Headed goals happen far too frequently

[PinkSpeedos]

Hi guys,

Is anyone else noticing a huge amount of headed goals in FM22? It feels as though attackers have a big advantage when going up against defenders.

This isn't just me conceding, but also scoring, a lot of headed goals.

Thanks.

[sdx15]

Honestly, It seems that attackers score a lot in general. Maybe even the finishing is too good.

I am the most dominant team in my league (Latvia), but I always outscore my xG and my attackers are scoring 1.33 goals per game. Other teams in the league also heavily depend on their strikers.

When it comes to headers, a high amount of crosses, and in my case a ridiculously high cross conversion rate of 38%, may explain the high amount of headed goals.

[PinkSpeedos]

10 minutes ago, sdx15 said:

Honestly, It seems that attackers score a lot in general. Maybe even the finishing is too good.

I am the most dominant team in my league (Latvia), but I always outscore my xG and my attackers are scoring 1.33 goals per game. Other teams in the league also heavily depend on their strikers.

When it comes to headers, a high amount of crosses, and in my case a ridiculously high cross conversion rate of 38%, may explain the high amount of headed goals.

I think that may be more to do with the XG stat being a little misleading, rather than finishing being too good in general. I can't say I'm seeing an obscene amount of goals in general. Shorelines appear pretty normal in the vast majority of games. 

But I am noticing a huge amount of headed goals. 

[Platinum]

There's an increase compared to previous FMs I'm sure, but I'm not sure if its more than real life.  My players that don't have good heading attributes/aren't tall don't really score headed goals whereas my strikers that are tall/have good heading stats are more likely to win a header which makes sense.

[blejdek]

ITs not bug or anything else.

I saw somewhere that they made Target forwards much more better than they were in previous versions, so thats lead to more headed goals

[Valleyg]

I am not a stats wizard, but out of interest I found a stats website that compared over 700 goals from the top 5 European leagues last year. I'm not sure about posting external links here, but the summary was that between 16-18 % of these 700 goals were headed goals. This is only one sample and the numbers can of course fluctuate up and down depending on what country, league and which season is being counted. Another interesting stat was the amount of headers per game. Its pretty obvious now I think of it, but it showed a large difference in the amount of headers (not headed goals, just headers) in games from each of englands 4 divisions. Far more headers take place in league 1 and 2 than the championship, and more in the championship than the Premier league. Do we see this difference in fm when managing a league 2 side compared to a Premier league side? The ball is in the air more in league 2, do we see this in the match engine? I don't know, maybe someone else does. Are people seeing a lot more than 18 per cent of goals being scored from headers in the game?

[sdx15]

28 minutes ago, PinkSpeedos said:

I think that may be more to do with the XG stat being a little misleading, rather than finishing being too good in general.

This may also be true. To be fair, I haven’t played FM21 so I don’t know how often you outperform your xG by more than a goal.

However, I may be wrong, but I still feel that finishing is too good. At least in my save, most clear-cut and half-chances end up on target and goalies rarely make saves in those situations.

 

24 minutes ago, Platinum said:

There's an increase compared to previous FMs I'm sure, but I'm not sure if its more than real life.

I’ve found a few sources that say it takes from 56 to 64 crosses to score a goal. This seems fine in my save, it’s just the ridiculous amount of crosses and their conversion rate that make the amount of headed goals exaggerated.

[Valleyg]

The official premier league stats for 2020/2021 were 1024 goals scored, 170 were headers. So for that season it was about 16.6% of goals scored were headers. Again, I know this is going to be different for different leagues, seasons etc, but just an idea on what goes on irl.

[Valleyg]

5 minutes ago, sdx15 said:

This may also be true. To be fair, I haven’t played FM21 so I don’t know how often you outperform your xG by more than a goal.

However, I may be wrong, but I still feel that finishing is too good. At least in my save, most clear-cut and half-chances end up on target and goalies rarely make saves in those situations.

 

I’ve found a few sources that say it takes from 56 to 64 crosses to score a goal. This seems fine in my save, it’s just the ridiculous amount of crosses and their conversion rate that make the amount of headed goals exaggerated.

