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Home » What’s The Difference Between a Wide Midfielder and a Winger in Football?

What’s The Difference Between a Wide Midfielder and a Winger in Football?

Dominating every area of the pitch is of vital importance in modern football. This means that teams need to be adept at attacking and defending through the middle as well as in the wide areas. With that in mind, having highly capable wide players is an absolute necessity.

Wide players come in several shapes and sizes and can adopt a wide (no pun intended) range of roles and responsibilities. However, in this article, we will mainly be focusing on the roles, responsibilities and differences between wide midfielders and wingers.

In summary, wide midfielders are traditionally considered to be team centric players and contribute to attack and defence equally. A traditional winger is an advanced player that mainly attacks wide areas. Although, due to the fast pace of the game, wingers are also expected to track back and defend when required.

What is a wide midfielder?

A wide midfielder (WM) is any midfield player that is positioned close to the touch line. Depending on the side of the pitch they predominantly play on, these players are referred to as either a right midfielder (RM) or a left midfielder (LM).

The role and playstyle of a WM is highly dependent on the formation that a team employs. Perhaps the most common formation that you would expect to find a WM in over the past few decades is the 442.

Flat 442 formation
Flat 442 formation

Throughout football history, this formation gained popularity due to it’s all round balance in offence and defence. The midfield 4 in a 442 is the heart (literally) of the team and wide midfielders are no exception.

However, WMs are used in several different formations. Understandably, their offensive and defensive output varies as a result of this.

Without going too much into the different formations that utilise WMs and the different roles that they play within these formations, WMs can generally be broken down into three categories.

These three categories are: traditional wide midfielders, defensive wide midfielder and playmaking wide midfielders.

Traditional wide midfielder

A traditional WM offers great balance in the midfield for their team. The main goal of these players is to provide their team with width in all areas of the pitch. As such, they will stick to the touch line and make themselves available to fullbacks and central players to stretch the opposition.

These players are very team orientated and contribute heavily to both areas of the pitch. In defence, they will press the opposition, cut passing lanes and act as one of the first lines of defence. In attack, they will interlink with the more advanced players and will often find themselves in good crossing positions.

As such, this role often suits players that play on the side of the pitch that corresponds to their stronger foot. i.e right footed players play as RMs

For these players, a high work rate, good passing ability and an unselfish mentality is key.

Good example: David Beckham

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Perhaps the best example of a traditional wide midfielder is David Beckham. He is arguably the most recognisable footballer on the planet, despite being retired for almost a decade. However, it’s important to note that he didn’t gain that recognition for no reason.

In his prime, Beckham was unplayable. He would be on one end of the pitch serving up inch perfect crosses at one moment and right back in his own half defending at the next moment.

His contributions to Manchester United peaked with a famous treble win in 1999 and a second-place finish in the 1999 Ballon D’or ranking.

Other examples

Additional examples of traditional wide midfielders are Marc Albrighton, James Milner (Early in his Career) and Lucas Vazquez.

Defensive wide midfielders

As the name suggests, the defensive WM is a conservative variant of the WM.

Like the traditional variant, part of their mandate is still to provide their team with width. However, they are more focused with defending the flanks and tracking the oppositions fullbacks and wide players. 

As such, these players are required to be defensively astute, have a high work rate and great positional awareness. In that regard, defensive WMs share similar characteristics with carrileros.

The main difference being that carrileros are situated slightly more centrally, in the left centre midfield (LCM) or right centre midfielder (RCM) position.

For a more detailed description of the carrilero role, be sure to check out this article.

Good example : Blaise Matuidi

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A good example of a player that has filled in as a defensive wide midfielder is Blaise Matuidi. Particularly with regards to his performances for the French national team during their World Cup winning campaign in 2018.

Matuidi has been played centrally as a destroyer type player for most of his entire career. However, the French national team coach, Didier Deschamps, surprised many when he chose to play Matuidi in the LM position.

This proved to be a stroke of genius, as Matuidi did an excellent job of defending the flanks and acting as a wide passing outlet.

Other examples

Further examples of players that have played in the defensive wide midfielder role are Koke, Saul and Gabi.

Playmaking Wide Midfielder

A Playmaking wide midfielder is a more attack minded variant of the traditional WM. As the name suggests this player is tasked with finding their teammates in space and providing creativity from wide areas of the pitch.

These players, more often than not, were developed as central playmakers. However, sticking them on the wing provides several benefits. The biggest benefit is the fact that managers can include an additional creative player in their team, bolstering their attacking output.

Unlike the previous two WM variants, these players do not contribute greatly in defence. As such, they have been compared to wingers. However, because playmaking WMs have a tendency to naturally drift centrally infield, and are typically not gifted with great pace, some refer to playmaking WMs as “false wingers”.

Playmaking WMs must therefore have great vision, a wide passing range and great technical ability to fashion the space to make passes.

Good example: David Silva

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David Silva was a great example of playmaking WM. While playing for Manchester City, he was often deployed on the wing and worked to great effect as a wide playmaker.

