FM 13.2.1 - Reducing long shots and increasing through balls

This latest ME edition has caused much angst due to players being far too keen to hit it from range and unwilling to look for the through ball.

Much of the complaints are overstated and it’s also important to note that in previous FM’s, especially 10-12 the through ball was massively overpowered. It was far too easy – I was guilty of it myself – to create a tactic with a pacey poacher/adv fwd who would play off the shoulder and have midfielders ping balls over the top or through the back line for him to run onto. This kind of ball is effective but is not as prevalent IRL as it has been in previous FM’s.

This latest ME undoubtedly has issues but it is possible to create a tactic that doesn’t just invoke 30 yarders and sideways passing.

This is the latest iteration of my tactic. It’s been basically the same since the beta release with just a few tweaks here and there, more as my team has developed than reacting to ME changes.

So here it is:

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These are the shouts I use for every match:

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It should also be noted that for this patch I have manually reduced all players long shots to ‘rarely’.

The two major issues – long shot proliferation and lack of through balls are related – and I believe that the arrows and lines I’ve inserted show why I have managed to create a tactic that mitigates these issues.

The Inside Forwards and CM/A are crucial to this tactic.

These 3 players are all consistently running beyond the DLF and getting in and around the box, their movement and intelligence means that they look for and often find the yard of space needed. The IF’s are also very pacey and therefore are capable of getting behind defenders, their out to in runs meaning they often dart between FB’s and CB’s. With the CM/A crashing through the middle and the DLF/S dropping deep this creates havoc for the defending team.

With the BWM/S and DLP/D holding position just inside the opponents half when we have the ball, the movement of these 3 attacking players means they often have lots of options for passes, therefore not unleashing the piledrivers from distance. If passes to the IFs/CM are not on they will still have the option of passing to each other, or going wide to the FB/A on the right or maybe dinking it in to the DLF who is roaming near the top of the box. The DLF is the player who hits most of the through balls for my team. Receiving the ball outside the box, turning and slipping it through for one of his 3 attacking buddies to run onto.

Now I’m not claiming this is perfect or the only solution but my team is very successful and I am generally pleased with the statistics regarding long shots. It doesn’t always work, occasionally they will hit 40-50% of attempts from distance but this is most often due to opponents being very difficult to break down and packing 10 men behind the ball.

I’d like to see more through balls and every now and again I’d like to see one over the top, however with my DLF on Support he’s unlikely to be hanging on the shoulder. One thing I am starting to experiment with is setting either the AMR or L as target man, run onto ball, to see if this helps encourage that kind of ball.

Here’s some match stats to show you the results:

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Note that IRL this season Spurs have hit 51% of all shots from outside the box!

Any questions? Fire away.

Excellent piece. You are seeing less of the issues because its a very good setup. I play a relatively similar setup, and you can quickly see why it works because of the space it creates for the attacking players. Once the issues get looked at it will only get more effective too.

Great stuff mate. This is why I hope they only do some minor tweaking to the long shot code, as opposed to the major overhaul some are crying out for.

And once again, it's a tactic based around logic. As most good tactics are.

Excellent piece. You are seeing less of the issues because its a very good setup. I play a relatively similar setup, and you can quickly see why it works because of the space it creates for the attacking players. Once the issues get looked at it will only get more effective too.

Agreed, a great write up

To many people are quick to jump on the long shot bandwagon but from a lot of systems I've seen posted on here a lot will be no better off once its fixed because they lack the ability to use space and have options. So unless they try and counter these issues the patch will have little effect on their current set ups. Which is the opposite of what people like Edgar will see, he should see quite an improvement

Excellent piece. You are seeing less of the issues because its a very good setup. I play a relatively similar setup, and you can quickly see why it works because of the space it creates for the attacking players. Once the issues get looked at it will only get more effective too.

Agreed, a great write up

To many people are quick to jump on the long shot bandwagon but from a lot of systems I've seen posted on here a lot will be no better off once its fixed because they lack the ability to use space and have options. So unless they try and counter these issues the patch will have little effect on their current set ups. Which is the opposite of what people like Edgar will see, he should see quite an improvement

Thanks, both of you.

