FMH2012's most clinical forward

Introduction

Finding a clinical striker in the game is tough. If you cannot score then you cannot win so it is key your forward doesn’t only score but is clinical in how many he scores.

In order to find out who is the best I have simulated two 2011/12 seasons on FMH2012 (iOS) with 7 leagues (1 simulation per league). I noted down all forwards who scored 10+ leagues in their respective league and how many league games they played. In total the forwards on the list played a massive 3198 games! Also I noted down several other things such as value, team position, team goals and league coefficient by UEFA and more information in order to find the most clinical striker and bring an overall view into account.

The overall ranking is the following:

(((Player Average Goals per Game*2)+(Contribution*0.5))*100)*(SQRT(League Coefficient))/10

Premier League (England)

UEFA Coefficient Rank/Points: 1/80.91

The Premier League is the top league in the world according to UEFA. With this comes many world class players in a competitive league.

As you can see every player has scored 1 goal in 4 games at least (25 goals from 100 games) with several scoring over 40 in the same amount of games. However you also need to look at their contribution (how many of their teams’ goals they scored when they are playing) compared to their value to see if they are worth the money.

The graph clearly demonstrates that a lot of the player’s contribute to their team a lot more than their value states showing a good goals to £m ratio you would want from your forward. As you can see most of the top players contribute more and also score more than their lower ranked counterparts showing that money does talk in the league, this is further reinforced with the average statistics.

Number of players: 16

Games played: 532

Average Player Goals per game: 0.40

Average value (m): 13.36

Average position of team: 7

Average contribution: 23%

Average ranking: 82

Liga BBVA (Spain)

UEFA Coefficient Rank/Points: 2/74.329

The most obvious thing you may notice is that the scoring chart compared to games is similar to the Premier League. A lot of the Liga BBVA players play a lot of games showing consistency throughout the year.

Similarly with the value and contribution graph there is a trend like in the Premier League though one can argue that the Premier League players are better value for money in terms of contribution to the teams’ goals.

Number of players: 18

Games played: 621

Average Player Goals per game: 0.42

Average value (m): 14.41

Average position of team: 7

Average contribution: 26%

Average ranking: 83

Bundesliga (Germany)

UEFA Coefficient Rank/Points: 3/70.019

Now this is where it gets interesting and hard to compare. Near enough every player in the Bundesliga hasn’t played all the games in the league for their club. You will have a good idea who is good but no solid evidence without analysing the numbers who is the deadliest forward in the league.

For the first time you see all players in the league contributing more than their worth. This could be down to quality of defenders going down or underrated values however, it is also plausible the striker’s in the Bundesliga are better value for money. It is all about how you look at it, but it is worth noting they contribute to their teams’ goals more than the two top leagues in which shows the clinical nature of the forwards in Germany.

Number of players: 12

Games played: 367

Average Goals per game: 0.42

Average value (m): 8.64

Average position of team: 9

Average contribution: 28%

Average ranking: 83

Serie A (Italy)

UEFA Coefficient Rank/Points: 4/57.695

As for as balance goes the Serie A is pretty even in terms of goals per games ratio for all 10+ goals players. This is something that is pretty rare with a trend normally appearing with fluctuations (apart from the odd few anomalous that appear), it shows that if you are looking for a striker who is solid while not setting the world on fire then Italy is the place to look.

You will also find that it is pretty balanced in the middle of Liga BBVA and Bundesliga in terms of value per contribution. In every sense Serie A is a middle ground in FMH but can home some real gems, though in terms of the forwards’ clinical ability they aren’t the league to beat.

Number of players: 15

Games played: 515

Average Player Goals per game: 0.40

Average value (m): 9.22

Average position of team: 7

Average contribution: 25%

Average ranking: 70

Ligue 1 (France)

UEFA Coefficient Rank/Points: 5/53.001

Ligue 1 has been the start of many good forwards from Drogba to Henry, however possibly the most surprising thing is the way the league’s defence neutralises the attack in order to prevent them from scoring over 20 goals in one season.

While the goals aren’t that great the contribution shows it is an ongoing problem in the team with Ligue 1 forwards contributing the most out of the top 5 leagues. This could be used in order to demonstrate that with great support then Ligue 1 forwards can contribute to your teams’ goals more than some household names such as Messi.

Number of players: 12

Games played: 401

Average Player Goals per game: 0.40

Average value (m): 5.69

Average position of team: 10

Average contribution: 29%

Average ranking: 69

Liga ZON Sagres (Portugal)

UEFA Coefficient Rank/Points: 6/52.346

As you can see Portugal is a much more of a free scoring league despite only one player having more than 20 goals. The goals/game ratio is a higher than the rest with players such as Hulk and Cardozo leading the line.

The Liga Zon Sagres’ forwards contribute to their team a lot more than the other leagues. This can be because of the poor team play/shooting attribute in other positions or that they are more clinical than other leagues. Either way looking at the value then they are a great deal cheaper than the Premier League however as the 6th UEFA Coefficient could they all make the step up? I would think not.

Number of players: 14

Games played: 436

Average Player Goals per game: 0.44

Average value (m): 3.84

Average position of team: 7

Average contribution: 30%

Average ranking: 75

Eredivisie (Holland)

UEFA Coefficient Rank/Points: 9/40.515

With only 11 players scoring 10+ goals you can say that the forwards aren’t that clinical in Holland, however the ones that are seem to be quite even in terms of their goals per games ratio. With this Holland is a competitive league for forwards despite being way down in 9th in the rankings so maybe there is a rough diamond that can be the player we are looking for.

