FAO PaulC: Striker's low rating for average performance

I have been having problems with Jermaine Defoe's form, with some horribly low ratings apparently making my top scorer my worst performer. Initially I put it down to tactical issues, until I started studying his form page.

You will notice that with three exceptions (Roselare, Leyton Orient and Red Star 1st Leg) all goal scoring games result in 7.1 or higher, while all non-scoring games result in a maximum rating of 5.9. From further observation, in the games he scored the rating was low 6s or high 5s before the goal.

Whilst monitoring him I looked at where the rating changed, either up or down. This is what I discovered:

- Missed headers have a large detrimental effect on the rating.

- Key headers do not result in an increase - or at least not visible.

- A high percentage of shots on target does not improve the rating - even when the goalkeeper's rating rises.

- A good run that results in a shot or corner does not result in any noticeable gain.

- The only way to counteract the constant negative trend is to score, contribute more than two key passes (Red Star), or of course win more headers (Roeselare).

Please note, these are observations during the match, but they pretty much match analysis of the raw stats on the form page.

Given Defoe's height he is not going to win many headers, but the rating interprets this as lack of ability. This keeps bringing down the rating with only a major contribution to the game able to bring it up. While height may not be used to calculate the header, it should be used to calculate the rating as he is being artificially handicapped.

These are not great performances, but they are at least average in every respect other than heading. The ratings for the scoring matches are fine, but his ratings for non-scoring performances should be higher.

That's a very interesting thought. Would be good to know a bit more about how these things work.

Hmmm, interesting read. I'd be interested to know what the analysis is like for other strikers, short and tall.

But when poorly performing he has made headers but not won them. Surely this is right!? So what if its not his fault because he's small... he still didn't win any? So he would get a lower rating for that. He got the marks when he did make key headers in the good performances! Also he's obviously been isolated with low passing stats. If he don't have the ball he can't make an impact. So the defender gets the rating boost not him?

This is just my opinion and i have not seen the matches.

Initial indications seem to be that they've fixed the ratings of the Def/Mid, but unless a striker scores they do get 6 or under, even if they're working hard.

Which is the opposite of how it's been for years.

i agree i also think there is an issue with strikers getting low ratings. i mean a striker can play really well without scoring goals.

look at red star and newcastle game. He got good rating in both. worked hard, didnt win many headers... lots of passes. Then gets 7.0 for no goal and 7.5 for a goal. 0.5+ for a goal! the other games when he did not score and got bad rating he made little passes, not many headers, no goals. Mainly because of strenght of Chelsea/Man Utd defenders and quality of their heading.

Maybe he didn't get the tactics right in getting defoe in the area to have shots against those teams. Instead he played trying to win headers etc but he will never have done well with the quality of the heading of those CBs he's against. Play to a players strenght and the weaknesses of their opponent in the corresponding position

i agree with PGB_SPURS_FM09... seems to me he got isolated in those poor performances macthes...

dont get me wrong, im having the same problem...ive tried seting them as target man and such things but didnt work....

seems to me this could aswell be an effect of him suffering good man marking? if so, i think its quite realistic...there are games in real life that the opositon CB will just dominate attackers the hole macth.

2 things i can suggest from the top of my head are 1-keep swaping your FCs during the macth... 2- try to bring this buy back more, close down own field and set mentality to default or defensive, this will make the guy thats supposely man marking him come deep and leave gaps in their defense by loosing their defensivness shape that was working so perfect.

i definitely suffer from this aswell, is ok when i play my aerial target man up top, but when i play my whippet he gets pretty useless ratings unless he sticks one in the net, nevermind what else he has done in the match

btw sorry if my grammar isn't the best. Trying to type as little as possible to reduce suspicion from manager

This is why I've always found jumping the most important attributes for high ratings.

My fast striker always gets low ratings unless he scores, whereas my target man can win headers (but not direct them anywhere useful) and get a high rating with a commentary of "dominating in the air"

The same is true all over the pitch, the more times you get your head to the ball first, the higher the rating.

I'm pretty sure someone said "dominating in the air" commentary is only when they've made 10 headers? doesn't mean they've played well! Just cosmetic

I had my strikers doing 5.5-5.7 every other game until I put their creative freedom to 18. after this they did 7.2 - 8.5 a game

Winning the headers doesn't mean they're useful headers though, that's my point, getting their head to the ball first counts as winning a header and the rating goes up, even if it just bounces off the back of their head and falls at the feet of their best player.

But when poorly performing he has made headers but not won them. Surely this is right!? So what if its not his fault because he's small... he still didn't win any? So he would get a lower rating for that.

That's a bit like criticising a 5 year old for stuttering over War and Peace in a literacy lesson. There is no error on Defoe's part, therefore the rating shouldn't punish him - certainly not as heavily.