As I said this tactic is barely changed from beta which kinda points to it being solid (modesty)! That said, this was the hardest FM to get my round tactically but that was more to do with being used to previous versions. My tactics barely changed between 10-12! In all honesty I can't wait for the next ME because I honestly believe the football could be sexual.

Formation is very similar to mine, except I'm using regular wingers, and one of them is one support instead of attack to offer another option just in front of the defence.

My general strategy is control and my playing style is all more or less default.

I also get a more-or-less realistic number of long shots.

I echo the above comments about the sensibility of the setup.

It is more or less a combination of the advice posted by wwfan (mix of duties in strata) and the thread Cleon started about Understanding Your Tactics.

My setup is very similar to yours, barring the fact that I use a winger on support where your right IF is, and my Team Instructions vary slightly.

I haven't manually overridden Long Shots, but always use the shout "Work Ball Into Box", which may or may not achieve the same as overriding the individual sliders.

You genuinely have to be a tactical genius to play this game not just a casual gamer with a love of football......

Formation is very similar to mine, except I'm using regular wingers, and one of them is one support instead of attack to offer another option just in front of the defence.

My general strategy is control and my playing style is all more or less default.

I also get a more-or-less realistic number of long shots.

I echo the above comments about the sensibility of the setup.

It is more or less a combination of the advice posted by wwfan (mix of duties in strata) and the thread Cleon started about Understanding Your Tactics.

My setup is very similar to yours, barring the fact that I use a winger on support where your right IF is, and my Team Instructions vary slightly.

I haven't manually overridden Long Shots, but always use the shout "Work Ball Into Box", which may or may not achieve the same as overriding the individual sliders.

Until this season (my 3rd) I had the AMR as a winger, but due to player purchases switched it to IF. The movement from the AMR was different but still offered the same number of forward passing options.

I've found using Work Into Box helps to lessen the number of long shots plus it seems to suit my 4-2-3-1 tactic.

It's great that you can get frustrated with the game, read the feedback thread in general and get even more frustrated, but then come here and read a sensible peice like this try it and the frustration goes. Think ill spend more time browsing these posts instead of reading all the buzz in the general feedback forum.

I think the 30% of shots being from distance you have is an accurate reflection. It's hard to tell how many of your chances have come from through balls, rather than crosses, as this data isn't represented by the stats. But to have around 40% of chances being clear cut or half is good, with 30% long range efforts.

Agreed, a great write up

To many people are quick to jump on the long shot bandwagon but from a lot of systems I've seen posted on here a lot will be no better off once its fixed because they lack the ability to use space and have options. So unless they try and counter these issues the patch will have little effect on their current set ups. Which is the opposite of what people like Edgar will see, he should see quite an improvement

I think this is amplified because there are just too many shots, period. If the shooting was reduced to a realistic number, the long shots will naturally decrease, too. On average the stats are looking normal for me, 30% long, 20% clear cut, wood work, blocked and off target making up the rest. However, because I'm having 30 shots rather than a more realistic 12-15 per game depending on who I'm playing my longs shots go from around 5/6 up to 12/13.

So, reduce the shot counts and naturally long shots will come down with it. However, I still do believe player decisions for the player on the ball needs to be looked at.

You genuinely have to be a tactical genius to play this game not just a casual gamer with a love of football......

You don't. Every previous version of this game I've just chucked 11 players on the pitch and won. This year I did that and ended up getting frustrated and losing. I threw my toys out the pram like everyone else.

Then I came to the tactics forum, spent a night reading. Made a couple of posts, learnt some more, and took my relegation favourites Parma from the bottom to second place and Champions League football over a couple of seasons.

Trust me, with a few simple changes it can be easy. For me it was as simple as making sure all banks of players were connected. Meaning my defenders we close enough to the midfield who were close enough to the forward. This meant more fluid attacking and defending, because they players didn't have to cover as much when being attacked as they were close enough and when going forward there was always plenty of support and someone to give the ball to. Having a midfield with at least one on defence, one on support and one on attack works wonders.