I have seen the same figure of 64 crosses to produce 1 goal that you have seen. If it the same source, that website also suggests that statistically, the top 5 teams in Europe are crossing the ball around 20 to 25 times a game.....these are the top 5, so the rest are crossing the ball less. How many crosses are happening in an average fm game I wonder?

[fraudiola]

heading is way over powered, especially from corners. i have a big TF who scores headers for fun but continually misses 1v1, its really unrealistic. probably 70% of his goals are headers. 

[PinkSpeedos]

9 minutes ago, Valleyg said:

The official premier league stats for 2020/2021 were 1024 goals scored, 170 were headers. So for that season it was about 16.6% of goals scored were headers. Again, I know this is going to be different for different leagues, seasons etc, but just an idea on what goes on irl.

If I take corners as a measurement (and it's not perfect because not every corner scored will be a header but a fair assumption to say most will be), in real life, in the Prem, a goal is scored from a corner in 1 out of 10 games. 

Something like a 2.2% conversion rate.

In my current season, the top performing team has 14 goals from corners in 37 matches. That's a goal every 2.6 games.

Lots of teams with 7/8 goals from corners (myself included). That's a corner scored every 4.6 to 5.2 games.

Now, this probably points more towards an issue with corners themselves, possibly defensive positioning etc, but I do think the strength of attacking headers is feeding into this 

[PinkSpeedos]

9 minutes ago, Valleyg said:

I have seen the same figure of 64 crosses to produce 1 goal that you have seen. If it the same source, that website also suggests that statistically, the top 5 teams in Europe are crossing the ball around 20 to 25 times a game.....these are the top 5, so the rest are crossing the ball less. How many crosses are happening in an average fm game I wonder?

Just done the maths and I have a team in my league who are attempting over 45 crosses a match.

This is in Serie B (Italy).

The next 6/7 teams are around 35 crosses a match. 

I'm producing 27 crosses a game.

So maybe it's not the strength of the heading, but the frequency with which crosses are being delivered, which in turn leads to more headed goals happening? 

[Mars_Blackmon]

The conversion rate for crossing in FM is way higher than reality and the amount is also higher. Can’t really speak on headers specifically but in beta there was a problem with shorter guys winning headers way too often.

[Valleyg]

4 minutes ago, PinkSpeedos said:

Just done the maths and I have a team in my league who are attempting over 45 crosses a match.

This is in Serie B (Italy).

The next 6/7 teams are around 35 crosses a match. 

I'm producing 27 crosses a game.

So maybe it's not the strength of the heading, but the frequency with which crosses are being delivered, which in turn leads to more headed goals happening? 

I'm ready to stand corrected, but it does sound like a lot of crosses. 27 crosses would make you the team with the most crosses in Europe from the stats I saw.  So seeing there are teams crossing 35, 45 times a game sounds high.

[PinkSpeedos]

13 minutes ago, Valleyg said:

I'm ready to stand corrected, but it does sound like a lot of crosses. 27 crosses would make you the team with the most crosses in Europe from the stats I saw.  So seeing there are teams crossing 35, 45 times a game sounds high.

Just looking at some other leagues for comparison.

In the Prem, the top 5 teams have attempted just over 1000 crosses in 37 games, with a completion rate of between 29% and 25% - that equates to between 26/27 crosses a game up to 31/32 crosses a game. The next 4/5 teams aren't far behind that.

France is looking a little more normal with the highest average crosses per game being 24.5

[PinkSpeedos]

20 minutes ago, Mars_Blackmon said:

The conversion rate for crossing in FM is way higher than reality and the amount is also higher. Can’t really speak on headers specifically but in beta there was a problem with shorter guys winning headers way too often.

Are you finding that problem in the main game as well? Has there been confirmation that things were changed from the beta on this?

Just wondering to cover all bases and get varying insights on it. 

[Valleyg]

From the same stats set taken from Europe's top 5 leagues irl, the team with the highest average was caen, with 26 crosses per match. The average per league was between 17 to 19 crosses per match, per team. Obviously some teams cross less depending on style of play, but the total average was 18.8 crosses per match irl. This info was taken from a company that supplies data analytics to teams.

[sdx15]

The average cross completion rate in European top five leagues is 23.5 % and teams attemp about 18 crosses on average. Bundesliga stands out with a 26 % completion rate.

