How to pick a Preferred Move for your players

Player preferred moves Football Manager 2016

When you are playing football manager 2016, you might have noticed on the player information screen, at the bottom right, there is a section for the players preferred moves. The player preferred moves are an extension of your players personality, for things they like doing while on the pitch.

The example screenshot above, you will see my striker likes to run with the ball down the left and he also likes to shoot from distance.

You might like some of the preferred moves your player has, but sometimes it could be that your player is doing things you don't want him to do. The player above only has a long shots attribute of 11 and technique of 11, so do I really want him shooting from distance? Not really. If you have a player like Cristiano Ronaldo, who has a long shot attribute of 20 and technique of 16, then as far as I am concerned, he can shoot from distance as often as he likes!

So when you are looking at your players, how do you decide on the best preferred moves for you to train them on?

Deciding on the best preferred moves for your players

So every player on FM 2016 is different, you have skilful players, players good at passing or players with speed. The combination of player types is almost endless. The trick with training your players is firstly deciding on the tactics you wish to play. If you want to play a fast style of football, where you get at the opposition defenders, then it could be a good idea to get your wingers to run with the ball more often. I will pick Karim Benzema for this example.

Karim Benzema Football Manager 2016

OK so having checked out some of Benzema's best attributes, he has great first touch, technique, dribbling, decision making, flair, off the ball and vision. If you check out his roles and duties over to the left, you will see he is best as a false nine or the trequartista role. Lets pretend for this example, we want him playing with the trequartista role. So we know he will get a licence to roam. We already know he has good off the ball and decision making attributes, we might decide to get him to learn the PPM of move into the channels on a regular basis, as well as picking up the PPM of run with the ball more often.

If Benzema learnt both of these, he would drift out wide to collect the ball and then he would cut inside running with the ball to drive at the oppositions defence. This could really benefit your team if he learnt these two moves and he is capable of doing it.

The most important things to consider are:

The players best attributes - Is he capable of learning the PPM you want him to learn?
Your team tactics - will the PPM benefit your tactics?
Are there any PPMs that don't work well with each other? Make sure you think about how it will benefit your team and the player.