Contribution of Midfielders

Has anyone noticed that central midfielders no longer do as well as they should do? No matter how good their attributes are, it seems almost impossible to get them to have an average rating of much above 7, and they hardly get any goals or assists. The most obvious example for me is Hamsik, who should be scoring loads, but it's true of all central midfielders. I find I may aswell play inferior players in this position, since they do just as well, and any quality player is wasted in it. This needs fixing.

What is your tactics and set up for the midfielders.

Central midfielders aren't actually useful at all in this ME. Defensive midfielders and attacking midfielders both contribute more to the team than a player trying to do both but not succeeding at either.

I think the reason is that there is so much space in FM compared to real life. Everyone has acres to run in even at the smallest pitch size, and passing is an undervalued skill and stat because no-one fails at it for that reason. I hope that future ME's will be more realistic; there IS no space in modern football! In Premier League the tempo is so high that any given player can only expect maximum a second to himself before three burly fellows come charging in like stampeding rhinos. Very few matches in FM manages to simulate this intensity, even at 150% game speed.

My formation is 4-2-3-1. I usually set my midfielders to deep lying playmakers, one on support, the other on defend. I really don't think it makes much difference what I set them to, though. I've tried giving them more attacking duties, but they still don't contribute many more goals or assists and their average ratings are no higher.

I did try playing without any central midfielders, but that didn't work very well. It seems that they are needed for the sake of team balance, even though they don't play so well themselves. As long as you have someone playing there, even if they're a mediocre player, it gives the team the balance it requires.

Well to be fair, deep lying playmakers role isn't really to contribute assists or goals, but rather control the midfield/tempo and make the pass that leads to the assist instead. Especially in a 4-2-3-1 formation where you have 4 players in front of them offensively, as well as no other midfielders behind them so they probably sit even deeper in the formation. I run a 4-5-1 instead with a AP(s) and a DLP(s) combo and most of the goals and assists are contributed by my advanced playmaker as he's the 4th offensive player, and hes sitting at 7 goals, 26 assists for a 7.64 rating. Hes obviously helped by me playing in a weak league in Northern Ireland but he still has a 7.40 rating in Europe with 3 goals, 6 assists in 11 appearances.

On the other hand, my DLP(s) contributes a lot less in terms of goals/assists but he gets his job done well by controlling the midfield and its not rare for him to make the pass either set up my AP and Target man to play 1-2 for a goal or hit my Inside forward on a run who then sets up my striker.

One way I've been successful in getting a ratings boost for my DLP is to have them shoot from distance (PPM) as they are able to score goals without getting into the box since 99% of the time they're standing outside of it and can get some shots off when the defense is reorganizing after a clearance and score a goal. It does result in having a pretty terrible shot on target ratio (around 20%) but gotta take the negatives with the positives I suppose. My main choice DLP has a 7.40 average rating as a result with 7 goals and 8 assists in the season in 30 appearances, so its not impossible to get a good rating for the role, its just gonna be a bit harder for you since in a 4-2-3-1, they're more responsible for holding the midfield and getting the ball to the players up front rather than produce offense themselves

I play merieles in my chelsea 4-1-2-2-1 formation as a cm attacking playmaker and he regularly gets 8s and 9s for me, hes got 4 goals and 18 assists by feb, and he spent 6 weeks out with a broken shoulder. Short answer... Its your tactics!

I play merieles in my chelsea 4-1-2-2-1 formation as a cm attacking playmaker and he regularly gets 8s and 9s for me, hes got 4 goals and 18 assists by feb, and he spent 6 weeks out with a broken shoulder. Short answer... Its your tactics!

Well maybe he wants his central midfielders to hold their position, intercept and retain possession. Maybe he attacks down the wings so his central midfielders are required to play a different role to the one Merieles does for you. Unless a CM gets goals, assists or a very high number of tackles/interceptions, he'll plateau around the 6.7-6.9 range. Ball retention and pass competition does not hold enough value in the ratings for central midfielders.

Well maybe he wants his central midfielders to hold their position, intercept and retain possession. Maybe he attacks down the wings so his central midfielders are required to play a different role to the one Merieles does for you. Unless a CM gets goals, assists or a very high number of tackles/interceptions, he'll plateau around the 6.7-6.9 range. Ball retention and pass competition does not hold enough value in the ratings for central midfielders.

This makes no sense, the first two sentences of the OP say:

Has anyone noticed that central midfielders no longer do as well as they should do? No matter how good their attributes are, it seems almost impossible to get them to have an average rating of much above 7, and they hardly get any goals or assists.

I replied with an example showing this not to be the case and then you reply saying that my example is irrelevant because 'his central midfielders are required to play a different role than yours'. I would argue that if that is the case, he is not using his midfielders effectively and if he wants higher ratings for them he should change his tactics to one which is more suited to his players and their abilities.