Great write up, not too dis-similar to what i set up, i use two wingers and i use an advanced playmaker, not a deep lying one, but compensate by using the ball winning mid on a defense duty. I dont have anything perfected but i dont see that many long shots, there are the odd game where things dont go to plan, or the opp has basically parked the bus for the full 90 minutes but thats always going to happen. I've found using a deep lying forward instead of a poacher gives my team so many more options, he drops off the centre backs all the time and creates space for my skilled attacking mid to break forward, he also has the "come deep" PPM which i love in this version, he can find space and time everywhere to pick off the good through ball passes. Id say my team averages about 20/30 goals from through balls, all comps included. I usually score about 80/90 goals in all comps so i think its a good ratio.

Until this season (my 3rd) I had the AMR as a winger, but due to player purchases switched it to IF. The movement from the AMR was different but still offered the same number of forward passing options.

My AML is a right footed winger, so naturally drifts inside without me having to make him an IF.

Oh, and just noticed you have a DLP where I have an anchor.

What do you guys think about this set up ?

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I just removed HUB for DM and I changed DLF wide play to normal.

Maybe It's normal but i think it generates way to many goals from crosses.

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Shouts :

Retain possession

Pass into space

Play out of defence

Work Ball into the box

Problem is that - due to high amount of goals from crosses, game try to balance the result by making my players unable to finish ccc's from through balls.

The issue isn't just long shots, it is the amount of shots , period.

Can you also post your stats for the distribution of goals within this tactic (assuming your current season is all 13.2.1) ? Is your DLF contributing, or are most the goals coming from set pieces and your wingers. What about key passes/assists for your middle 3 ?

I still think there is an issue with shouts/tactics being over-ridden by PPM's : My last game resulted in Douglas Costa finishing the game with 24 shots to himself, despide being told to cross often, shoot rarely and using the work ball into box shout. tactically there is nothing I can do to counter that.

The amount of tackles is a huge issue too, it is close to impossible for a player to attempt 15+ tackles in a game IRL, the most we see IRL are players like De Jong, Sandro or Joey Barton whose attempts at tackling are >5 but less than 10. It's incredibly frustrating for my players to get the ball and immediately lose out to a tackle

Could you plz upload your tactic ?

Hoilett, atleast for me, seems only to take long shots. I play him as left side IF(a), but as his flair is 18 and he's got shoots from distance PPM, not sure I can do much about it. ATM got him to unlearn the PPM, but my staff tell me it's not going to succeed. Another thing might be to lower his CF but as everybody is saying not to mess with the sliders, but to use the TC and shouts, I'm not so willing to try it. Been thinking of selling him, but as his quite young and still has some potential, so not too keen on that either. So fingers crossed he'd unlearn the damned PPM.

-SnUrF

Hoilett, atleast for me, seems only to take long shots. I play him as left side IF(a), but as his flair is 18 and he's got shoots from distance PPM, not sure I can do much about it. ATM got him to unlearn the PPM, but my staff tell me it's not going to succeed. Another thing might be to lower his CF but as everybody is saying not to mess with the sliders, but to use the TC and shouts, I'm not so willing to try it. Been thinking of selling him, but as his quite young and still has some potential, so not too keen on that either. So fingers crossed he'd unlearn the damned PPM.

-SnUrF

Had the same problem with James Rodríguez and he eventually doesn't unlearn the PPM so I guess I can't do anything to stop him from shoot. However, I think this make sense because it's normal that PPM over-ride PI/shouts.

And what everybody is saying about the sliders is to don't mess if you don't fully understand what you changing.

Another thing, if I use the 'work ball to box' shout, will it only reduce the "useful" long shots with the unwanted (or forced) long shots still remaining?

