Goal for next FM: Realistic Player Stats at Every Level?

Firstly, I think FM11 is fantastic. Loving it so far, match engine is vastly improved and I think that out of the box (with release day patch, well done SI) this is the best incarnation yet.

That's not to say there aren't things to still improve of course, and since this series is evolving all the time, I figure that now this one is out of the traps and off, it's time to start philosophising about the NEXT fm game.

I was looking today at a player that an agent recommended to me, a player I hadnt thought about in a long time. Gianni Guigou is a Uruguyan midfielder, who I remember playing for Roma some years ago. Looking at his ratings, I see that he had finishing 10, composure 13, off the ball 10, decisions 13. That's pretty good for a midfielder of 35, and I think that stats like this would doubtless result in a good few goals over the years.

But the REAL Gianni Guigou has scored only 11 goals EVER, and that's over 234 appearances at a variety of different levels and standards. Now look at Gennaro Gattuso, a similar type of holding/tackling midfielder, albeit a much better one all round. He's got finishing 8, composure 13, off the ball 11 and decisions 13 and has scored even fewer goals per game, getting 14 in over 374 appearances, most at the top level. Claude Makelele is famous for being terrible at scoring goals. If he ever DOES score, it's mostly by luck than design. His stats in this area: fin 6, comp 15, otb 9, dec 15. 17 goals in 574 games. a woeful return...

Yet look in my game at a player currently playing for Man City - Craig Bellamy. Undoubtedly a very good player, certainly top class, and scorer of a good number of goals at the top level. 113 in over 350 games. His stats are: fin 13, composure 12, otb 16, dec 13.

Is Craig Bellamy really only 3 points better at finishing than Gianni Guigou? Bellamy, who has scored 10 times as many goals, is only that tiny bit better at finishing. He's only just got more than twice the rating of Makelele, a player famous for being awful at it. His other stats aren't wildly different either.

What does this mean? You can say "Bellamy has pace, so he doesn't need to be good at finishing" or that it's more about his off-the-ball running, or the fact he plays higher up the pitch, but you cannot honestly tell me that if you put Makelele or Guigou through on goal as many times as Craig Bellamy, that they would score only slightly fewer times. And Bellamy can score types of goal the other players cannot. He doesn't hit and hope, as I suspect the other three do given their records. He is a striker who aims to shoot accurately and with power, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. He has scored a lot of very, very good goals over the years and I think any reasonable person would say that Bellamy is a lot better at finishing than just 3 points.

But if we make these players as bad as their stats might reflect, what does that do to Footman? If we give Makelele a 1 or a 2 in finishing, which I feel he should have, how does that look? Is the game capable of giving a very good player some very poor stats? Does Footman artificially alter stats dependent on core ability? Some players can be absolutely brilliant at certain areas of the game while being totally and utterly useless at others.

I feel that perhaps the three defensive midfielders I've suggested do not deserve to be as close in ability as a proven, actual goalscorer in stats that affect that ability. And this is not a data issue because it seems to filter through to other aspects of the game.

Look at the average in the Man Utd squad and I see Teamwork, Aggression, Work Rate, Determination, Bravery and Influence are all far, far higher than in, say, Bournemouth's squad. But can you honestly say that the players exhibit that much difference in these factors? Isn't it the case that you will see just as much teamwork and aggression in the lower leagues? The real difference is superior technique and flair, tactical nous and to a lesser extent these days fitness. But there are plenty of players in the lower leagues who are superb finishers capable of scoring goals that anyone at the top level would envy. Yet players that are scoring 30 goals in League One barely have the finishing power (apparently) of Claude Makelele, and cannot hope to be as determined or aggressive as him.

If there is a link between the hidden ability attribute and the visible stats, I sincerely hope that the next FM will move away from that. Ability is determined by your competence in visible areas. You cannot secretly be brilliant. I am concerned at some of these anomolous stats and I think it's long overdue for FM to rethink it's approach to the player database and how a players ability is determined.

Cheers for any thoughts.

Interesting read, well written. As you mentioned it's not only the finishing attribute the counts for a goalscorer but also composure, anticipation, off the ball etc.. You could argue many different attributes play a role.

