Shots on target 2, goals 2

I keep getting conceded like the opponents shoot 2 shots on the target and those 2 shots are goals. How can I prevent this? This is really ticking me off. I have Ustari as my keeper and my 4 defenders are Rafinha, Taiwo, Nordviet and Vidic Also another question, who should I buy to replace vidic? I tried to get Breno but Bayern kept negotiating the offer to 90 US mil. Thanks.

FM08 I presume? Yeah, get used to this happening, it's one of the many flaws of last years match engine

Head over to the tactic forum, maybe there is something you can tweak that make help this.

Uh... It happens in real life too...

FM08 I presume? Yeah, get used to this happening, it's one of the many flaws of last years match engine

I don't think that's true at all, there are lots of people who haven't experienced this because they have read the tactics forum and created a good enough tactic, so if anything it's a flaw in the OPs tactics not the match engine.

In a twist to this much muted topic, I started a new game recently with Everton and 3 of my 8 matches i've won with only 2 SOT's compared to the AI's 10 SOT's, so it works our way too.

If you have to read threads in the tactics forum in order to be able to play the game then it is a massive flaw.

Whether this case is such a flaw or not I don't know, but the game should be able to be playable without having to go to a forum and read all kinds of stuff from other players.

Personally I can't get any kind of handle on defending in FM, whatever I try doesn't work particularly well so that's probably a flaw with me, but possibly a flaw with the match engine also.

If you have to read threads in the tactics forum in order to be able to play the game then it is a massive flaw.

But you don't have to read them, it's obviously possible to work it out for yourself or the people that create the threads in the tactics forum would have no idea either, they are just better than us so we're flawed rather than the game..

It does indeed happen in Real life, and I can personally say I haven't seen it happening to frequently on Football Manager 08

But you don't have to read them, it's obviously possible to work it out for yourself or the people that create the threads in the tactics forum would have no idea either, they are just better than us so we're flawed rather than the game..

Depends whether what they discover is done in a realistic manner or whether they did a whole load of unrealistic experiments to find flaws in the match engine and ways to overcome them.

In a 20 year save of mine, I was beaten by teams scoring with a goal per shot a total of:

*Drum roll*

3 times!

I'm sure it happens more often to clubs than that!

The issue is more a fact that you assume that x number of shots has to convert to y number of goals, which is never the case. Like in real life, it depends of the quality of the chances, which can be influenced by how much you allow your defense to push up, or how much creative freedom you give them. But still the most important point is pure blind luck! Luck is a defining factor in real football so often, and it doesn't matter if it's Liverpool v Havant and Waterlooville, Havant could still take all 3 points if the ball bounces the right way for them, so stop your needless bitching! It would be a flaw in the game engine if this never happened!

Depends whether what they discover is done in a realistic manner or whether they did a whole load of unrealistic experiments to find flaws in the match engine and ways to overcome them.

Very true, but usually the tricks and unrealistic experiments go hand in hand with downloadable tactics e.g. Kimz, rather than advice.

Very true, but usually the tricks and unrealistic experiments go hand in hand with downloadable tactics e.g. Kimz, rather than advice.

I'm usually useless at tactics, but all it took was a little bit of time in thinking how to set up my team. Rather than playing a bog standard 4-4-2, I spent time thinking about whether I wanted a high tempo game (matching it to my player's fitness attributes, and work rate ethics), or closing down game (ditto). I looked at whether I wanted to play a long ball game (when I had cloggers for defenders, a battering ram striker, and one striker would get pace it worked). In short I matched the tactics to the players. The long-ball tactic I just mentioned, for example, I bought a striker with sheer pace, his other attributes weren't amazing, and his finishing wasn't that great either. But his sheer pace meant he got on the end of a lot of flick ons. It worked very well.

FM08 is not as "flawed" as you think. It's far from perfect, but it's very, very playable.

I spent ages last night working on a tactic for an away game at Birmingham, setting defensive instructions, looking at their players to decide what best to do, etc, etc. We conceded 2 corners in the opening 5 minutes and from the second the ball plopped into our 6 yard box as we won the first ball and then just sat there with my players watching it until eventually Garry O'Connor reacted, thought "thank you very much" and kicked the ball into our net. Bye bye defensive tactic.

But then I was managing Scunthorpe and Birmingham >>> Scunthorpe so I guess we were going to lose anyway so it didn't really matter what I did and I might as well have gone back to my usual tactics of attack being the only way to play because my players will always make some mistake or other when trying to play tight defensively for a full 90 minutes.