Also he's obviously been isolated with low passing stats. If he don't have the ball he can't make an impact. So the defender gets the rating boost not him? This is just my opinion and i have not seen the matches.

I did give that some consideration, which is why I watched the games, pausing them after each occasion he was involved. Passing stats and lack of involvement did not cause the drop in rating. Missing headers did. As I said, this isn't based purely on the stats, but on careful observation - otherwise I would have posted two days ago.

On a similar subject, if you monitor your team's ratings throughout a match, you'll regularly see that the ratings of the whole team are influenced heavily by goals as they are scored (at either end) and ultimately the result.

A good example would be a game I played very recently, where I had dominated the match throughout both halves, taking the lead mid-way through the second half. Prior to the goal, my players' ratings were fairly average (between 6 and 7 mostly IIRC), but the ratings inflated for every player when the ball hot the back of the net. At the end of the match, my opponents managed to score 3 goals in five minutes; (arguably from circumstances that the majority of my players were blameless in.) 1 from a deep free kick, which was rifled in, 1 from a 35 yard opportunistic curling freak of a shot and the final goal from a dubious penalty. By the end of the game, my player ratings were riddled with 5.1's and 5.6's, with one defender receiving a below 5 rating!

While I agree that the ratings should fluctuate with individual performance, I fail to see how a player can be rated close to a 7 for 75 minutes, receive a rating boost from a goal he played no part in and then finish on 5.6.

The only way I can see this as realistic, is if you compare their full time rating to player ratings given in newspapers, etc. which always are better for the winning team, regardless to actual performance. Makes no sense otherwise.

The way I see it, If a striker is having a storming game and ripping people apart, he should not be affected by a defensive blunder that he could not influence, which happens to lead to a goal at the other end. Regardless, he is still having a storming game...

Incidently, what ratings has crouchie got in comparison?

I had my strikers doing 5.5-5.7 every other game until I put their creative freedom to 18. after this they did 7.2 - 8.5 a game

This is interesting. Is this consistently above 7.2? You put both your strikers on CR 18?

Incidently, what ratings has crouchie got in comparison?

7.21 - That said, he does contribute considerably more to the game in terms of key passes, tackles and assists. On the other hand, Defoe beats him on pass completion (76% v 61%), shots on target (57% v 35%) and distance covered (7.9km v 7.7km per 90mins). Defoe has an average rating of 6.49.

That's a bit like criticising a 5 year old for stuttering over War and Peace in a literacy lesson. There is no error on Defoe's part, therefore the rating shouldn't punish him - certainly not as heavily.

Ok. I agree he shouldn't be losing rating because he hasn't won any headers, but it should still stay lowish, He then needs the other aspects of his game to be good to get a good rating. After all, strikers are rated for their goals tally no? Unless your Dirk Kuyt of course

Maybe its because ratings start at 6.4 and peter out to lower if they don't contribute much to the game. Depends what your opinion of bad is. Doing nothing or making an error? If it started lower then 6.4 you might not think he shouldn't be losing those 6.4 stat just because he hasn't won many headers!?

The main factor here appears to be that the importance of headers isn't weighted [sufficiently] to reflect that losing aerial challenges is a big deal when defending but relatively insignificant up front, provided he is contributing positively when the ball is played to his feet. If a central defender wins only 2 out of 11 headers but does otherwise OK then he's had a nightmare of a game. If a striker wins only 2 out of 11 headers but does otherwise OK then he's had an average game, whether he's a midget like Defoe or a giant like Crouch

I agree it should still stay lowish. In those games there is no clear reason for it to rise above 6.4.

The point on the difference between defenders missing headers and strikers missing them is a good one.

This is interesting. Is this consistently above 7.2? You put both your strikers on CR 18?

Yes, 4 out of 5 games over 7.0 and one out of five around 6.5

Acctually I put all midfielders and both strikers at 18 (4-4-2 tweaked alot from premade 4-4-2 attacking) When I put the CreaFreedom up on all offensive players the defenders even suddenly started playing like gods in the 3d match. They ran up and cleared "every" chance the opposition team had. suddenly had full control at the back, And I didn't even touch the back fours instructions, they still started bahaving after I let all offensive players do as they pleased.

It was so weird, even the players in positions I didn't touch started behaving completely different, they started playing intellegent, defenders suddenly understood they were supposed to stop the opposing strikers/midfielders when they came forward.

Out of curiosity I tried Butters76 tactic of every midfielder and every striker on 18 creative freedom. And...

...er, well I got the complete opposite effect. Scary defending and it's the first time Defoe has scored and got a rating lower than 7.