You have got to remember that Bellamy is an attacker, therefore leads the attacking line and will find himself in front of goal so much more often then a DM, obviously resulting in far more opportunities. You could argue strikers miss loads more chances than DM!

PPM's also play a part. A good striker might have 'places shots' or 'rounds the keeper' which could mean he is much calmer in front of goal, whereas a DM could have 'shoots with power' resulting in loads of wild efforts on goal.

Single attributes don't give us the overall picture of the player.

You have got to remember that Bellamy is an attacker, therefore leads the attacking line and will find himself in front of goal so much more often then a DM, obviously resulting in far more opportunities. You could argue strikers miss loads more chances than DM!

Yes, but he is played as an attacker for a reason. If you played Makelele there, he would be far less successful. He wasn't played as a striker by chance, but because he is very good at scoring goals.

PPM's also play a part. A good striker might have 'places shots' or 'rounds the keeper' which could mean he is much calmer in front of goal, whereas a DM could have 'shoots with power' resulting in loads of wild efforts on goal.

Single attributes don't give us the overall picture of the player.

Exactly my point, although I think you mean it differently! You've listed two things which are "hidden" values. Why don't we know that Bellamy likes to round the keeper and place his shots? We've seen him play, can evaluate even fairly flaky ideas like "bravery" to a single digit, but it's apparently not knowable that he likes to place his shots or gets into the channels.

Single attributes should never result in knowing the full picture, but as I said - Player "Ability" is some strange hidden value that has an effect on how good the player is. Why is this hidden? And if we want to know how good someone is at scoring goals, shouldn't their stats reflect that? As I said, Bellamy and Makelele are not that far apart in terms of the stats that one might consider "the obvious ones" when it comes to deciding who is a good striker, but they really, really should be!

Finishing 10 seems a tad high for a player who has barely got into double-digits for goals - might be a data issue (although finishing takes into account a little more than just number of goals scored).

I cooooooould write out a massive reply to this, but it all comes down to the simple fact that the stats are there so FM simulates the real life as realistically as possible. For instance, give bournemouth's players all excellent mental stats... they all have excellent mental stats and do much better - unrealistic.

And I reckon even though Makalele doesn't get many now because of where he plays, playing in school I bet he was the striker who got all the goals. Any player at his level will be able to finish relatively well basically. Plus, i bet if you played him up front he wouldn't get many goals at all, so what's the problem?

"Only has just more than double his finishing" is quite something. FM has a very small scale. There are only 10 values that can be doubled, and doubling three of them would give you an outstanding score.

I think I agree with your general points. It may be worth mentioning them in the relevant threads in the Data Issues forum.

I cooooooould write out a massive reply to this, but it all comes down to the simple fact that the stats are there so FM simulates the real life as realistically as possible. For instance, give bournemouth's players all excellent mental stats... they all have excellent mental stats and do much better - unrealistic.

And I reckon even though Makalele doesn't get many now because of where he plays, playing in school I bet he was the striker who got all the goals. Any player at his level will be able to finish relatively well basically. Plus, i bet if you played him up front he wouldn't get many goals at all, so what's the problem?

But this game doesn't simulate down as far as "in school". If you played him in league 2 I still doubt he would score many goals in real life, even in his prime. He may be able to finish "relatively well" compared to you or I, but finishing 1 doesn't mean "finishes as well as you or me" since the scale is still purely to model professional footballers. Non-pros shouldn't even be on the scale of something like finishing. So, like someone said elsewhere, given how short the scale of measuring ability is, a score of 10 means you should be better at finishing than half the footballers in the world. And it's not to do with "where he plays", because where he plays is dictated by what he's good at.

But most importantly "if you played him up front he still wouldn't score many goals"....

This is very close to the most important point I am making, and if this is the case, WHY do his stats seem so similar to someone who you WOULD expect to score you a lot of goals?

You're right in saying that he wouldn't score many, but his stats barely differ from Craig Bellamy's. There is very little in it. And this is not a data issue, since even Carlos Tevez only has finishing 15. If it IS a data issue, then it needs to be made much clearer to the database people that you cannot give stats like 10 finishing to someone whose career reads like a "How Not to Score Goals" manual.

The curve seems to really be very level, and then only a very few players have anything like 18, 19, 20...and many of those are some 36 year old Brazilian guys on free transfers that most people have never heard of!