Quote Originally Posted by johnson bleckman View Post
you have 6 mids vs 5 flat ones. Not a huge numerical advantage. Some of your midfielders are DM (or AM). Idont know what instructions either of you gave. My own experience says possession is helped less by DM's than Mc's. I also emphasize midfield. Several times this season I was given 20-30% possession although I had at least 4 midfileders. It seems this happened when I employed more than 2 DM's. I essentially beat the lower quality teams but lost to the higher quality team in these cases but possession was down when I use DM's and to a lesser extent wing mids. Just my own observations on this subject. For assessing possession I think something like this is possibly right :MC get 3 points ML,MR, DCM,ACM 2 points and DMR,L AMR,L 1 point. The rules about legal formations discourage concentrations in the center which suggests the play engine would unduly favor central concentrations. I asked support directly to define all illegal formations and support declined. What are other players experience with this issue. Look back at your old games. IMHO a winger has less influence on possession per se but helps in moving forward to the extent these are competing interests.

Do you have any data re losing possession if playing 2xDCMs?

I have played 2xDCMS several times this season, have not lost & possession is always in my favour. This morning I played 4-2(DCMs)-3-1 against team running 6th [opponent played 4-1(MC)-3(ACMs)-2], possession was 65-35% in my favour. In saying that my team was far superior in skill so that may have been a contributing factor.

Interesting debate, I've never considered certain positions on the field would affect possession. I always thought it was strength of team, formation & orders that determined possession %s.