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Football Manager Tips: When to use your subs
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| Football Manager Tips When to use your subs |
When you are playing football manager, deciding on how and when to use your subs is going to be a key element for helping you to win matches. When you are playing a game there can be a number of reasons why you might want to make substitutions. You might be winning a game and are looking to hold onto a win, or you might need to try and score a goal so you bring on a player to try and get an additional goal for your team. Apart from the obvious reason of an injured player, there are a number of reasons for when you would use subs during a match. I will discuss this below.
Balancing out team shape - During a match you might have decided to change the shape of your team, at the moment with my Charlton team, my left back is being used as a complete wingback as he has a good crossing attribute. I have needed to put one of my players on the left of midfield so he can track back and help defend when my left back is bombing forward. On the right hand side I have a winger who is on attack, so he rarely defends. As a result of this my team is not very balanced. If I would like to hold onto a win, then generally I will match up my left and right flanks, so I will have my left and right backs on support or defend and I will have my left and right midfielders on support. This gives my team extra balance for making sure my team keeps its shape. Making substitutions can
help with balancing out your team shape.
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Chasing a game or defending a lead - as mentioned in the introduction, you never know what situation you might find yourself in towards the end of a game. If you need to have players on the bench to chase a game then this can be vital in some instances, likewise you might need to defend and keep your structure and shape. I wont say too much more on this section as game situation will determine when you will need to use your subs.
Timing of substitutions - I am not sure if there is any evidence behind what I am about to say, but when developing younger players for your first team, I would recommend to try and give them at least 15 minutes on the pitch. I believe a player has to play at least 10 minutes before he gets a match rating. Its a good idea to try and bring youth players onto the pitch when your team is winning so they can try to get a good match rating. Your youth players will develop faster if they have good morale and they are getting good average ratings.
I cant give an exact answer for when you need to use your subs and most of the time when using them it will be dependent on how the game you are playing in is going. Generally I do look to make one substitution on the 60th min (usually I substitute my worst performing player). In the 75th minute I look to substitute any players who have a low condition and then I generally use the 80th - 90th mins to either chase a game or shut up shop.
How do you use your substitutes and what considerations do you make for picking players to be on the bench?
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