Meet Ernestinho - He can't even cross his legs.

First please excuse my short and ill-informed post. I had shoulder surgery @ 10am this morning. OK...

Meet Ernie. Level-headed chap with a fairly determined personality.

He's my first choice winger in my starting XI which looks like this;

Team Instructions are;

Push higher up, hassle opponents, stay on feet & higher tempo.

Idea behind this is; Hassle the opposition, win the ball quite high up the pitch and then let my team inflict some damage. I was worried to begin with that the team would lack penetration because no possession shouts were selected but so far so good.

I have a general idea on how I want individual players to perform as well. Ernestinho in particular is instructed to stay wider (to try and counter his cut inside PPM which he won't 'unlearn'), and the idea behind him being on a support duty is to stabilise the team. His stats should allow him to do as the game implies; beat his man and cross.

Now, I'm happy with his overall play. I mean, the kid has assisted 16 goals in 20 starts & scored 9 in the process. What does bother me is his cross completion conversion; 233 attempted, just 39 completed. A measly 16%. How do I better this? Should I tempt Stewart Downing out of retirement and ask him to tutor? Would instructing him to stay forward more help or just cancel out his support role?

Who's he crossing to? You only have 1 striker and it's a treq, a role that drops deep a lot. No AMC either. There's not going to be a lot to aim at in the box.

Should I tempt Stewart Downing out of retirement and ask him to tutor?

You can't tutor him, he is older than 23yo.

And anyway tutoring him would have nothing to do with his crossing ability. I 'd pay more attention to what SpartyOn mentioned.

An attribute that could do with some improvement is his Composure. I might try improving that, I find it is very important in the ME. Now, will it actually make a difference to this crossing ratio? Might do a little. But what SpartyOn mentioned should be more important.

Who's he crossing to? You only have 1 striker and it's a treq, a role that drops deep a lot. No AMC either. There's not going to be a lot to aim at in the box.

Would you suggest changing my AP(A) to a CM(A) and set his PI's to 'Shoot more often' & 'Dribble More' to try and replicate the role of AP? I'm happy with the Treq role as it brings out the best in my IF. If you could call his goals/assist return best. Haha,

You can't tutor him, he is older than 23yo.

And anyway tutoring him would have nothing to do with his crossing ability. I 'd pay more attention to what SpartyOn mentioned.

Painful joke sorry. I'm in 2029.

Also the support role means he gets a early cross in and as has been said there will be no one to cross to.

Combination of no one to cross to, and poor decision making is going to mean a lot of pointless deliveries.

Why would you want a crossing winger in a tactic with Treq up front? There are other ways to make great use of a winger i would think

Why would you want a crossing winger in a tactic with Treq up front? There are other ways to make great use of a winger i would think

I used to play with an AF(A) in my team, because my best player played that position. Sold him, so my IF became my best so tried to adapt the squad to help him flourish. I thought that by having a Treq and a winger on support they would compliment each other with the Treq playing in the winger, turning (Pace 18, Acc. 19) and scoring from the cross. Lol- ideal world in my mind.

I'm open to suggestions to improve the team. Would changing him to an attacking duty not ruin the 'balance' of the team that most people here swear by?

I used to play with an AF(A) in my team, because my best player played that position. Sold him, so my IF became my best so tried to adapt the squad to help him flourish. I thought that by having a Treq and a winger on support they would compliment each other with the Treq playing in the winger, turning (Pace 18, Acc. 19) and scoring from the cross. Lol- ideal world in my mind.

I'm open to suggestions to improve the team. Would changing him to an attacking duty not ruin the 'balance' of the team that most people here swear by?

Nothing wrong with the concept - Why is it not happening? What happens in-game when the Treq picks the ball up in such a situation? Is the Winger in the wrong place? Does he pick a different pass? Does he ignore them?

Its worth spending some time looking at whether you can make your initial concept work, rather than saying "it doesnt work, what else can i try".

I used to play with an AF(A) in my team, because my best player played that position. Sold him, so my IF became my best so tried to adapt the squad to help him flourish. I thought that by having a Treq and a winger on support they would compliment each other with the Treq playing in the winger, turning (Pace 18, Acc. 19) and scoring from the cross. Lol- ideal world in my mind.