He was incredibly gifted from a technical standpoint and would drift passed opposition players with ease. On his day, he was head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch.

Other examples

Additional examples of players that have been used as playmaking WMs are Isco, Bernardo Silva and Samir Nasri.

It’s important to note that the players mentioned above as good examples were not necessarily only utilized in the categories they have been placed in. All of these players potentially could have adopted any of the other WM roles, based on their team’s tactical requirements.

What is a winger?

Wingers are essentially more advanced, attacking versions of wide midfielders. Likewise, there are several variations of wingers that are seen in modern football.

Wingers are usually used in formations that incorporate 3 attackers, with the most commonly used formation being the 433.

Common 433 formation

The two most common winger variations that we see are traditional wingers and Inverted wingers.

Traditional winger

A traditional winger is really just a more advanced wide midfielder. Similarly, they are tasked with keeping team width and stretching the opposition. However, they do so with more of an emphasis on offence.

A classic hallmark of a traditional winger is their ability to dribble past defenders and provide crosses to strikers and late runners in the box.

In many cases, putting crosses into the box is the main task that traditional wingers are given. As such, a traditional winger is usually positioned on the side of the pitch that corresponds to their stronger foot.

These players usually have blistering pace, agility, great dribbling ability and great crossing ability.

Good example: Ryan Giggs

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A great example of a traditional winger is Ryan Giggs. Arguably the best player to grace the English Premier League.

Some may not agree with this, but this statement is hard to argue with when you remember that Giggs has the second most appearances in EPL history (632) and has won 13 Premier League titles.

And to top it all, he holds the all-time EPL assist record, with 162 assists. To put that last stat in perspective, second on the all-time assist list is Cesc Fabregas with 111 assists.

In his prime, Giggs would seamlessly drift past players, score goals and provide assists. Nicknamed the Welsh wizard, he possessed a wand of a left foot and regularly did damage to the opposition’s score line.

A testament to his outstanding technical ability is this iconic winner that he scored in extra time of the FA cup semi-final against Arsenal in 1999.

Other examples

Additional examples of traditional wingers are Jadon Sancho, Serge Gnabry and Leroy Sane.

Inverted winger

The inverted winger is a player that starts in the wing position, but drifts infield.

At first glance the use of an inverted winger may seem counterintuitive; by having wide players drift infield, teams naturally lose their width. However, the reasoning behind this is that by doing so, wingers drag opposition fullbacks out of their position and into the centre of the field. Attacking fullbacks will then have space to overlap and provide width in attack.

These players can also be referred to as inside forwards or second strikers in certain scenarios due to their finishing ability. For a more in-depth description of inside forwards, check out this article.

As these players specialize in cutting inside, the role of an inverted winger is highly suited towards players whose strong foot is the opposite of the side of the pitch that they play on. E.g right footed players playing on the left side of the field.

An inverted winger will thus have very similar characteristics to that of a traditional winger, with a large focus on scoring goals.

Good example: Arjen Robben

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“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”-Bruce Lee

One of the best examples of an inverted winger in the modern game is Arjen Robben. Robben possessed insane dribbling ability and composure in his prime. As he was naturally left footed, he typically played as a right winger.

His signature skill move, which he used frequently, involved him cutting inside from the right side of the pitch and firing in a well-placed shot with his left foot.

You’re probably thinking, “if he used this move so frequently, surely defenders would catch on and it wouldn’t work?”

Wrong.

It worked time and time again. The defenders always knew what he was going to do, but they just could not stop him. He was that good.

In fact, he was so good at cutting inside that the comment section of every reddit post with an Arjen Robben goal was completely spammed with “le cut inside man” memes, like the one below. It was glorious.

If you feel like exploring the world of Arjen Robben memes, be sure to visit the “Le Cut inside Man” subreddit. You won’t regret it.

Other examples

Further examples of players that have successfully played as inside forwards are Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Eden Hazard

Is a winger a midfielder?

Yes, and no.

Despite being a more advanced WM, a traditional winger can still somewhat be considered as a midfielder.

In the modern game, Traditional wingers are often expected to drop into the midfield to make themselves available for passes when their team is in possession. Likewise, they are also expected to press the opposition in the midfield when their team is out of possession.  Both characteristics of midfielders.

Although they are positioned slightly higher up the pitch, the main difference between a traditional winger and a traditional wide midfielder is that of mentality:  traditional WMs are more all-round players, whereas wingers are slightly more attack orientated.

Another way of looking at it is that a traditional winger shares similar responsibilities with centre attacking midfielders. The main difference between the two is that wingers carry out their responsibilities on the flanks, as opposed to in the centre of the pitch.

On the other hand, an inverted winger is certainly more of a forward than anything else.

Closing thoughts

The distinction between wingers and midfielders is subtle, yet quite large when looking at what each position brings to the team.

However, what they bring to the team is highly dependent on the formation used, the team’s playstyle and the players playstyle, among several other factors.

For more detailed descriptions of player roles and positions, be sure to check out the articles below:

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