GK match ratings

How did my Gk achieve a rating of 9.1 in a game? He made two comfortable saves from long range and did practically nothing in a game I dominated. No assist, very little passes or no exceptional distance covered.

In the same game, my striker who scored 2 goals only achieved a 9.2 in comparison.

In most games, the GK ratings will be at 6.9 or 7.0 because he has practically not much to do. The match ratings does not make much sense at all.

I happen to agree with you. It seems to me that even if my goalkeeper has a great game but gives up a goal, his best possible rating is 6.9

I would be curious to see what other people think as well.

I agree. I've always thought the match ratings don't make any sense. It's as if the game doesn't analyze the overall performance of the match properly

Example: Some shots are unsavable and yet your goalie still receives a poor rating

Your striker will play crap all game, grab a goal in the dying minutes and receive a good rating (and it was just a tap in)

The thing that i hate most about the ratings is that when the other team scores off a free kick my defenders ratings get destroyed even though they didnt really make a mistake defending.

That and players getting punished for mistakes that other defenders made.

I would say that it has improved though. I've had players make a (real) mistake and still end the game with a good rating, which never happened to me in earlier versions of FM - at best their rating would be so-so, but normally relatively poor.

Individual ratings do seem to be rather strongly linked to the team's performance though - you notice this when you score a goal and suddenly all your players have better ratings. Even if they didn't do actually do anything of note in the meantime. Conversely, you'll have a player doing quite well, but he can't progress past 6.9 because the score is still 0-0 and it's only the first half. Similar weird things happen after half time, with some players' ratings shooting up or dropping in the 15 minutes they weren't playing for no apparent reason. I've also had players end the match with a different full time rating than their half time rating, despite being subbed at half time (is this intentional?)

But credit where credit is due: overall the match ratings have improved with time.

Individual ratings do seem to be rather strongly linked to the team's performance though - you notice this when you score a goal and suddenly all your players have better ratings.

This is not good. I had a CB who was passing badly and have a few missed shot attempts and we conceded two goals. His rating was 6.2 at 90 minutes. I scored two goals in injury time to win 5-2 and his ratings shot up to 7.0 for because the team does well.

The other problematic area for ratings is for the ball winning centre midfielder. In almost every game, he will score 6.9 despite winning tackles and passing well, albeit short simple passes. That is his role and he does it well but he get poor ratings as compared to his team-mates.

Maybe it would take up too much processing power or something? I dunno. But the game should analyze each individual player and their 'overall' performance in the match

Match ratings usually make sense, although it's a bit unfair to defensive players (but, to be honest, so is it in real life).

GK match ratings usually are most effected by:

1) Saves. Note that just save doesn't increase 6.9 rating much. Saves that are rated by commentary as "fine save", "good save", "great save" or "brilliant save" (ascending order) will increase his rating the most.

2) Conceding. Clean sheet has good effect to GK rating, although I've seen myself GK ratings over 9.0 even if 1 goal is conceded. 2 conceded goals, however, usually affect ratings significantly.

3) Passing. Assist generally increases rating by 0.5 (much like for a field player), but also key passes are important (2-3 already have effect in match ratings) and overall pass completion. Also, when you have sweeper-keeper, ME may take his interceptions in account.

All included, I've found it pretty fair. I've won games where I dominate and my GK hasn't have much work and he has just 6.9 rating. Also GK is not punished too much by match rating when playing against stronger team, making good saves, but conceding a goal or two. Perhaps only thing I could say is that ME doesn't rate penalty saves highly enough. Penalty save is usually rated as 'poor shot' rather than 'good save'. Striker who missed will have their ratings decreased (missed clear cut chances decrease field player ratings), but GK rating seems to be uneffected after penalty save. GK also doesn't receive confidence boost after penalty save, although usual "fine save" or "great save" will result in grown confidence.

What concerns ball-winning midfielder - as I said, defensive players are a bit discriminated by ME. They have 6.9 rating as long as they don't make any mistakes. But they can increase this rating only by:

1) making key challenges or key headers

2) exchanging huge amount of successful passes

3) making huge amount of successful headers or interceptions or tackles (usually some 6-10 tackles in a game start to affect rating unless those are key tackles).

