PPM Guide part 1

Player preferred moves (PPM) are an important but often forgotten part of FML. To some they represent just a superficial colouring of a player's character, but having observed many PPMs in effect I think there is a great opportunity to use them to your advantage.

Some PPMs are negative, some are mostly negative, some are kind of neutral and just add character, some are good and some are extremely effective.

Negative PPMs include diving into tackles, tries to play their way out of trouble, dwells on the ball for example. Having a deep lying midfielder who dwells on the ball and likes to play their way out of trouble will lead to giving the ball away in your own third of the pitch - which often gets punished in FML. Some PPMs are bad in certain situations. That Brazilian DC who likes to get forward often is going to get caught out of poisition more often that hit 30 yard screamers.

Some PPMs will overrule your specific instructions. A midfielder who likes to shoot from distance will still shoot from distance even if you set his long shots to rarely. The key to getting the best out of your players, just like management in business, is to give people roles they enjoy doing. If a player likes to run with the ball down the left, put him on the left wing and set the run with the ball option to often. It's not rocket science. The match engine doesn't like conflicting signals, so make sure you are not setting tactics that contradict themselves.

Unfortunately there is no way to search for players with certain PPMs, so we have to rely on FM08 to create a shortlist of players you might want to sign in FML season one. Today I am going to focus on target men. What PPMs should target men have and who are the best prospects?

If you are looking for a traditional target man, you don't need to know anything about FML or FMxx to compile a decent list of target men. Mine would be:

1. Drogba

2. Berbatov

3. Adebayor

But, pretty much everyone on your gameworld will know those players and want to sign them - even if they don't appreciate their strengths as a target man. In FML a target man will receive the ball in non scoring positions more often and be the literal target of longer passes from teammates. You can supply a targetman via his head, feet or into space ahead of him. The most important thing is that he does something useful with it once he gets it - which means we are looking for something beyond pure finishing.

200-300 players in a 50,000 player gameworld will begin with the 'likes to play with back to goal' PPM. This is a great trait for the 4-5-1 loan striker. The ability to hold the ball up and give the time for supporting midfielders to arrive in the box is vital for this formation to work.

Given that everyone can work out who the best back to goal targetmen are, I have developed a shortlist of less well known, younger players with high potential to develop but who start the game as pretty average players. I suggest you keep these players in mind if you are thinking of developing a tactic that needs a target man and want to invest in underdeveloped youth players.

1. Evandro Brandao - Man Utd academy player and Portugal U17 international. Terrible stats - he is pretty awful at the start of the game, but he has the potential to be a very good player - if you have the patience.

2. Edgar Cani - Palermo have recently loaned him to Ascoli in Serie B. Better starting point than Brandao, but very undeveloped at the start of the game.

3. Sebastian Ribas - young striker from PAOK with plenty of potential to develop. Just needs a few green arrows in his physical stats to turn him into a real handful.

4. Artem Dzyuba - Russian U21 striker, great strength and heading - will only improve with the right training

5. Loris Arnaud (right) - young French player at PSG - again great strength and heading - plus long shots too

None of these guys will probably ever reach the heights of Berbatov or Drogba, but they do provide cheap alternatives with the potential to grow and therefore either play in your team or be sold for a healthy profit. Anyone can make a list of dead cert superstars - I think uncovering rough diamonds is far more rewarding.