Just how important is the 'Finishing' Attribute?

I ask this question because I used to really base my strikers on said attribute, along with technique and composure as the holy trinity as it were. Now however I abandoned this philosophy, and indeed those of classical strike partnerships, and tried out strikers who have a lower Finishing attribute. And I have found it surprising, Currently in my save I have 2 small fast strikers in Pablo Mouche and Nicolas Gaitan, there finishing is 12 and 11 respectivley. Yet Mouche has 9 goals in 14 games and Gaitan has 12 in 12. So is finishing really that important or can other attributes combined with PPM's be just as effective?

Well if their other attributes are great so they create a lot of chances for themselves, they still score a lot of goals. Pace is (and has always been) overpowered in the match engine and fast strikers profit from that. People always complain that Agbonlahor scores a lot of goals in the game.

Well if their other attributes are great so they create a lot of chances for themselves, they still score a lot of goals. Pace is (and has always been) overpowered in the match engine and fast strikers profit from that. People always complain that Agbonlahor scores a lot of goals in the game.

Yeah I agree with this and has been the case for ages now. Pace and acceleration are both so overatted by SI its unbelieveable! I do believe finishing is important but not in isolation - they have to have other high attributes to make this attribute more effective. But ive seen players with 20 for finishing and be pretty average and this player has 20 for composure and off the ball and 19 for anticipation. Where as Aguero has worse finishing attributes still very good and he is very quick and he is a miles better finisher in the game - so who knows!

I hold a lot by it, probably the main factor in whether I sign a striker or not

^ well I used to be the same but now not so much.

I suppose the one thing about pace is it gets you away from defenders and thusly you are under less immediate pressure when you shoot, maybe thats why its seems to work so well in the ME.

I had some fellow on loan from borussia dortmund for stoke in the previous season of my current game and as a striker, to me at least, he looked completely pants with 11 finishing and not much else to recommend him, yet he scored an average of a goal per league game till the end of the season. Ironically a season onward and I have Bendtner, Fleck, Aiman Napoli and some dutch guy whose name I am not even going to attempt. All of them are performing abominably except for Napoli who is clearly the poorest of the 4 at this point in the game.

I'm of the opinion that players attributes should have a heavier influence on the outcome of games than it its current lack of influence at present.

But IRL Agbonlahor has done pretty well for the past 2 seasons as he has dangerous pace

Finishing, I believe, is how accurate a player can shoot at goal. A player with 20 finishing would be able to shoot much more accurately at goal than a player with 10 finishing. However, finishing is not the only attribute that determines whether or not a player scores.

Goal scoring is a combination of:

Finishing

Technique

Anticipation

Composure

Off The Ball

Even if a player has poor finishing, an excellent technique stat will make up some of that defficiency. Likewise, a player could have not so good technicals but could have amazing mentals which do the same (see: Wayne Rooney).

Finishing plays a big role in the actual goal scoring situation itself, along with composure. A few others, notably technique and decisions, also play roles here. However, loads of attributes contribute to chance getting, in fact there aren't many that don't (tackling, marking, positioning... though you could make a case for many of those!).

You have to take into account more than just finishing and composure. My strike force had one striker with 10 for finishing and 16 for composure and the other had 16 finishing and 10 for composure. The one with the lower composure scored a goal a game and has roughly 14 or 15 for the other important attributes. The one with lower finishing also bagged a goal a game despite being quite slow he was mentally strong.

Well if their other attributes are great so they create a lot of chances for themselves, they still score a lot of goals. Pace is (and has always been) overpowered in the match engine and fast strikers profit from that. People always complain that Agbonlahor scores a lot of goals in the game.

but in real life for villa agbonlahor is often playing wide on the left and is more often in the creator positions than the finishing positions which explains his lack of goals. plus he is also not the best crosser in the world which explains why he doesn't have a majorly high amount of assists both in real life and in the game engine if he was played like he was in real

On my save Chelsea's most prolific striker has 10 for finishing.

Dembele has terrible finishing, but seems to finish maybe even better than Drogba. :S

The question here is the number of chances.

Striker with finishing 20 is Milito-type of player who needs sometimes just one half-chance to score.

But forwards with good technique, anticipation and physical attributes create and/or get more chances and use some of them.

If you want to check if finishing rating is played out correctly with match engine, you should check shot on target % and goal/goal attempts and compare those with finishing attribute

Well if their other attributes are great so they create a lot of chances for themselves, they still score a lot of goals. Pace is (and has always been) overpowered in the match engine and fast strikers profit from that. People always complain that Agbonlahor scores a lot of goals in the game.

Speed kills!

It all depends on how you play your striker really. It's all well and good having a striker with a Finishing rating of 20, but if he never gets in the position to unleash a shot, it's pointless. It seems to me that a striker with higher Positioning, Speed and Off the Ball ratings will score more because he will be in the position to score them more often. That being said, he will also miss more than a striker with 20 Finishing for the same reasons.