-SnUrF

Hoilett, atleast for me, seems only to take long shots. I play him as left side IF(a), but as his flair is 18 and he's got shoots from distance PPM, not sure I can do much about it. ATM got him to unlearn the PPM, but my staff tell me it's not going to succeed. Another thing might be to lower his CF but as everybody is saying not to mess with the sliders, but to use the TC and shouts, I'm not so willing to try it. Been thinking of selling him, but as his quite young and still has some potential, so not too keen on that either. So fingers crossed he'd unlearn the damned PPM.

-SnUrF

Why not work on his long shots rather than work on stopping him from doing them? If you improve his ability when it comes to long shots he could be a very effective weapon, stopping him from doing it with "long shots" to rare, and lowering his creative freedom could have knock on effects and might not do exactly what you wanted it to do.

Remember as well, there are slightly too many shots in this ME, when its patched up it could be much different. My point is, you dont want to build a tactic for an ME build, you want to build a tactic that will work throughout all versions. Lowering too many things could have a bad effect on your tactic in later ME builds.

Why not work on his long shots rather than work on stopping him from doing them? If you improve his ability when it comes to long shots he could be a very effective weapon, stopping him from doing it with "long shots" to rare, and lowering his creative freedom could have knock on effects and might not do exactly what you wanted it to do.

Remember as well, there are slightly too many shots in this ME, when its patched up it could be much different. My point is, you dont want to build a tactic for an ME build, you want to build a tactic that will work throughout all versions. Lowering too many things could have a bad effect on your tactic in later ME builds.

Actually his long shots attribute isn't terrible as its 14, but the actual shots are. But still, maybe I could give him half a season of LS training and see if it would make him more useful.

And about the ME part, not sure how I could predict what will or won't work in the next iteration.

-SnUrF

Why not work on his long shots rather than work on stopping him from doing them? If you improve his ability when it comes to long shots he could be a very effective weapon, stopping him from doing it with "long shots" to rare, and lowering his creative freedom could have knock on effects and might not do exactly what you wanted it to do.

Remember as well, there are slightly too many shots in this ME, when its patched up it could be much different. My point is, you dont want to build a tactic for an ME build, you want to build a tactic that will work throughout all versions. Lowering too many things could have a bad effect on your tactic in later ME builds.

Douglas Costa has a long shot stat of 17 in my game, the shoots often PPM : his shot accuracy is < 30% , he has 2 goals from 135 attempts in 16 games . This is with long shots set to rarely and works ball into box shout on.

Douglas Costa has a long shot stat of 17 in my game, the shoots often PPM : his shot accuracy is < 30% , he has 2 goals from 135 attempts in 16 games . This is with long shots set to rarely and works ball into box shout on.

So perhaps I shouldn't try training Hoiletts LS.

-SnUrF

btw, thank you for sharing your tactic.

You genuinely have to be a tactical genius to play this game not just a casual gamer with a love of football......

You don't have to be but it certainly helps.....

I've found using Work Into Box helps to lessen the number of long shots plus it seems to suit my 4-2-3-1 tactic.

Work ball into box is of course the alternative to manually reducing long shots.

It's great that you can get frustrated with the game, read the feedback thread in general and get even more frustrated, but then come here and read a sensible peice like this try it and the frustration goes. Think ill spend more time browsing these posts instead of reading all the buzz in the general feedback forum.

I'm glad that the thread helped. GD is a horrible place at the best of times, and the negativity can certainly drain the love. It's one of the reasons I wrote this, I was frustrated at reading how the problems were killing enjoyment.

Thanks

I think the 30% of shots being from distance you have is an accurate reflection. It's hard to tell how many of your chances have come from through balls, rather than crosses, as this data isn't represented by the stats. But to have around 40% of chances being clear cut or half is good, with 30% long range efforts.

I think this is amplified because there are just too many shots, period. If the shooting was reduced to a realistic number, the long shots will naturally decrease, too. On average the stats are looking normal for me, 30% long, 20% clear cut, wood work, blocked and off target making up the rest. However, because I'm having 30 shots rather than a more realistic 12-15 per game depending on who I'm playing my longs shots go from around 5/6 up to 12/13.