That said they were tired from a midweek game, so not the best time to try it!!!

Someone gimme a good site to upload my tactics so you can try it. There is more to a tactics that just CF. But I had done everything else you see in my tactics exept putting CF from 12 to 18 on all midfileders and strikers. Attacking CM has 20 in CF and defensive CM has 10 in CF though. Just check out all the position instructions, as I did lots of tweaking on all positions before it started to work wonders.

I simply ruled with Arsenal from February and out after I did the CF move. Before then the results were good, but we didn't really play well. My defenders ran around like beheaded chickens and players had low ratings

This should work: http://encodable.com/cgi-bin/filechucker.cgi?action=landing&path=/&file=4-4-2_A_creative_Arsenal_Jul_2009.tac

Oh yeah, don't play this tactics in lower leagues, it's for GOOD players.

Also I use shove to weaker foot on all ST

AMC,MC Shove to weaker foot - close down always.

ML/MR I use close down always, and if they have tall strikers I chose to cut them inside, shove to left foot for MR and right foot for ML.

If they have small fast strikers I do the opposite to make the wingers go wide and put crosses in on the little fast midgets.

If the have one big and one fast striker I use weaker foot on the wingers. but always close down always on all midfielders exept DM.

Also, the keeper needs to be put on weaker foot and close down always to prevent the long GK through balls, havent seen a single one aginst me after I started WF and close down GK's

I was having similar problems with my forwards lately for Newcastle but I think it was more down to them being isolated from the midfield and not getting involved in the game.

I changed my forwards from much (FCa) / mixed (FCd) to mixed (FCa) / rarely (FCd) and the next game they seemed to get more involved.

Hmmm, interesting read. I'd be interested to know what the analysis is like for other strikers, short and tall.

I'm playing as Huddersfield Town. We have one striker at the start of the game who is good in the air (34 year old Andy Booth). I have him set as target man and team instructions to supply "to head" rather than feet (no point having it set to "run onto ball"...... Boothy is so slow he couldn't catch a cold!!).

Anyway, in my game, Boothy is the ONLY striker I've got who regularly gets ratings above 7.0.

He's only scored two goals, but due to his ability in the air, wins a large number of headers and is often supplying the flick on that results in one of my quicker players breaking the opposition defence.

I recently bought a striker from Hearts (Juno Makela) who is better in the air than any of my other strikers except Andy Booth and his match ratings are second only to Booth as far as strikers are concerned.

So yes, what I've seen in my game very much supports the original poster's observations...... If a striker doesn't score and doesn't (or isn't physically able to) win headers, their match ratings are below average at best no matter how hard they work, how many shots they have on target or how many passes they complete.

Doesn't the score in the match also affect everyone's rating? If I have a striker that doesn't score but I win 3.0 his rating will likely be above 7.

IMO if you put a player on the field to score, and he doesn't score, then why would he get a good rating?

After all, strikers are rated for their goals tally no?

87 goals in 315 Premiership games would be a fairly poor return for a striker, so i guess Dennis Bergkamp wasn't rated too highly? :-p

Actually, you are a spurs fan. Probably think Sheringham was his better

Doesn't the score in the match also affect everyone's rating? If I have a striker that doesn't score but I win 3.0 his rating will likely be above 7.

IMO if you put a player on the field to score, and he doesn't score, then why would he get a good rating?

Not all strikers are there "to score".

Sure a goal is a bonus, but if said striker set up 2 of the three, regularly pulled defenders out of position to allow others more space, tracked back well, hit the post and crossbar from outside the area and generally controlled the game, he deserves a very good rating, goal or no goal.

edit: Even if he didn't win anything foolishly punted up to his head.

I was having similar problems with my forwards lately for Newcastle but I think it was more down to them being isolated from the midfield and not getting involved in the game.

I changed my forwards from much (FCa) / mixed (FCd) to mixed (FCa) / rarely (FCd) and the next game they seemed to get more involved.

Doesn't the score in the match also affect everyone's rating? If I have a striker that doesn't score but I win 3.0 his rating will likely be above 7.

IMO if you put a player on the field to score, and he doesn't score, then why would he get a good rating?

In reference to these two posts:

1. I'm not expecting him to get a good rating. He has done nothing to warrant a good rating in those games.

2. The player being isolated is not causing the rating to drop significantly below the starting point.

3. I have paused the game frequently to check when stats rise or fall. Missed headers cause the rating to fall.

4. Once a goal has been scored the effect is significantly reduced as the goal makes up a larger proportion of the rating than the missed headers do. Likewise, the longer the game goes on, the less effect any minor action has.

5. They are average performances and midfielders rate around 6.4 not 5.8/9 when they have a similar performance, minus the large number of missed headers.