As demonstrated the value of an Eredivisie player is the lowest we have seen. Despite this the forwards contribute more to their teams’ goals than the top two leagues, yet it beckons whether like in Portugal they could make the step up into them.

Number of players: 11

Games played: 326

Average Player Goals per game: 0.45

Average value (m): 2.99

Average position of team: 5

Average contribution: 28%

Average ranking: 66

Summary

Now I will collate all the information together and sort them by overall ranking. This will then give me the top 20 forwards in the game. Please note this is from my game and you can expect it to vary immensely in your games.

As seen in the graph all average goals per game were pretty even with no one standing out above the crowd. This means we have to look further into the statistics to find ourselves the best forward on the game.

As you can see with the average team/player goals per game comparison some players have hardly scored many of their teams’ goals allowing some players such as Drogba to be ruled out of the running. This perhaps narrows it to about seven players though nothing is set in stone due to the league coefficient having an obvious affect when cross comparing leagues.

For fairness I have included all of the top 20 despite ruling a few players out of the running to win the crown. As you can see 14/20 are within the top 3 leagues in which emphasises the quality of them. It also shows what kind of leagues contain the best forwards if you are looking for a new one.

The top 3 are Rooney, Huntelaar and Ronaldo according to the statistics and calculations I used to find the most clinical striker with Rooney taking the gold.

If you want to see further statistics then please download the .xlsx file (Microsoft Excel 2007+) here

@FMHVibe

Thanks Marc, yes I understand how many times it has to be run but I think that is too much for one man to do.

That's true, I had to run each month at a time and do it for two seasons, then collate all the data into a spreadsheet myself.

good info, but the fact that van Persie isn't even included sort of nullifies it IMHO. Perhaps he was injured, but still, I'd run more than one simulation per league, otherwise you have no control over the study and some random guy could have a random great year that he would only have 1/100 simulations.

This was every player in 7 leagues who scored 10+ goals in the league. Van Persie didn't in my one .

On a seperate save I have found Arsenal are playing Chemakh so maybe in FMH he isn't the player he is in real life.

This was every player in 7 leagues who scored 10+ goals in the league. Van Persie didn't in my one .

I edited my post to say maybe he was injured, which is all the more reason to say that this is study isn't enough to draw a conclusion. I would say 3 or 4 simulations per league per season would give you a more accurate representation. I'm not saying this is bad info at all, just saying that right now the most clinical striker (for 2011/2012) in the premier league in real life isn't even included in a study of most clinical strikers. Simulating multiple seasons would fix that.

Good study though, great info!

I realise that and did say it could vary but the amount of time it took to simulate one and write down the information is a lot more than you may realise. Don't forget this isn't real life though, FMH can vary a lot as I have found.

If you want to expand on this feel free but I don't have the time to simulate so many seasons for one article and the information I have collated from one season I feel gives a good overview and is helpful while maybe not as much "fact" (there will never be that no matter what) due to I only simulated once per league.

Thanks for the comment .

I realise that and did say it could vary but the amount of time it took to simulate one and write down the information is a lot more than you may realise. Don't forget this isn't real life though, FMH can vary a lot as I have found.

If you want to expand on this feel free but I don't have the time to simulate so many seasons for one article and the information I have collated from one season I feel gives a good overview and is helpful while maybe not as much "fact" (there will never be that no matter what) due to I only simulated once per league.

Thanks for the comment .

oh dude i know it would be a beast of a project. I'm just saying that while your info is really good, it's not complete. If someone comes along and has the time to complete it, great, if not oh well.

I know that and thank you for your comment. Sadly I feel it is impossible to actually complete as you would need to keep backtracking over careers else you wouldn't get a "pure" number as players will pop up, then you have to consider transfers so it is actually impossible to measure.

This wasn't meant to be a set in stone and I said it myself but it was just to show people what type of players are good and identify trends.

van Persie> ALL

In FMH it seems not, I played against Arsenal twice and they used Chemakh. Van Persie was fit.

I know that and thank you for your comment. Sadly I feel it is impossible to actually complete as you would need to keep backtracking over careers else you wouldn't get a "pure" number as players will pop up, then you have to consider transfers so it is actually impossible to measure.

This wasn't meant to be a set in stone and I said it myself but it was just to show people what type of players are good and identify trends.

Another approach would be to take the top 20 or 30 guys in real life and just monitor their first season a few times. Again, it's a good study, I never questioned that dude!

In FMH it seems not, I played against Arsenal twice and they used Chemakh. Van Persie was fit.

Hmmmm, odd. I have no idea what competition you played against them, but if it's not in the EPL or UEFA champ, then using Chamakh has to be a bug. I mean, dang, that's like facing Barcelona with Messi on the bench! (Not saying RVP == Messi mind u!)

Think about it, if Barcelona left a fit Messi on the bench for most of the season, wouldn't that be an issue? Sort of the same with RVP.

That is true but would you put 10 out of the ones that came out in the top 20 in the mix? I doubt it so it is limiting. I don't think it will ever be solid enough to warrent spending so much time simulating, too many variants.

It was the Europa League group stage.

Park Chu-Yong has actually been better than Chamakh for me:lol:

Aberwystwth Town v Arsenal home and away in the Europa League group stage.

Not at all but we are the mighty Aberwyswyh Town (however you spell it) .

Judging by this season though in the league Chemakh played 31 times meaning RvP played only 7 times at most in the league.

In 2013/14 he is playing AMR not SC. He played 38 times all together (22 in league) and scored 8, assisting 19. It looks as if he is playing a secondary role with Walcott and Bendtner up front in a 4222 formation.