So 'just doing his work fine' will result 6.9-7.0 match rating - which, by ME, represents 'doing just fine' - no mistakes, nothing extraordinary, but filling his position well.

Their keeper did it all. Stopped 4 one-on-ones and other 10+ shots from random positioning.

1 goal came from corner and another one came from a defender individual error.

He got 6.8

How comes he didnt got over 9.0 because he couldn't stop 2 (mostly)unavoidable goals?

Match ratings usually make sense, although it's a bit unfair to defensive players (but, to be honest, so is it in real life).

GK match ratings usually are most effected by:

1) Saves. Note that just save doesn't increase 6.9 rating much. Saves that are rated by commentary as "fine save", "good save", "great save" or "brilliant save" (ascending order) will increase his rating the most.

2) Conceding. Clean sheet has good effect to GK rating, although I've seen myself GK ratings over 9.0 even if 1 goal is conceded. 2 conceded goals, however, usually affect ratings significantly.

3) Passing. Assist generally increases rating by 0.5 (much like for a field player), but also key passes are important (2-3 already have effect in match ratings) and overall pass completion. Also, when you have sweeper-keeper, ME may take his interceptions in account.

All included, I've found it pretty fair. I've won games where I dominate and my GK hasn't have much work and he has just 6.9 rating. Also GK is not punished too much by match rating when playing against stronger team, making good saves, but conceding a goal or two. Perhaps only thing I could say is that ME doesn't rate penalty saves highly enough. Penalty save is usually rated as 'poor shot' rather than 'good save'. Striker who missed will have their ratings decreased (missed clear cut chances decrease field player ratings), but GK rating seems to be uneffected after penalty save. GK also doesn't receive confidence boost after penalty save, although usual "fine save" or "great save" will result in grown confidence.

A fantastic reply I was looking for, now looking at my game match report, my GK did have two brilliant saves from the wordings of "did brilliantly" and "did fantastically well". Those two shots were long range efforts and the only efforts on target by the opponent, hence I didn't realise the brilliance of the saves. I guess those two brilliant saves heavily boasted the ratings to 9.1, although the saves weren't as important as I was leading 7-0 on aggregate in that match. In another game where I won 1-0 away, the GK got a 6.9 despite making similarly 2 saves, 1 from a clear cut chance. Perhaps, that save was not fanciful enough, commentary was "saved and deflected the ball clear". I argue that the GK ratings should base more on the influence the save made to the outcome of the match, rather than the quality of the saves. Probably, it may be a programming challenge but it can be a difference I will like to see for future editions. I have noticed the GK ratings have been boosted slightly from the past editions but still hindered by the lower defensive ratings, a welcome change still. Thanks for your explanation.

To reply to Morden and Wen Jie last posts:

Although you might think so, the ME doesn't take into account how many clear cut chances GK saves. As said before, it's the quality of the save, not the game situation. IRL goalkeepers are praised for saving 1-1 situations, but it seems to me that FM ME often considers these situations as 'wasted chance by striker', not as 'excellent stop by GK'.

True, very often you can say IRL that striker has 1-1 opportunity, but he screws this up by blasting the ball straight at the GK. Often GK doesn't even have to move to block this kind of shot. Quality of the strikers performance is often overlooked IRL and credit is given to GK, but FM ME I think it's considered more objectively.

It's fair to say that striker rating is dropped in FM after missing clear cut chance. So one way or another, what happens on the pitch, affects ratings.

To answer Wen Jie last statement I'd say that quality of the save is perhaps regarded in correlation with quality of the shot. If it's rated as brilliant save, it means that shot seems almost unstoppable, finishing almost definitely in the net, but goalkeeper is still able to stop it. Not all goalkeepers would have been able, but this certain one in this particular moment did it. It's in the same time appreciating the shot taker as well - you could say that he couldn't take this shot any way better, but this great effort was still blocked by GK. Hence the rating.

In some 1-1 situations you could say that shot was so poor that any other decent GK would have saved it.