So, reduce the shot counts and naturally long shots will come down with it. However, I still do believe player decisions for the player on the ball needs to be looked at.

Of course there is no stat for through balls played unfortunately, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Overall shot counts do need to be reduced somewhat, but it doesn't always follow that long shots etc will reduce. If people have poor or illogical tactics all the patches in the world won't make it work.

I'd agree about player decisions being tweaked and I'm sure PaulC is on that.

The issue isn't just long shots, it is the amount of shots , period.

Can you also post your stats for the distribution of goals within this tactic (assuming your current season is all 13.2.1) ? Is your DLF contributing, or are most the goals coming from set pieces and your wingers. What about key passes/assists for your middle 3 ?

I still think there is an issue with shouts/tactics being over-ridden by PPM's : My last game resulted in Douglas Costa finishing the game with 24 shots to himself, despide being told to cross often, shoot rarely and using the work ball into box shout. tactically there is nothing I can do to counter that.

I'll post the stats you are looking for at some point this weekend but 2 points:

1) my scoring is distributed across the team, the DLF is joint top scorer with an AMR with the CM/A just behind. The DLF also has a good number of assists and you'll just have to trust me when I say that a majority of those are through balls. (this season is all 13.2.1) I rarely score from set pieces unfortunately.

2) I never set out for this thread to be about bashing the ME. Or bashing the bashers come to it. I just wanted to help those that were frustrated. But I'll get you the proof you so desperately need when I'm ready.

The amount of tackles is a huge issue too, it is close to impossible for a player to attempt 15+ tackles in a game IRL, the most we see IRL are players like De Jong, Sandro or Joey Barton whose attempts at tackling are >5 but less than 10. It's incredibly frustrating for my players to get the ball and immediately lose out to a tackle

Again, wrong thread. If its ME bashing you want there's a perfectly good thread in GD for that. Cheers.

Could you plz upload your tactic ?

No. You can see all you need from the screenshot in the OP and combine it with the bit where I say that the only thing I've changed is reducing long shots. Nothing else has been touched. Should take you all of 30 seconds to create in the TC.

Of course there is no stat for through balls played unfortunately, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Overall shot counts do need to be reduced somewhat, but it doesn't always follow that long shots etc will reduce. If people have poor or illogical tactics all the patches in the world won't make it work.

I'd agree about player decisions being tweaked and I'm sure PaulC is on that.

I wasn't suggesting you were lying, please don't think that I was.

The only reason long shots wouldn't reduce, I agree, is if there was something tactical. However, most people are seeing an increase with 13.2.1 which would suggest it's the ME and not tactics as high long shot ratios should exist throughout all MEs.

I'll post the stats you are looking for at some point this weekend but 2 points:

1) my scoring is distributed across the team, the DLF is joint top scorer with an AMR with the CM/A just behind. The DLF also has a good number of assists and you'll just have to trust me when I say that a majority of those are through balls. (this season is all 13.2.1) I rarely score from set pieces unfortunately.

2) I never set out for this thread to be about bashing the ME. Or bashing the bashers come to it. I just wanted to help those that were frustrated. But I'll get you the proof you so desperately need when I'm ready.

Strange thing to add, says a lot though, thanks.

OT , I was wanting the stats to compare to how my tactic is playing out in game, no more ,no less.

I'm finding it difficult to get my CF involved in the game, and wondered what was different between your tactic and mine. My DLF is getting assists and I'm not that bothered about through balls ( in fact my post never mentioned them, at all) , though they do seem to be somewhat rare.

I wasn't suggesting you were lying, please don't think that I was.

The only reason long shots wouldn't reduce, I agree, is if there was something tactical. However, most people are seeing an increase with 13.2.1 which would suggest it's the ME and not tactics as high long shot ratios should exist throughout all MEs.

I wasn't suggesting you thought I was lying. Just a shame there isn't a way to prove it.

Strange thing to add, says a lot though, thanks.