I'm open to suggestions to improve the team. Would changing him to an attacking duty not ruin the 'balance' of the team that most people here swear by?

He has 19 assists right? How did he get those assists?

Nothing wrong with the concept - Why is it not happening? What happens in-game when the Treq picks the ball up in such a situation? Is the Winger in the wrong place? Does he pick a different pass? Does he ignore them?

Its worth spending some time looking at whether you can make your initial concept work, rather than saying "it doesnt work, what else can i try".

Fair point.

I've just switched him to an attack duty against Galatasaray in a must win game. We won 7-0 and he assisted 3. 2 of which were crosses. Comparing his av.positions heatmap suggests there's no change at all, except his crosses are a lot higher up the pitch. He attempted 4 crosses and completed 3.

Keep the change home to Norwich. We win 3-1. Ernestinho has a good game, sets up 1 and scores 1. Attempts 17 crosses, completes 1.

Hahaha.

EDIT: C_I, is there a way of checking without going through all the highlights? I know a few of them are directly from corners as he takes them for the team.

OK after further inspection, maybe I'm being a little harsh on Ernie.

My last 5 games:

ARGH that's annoying - didn't realise I was missing half the screenshot.

try far post crosses..i have noticed my inside forward eats those buggers up..

Higher tempo asking your team to take less time and go for it.

Push higher up/hassle meaning even after you win the ball. oppsition defence is proabbly in position for your cross.. (hence hard to score)

Having Treq (assuming he doesnt have super good aerial.. bec he is a good technical fast player.. they cant have everything). also treq drop back and doesnt lead the line.

W(S) meaning early cross.. hence less chance.

In the end i dont think 20% ish is a bad result cross rate.. is he taking corners as well? this might ruin his crossing number a bit more.

Since you have IF(A) you should probably go for back post cross.. as in float cross or give PI to wingers.. change Treq(A) if you really want to score all crosses.

TBH i woudlnt worry so much.. as you are winning.. and liek i said i dont think close to 20% is a bad number.. like cross scuess generally means a very good socring chance.. i will be worried if you are crossing at 50% rate all games.. this is just stupidly high (if it ever happens)

I agree with Jenesis.

Your idea that the treq can drop deep, play in the winger who then crosses to the inside forward who moved into the space left by the treq is fine. Problem is you are pushing your opponent in a defensive position so they are already in place to deal with the cross and block off the winger. On top of that the winger isn't instructed to make an attacking run but instead stays deeper and puts in early crosses into an empty box.

Either you need to put more heads into the box to aim for (one inside forward isn't going to do any damage to an opponent that is already pushed into their own half) or you need to drop deep with your team and attack on the break where your fast winger (should be winger attack if you try this) might find your inside forward while the defense is still out of position.

Also his stats aren't that bad, from the screenshot it looks like he is taking corners as well which count as crosses and you only need to score a couple of goals a game so if he tries 20 of which 4 connect and 2 get converted that is already a game winning performance.

Great reply from the two of you, thanks. You're both right. I was just going through player stats to see how they performed in their positions and seen that 16% and thought "wow, that's not great" and generally just wanted to perfect the tactic. But it's obviously not all doom and gloom, because I am winning. my IF has 26 goals & 11 assists in 34 starts, my W has 20 assists and 14 goals in 32 starts and my Treq has 29 goals and 12 assists in 35 starts.

Yikes, when did 20% crossing completion start being considered poor?

Yikes, when did 20% crossing completion start being considered poor?

16% actually.

16% actually.

aahaha. Indeed. When you have plays like Ashley Young getting 0% cross completion, 16% looks pretty damn decent to me. I would love it if my fullbacks had those sorts of stats. I guess we all got to find something to grumble about

Generally crossing delivery splits neatly in favouring 2 forms of attack. Getting to the byline and bringing a cross in, often will be at pace, and to the near post - for a nippier forward to knock in, or, a cross from deep which is hit earlier and aimed towards a target man, or big bloke up front to knock on to someone else. Although both can still offer variety to the "opposite" type of forward.