What do you mean by "duds"? If you mean they are not good enough if think they should at least score goals against low-rated teams, but thats not the case.
I always play with red arrows on ML and MR, or a AML and AMR (without arrows). Last season my feeling was that even with "wide tactics" you will always score more goals if you are attacking through the middle. Im not sure about this anymore because of the new match engine.