Why can't I score?

Hi. i am using patch 9.3. I started a new game and have been using the 3D match engine for teh first time, and now I can't score. I have the likes of Zhirkov, Vagner Love, Martins, Owen, Probegnyak, Lavezzi, Beckham, Rivaldo, Buonanotte, Vukcevic, Jeremy Mathieu, and Zapata on my team but in 12 premier division games, my team only has 11 goals, which is fourth worst in the premier division. My leading goalscorer is Beckham with 3 goals, and they have all been from free kicks. Normally teams in real life get 2-3 sometimes four good free kicks a game, but I've only had 4 or 5 in 12 games and Beckham has scored from 3 of them. Vagner Love has only 1 goal in 12 games despite playing almost every minute of all of them. Owen has no goals in a few games. Probegnyak has no goals in four or five games. Martins has no goals in four or five games. Zhirkov, Buonanotte, and Vukcevic have no goals in 12 games.

Why can't my team score??? For that matter why can't anyone score in my games. The last four or five games I've played have either been 1-0 or 0-0. I dominate entire games and don't score. Or games are evenly matched and no one scores. It's ridiculous. How can I fix it? I've tried 442's and making up my own tactics and 424's and whatever i can think of. I have all the personal tactics going with long shots often for people with 17-18+ in long shots, and through balls often for people with high passing and creativity, and i have it low for the people who don't, and so on so forth. I've tried team passing from mixed to short. I have an attacking team mentality, defensive line pushed up a ways, creative freedom at normal for hte team and high for a few individuals. What can I do? What is a good attacking formation that works in FM09? Nothing that worked well for me in FM08 or FM07 works well in FM09. I can't download tactic files because they're all made for PC's, and I have a mac, so I need a good tactic to be told to me as opposed to "try downloading so and so."

Please help! I spent so much time building the team and milking every bit of transfer money from reserve player sales and offering each of them out to clubs 100+ times each player (since the game is so ridiculously annoying and you can never just sell all the players u want to by just offering them out once. really something that should be changed), but anyway i spent so much time and now they can't score. They were supposed to be an offensive team and the players i have are better than most of the teams that are beating me and outscoring me, yet...

Anyway, ideas?

You're best off looking in the Tactics Forum for an answer to this mate

I've been getting the same sort of thing, it's resulted in my midfielders getting more goals than my strikers. Managing Liverpool, it got to the point where I was thinking to myself "Well all we can do now is wait for Gerrard to score" and lo and behold, he would.

I've noticed that all opposition defences (and I mean ALL) manage to get 8 or 9 players behind the ball during every attack I make, they somehow manage to sprint their way back from the other end and "park the bus", resulting in strikers getting crowded out and leaving it to the midfielders to take shots. As far as I know, this isn't too realistic and wish that it had been looked at during patch testing.

If you watch football on the TV, you'll hardly ever see 8 or 9 players crowding the ball out in their own area unless there's 5 minutes to go and they're protecting a lead, if you know what I mean. It's usually two strikers against 2 or 4 defenders, perhaps 2 midfielders coming back late to help, and that's it.

To be honest, I've been wavering from FM2009 on and off the past few weeks now - this issue has really been trying my patience.

Try a slower buildup, counter-attacking. Whenever I'm a big team and the opposition parks the bus I find this usually works quite well (normally i play a short-passing quick attacking game). Also, try using a playmaker if you are not already. If this doesn't work I go to a defensive mentality, inviting the other team onto me. With them being weaker, this lets me exploit the counter attack more effectively. Sounds daft, but it works.

Try a slower buildup, counter-attacking. Whenever I'm a big team and the opposition parks the bus I find this usually works quite well (normally i play a short-passing quick attacking game). Also, try using a playmaker if you are not already. If this doesn't work I go to a defensive mentality, inviting the other team onto me. With them being weaker, this lets me exploit the counter attack more effectively. Sounds daft, but it works.

Thanks for that, I'll give it another go.