OT , I was wanting the stats to compare to how my tactic is playing out in game, no more ,no less.

I'm finding it difficult to get my CF involved in the game, and wondered what was different between your tactic and mine. My DLF is getting assists and I'm not that bothered about through balls ( in fact my post never mentioned them, at all) , though they do seem to be somewhat rare.

Sorry if I came across harsh. It just seemed this thread was getting hijacked to bash the ME.

It was my intent for this thread to be helpful so I will get you those screenies as soon as I can.

Again apologies if I got your meaning twisted. My bad.

good write up, i got this game last night and been strugling to do well with my Hull squad. Im using same formation as you are and will surely try out the tips mentioned here to get more through balls and less long shots.

Could it be possible that higher creative freedom would be the cause of the constant barage of long shots. You know, long shots=rarely and not much creative freedom?

good write up, i got this game last night and been strugling to do well with my Hull squad. Im using same formation as you are and will surely try out the tips mentioned here to get more through balls and less long shots.

Could it be possible that higher creative freedom would be the cause of the constant barage of long shots. You know, long shots=rarely and not much creative freedom?

Creative freedom will surely play a part in it but you'll note from my screenshot that my cf is 'more expressive'. That said I have very good players with the intelligence to handle this. Not every squad is going to be the same.

Creative freedom will surely play a part in it but you'll note from my screenshot that my cf is 'more expressive'. That said I have very good players with the intelligence to handle this. Not every squad is going to be the same.

My Hull squad have few MC's and DMC with decent creativiness and flair, perhaps i should try to individually tell those guys to be more creative and leave rest of the squad on normal CF. Sometimes my players actually have LOADS of passing options all around them but they just decide to blast it a way. There are LOADS of situations where there would be a great opportunity for a through ball but my player either shoot it long or pass it back to the midfield. Im pretty close to RAGE but ill try few more things.

What are the decisions making stats of those players?

No doubt as stated earlier in the thread, decision making does need tweaking to improve these instances.

What are the decisions making stats of those players?

No doubt as stated earlier in the thread, decision making does need tweaking to improve these instances.

14,14,15 i mean it's Hull city after all. Im trying to use the more experienced players in midfield to take advantage of the mental attributes. I dont even know what all attributes does for the players to be honest. Last game i played was FM10 and i wasnt really a tactical genius in that one either.

Tbf those numbers are pretty good for Champo level.

There are a number of good threads that tell you what all attributes mean and effect. Cleon in particular did a great one. I can't remember what it was called but I'll have a look or hopefully someone else will find it and link to it.

Edit: Cleons thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/289528-The-SI-Sports-Centre-All-You-Need-To-Know-About-FM

Tbf those numbers are pretty good for Champo level.

There are a number of good threads that tell you what all attributes mean and effect. Cleon in particular did a great one. I can't remember what it was called but I'll have a look or hopefully someone else will find it and link to it.

Edit: Cleons thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/289528-The-SI-Sports-Centre-All-You-Need-To-Know-About-FM

Nice, ill give it a read.

Niiiiiice. Can't wait to get going with my Spurs save in Feb. For now I will attempt this with St. Ettienne and possibly Liverpool.

I think im going to give up edgar, way the players play is no where near how i set em up no matter what i do. Is there a way to play in a manner where i only manage the team, signings and training but leave tactics and match days for my assistant manager to take care of?

Im so frustrated at the moment, my defenders have scored more than my midfield+wingers+strikers combined. The opportunity for that through ball is there all the time but my team refuses to make the pass. When they do make it, it misses by mile or receiver just stands there doing nothing. The goalies are god like even from point blank, defenders are god like in every situation on both ends. Nothing in match day makes sense.

I thought im managing a professional team with professional players, i guess not. Think of it like this, manager comes to the dressing room and tell the players "good luck for tonights game" all of a sudden half of the team goes all out butt hurt and refuses to play a proper football because they feel its not OK for the manager to say something like that.

Now i really wish i would have bought the god damn FM12 instead.

