I recently wrote an article that talked about how FM26 is starting to get me hooked. In it, I mentioned one of the aspects that I found exciting, and that was the prospect of turning a talented centre-back into a forward.
I conducted a little experiment
So, I set out on my journey to transform my talented young regen centre-back Kieran Needham into a forward. Why would I do such a thing? Was it just a flight of fancy or just for experimental reasons?
No, the main reason I did it was that the youngster, who I signed as a 16-year-old from West Ham for £10m, had so many of the attributes that would make him an excellent forward in the future.
To be fair to Needham, though, he had excellent stats all-around, which is why I bought him in the first place. I did buy him without noticing that he could be a forward, though.
However, I noticed after a while that, for a centre-back, his tackling rating of 10 was pretty low, especially compared to his other exceptional stats across other sides of his game.
I believed loaning him out might help him develop this side of his game, but his tackling stat never went up. A top centre-back with such a poor rating in tackling is highly unlikely to ever be successful.
I looked at his stats more closely, and that was when I noticed that he could well play as a forward. Due to his high potential, I did regular checks while he was out on loan, and it was during one of these checks that I decided I would change his position to a forward when he returned the following summer.
How did the transition go?
When he returned from loan at Norwich City, the first thing I did was take control of his individual training for a month. I put his primary role as centre forward, as that fitted into our tactical system.
After the initial month, I left the training to the coaching staff, as I have done for years on FM, lazy I know. I played my part by picking him up front for nearly every game he was available.
At first, my assistant manager questioned the move during games, stating that we would be better off playing Needham in a more familiar position.
At this point, he had no actual rating as a forward or preferred role, so the scepticism was understandable.
However, I believe he had a shadow rating of 4.5 stars. That wasn’t important to me, though, as I was waiting for the first sign of his transformation to take place when he received his first rating as a forward.
In the meantime, he was banging the goals in for the team. He seemed to score in every game that he played as a forward. Needham kept scoring goals and gradually gained a forward rating.
It started slowly with a one-and-a-half-star rating. However, the more experience he gained playing up front, the higher his stars rose, and he still had a potential of four-and-a-half stars, which, in my highly successful team, is an achievement.
Despite a few games missed due to injuries, the move proved a massive success. By the end of the season, the forward had scored 35 goals and produced 11 assists in 42 appearances across all competitions.
Only my four-and-a-half-star-rated striker-turned-number-ten had scored more than him that season, which is crazy because I ousted him from the team to give Needham the game time he needed to develop his forward skills.
My young now-forward ended the season with a three-star rating as a forward, which is not terrible considering he had only played in the position for the season.
His exploits earned him the Premier League Young Player of the Year award, an award he probably wouldn’t have won playing his original position.
Not the first player I changed the position of in FM26
I have to admit I have become a lazy FM player in recent years. I used to obsess over the game in my younger years when I had more time.
Juggling my job, coaching, and general family life has made me more of a plug-and-play FM player. One aspect of FM that I used to love was retraining players for other positions.
However, I haven’t done it for years. I have to admit, though, I have never noticed so many regens in other versions of the game that needed to change position.
Needham wasn’t the first player I did it with, although he was my most drastic change. The first player I changed the position of in FM26 was one whose position was just down as a wing-back, with no other positions.
He didn’t fit into my tactical system, as I didn’t use wing-backs, but his stats were too good for me to turn down the chance of signing him.
I could have turned him into a winger, as he had decent attacking stats. However, at that point I was badly in need of a right-back. It was a logical move to turn him into a right-back.
After a season playing the position, he was a three-star right-back in our system. He remained with the club as my first-choice right-back for around four years.
However, he remained a three-star right-back and never developed beyond that rating. In the end, I brought in a better player, but his slight transformation was highly successful.
What this Kieran Needham situation has taught me is to check my regens’ stats more thoroughly, as they could very well be star players in different positions, just waiting to be transformed.
For me, it was a game-changer, literally. Before I changed Needham’s position, the save was getting slightly stale. However, that one little side quest has led me to want to continue the save and see just how good Kieran Needham can become in the future.
After his goals inspired the team to sweep the trophies, there is little room for team improvement. However, there is room for improvement for Needham on an individual basis, and I hope to see him as a five-star forward one day.
Do you retrain players into different positions on FM?