I guess my current game is realistic - my only annoyance is that I am very happy with the players I have, they just don't seem to do anything like as well as I feel they ought to on the pitch => I'm obviously a crap manager. I used to be able to have decent amounts of success in previous FMs so my only conclusion can be that FM is moving away from being a game for people of my ability and more and more towards those who can understand all the intricacies of what the FM tactical instructions mean and how they combine rather than the real life equivalents. That comes more from my managing of Werder Bremen and Fiorentina than Scunthorpe though - like I said, Scunthorpe are expected to lose for the most part even if I think my DCs actually look to have quite good attributes.

Of course your going to lose to Birmingham, they are the greatest team in the world!!!

....Sorry No I was living in my fantasy world again

Tactics are difficult, some times you can get them spot on and working brilliantly, but then all of a sudden they can crash and fail and everything goes wrong, no matter what the team.

There's nothing more annoying than saying this happens in real life too. Yes it happens every so often, but in FM08, it can happen 20 games in a row.

People always say its your tactics but then never say how to fix it - why? Because this is what happens when the ai gets used to your tactic.

So eventually it happens no matter if you're playing an all out attacking, super fast tempo or a 10-men behind the ball, slow, counter-attacking tactic.

If it happens 20 games in a row then it is definitely because of your tactics! People probably don't say how to fix it on this forum because this isn't the tactics forum, I'm sure people over there on the dark side have solutions for the "2 shots, 2 goals" problem.

People always say its your tactics but then never say how to fix it - why?

There's no need to explain how to fix it, there is a dedicated tactics forum that explains it all, if GQ was to answer everyones tactical problems it would just turn into a subforum for tactics, which isn't what it's here for.

Because this is what happens when the ai gets used to your tactic.

So eventually it happens no matter if you're playing an all out attacking, super fast tempo or a 10-men behind the ball, slow, counter-attacking tactic.

I don't agree with that, I play the same tactic every game and have done since December in every game i've started, as yet the AI hasn't worked mine out as my success has continued with various teams of differing strength.

Okay... My tactic that only saw this once in the 16 straight years I used it for (as the other 2 times were in my second season playing a 4-4-2):

..................................Nippy Striker.....Target Striker

......................................Attacking Midfielder [free role]

Left Attacking Mid...Defensive Midfielder...Central Midfielder...Right Attacking Midfielder

.................Biggest Center-Half....Slowest Center-Half...Other Center-Half

I had the defesive line pushed up, and I had them far more to the attacking side. Lots of creative freedom. Don't worry about my choices for the center-halves, that's just how I worked it out for how I set up my set pieces.

Really, it's your tactics... Everything I've set up was done by me, without any help from tactics forums, it's not really that hard, you just have to think about what you're doing with your defense.

On the tactics front, i've suffered a bit of a tactical/save game loss My comp got a trojan last week and I had to reboot my C drive, I thought i'd moved everything over to my D drive, but forgot about my tactics and save games, so now i've lost everything And will have to try and work it out all over again..

What i meant was, even on the tactics forum, people can't explain how to stop it from happening because it happens to almost everyone - unless you're using a tactic that the AI can't crack, but for that to happen, you even have to be lucky enough to make one yourself, or download someone elses tactic.

No one notices the flaw here which is quite funny.

Tweaking your defence suddenly reminds your strikers how to score? Tweaking your defence elimates super AI keepers that save everything?

Its an obvious flaw.

This is something than I have never really noticed as a flaw. Of course with certain tactics it;s possible, (and in fact even likely), that if you don't take your chances then you will leave yourself open to scorelines such as this.

I think scorelines such as this are realistic and generally point to a managers naivity concerning tactics and substitutions.

Late, (but not too late), SC subs seem to be significantly underused by the AI community, (from what I have found on the forums anyway).

Anyway, from what I have seen a far more unrealistic scoreline that happens too often is 1-1, when the AI team doesn't have ANY shots on target. Far to often I seem to concede goals where the initial shot wasn't on target or was not deemed to be a shot in the first place.

I made the basis of my N.Ireland career on a counter-attacking tactic that saw my team VERY strong at the back and then nicking the odd goal at the other end.

I would regularly win/draw games where I was outshot 10-1 (or more).

I would suggest that anyone who is really struggling with dry spells should look at their set-piece instructions. Even without taking advantage of the "corner exploit", it is possible to score a LOT of goals from set-piece situations, (even with players of limited ability), against stronger teams.