In my save, the data hub crossing graph suggests that, on average, a team in my Latvian save attemps 32 crosses per game, with the lowest number being 19 attemps per game. The average completion rate is as high as Bundesliga in real life and 5 out of 7 teams in my league have the completion rate above 23 %. This does seem very high.

[sdx15]

6 minutes ago, PinkSpeedos said:

In the Prem, the top 5 teams have attempted just over 1000 crosses in 37 games, with a completion rate of between 29% and 25% - that equates to between 26/27 crosses a game up to 31/32 crosses a game. The next 4/5 teams aren't far behind that.

Where did you find those stats? They might be outdated as the official PL stats show that, in the last few seasons, few teams cross more than 900 times in a season.

[Valleyg]

2 minutes ago, sdx15 said:

Where did you find those stats? They might be outdated as the official PL stats show that, in the last few seasons, few teams cross more than 900 times in a season.

I was going to ask a similar question. Stats seem to differ depending on where you look, but some seasons, 900 is more than any team in the Premier league attempts over a season. 900 would give an average of 23.7 and this would be the highest average from 1 team with the rest being lower. I wonder which season it was that 5 teams attempted over 1000 crosses.

[sdx15]

3 minutes ago, Valleyg said:

I wonder which season it was that 5 teams attempted over 1000 crosses.

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/total_cross?se=18

Seasons 08/09, 09/10, 10/11. Stoke is surprisingly low in those stats.

[Valleyg]

Ah, so that's kind of interesting...has there been a downward trend in the amount of crossing in just the last 10 years? I would have guessed there was a lot more crosses 30 years ago and 50 years ago, but the numbers seem to have come down more recently....or was that an unusually high season? I came across a story that man u had attempted 81 crosses in 1 match versus Fulham when David moyes was manager....how is that even possible! Nearly a cross every minute. They drew the game. 

[Mars_Blackmon]

34 minutes ago, PinkSpeedos said:

Are you finding that problem in the main game as well? Has there been confirmation that things were changed from the beta on this?

Just wondering to cover all bases and get varying insights on it. 

Not as much or not as obvious as it was in the beta. Someone would have to test for concrete evidence. 
 

But me not noticing as much could be a result of ditching my corner routine and using the default so I won’t exploit near posts…

[PinkSpeedos]

29 minutes ago, Valleyg said:

I was going to ask a similar question. Stats seem to differ depending on where you look, but some seasons, 900 is more than any team in the Premier league attempts over a season. 900 would give an average of 23.7 and this would be the highest average from 1 team with the rest being lower. I wonder which season it was that 5 teams attempted over 1000 crosses.

Sorry, I should have been more specific, this is in my current save. I thought I would look at other leagues as a comparison to the league I am currently playing in 

[PinkSpeedos]

13 minutes ago, Mars_Blackmon said:

Not as much or not as obvious as it was in the beta. Someone would have to test for concrete evidence. 
 

But me not noticing as much could be a result of ditching my corner routine and using the default so I won’t exploit near posts…

I don't think it's just near post. I've seen people having just as much success at the back post and back post headers in open play have come across as being strong also.

Which is why I think it's more of a heading issue in general, rather than a corner specific issue

[phd_angel]

I agree that strikers are scoring and heading in goals way more often in FM22. But maybe that's because attackers were so useless in FM21, that we are feeling such a difference.

Still, I find that FM22 is overall way easier to beat than FM21 (see collective thread "I'm a genius")

 

 

[Toshevbgg]

No the heading is fine the broken thing is crosses

I am halfway through my season and already there are etams above 1000 crosses .
Liverpool in my safe finished with 2000 crosses in the season.. 

my team since i have AML ANd AMR and wingbacks i am averagin 35 crosses per game with 25% completion..Because of the tons of crossing most key moments are tap ins or headers since thats hwo ur team plays.. 

I mean if all u do is cross in the end u will score headers

[Mars_Blackmon]

1 hour ago, Toshevbgg said:

No the heading is fine the broken thing is crosses

I am halfway through my season and already there are etams above 1000 crosses .
Liverpool in my safe finished with 2000 crosses in the season.. 

my team since i have AML ANd AMR and wingbacks i am averagin 35 crosses per game with 25% completion..Because of the tons of crossing most key moments are tap ins or headers since thats hwo ur team plays.. 

