FM24 Feature - Set Piece Creator

A bit late posting this one, but here's the lowdown on the updates to set pieces coming in FM24.

• You can now hire a set piece coach as part of your backroom staff
• You can set your set piece preferences through a conversation or manually
• Defensive set pieces have the following options:
  • Zonal marking, player marking or a hybrid of both
  • Put a man on near post, both posts or neither
  • Leave players forward for a counter attack, keep everyone back to defend or a balance of the two.
• Attacking set pieces have the following options:
  • Aim the ball at the far post, near post or central
  • Leave players back, push everyone high or a balance of both
  • Inswing or outwing
• You can set preferences for set piece roles based on a hierarchy e.g. biggest aerial threat rather than whoever's playing at RCB.
• Your team will now have set piece familiarity, which dictates how well they've learnt your instructions and thus how well they'll implement them on the pitch.
• When designing set pieces players are grouped into four categories
  • In the Box: Aerial Threats (Players good in the air)
  • In the Box: Box Threats (Poachers)
  • Out of the Box: Creators (Players who can put the ball back in or take long shots)
  • Out of the Box: Recovery Defenders (Players who need to cover against a counter attack)
• You can prioritise the roles players have e.g. if someone is both your biggest aerial threat and your best recovery defender you can give a preference to which is more important.
• You can still leave some things up to the players e.g. “wall if needed” will let your keeper decide whether he wants a wall
• You can now decide how your team approaches throw ins with four options
  • Retain Possession
  • Work the line
  • Work the ball into the box (attacking only)
  • Long throw (attacking only)
• You can setup long throw routines in the same way you can corners and free kicks
• When assigning set piece takers they're now organised by inswing vs outswing rather than right or left side.
• You can now set a rule that if a player misses a penalty in a game your second choice will take the second that game
• You will get more information about where the opposition delivers set pieces before game

Alot to take in there!

The automation sounds good nobody wants to keep having to switch all the set pieces around after every substitution.

There seems to be alot of focus on attacking routines more so than defensive. I guess that's probably realistic.

I don't know how much people will be switching the routines around for specific opponents, presumably you're not going to want to push everyone high if the opposition are leaving men forward. For people doing a set and forget balanced or a more defensive approach is probably going to be the smart option.

There seems to be an obvious limitation in the priority listing since it doesn't seems to be dependent on the players you have in your overall squad rather than on the pitch at the time. It would be great if it was smart enough to calculate the best combo for the 11 players on the pitch at the time, but that doesn't seem to have been included.

It's also not clear how you can modify these in game. If you're winning presumably you want be a bit more defensive and leave men back but if you're chasing a goal maybe you want to do the opposite. There's nothing announced so far to indicate that you can switch this quickly. From the screenshots released so far it looks like if you want to switch to a more attacking or defensive tactic you would have to remember to switch to the equivalent set piece instructions separately at the same time rather than them being linked in anyway.

Nonetheless it's definitely a big improvement on set pieces in previous years.