I've been getting the same sort of thing, it's resulted in my midfielders getting more goals than my strikers. Managing Liverpool, it got to the point where I was thinking to myself "Well all we can do now is wait for Gerrard to score" and lo and behold, he would.

If you watch football on the TV, you'll hardly ever see 8 or 9 players crowding the ball out in their own area unless there's 5 minutes to go and they're protecting a lead...

Hardly - there have been plenty games where Liverpool have played teams who 'park the bus' - Fulham last game for example. Man U face the same.

The truth is, "it's your tactics", guys. Probably the mentalities of your forwards and midfielders leave the front men isolated - that's the most common error. It's all sorted in the (in)famous manual, TT&F over the the aforementioned Tactics forum.

Its your tactics kid

so you're saying my forwards' mentality shouldn't be say "all out attack" if the rest of my team's mentality is "normal?" Anyway even when I have everyone set to all out attack the problem is still there. Should the forwards' mentality be less attacking than the rest of the team? Obviously that would be stupid in real life and doesn't make sense but if that's how you need to put it to manipulate an unrealistic game... im hoping thats not the case. anyway, anymore suggestions?

thanks

im going to check out the tactics manual thing. anyone have a link or is it stickied?

Its your tactics kid

I think he knows that. He needs help with his tactics, yet you are repeating a joke for what, I reckon about 7,000th time. Pointless post tbh.

To the OP, the four stickied threads in the Tactics forum are worth reading. Quite lengthy, though.

Hardly - there have been plenty games where Liverpool have played teams who 'park the bus' - Fulham last game for example. Man U face the same.

The truth is, "it's your tactics", guys. Probably the mentalities of your forwards and midfielders leave the front men isolated - that's the most common error. It's all sorted in the (in)famous manual, TT&F over the the aforementioned Tactics forum.

Would Barcelona, Man United, and so on, park the bus against Liverpool? Because that's what I've had - like I said, every single opponent I've played does it from start to finish, and it's getting pretty ridiculous now.

people arent parking the bus on me necessarily. i just cant score.

I've been getting the same sort of thing, it's resulted in my midfielders getting more goals than my strikers. Managing Liverpool, it got to the point where I was thinking to myself "Well all we can do now is wait for Gerrard to score" and lo and behold, he would.

I've noticed that all opposition defences (and I mean ALL) manage to get 8 or 9 players behind the ball during every attack I make, they somehow manage to sprint their way back from the other end and "park the bus", resulting in strikers getting crowded out and leaving it to the midfielders to take shots. As far as I know, this isn't too realistic and wish that it had been looked at during patch testing.

If you watch football on the TV, you'll hardly ever see 8 or 9 players crowding the ball out in their own area unless there's 5 minutes to go and they're protecting a lead, if you know what I mean. It's usually two strikers against 2 or 4 defenders, perhaps 2 midfielders coming back late to help, and that's it.

To be honest, I've been wavering from FM2009 on and off the past few weeks now - this issue has really been trying my patience.

Suzie, you was a beta tester for the patch, why say that? or do you mean you wish someone elsed bothered looking at it except you?

im having that problem i had easy games to start the season agaist norwich wigan and wolves and i only beat norwich and wolves 1-0 with goals in the last 10min and drew to wigan only by scoring a 90+2 min goal

it can get really annoying

Did you just buy all those players? if so wait.

Sometimes you'll stop scoring, it wont last (remember the game is tryign to echo rela life, it is common for teams to score few goals for stretches of time, even the best teams).

Try changing tactics, look for weaknesses in the way your team plays. try and get the best out of players like Probegnyak i.e: do you want him to get the ball on his head? do you want the ball at his feet with him waiting for midfielders to overlap? Think about who your key players are and what they need from the team to produce the goods/goals.

I've never looked in the tactics forum, you don't need it. Different teams , with different players and styles of play need different tactics.

You're rotating too much. Stick with the same team and tactics.