Ive realised this aswell. Modric just gets 6.9 every game for me

I think it's pretty well known that the ratings are biased towards attacking players and MCs are under-rated but the rating is a very blunt tool when it comes to assessing a player's effectiveness.

I think it's pretty well known that the ratings are biased towards attacking players and MCs are under-rated but the rating is a very blunt tool when it comes to assessing a player's effectiveness.

Absolutely. You can always tell on the 3D if a central midfielder is having a good game or not, even if he does end up with the bog standard 6.9. I'll often end up with my central mids having the top two or three pass completion rates in the league, yet they'll all be averaging around 6.8 for the season because my tactic relies more on attacking from wider areas.

my first two seasons as Liverpool, my midfielders weren't contributing many goals/assists. that's all changed in the 3rd though. i've got henderson with 3 goals and 2 assists after 9 league games. adam johnson has about 2 goals, budabouz 1, lucas moura 1.

i'm concerned my defenders are getting two many goals though.

For example, one of my MCs is a defensive ball winning midfielder, average rating 6.9 but I can see how often he breaks up an attack and sets a counter going with a 10-yard pass but he gets very little credit for it.

The only time I got a goal scoring MC going was with a box-to-box midfielder in 2011.

I'd say this is a problem with the match rating system rather than the effectiveness of CMs. As others have said, watching the game I can see if my CMs have a good or bad match, but the ratings don't reflect it very well, as they are too biased towards goals and assists. Missing attempts at goal seems to decrease a player's rating, so perhaps if your CM is taking a few long shots they will get a bad rating, while they are not properly rewarded for good link up play or playing the pass before the assist.

the ME and/or its ratings need changed regarding CM who arent attacking . OP is spot on that no matter who you play they will never have a good average rating compared to any other position.

I agree with others that you can tell from the match with a better player , but certainly not from the ratings. A CM should be rated according to his job , even if his job doesnt involve scoring or assisting he should be able to get more than 6.9 on average if he is doing his job very well.

The ME seems to only care if they score or do an assist . Switching from 2 average CM's to 2 world class CM's ends up in roughly the same average ratings . This isnt correct and needs changing. The AR should represent how well they are doing there job.

I play a flat 4-4-2 with one CM barrowing to DM on defense. He usually averages a 6.8 or so for the season, as he's not really expected to contribute much on offense. The other CM, who plays a bit more offensively, was actually my best performer for my first three seasons, and was second or third in my fourth season.

I'd say this is a problem with the match rating system rather than the effectiveness of CMs. As others have said, watching the game I can see if my CMs have a good or bad match, but the ratings don't reflect it very well, as they are too biased towards goals and assists. Missing attempts at goal seems to decrease a player's rating, so perhaps if your CM is taking a few long shots they will get a bad rating, while they are not properly rewarded for good link up play or playing the pass before the assist.

+1. I can tell by watching the match and checking the match analysis, that my CM's are performing, but often its not reflected in the ratings. I still my find my CMs are effective as ever, even if the game ratings dont recognise that

cabaye and tiote for me are getting 100+ passes a game and 90% pass completion rate... and with that they are getting 9's and 10's and assisting and scoring all over the place

not sure what the issue is really

Jack wilshire does great for me.

I kind of concur with the OP. I say this because I had Hamsik at Liverpool for two seasons in a 4-2-3-1 and his ratings were pretty average no matter how I played him. In fairness his workrate, teamwork and determination are low no matter how skilled he is and I can't help thinking that holds him back. Gamewise that is. Mind you, I flogged him for double what I payed for him even with those ratings so no loss.

The problem is more how the game rates players performances. Defensive contribution often isn't valued all that much but goals and assists increase the ratings quite drastically.

The problem with the low average ratings not only happens to midfielders it's also a problem for goalkeepers imo who seldom end up with a rating above 6,9 at the end of the season. It's quite funny when you look at the "goalkeeper of the year" ratings where alomst non of the 3 nominated players gets above a rating of 7.05 or stuff like that.

Yeah, it's also rather silly that a damn near perfect defensive performance by a centre half will get an 8 at most but a goal will bump a mediocre performance right up to around 9 or so.

On the spot:

I think it's pretty well known that the ratings are biased towards attacking players and MCs are under-rated but the rating is a very blunt tool when it comes to assessing a player's effectiveness.

You have to take into account what ratings are. To have a truer assessment, check highlights and detailled player stats, then target the stats that are relevant to the player positions and his role within the team.

Does it really matter if strikers get higher ratings than midfielders? I mean obviously it'd be nice if they were fair to all positions, but at the end of the day when you compare players you're going to compare guys who play the same position, nobody selects a striker in the midfield just because he has a higher average rating even though he's a red dot at CM.