Pretty obvious what this does but how can it affect your team? Well if your players have low rates for Long shots you pretty much screwed. So first this stat needs to be good for that player. Second of all you need to consider do you want players shooting from distance. You might go a game and have 20 shots, all long ones, so what are the chances any will go in? This depends on how good that player is. If you have a non league player with a rating of 10 then why bother?

Nice and easy, has the player got good stats for:

Dribbling
Pace
Stamina

If so then he will be good with this, but remind the more players that go running forward, the less that stay behind.

If you have a creative gem in your team, maybe Gerrard, Ronaldinho then use them wisely to get the most out of them, free role is a good instruction to give them. A good player in Football Manager is the same as in real life, give them some creative freedom to use their talents.

A perfect exam of a good player at holding the ball up would be Makele at Chelsea or Patrick Vieira at Arsenal back in the day. Dont have a whole team of players with this enabled or you will find yourself losing. Just use this with your Defensive midfielder if they suite the role.