I mean if all u do is cross in the end u will score headers

The question then becomes, are the goals from headers the the product of OP heading or OP accuracy of corners and crossing? The cross completion % is way higher in FM then it is IRL FWIW.

[Domathon]

Something is seriously wrong here I cannot enjoy my long green save whilst I’m winning so many games because I have set my corners up and I get 1 or 2 every game , the ai hasn’t set his up and he’s doing okay aswell with one very other 👍 

[diLLa88]

Sporting Lisbon sitting at a casual 54 crosses per game on average after 11 games. The average of the league is ~32 crosses per game. Seems a bit much........

[PinkSpeedos]

On 18/11/2021 at 10:12, Domathon said:

Something is seriously wrong here I cannot enjoy my long green save whilst I’m winning so many games because I have set my corners up and I get 1 or 2 every game , the ai hasn’t set his up and he’s doing okay aswell with one very other 👍 

I'm starting to struggle to enjoy my save as well. Basically all I see are headed goals. Very dull. My CB has 6 goals in 20 games. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended on double figures.

I don't seem to concede any goals other than headers. 

Crossing needs a big overhaul. 

[PinkSpeedos]

On 18/11/2021 at 10:17, diLLa88 said:

Sporting Lisbon sitting at a casual 54 crosses per game on average after 11 games. The average of the league is ~32 crosses per game. Seems a bit much........

There are only two teams in my Serie A save that have an average cross rate around the norm for real life. Juve currently have an average of 50 crosses a game.

Half the league are averaging more than 32 a game. 

Something is very broken here. 

[Shirley]

Spoiler

Lorenzo Lucca must get one corner goal a game for me

 

My crossing numbers also are way too unrealistic

Spoiler

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by Shirley

[PinkSpeedos]

Update on this issue.

One of my CBs scored 10 goals last season. I am now 8 games into a new season and he already has 6 goals.

In the past 5 games I have witnessed (for and against) 5 headed goals from corners, 3 penalties and just 2 goals in open play that weren't headers.

This is so dull now. Just isn't enjoyable at all. 

[limey150781]

2 hours ago, PinkSpeedos said:

Update on this issue.

One of my CBs scored 10 goals last season. I am now 8 games into a new season and he already has 6 goals.

In the past 5 games I have witnessed (for and against) 5 headed goals from corners, 3 penalties and just 2 goals in open play that weren't headers.

This is so dull now. Just isn't enjoyable at all. 

I find it really weird that people have such different experiences with the same game. I personally think there are too many crosses due to wide players making incorrect decisions and moving wider when they shouldn't but the variety of goals I see is excellent. 

[Metal]

On 17/11/2021 at 11:46, sdx15 said:

Honestly, It seems that attackers score a lot in general. Maybe even the finishing is too good.

I am the most dominant team in my league (Latvia), but I always outscore my xG and my attackers are scoring 1.33 goals per game. Other teams in the league also heavily depend on their strikers.

When it comes to headers, a high amount of crosses, and in my case a ridiculously high cross conversion rate of 38%, may explain the high amount of headed goals.

A bit ridiculous to be complaining about strikers scoring goals when that's exactly what they're meant to do.

Last year the  strikers were nerfed and didn't do jack and the best tactics involved strikerless formations, and people were complaining about the lack of scoring from the af and target forwards as their roles were redundant. Now those roles actually work, people want them nerfed I just don't get it.

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Metal

[sdx15]

13 minutes ago, Metal said:

A bit ridiculous to be complaining about strikers scoring goals when that's exactly what they're meant to do.

Last year the  strikers were nerfed and didn't do jack and the best tactics involved strikerless formations, and people were complaining about the lack of scoring from the af and target forwards as their roles were redundant. Now those roles actually work, people want them nerfed I just don't get it.

 

Yes, strikers should score goals, but probably not half the goals your team scores when you’re playing a single (mediocre) striker formation with IWs and a segundo volante. 

 

Anyway, since I’ve written this post, I’ve played a fair amount of FM and the numbers have balanced themselves out a bit so I don’t think SI have to react, but I still have a feeling that my strikers score a bit too much.

