jeru

@szymunk I would say that there are few things going on here some tactical and some outside of the tactics that are causing your poor ratings. if looking solely at ratings you have to accept that FM will penalise ratings if players lose headers in the case of leonardo and barbosa they will have problems with ratings if they don’t score or assist, that unfortunately is just a quirk of FM. also you are in February in second place which means pressure comes into the equation all your matches now will be affected by the big match rating of the players that can also affect performance. Tactically I would say you have too many players focused on scoring and not enough on creation AF IF CMA all focus on scoring and also MEZ and IFS to a slightly lesser extent are still very attacking roles, you need to balance it a bit. I don’t know all of your players but you need less focused on attacking and add creators I would switch baldazini to a AP on support change the DM to be a DM defend not a DLP. As Edison is injured I would bring in koopmeiners to be a CM support. that at least would give you a bit of balance without changing too much. don’t forget you are second in the league and doing well it a can be easy to react to a slight dip in form or results, don’t change too much at this point go slight more conservative with your roles and maybe in the summer transfer window look to improve your defensive personals quality. good luck

I think the major issue is in software design terms I think it’s essentialy a one vs one challenge based game I don’t think the other players are active in the calculations it’s one vs one. This means that the most major concept of football - defensive team shape doesn’t really exist, the classic two banks of four defence shifting with the play and condensing space between the lines doesn’t exist in FM. Players don’t react to other players in their own team or the ball position it’s basically the nearest two players of each team react to the ball and then there are calculations as to what happens. I think that everything is essentially a one vs one and when trying to simulate a team sport that doesn’t really work. If defensive shape and lines shifted according to the ball going wide, recycling and pulling teams shape apart would be the name of the game, just like real football but as it is now getting the best meta players - tall quick - that wins you more one vs ones and thus wins you games.

About this experiment however you view it as flawed or unrealistic as players with that attribute spread would not exist, what can’t be argued is the logic that a good big one beats a good small one every time in FM and it’s been that way for ever across all versions. The reason jumping reach and pace are the most important attributes is linked to the football concepts the engine is programmed to - it’s essentially modelled on 90’s English football, get it wide and get it in the box that is what it is, that’s the reason jumping reach is important the shear number of crosses lofted into the box. Pace is important on counters and the like but you can’t have a small technical team and succeed on FM This is most seen recently with Pep getting sacked almost every save, why? Because Man City is full of small technical players and those players perform badly in the engine, same reason why FM Ronaldo was always better than FM Messi - FM Ronaldo wins far post headers, Messi doesn’t. The only reason AI pep has done better last two FM’s is because he signed Haaland in real life - quick and wins headers is enough to keep AI pep his job longer. Exactly the same reason that AI de Zerbi at Brighton always loses his job early this year and quite often Brighton are relegated - they have a squad of small technical players that can’t win headers so the have less chance of scoring and get low match ratings which tanks morale and thus they lose often. nothing will ever change unless SI bring modern football concepts into the game and realise play goes wide to move defences to make space not to get a wide player to run like forest gump to the byline to either stand up a far post lofted cross or smash it against a defender for a corner, until true possession concepts are implemented and crossing football prevail then jumping reach and pace will always be the most important attributes.

This is essence exactly my point there is flawed logic into what a coach can and cant influence , even at lower levels than semi pro players themselves can see that if they have a 5"9 centre forward its pointless to float crosses in, you wouldn't even expect a manager to have to make that point. I shouldn't need the perfect stat player to follow out simple instructions, they are already supposedly elite level professional players The answer of having to have the perfect player with the perfect stats to be able to perform a simple action constantly in FM falls apart completely when you compare it to real life if every elite level team had the perfect players with perfect ability to perform actions then the transfer window wouldn't exist. No team has perfect players, not even Man City, however the rest of the premier league teams do have players that are good enough to compete at the top flight level, the reason that they are playing at that level is because they have the technical, physical, and tactical acumen to be able to play at that level. I think the example of Gerrard not having the tactical ability to play central midfield was a tactical discipline issue and caused because he would have grown up through the youth levels as one of the best players in the country (maybe world) for his age group, basically he would have been the best player in any team he played in and thus scored all the goals won games single handily took free kicks pens etc etc basically his talent and technique would have carried him. This is also part of my point, do SI really understand top flight elite level football as the roles frequently have zero logic or any resemblance to what a real life player role in a elite level team would look like but I get that as a gaming concept as a UI input it kind of works, but them we are back to is this a simulation or a computer game, ifs its a game then the ME visualization of wide play cross heavy 1990's style English football is fine for a game, if however its an attempt at a simulation of current top flight elite level football then despite some nice recent touch's to inverted full backs and defenders stepping into midfield then its still a world away from looking anything like real patterns of play