If you assume that EVERYTHING that happens in the game is your fault, then although you won't be correct 100% of the time, you will find that you are correct MOST of the time.

unless you're using a tactic that the AI can't crack, but for that to happen, you even have to be lucky enough to make one yourself, or download someone elses tactic.

Well I must have been lucky 3 times then, because i've created 3 tactics and never noticed half as much as you claim to have noticed it. As I said earlier I lost all my original tactics and had to create a new one from scratch on Thursday evening, with that tactic in 8 games i've won two that I really should have lost and only once conceded a goal despite dominating the game. Surely that can't be coincidence and must be that my tactic is just pretty decent?

Well I must have been lucky 3 times then, because i've created 3 tactics and never noticed half as much as you claim to have noticed it. As I said earlier I lost all my original tactics and had to create a new one from scratch on Thursday evening, with that tactic in 8 games i've won two that I really should have lost and only once conceded a goal despite dominating the game. Surely that can't be coincidence and must be that my tactic is just pretty decent?

You're talking about after 8 games though.

What i'm talking about doesn't normally happen until season 2/3 of a game.

I'm talking about 8 games in this instance, the previous saves I mention are 16 and 20 seasons long each and I never encountered it then either.

That's not to say i'm definately right and you're definately wrong But it's my opinion that it is avoidable, i've taken part in discussions like this before and we will probably never agree, but I don't think the game can be labelled as flawed unless each and every user suffers from the same discrepencies. In other words, it's not a flaw in the sense of the corner exploit, so it is probably a mixture of user and game flaw ratehr than outright game flaw.

Reading had three shots on target against Burnley.

They won 3-1.

We had two against Watford, and drew 2-2. (ok, we scored despite not having a shot on target, which helped...)

I believe the stats were similar against Sheffield Wednesday.

Yes, this happens in real life. A bit more than you'd expect.

But not to the same team every week. Arsenal are the closest example to this, but even with them, it happens 2 games in a row and then they thump 4/5 goals past someone.

When 8.0.1 came out, people argued that it was tactical error that caused the strikers to shoot straight at the goalkeeper everytime, I don't buy it. I think SI only managed to half fix that problem, i.e. the way in which chances are represented in the 2d match engine.

When 8.0.1 came out, people argued that it was tactical error that caused the strikers to shoot straight at the goalkeeper everytime, I don't buy it. I think SI only managed to half fix that problem, i.e. the way in which chances are represented in the 2d match engine.

You're talking about a game where people are complaining about only scoring 2 of 20 shots, if it wasn't for the "super keeper" they would be complaining about scoring too often. The super keeper doesn't exist, it's the amount of chances and the quality of chances that are the issue, and if were to be totally realistic there would only be a handfull of "highlights" per game. At the end of the day it's a cmputer game so realism goes out the window to an extent, in order to keep people interested. Rangers - St Mirren at the weekend was absolute pants and there were about 3 highlight, could thegame replicate this, no because we'd all get bored in 5 mins.

So the scorelines remain realistic, but in order to keep us interested/entertained the actual match representation has to be unrealistic. The problem raised by this is that there will always be far more chances than realistically possible and this immediately affects our perception of the reality simulation.

Game flaw, no, poorly implemented, yes.

But the thing is, CM01/02 was the best version of championship manager, and if you wanted, you could make it so every game you were involved in could be dour, defensive, affairs with hardly any highlights.

Your tactics had an outcome on the type of matches that your team were involved in. It's not the case anymore in FM08, because even if both teams play defensive tactics, there are going to be loads of chances in most of the games.

Since FM08 was released, I've been involved in about 4 0-0 draws over the course of many, many seasons.

I don't think anyone found CM01/02 boring did they?

I don't think anyone found CM01/02 boring did they?

But at the same time CM01/02 was a far lesser game than FM08 in terms of depth, tactical analysis, tactical input etc. It's very difficult to compare the two as they are so different, the progression we've had in 7 years is huge and to revert to that because in some peoples eyes it's more realistic would be a step backwards.

It would be a step back, yes, but I just used it to point out how the match engine has steadily gotten less and less realistic.

Actually, FM06's engine was much more realistic than FM08's, for the most part, although I can't say that any version of FM has managed to have what i would call a decent match engine.