[Metal]

10 minutes ago, sdx15 said:

Yes, strikers should score goals, but probably not half the goals your team scores when you’re playing a single (mediocre) striker formation with IWs and a segundo volante. 

 

Anyway, since I’ve written this post, I’ve played a fair amount of FM and the numbers have balanced themselves out a bit so I don’t think SI have to react, but I still have a feeling that my strikers score a bit too much.

 

So who do you want to score your goals if it's not your strikers? Or are you going to tell me that your IWs are not scoring at all? 

In real life regardless of the calibre of team, the striker is the main goalscorer of the team.

There are more problematic issues with the M.E than having your striker actually do their job. Too many of these types of frivolous  complaints and we might end up with fm21 engine where they hardly score unless they are placed as SS or AM position

[sdx15]

30 minutes ago, Metal said:

n real life regardless of the calibre of team, the striker is the main goalscorer of the team.

That’s not always the case. And that’s not what I complained about. My main striker could score a few goals less and still be the team’s top scorer.

 

30 minutes ago, Metal said:

There are more problematic issues with the M.E than having your striker actually do their job. Too many of these types of frivolous  complaints and we might end up with fm21 engine where they hardly score unless they are placed as SS or AM position

I didn’t see people agreeing with me so I don’t understand why you’re so triggered by my opinion? I doubt SI will react on a basis of a single complaint so your scoring strikers will be fine, I’m sure.

Edited November 27, 2021 by sdx15

[Metal]

18 minutes ago, sdx15 said:

That’s not always the case. And that’s not what I complained about. My main striker could score a few goals less and still be the team’s top scorer.

 

I didn’t see people agreeing with me so I don’t understand why you’re so triggered by my opinion? I doubt SI will react on a basis of a single complaint so your scoring strikers will be fine, I’m sure.

 

Not triggered more bemused regarding your compliment as there has been many of a similar sentiment where many folks like you are moaning about headers and strikers scoring, I have to wonder if they know that this is a football sim where teams score goals from headers, corners and strikers

[Toshevbgg]

3 hours ago, Metal said:

 

Not triggered more bemused regarding your compliment as there has been many of a similar sentiment where many folks like you are moaning about headers and strikers scoring, I have to wonder if they know that this is a football sim where teams score goals from headers, corners and strikers

We are all speaking the truth here apart from you. Sigames themselves have said it is a KNOWN ISSUE a lot of crossing and that AML and AMR do not play properly and do not cut inside no matter what u say to them.. 

But here you try to be funny about fundamental problem with the ME 

[Metal]

1 hour ago, Toshevbgg said:

We are all speaking the truth here apart from you. Sigames themselves have said it is a KNOWN ISSUE a lot of crossing and that AML and AMR do not play properly and do not cut inside no matter what u say to them.. 

But here you try to be funny about fundamental problem with the ME 

 

Not trying to be funny, but people are going OTT with their complaints. Yes I know crossing is excessive and the wingers are a problem, it's something I've bought up myself from when the beta was released especially in regards to players lack of dribbling past players.

But we have got someone here complaining that their striker is scoring too many goals and people complaining that players can head the ball. I mean seriously?!

Yes corner goals can be toned down, as well as crossing but the way some people go on I even heard a poster say it's game breaking even though there is a large amount of play that goes through the middle of the park. I'd rather have a bit more crossing o be honest  than having wingers who refuse to cross and instead shoot from impossible angles like in previous fms

And I'd rather have op strikers than rudderless ones that always miss the target or are invisible during the highlights

If SI end up nerfing the crossing. the strikers and headers and we go back to wingers shooting from the byline then I don't want to hear anyone here crying about it because it seems some of you want to go back to those days where only looping long balls from the defenders through to the attacker can get you goals or wingers cutting inside to shoot from ridiculous angles to score instead of squaring it to the striker

This reminds me of when the community banded together to complaint about there being too many injuries as if injury crisis's didn't happen irl. Now we are at the point where only small injuries occur and a long term injury is an anomaly so now injuries are 80% to real life when it should be 100% because people complaining about something which is organic. 

Edited November 28, 2021 by Metal