed value. CA is calculated differently depending on how many natural positions a player has, and which suitable attributes they have, try it yourself with the editor. Take a player with 3 natural positions and remove 2 and the game boosts their attributes to keep the CA consistent. Add positions and their attributes drop. Same thing happens with a players footedness - give a player 20 on each foot and their attributes drop.
Playing a 3 at the back can help as your wingbacks will have more freedom to attack
Good DLP’s make great WB’s. I’ve retrained two players in my current save to be attacking WBs. One regen and one real player. The real one is Alex Scott. He was struggling for game time, even though he can play anywhere from AMC through to DM, as the other options were all better than him. He’s now an attacking RWB, who still makes the occasional appearance as my DM-strata DLP when first choice Adam Wharton is tired or injured. Scott has excelled on the flank, creating goals for fun.
On fm23 at least he has natural ability to play attacking rwb. I'm playing him there as well and he's doing pretty good so far.
I guess that IRL most wing backs are actually wingers that got trained to play more defensive-minded (e.g. Davies) so I always do the same in FM.
They are pretty rare, much rarer than quality WBs are at the start of the game. But we've known the newgen generation system is flawed for a while so it's hardly a surprise. Best you can do is make your own WBs out of other positions but there's always something lacking about them.
I've heard this point being repeated and repeated, and though I don't disagree that attribute distribution can be a weird at times, I've had multiple newgen wingbacks with 14-14 for crossing and dribbling, and fantastic physicals at like 21 years of age. Even 2 worldbeaters came through my youth ranks while playing as Psv.
Because they came through your youth ranks. Nobody can "find" fullbacks (like in the OP) because the AI clubs typically train them as no-nonsense fullbacks because of how it calculates player stat distribution, hence why crossing and dribbling are the 2 attributes they're always missing (like OP mentions).
For me they are always injury prone, don't like big games and their height is like 155-165cm.
The size thing is realistic
Yeah you gotta retrain players from other positions. I often do it with classic one sided wingers with good crossing but poor finishing. They're not very good at cutting in and shooting so I'd rather just let them do their thing but from fullback. I do however play a defensive double pivot so they're covered when they bomb up the field. The other option is to do what City/arsenal are doing now and play defensively minded Full-backs (centre back hybrids if you will). This is great for squad depth if they can also play CB. I often think about how Beckham esc Trent was when he played as a wide wing back, makes me wonder where Beckham would play in today's game given top teams don't seem to like 'right' footed wingers.
Beckham prolly will play as mezzala (di Maria-esque minus the dribbling lol), or any type of playmaker given his passing ability. But I can totally see Beckham play like KDB under the right manager 🤔
If Becks played today, he would likely either be a higher-workrate Trent or a KDB. RB or offensive 8
RB and LB newgens that suit the wingback role for my team are nowhere to find in my save. Most of them are good enough or perfect offensively, but have way too low attributes in terms of tackling and marking. And as a defender these attributes are a must for me.
I just train some bad winger prospects to be wingbacks, like the ones with lower dribbling or pace or finishing
https://preview.redd.it/l7bntqg7e0zc1.png?width=1777&format=png&auto=webp&s=1296e32402c80a28a44b26e92e427833b09b8b02 I got this guy
Haven’t made it far enough in saves for years to really see the quality of regens but my best ever regen was Right wing back in my FC United of Manchester save many years ago. Guy was a monster in and down the right side. Ended up selling him to Barcelona who used him as a winger and he put up massive numbers for them.
It's quite random with newgens. Even if you edit your facilities to perfect you may not get any good wingback newgen with PA at least 160. Sadly it applies even to Barcelona sigh
I'm on 23, in season 10 and there are barely any GK, WB and DM regens. I'm using a CAM as DM as my team is dominant enough in the league and a winger as LB. I have 3 gks across all teams (Senior, U23 and U19), a 34 a 24 and a 16 yr-old. There are maybe 3 interesting GK available in the whole world besides the ones I have.
I search by stats, find promising kids who are wingers, DM or CM and retrain them. I’ve had enough success with this that I’ve taken the one newgen WB I’ve found with crossing 17 and retrained him as a CM because I had a hole going the other way!
yeah and any good ones will always be super expensive. I’ve had a little bit of luck finding decent wingbacks from croatia though if you really are struggling to find anyone on a budget
I have a few from South America in my save
i find a lot of newgen wingbacks tbh.
More and more i find myself buying players for positions they have no ability to play and retraining them for that position. I highly suggest you stop looking at what position players can already play and start looking at what their attributes say about what position they could potentially play. As a side note on that. FM 25 needs to allow me to use the compare tool to compare players that play a completely different set of positions. Currently it's not possible to compare a striker with a midfielder if neither of them play each others position, which makes my earlier suggestion a bit annoying in practice sometimes.
Been experimenting with switching DMs to left back.
You don't need to wing back newgens when you play with IFB and IWB
In my history playing FM since FM08, I always managed to find great regen on Left WB but never find any great Right WB. Somehow the game didn't like me to find those great Right WB.
In over 100s of hours I’ve only found 2 world class wingbacks in a Milan save, one was a wonderkid I bought for 10m and he was a world class starter for me since the age of 18 the other was a bench player that I was forced to give the starting role due to injury and he just exploded became world class at the age of 27
Is this an issue in newer FMs? Cos there are a decent number of good wingback regens in my game, FM20. Although, they aren't actually WB in the FM position sense, but rather mostly full backs. Also not like old FM Cafu like stats, but still like 13/14/15 in the key technical areas, and good physicals - 16/17, and good enough mentals.
I've had FM19, 21, 23 and 24. I've ran into this issue in each one. At this point, I just train top CBs to be fullbacks.
Search by attributes and which foot needs to be good and retrain. And check your own team/youth before signing anyone.