I can't really argue with that as I played very little of FM05, 06 or 07 due to getting old and becoming a parent That's probably helped me enjoy FM08 a little more than others, but I still think the game is as realistic as you make it i.e. if you follow tactical guides, avoid the corner exploit etc etc you can end up with a game that not only avoids high scores, superkeeprs etc, but is also relatively realistic in terms of chance to achieve success.

2 shots, 2 goals?

Live with it. It happens in real life all the time.

Something much more annoying happened to me recently.

Shots on target: 0. Goals: 2.

I lost 2-1 in a game I had dominated thanks to two deflections, one of them an own goal.

Now that hurt.

And I don't think the tactics experts have anything up their sleeves to prevent that. Apart form cheating.

And I don't think the tactics experts have anything up their sleeves to prevent that. Apart form cheating.

Nope, you can't be prepared for that, but as you say yourself it happens in real life.

We know it happens in real life. But it doesn't happen as often in real life as it does in FM08. I can't think of a team off the top of my head that has ever suffered that 15 - 20 games in a row.

If you find a tactic that causes this to happen, its possible for you to suffer from it in every single game of the season.

I keep getting conceded like the opponents shoot 2 shots on the target and those 2 shots are goals. How can I prevent this? This is really ticking me off. I have Ustari as my keeper and my 4 defenders are Rafinha, Taiwo, Nordviet and Vidic Also another question, who should I buy to replace vidic? I tried to get Breno but Bayern kept negotiating the offer to 90 US mil. Thanks.

this does happen a lot on other versions of the game too........ i reckon its a balancing thing to try and keep things competitive but that said there are tactically reasons this will happen

could simply be to do with corners or freekicks..... say in a game you have lots of shots on target which the keeper repeatedly pushes out for a corner. now if your team over commits itself then you are going to caught on the counter at least 1 or 2 in the match and as these chances are more likely to lead to 1-1's with the keeper the scoring rate of these chances is going to be much higher. at the same time you are going to be forcing the opposition back further and further in open play meaning your chances arnt going to be as clear cut as there will be more defenders to overcome....

We know it happens in real life. But it doesn't happen as often in real life as it does in FM08. I can't think of a team off the top of my head that has ever suffered that 15 - 20 games in a row.

If you find a tactic that causes this to happen, its possible for you to suffer from it in every single game of the season.

I agree, it happens more in FM than RL, but that's to be expected of a game. Real life examples aren't the best way to dismiss this argument, your second sentence hits the nail on the head, it's us who create our tactics so ultimately we are to blame rather than the game.

We know it happens in real life. But it doesn't happen as often in real life as it does in FM08. I can't think of a team off the top of my head that has ever suffered that 15 - 20 games in a row.

If you find a tactic that causes this to happen, its possible for you to suffer from it in every single game of the season.

As I've said previously, if it happens 20 games in a row then you absolutely definitely are getting your tactics badly wrong. Sure there may be some element of a bug or this occuring a little too often (or maybe not, I'm not convinced), but not so regularly - that is purely down to tactics, team talks or whatever other aspect of the game gets involved.

As I've said previously, if it happens 20 games in a row then you absolutely definitely are getting your tactics badly wrong. Sure there may be some element of a bug or this occuring a little too often (or maybe not, I'm not convinced), but not so regularly - that is purely down to tactics, team talks or whatever other aspect of the game gets involved.

This is my point. It is simply not possible in real life for a tactics to force world class strikers to have 20 shots per game, 20 games in a row and score about 5 goals.

This is my point. It is simply not possible in real life for a tactics to force world class strikers to have 20 shots per game, 20 games in a row and score about 5 goals.

Yes, but there is a point where we have to accept the game is only a game and won't exactly replicate real life, so yes in a way it is the games fault that this can happen, but it's avoidable so if we choose not to avoid it and persist with our own insane tactics, it's our fault.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/r/rangers/live_text/4785061.stm

Gutted.

To my great delight, a similar thing happened to Arsenal when Hull beat them last week too. (I'm a Hull fan, obviously). Although to be fair, that game was not quite as one-sided as the St. Mirren/Rangers match looks to have been.

Yes, but there is a point where we have to accept the game is only a game and won't exactly replicate real life, so yes in a way it is the games fault that this can happen, but it's avoidable so if we choose not to avoid it and persist with our own insane tactics, it's our fault.

I agree - but its been worse in this release than any others.

Apart from the insane tactics bit - this can happen with a bog standard 4-4-2 - its more to do with the sliders i think.

Yeah, but 4-4-2 is the formation not the tactic, the tactics are the sliders and you're right it's more to do with them and how the smallest movement can affect so much.