Players switching roles when making formation changes

Question

I've set up a very offensive formation in the Tactics screen (outside of a match), with all the players in their most suited/most comfortable positions and roles.

However, when I created a new, more defensive, formation (with the aim to train both at once), around half of my players are automatically assigned an uncomfortable position/role. Worse still, this somehow shuffles around the first formation I set up!

Anytime I make changes to one formation, it seems to have some impact on the other. Is there a way to set up two (or more) formations, such that all players are in their most comfortable role?

Answer 1

The short answer is no.

Football Manager throughout the years has relied on a simple 2-11 formation for the players (goalkeepers always being number 1) and when you change formation, the order in which those numbers appear does seem to randomly shuffle.

If both your formations are 4 at the back then in theory, those should never get changed around though in ones I've played, changing from a 4-1-3-2 formation to a 4-2-3-1 has caused the striker to jump down the screen. This actually makes sense since it means I don't have to reorganise my entire midfield and AM players to accommodate the second DM I'm going to bring on.

I don't think it's possible to set up two formations that have all players in their most comfortable positions simply because if you're playing two different formations, it's unlikely you're using the same 11 players.

It might be worth posting this in the bugs forum at https://community.sigames.com/ although I don't think it's really a bug, more an annoyance.