You could manually lower his creativity? He'd still shoot a lot, but probably not quite as much. Also, does he take your free kicks? If so, that could represent many of his shots.

Can you also post your stats for the distribution of goals within this tactic (assuming your current season is all 13.2.1) ? Is your DLF contributing, or are most the goals coming from set pieces and your wingers. What about key passes/assists for your middle 3 ?

Here you go:

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I've listed their normal playing positions where I think it was necessary. Unfortunately there is no stat for key passes for the squad, that I know of. I think the stats show that there are a good spread of goals and also assists.

Here you go:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I've listed their normal playing positions where I think it was necessary. Unfortunately there is no stat for key passes for the squad, that I know of. I think the stats show that there are a good spread of goals and also assists.

You can add key passes to the top bar like in this screenshot;

You can add key passes to the top bar like in this screenshot;

Ahh. Cool. Can't believe I didn't know that. I've just put my laptop away and the missus will kick off if I fire it up again now. I'll do that later and post it.

Cheers Cleon.

Ahh. Cool. Can't believe I didn't know that. I've just put my laptop away and the missus will kick off if I fire it up again now. I'll do that later and post it.

Cheers Cleon.

If you look in my Understanding thread on page 2 or 3 I posted all the custom views that I have set up, might give you a few more ideas for tracking stuff

Sandro seems to get a fair few assists for you

If you look in my Understanding thread on page 2 or 3 I posted all the custom views that I have set up, might give you a few more ideas for tracking stuff

Sandro seems to get a fair few assists for you

I'll take a look.

Sandro has developed into one of the most dominant midfielders in the world. Does it all: tackle, pass, score. He's just finished 3rd in the World player of the year in my current season. Love him in game and IRL.

Guys,

I just want to post something in defence of LONG SHOTS.

IF, and it's a big IF, you have a successful tactic that is well thought out, which I believe the OP has here, then you are also LIMITING yourself if you do NOT use longshots, at least to some degree.

I'm not suggesting that all players have it, but if you have someone that is decent at them, league dependent, AND (big point) they play in a position where using them is beneficial, then they should at least have them on mixed.

My example is with SCOTT PARKER. Parker has a Longshot skill of 13, which isn't high at all, however I ALWAYS leave him with LS mixed. He plays as a CML(D) in my identical formation, which means that he is always supporting the rest of the team that have gotten forwards, which is pretty much everyone.

As he normally has quite a few options available to him, forwards, sideways or backwards, he actually uses LS pretty well.

He has scored three in the last seven games, which is a pretty good return I think. Many of these have come from either failed corners or where I am playing the corner short. He sits outside the box (Default) and normally has a bit of space to do his stuff in.

Though, and this is the catch, when his LS is rare, he will NOT shoot from here, thus I miss out on the goals he delivers.

Three goals in seven games, pretty rubbish if he is taking pot shots all over the place.... well, in seven games he had only eight shots.

So, use LS wisely. That doesn't mean give it to players that can, but give it to players that can use it!

Regards

LAM

ps. There is something to be said for giving it to a DC who gets forward for corners. They sometimes regain possession on their way out of the box and do that stupid thing of looking for a really good pass... when you're screaming at the screen "SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT you *&£%$ $^£* $&$*£"

*edit* not sure wherethis came from.

If you have a really good tactic you won't have these same amounts off longshots. These lonshots are an indication that your tactic isnt really good in this match engine.

If your tactic is good the longshots your team takes are because they made the decision to do so. Same holds true with regards to defenders hoofing it up field. They will shoot/hoof because they think its a good opportunity, while if they do it 10 times a game it probably shows they didnt have enough options. (And i honestly think throughballs dont count as an option. No joke.)

Thats how i see it. Longshots havent been my problem though so far.

lam seems to have proved what I believed was the case. Reducing long shots via setting LS to rarely or using the 'work ball to box' shout will most likely end up taking away the useful long shots, ending up with the players still taking the useless or 'forced' long shots.

-SnUrF