Just a quick note to Horst above me. Positioning is a defensive attribute - it indicates how well a player can position himself to stop the attacking players. It doesn't help an attacking player get into a good position - that is determined by the Off the Ball attribute.

So don't look for good Positioning in your forwards!

I currently have a striker in the Championship with finishing 10 but composure 15 and he scores a goal every other game or so, not even that pacey either.

Sorry, I didn't mean the attribute Positioning, I meant Off the Ball, good spot danpegg. Cheers pal

i have had players with high finishing and they cant seem to score. i found pace is a factor and currently vagner love is doing well for me. getting them to place shots i find helps and with pace teaching them to beat the offside trap. composure does make a difference.

i have had players with high finishing and they cant seem to score. i found pace is a factor and currently vagner love is doing well for me. getting them to place shots i find helps and with pace teaching them to beat the offside trap. composure does make a difference.

Off the ball attribute is the one that helps to break offside trap. Pace alone is useless, pacey striker who can't play off the ball runs always offside.

Off the ball attribute is the one that helps to break offside trap. Pace alone is useless, pacey striker who can't play off the ball runs always offside.

isn't that more determined by anticipation than off the ball?

in my current game here I have just won the BSS as Bath City, I have a Poacher with very high Acceleration and Pace, but only a Finishing of 7 or 8, and he scored 39 goals in 44 games or something like that.

So I guess Finishing is not the all-important stat for your striker.

I think its important for one on ones especially, but there are other attributes which affect how good a striker is.

Danny Welbecks finishing is only 15, and he's pretty damn good for United.

1st touch/technique is very important ...

I play a lot of lower league games, and so have players with poor 1st touch and/or technique, and it shows very clearly on the ME

when receiving passes the ball often runs away several feet from my players

when i play against more skilled teams, the ball does this much less, and the other team has much greater threat, and effectiveness, infront of goal.

I have a striker in Russia who averages 25+ goals per season for 5 seasons with 13 for finishing.

He has 20 pace and 19 acceleration, good dribbling, first touch and technique (All 16+). He scores so many due to the sheer fact that he creates so many chances for himself.

i'd just like to bring up the example of Chinedu Obasi who only 4 or 6 finishing rating and yet bags quite a lot.

i'd just like to bring up the example of Chinedu Obasi who only 4 or 6 finishing rating and yet bags quite a lot.

thats because he ticks all the other important box's:D

not too shabby for a 36yr old

This is the most confusing part for me. Isn't finishing the act of actually scoring the goal? If that's the case, then all of the other attributes shouldn't matter if the player lacks the capacity to score the goal. In short, the idea is if the goal were empty and the player fired a shot at it, how likely is the player to score. If that's right, then the finishing category is redundant.

There shouldn't be a "finishing" attribute as all of the other elements of scoring (technique, off the ball, composure, etc.) should be the determiner as to whether or not the player scores. Finishing just seems superfluous.

The point of the posts in this thread seems to be that a player with 20 finishing, but under 10 in the other stats would not score a goal, but a player with 5 finishing and a 20 in all of the other stats would be a superstar. So why is there a "finishing" category?

Ok. Let's get back to "what is" as opposed to "what should be." What currently exists is a Finishing attribute that on its own seems to be not worth much. So is the consensus that LLM should look for players who might have better technique, off the ball, etc than those with high finishing scores?

i'd just like to bring up the example of Chinedu Obasi who only 4 or 6 finishing rating and yet bags quite a lot.

Its actually around 8 or 9 at the start of the game.

This is the most confusing part for me. Isn't finishing the act of actually scoring the goal? If that's the case, then all of the other attributes shouldn't matter if the player lacks the capacity to score the goal. In short, the idea is if the goal were empty and the player fired a shot at it, how likely is the player to score. If that's right, then the finishing category is redundant.

There shouldn't be a "finishing" attribute as all of the other elements of scoring (technique, off the ball, composure, etc.) should be the determiner as to whether or not the player scores. Finishing just seems superfluous.

The point of the posts in this thread seems to be that a player with 20 finishing, but under 10 in the other stats would not score a goal, but a player with 5 finishing and a 20 in all of the other stats would be a superstar. So why is there a "finishing" category?

Ok. Let's get back to "what is" as opposed to "what should be." What currently exists is a Finishing attribute that on its own seems to be not worth much. So is the consensus that LLM should look for players who might have better technique, off the ball, etc than those with high finishing scores?

Most other attributes relate to chance creation. Finishing and composure relate to direct goal scoring, putting chances away. Composure is ability to keep cool, finishing is... well, how good they are at finishing!

We need a finishing attribute. For example, compare Messi to RVN at his peak. Messi is better at dribbling, he has better technique, his movement and anticipation are better. The only thing RVN has on Messi is... yes, finishing.