At this point I honestly wonder if SI have the first clue about what top flight elite level football looks as like the ME is so deeply flawed in concept that it’s will never be anything other than a results simulation not a football simulation. What is the point of asking players to cross low and cross less and work the ball into the box when all they do is stand up far post floated crosses to the far post despite being told not to do that. Honestly the concept of team instructions being slight tendency modifiers is so far removed from reality I don’t understand SI logic at all, do we think if pep tells jack grealish to hug the line and recycle the ball if he started standing up far post crosses he would be subbed and not play SI elite level players are elite level players because they can execute a coach’s plan, it’s not a tendency it’s not a negotiable it’s absolute if I want my players to play through the middle they will do it, not spray wide passes and run down the wings like forest gump to stand up a cross from the byline. The game is so flawed as a simulation that it’s basically a meme at this point. FM24 ME is the most on rails version there is you can’t influence how it plays much at all the ball will go wide and there will be a cross attempt which will go out for a corner or lead to a chance usually a far post header, that’s it that’s you lot you can influence how quickly it goes wide but basically there is zero central play and a massive tendency to pass wide.

Honestly the only improvement about this entire game is you can now make a 3 2 build up shape with the inverted full back role. That’s it that’s your most polished version ever, for all the promise of the ME the initial build up phase is great but approach the final third and it’s like football regresses 30 years into the past and we are right back in 90’s England - ball wide stand up a cross to the far post, ball wide blocked out for a corner, nod the set piece home 1-0 rinse reapeat. as for the shambles of the rest of the game the now standard interface bugs are still present and correct the interaction module lacks even more context than ever and the morale module is just a bare faced balancing algorithm attempt to make the game have some level of challenge by making professional elite level players act like teenagers. Do SI even pay attention to the actual real game at all? In real life people bemoan that the characters have gone out of the game as players are so professional now but yeah SI think it’s a simulation. if this is the love letter to the series then I have to say for the first time in 25 years I’m done with final straw game over. im off to delete my manage avatar in all its face painted glory…………

Your example is irrelevant your two players there have 11 goal involvements in 20 appearances and 10 goal involvements in 18 appearances which will obviously boost average ratings considerably. now show a small full back or defender that’s my point

ok smart alec with your snide comments (honestly you mods on here need to learn how to interact with paying SI customers) here you go - of my 8 players currently performing on average over 7.00 rating seven of them are over 6ft the only one who isn't is 5'11 and you can see the relationship to headers won percentage

Barcelona literally scored 60% of their shots on target.. Mate it’s a game what do you think that players should have to have a UEFA A badge to purchase FM. I know people defend the game at all costs but this is the best yet.

Errr go look in your game small players perform worse because of the ratings hit of not winning headers. You only have to play a few games to see this. Players with low ratings in a match have low morale and are more likely to make a mistake, Im sorry but this is just fact.

The game is broken in so many ways, first off there are far too many shots and generally they go over the bar or if you are playing a team on low mentality there will be dozens of shots smashed straight at defenders and blocked. Now as goalkeepers are also broken the amount of shots on target that result in goals is also too much and as morale is the single most important thing you get games like this where virtually every shot on target goes in and there is nothing you can do about it. Add to the the home bias is ridiculous then this sort of nonsense can happen often in FM.

The other thing in play here is headers matter most for morale so if you have small players they lose a lot of headers so perversely have lower match rating which leads to lower morale and poorer performances. It then becomes a vicious circle of defenders making mistakes and the AI scoring from its first shot on target regardless of the XG of the shot. There is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid this as apparently according to SI small players can’t be defenders………

I think the thing here is that this year more than ever you get hit with the one shot at goal one goal syndrome more than ever, if anyone can post a single Game from a top 5 league this year where I see a team drop points from a team with a single shot then I would be impressed. It has been said a million times that the ME can’t distinguish between AI and the human which I believe but what isnt commented on enough Is how some of the outside of the ME stuff that feeds into the ME ONLY affects the human player NOT the AI. I believe that the morale module acts as a balancing algorithm, complacency acts as a balancing mechanism, team cohesion only affects the user, things like this feed into the ME making it not an equal experience. This is proved by an earlier edition in beta having bug where the human player had too much of a boost going into the match. That could only be possible if the code exists to do specific things to the human player and not the AI. So all the posts on the ME is the same are correct but what they all fail to mention is the outside of the ME is not equal.

Nowhere in the tooltip is the most important fact in jacks post explained force inside outside only only applies outside of the defensive third and stop/allow crosses only apply in your defensive third……….

Fed up of people dismissing others claims on this thread, luckily for you that you have no technical issues, however that is not the experience for all. some of us had the game broken by the December patch and yes it’s been unplayable with lag and stuttering in the match engine ever since. Further more to this the only response and help we have had is log it in the bug tracker where it’s been treated like a user PC issue even when it was fine pre-patch.