Too many shots off target? Statistical look!

I know there's a lot of complaints about the ME giving too many shots off target in the game, so thought I would take an objective look at FM vs real life.

Taking this weekend's premier league fixtures into account (home teams first - On Target/Total Shots) - source: BBC Website:

Arsenal: 8/11 (73%)

Aston Villa: 8/15 (53%)

Birmingham: 5/8 (63%)

Blackburn: 3/10 (30%)

Blackpool: 9/12 (75%)

Bolton: 8/18 (44%)

Chelsea: 5/8 (63%)

Everton: 14/20 (70%)

Fulham: 10/14 (71%)

Liverpool: 7/9 (78%)

Man City: 5/9 (56%)

Man Utd: 10/14 (71%)

Newcastle: 2/7 (29%)

Stoke: 5/11 (46%)

Sunderland: 9/15 (60%)

Tottenham: 6/11 (55%)

West Brom: 7/14 (50%)

West Ham: 8/16 (50%)

Wigan: 10/16 (63%)

Wolves: 6/8 (75%)

Average 59%

From my last weekend in the PL in FM2011

Arsenal: 5/11 (46%)

Aston Villa: 6/17 (35%)

Birmingham: 1/4 (25%)

Blackburn: 5/16 (31%)

Blackpool: 0/2 (0%)

Bolton: 2/5 (40%)

Chelsea: 7/18 (38%)

Everton 6/16 (38%)

Fulham: 1/2 (50%)

Liverpool: 4/9 (44%)

Man City: 8/16 (50%)

Man Utd: 7/20 (35%)

Newcastle: 1/7 (14%)

Stoke: 8/18 (44%)

Sunderland: 9/13 (69%)

Tottenham: 6/15 (40%)

West Brom: 4/9 (44%)

West Ham: 2/8 (25%)

Wigan: 2/7 (29%)

Wolves: 4/8 (50%)

Average: 37%

Most of the real life games seem to hover around the 60/70% mark whereas in game most seem to be in the 40s. I will add that in the game I'm Spurs and drew 1-1 with West Brom. Both of the percentages for teams in this game seem to correlate with what happened elsewhere within the game.

I didn't know how these statistics would pan out prior to recording them - in fact I thought that it would be something SI look at prior to release to ensure that statistically the game quite closely models reality. If the weekends used are not peculiar for any reason, then it seems to me that the amount of shots off target is a problem with the match engine rather than anybody's particular tactics. I hope SI can look into this more fully so that the stats are a bit more comparable, or are able to show what analysis they have done to show that the way the game works reflects real life statistics more closely.

Strangely, the end scorelines seem to be fairly realistic, so I don't know if the number of off target shots is somewhat hiding some bigger flaws within the system.

One weekend is not a big enough sample.

SI run massive soak tests and take seasonal averages.

One weekend is not a big enough sample.

SI run massive soak tests and take seasonal averages.

I hope SI can look into this more fully so that the stats are a bit more comparable, or are able to show what analysis they have done to show that the way the game works reflects real life statistics more closely.

Would be nice to have their feedback.

I have since seen Opta statistics for the season as a whole - generally most teams hit 30-40% on target, so I think the percentages are about right, it's just the chances people seem to miss that's frustrating!