More headed goals in FM11? Better Manager AI?

Just wondering if theres been anything said about heading side of the game for FM11? I loved FM10, but the last 2 patches were awful if you wanted to actually have a formation to get the best out of a striker that was good in the air. I actually stopped playing due to getting bored of teams with narrow formations ruling the game because headed goals from open play were just way too rare. and only really came about when the defender/keeper made huge errors. Whatever happened to a good ball into the box being good enough?

I don't want to get FM11 to find out that you just need to flood the middle and be able to score as many as you want. It would be nice to see the 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation be more effective in FM11 because it's pretty much the new 4-4-2 for top teams now. It worked fine in 10.1 when crossing/heading was a little too good, but I hope that they find a good balance for FM11, because in 10.2/3 the narrow 4-1-2-1-2 was far too effective because of the lack of threat from wide areas.

Also, any info on AI managers? as in FM10 they just didnt buy well enough and ended up keeping players until they were 35 (Barca still had Ibrahimovic at age 36, as their main striker, who had 3 pace..) and not really replacing players well enough. In all 3 of my long term Premier League saves only Man City remained good enough after 8 or so years, and thats because they were spending 30 million on 32 year olds. it would be great if the AI managers could do something to keep the leagues at a good standard, because once you get past the 10th season it's quite rare to see any team get any sort of good points tally, making the game very easy.

This isn't a whine post, i realize that it must be really freakin' hard to find a balance, but I'm hoping that SI will get it right after the 3 FM10 patches that just didnt get it right.

Fuzzy

Most, if not all, of the clips of the new ME contain goals which come from wide areas.

Nothing has been announced yet about the amount of headed goals in FM11. It wouldn't be a massive change so you'd probably have to wait until the official change list to see if this has been tweaked.

Yeah, I dont want a massive change, because FM10 patch 10.1 it were way too easy to score from wide areas, but patch 10.2/3 overly rare and having a player like Chamakh/Dzeko just felt like you were wasting them. I did notice the headed goals in the gameplay vids, very happy about that!

Yeah, I dont want a massive change, because FM10 patch 10.1 it were way too easy to score from wide areas, but patch 10.2/3 overly rare and having a player like Chamakh/Dzeko just felt like you were wasting them. I did notice the headed goals in the gameplay vids, very happy about that!

Then you aren't using them correctly as I have Dzeko and he has scored 25+ goals a season for the last five seasons.

Yeah Dzeko isn't reliant on crosses, he's awesome anyway

I never said I had problems with using Dzeko, he was a very good signing for me and scored 30+ a season, but when you have a player thats so good in the air and he only scores a few per season from balls into the box it feels like a total waste of one of his main weapons.

PaulC said he would work on improving the effectiveness of crosses shortly after the release of the last patch.

As long as my players got that round thing in the back of that net, I couldn't care less about headers.

As has already been said, most of the goals in the videos so far are from headers in the box from wide crosses so I would say it has been fixed. Obviously with the amount in the videos though, I hope they havent overdone it again.

I completely agree with the OP. And am hoping that PaulC will lock the best ME so far ever.

As has already been said, most of the goals in the videos so far are from headers in the box from wide crosses so I would say it has been fixed. Obviously with the amount in the videos though, I hope they havent overdone it again.

Thats my worry, because it was like this in 10.1, and they tried to fix it in 10.2 and crossing was useless, utterly terrible, wingers waiting 2-3 seconds before attempting to cross the ball allowing defenders to knock it out for corners 9/10 which resulted in my CB's getting 15 a season.....haha.

Then we had 10.3 where crossing worked, but heading didnt! fingers crossed.

I have faith in SI to get it right this time