Goalmouth action...or lack there of

[bothered]

Watching the highlights and looking at the match stats of my games i'm having a heck of a lot of long shots and i know a reason for this can be lack of movement and passing options but some of it seems baffling to me when players shoot rather than taking the ball into the box.

I was looking at this problem using Barcelona so i'd be able to tell if it was a lack of good players or not so with a front 3 of Henry, Messi & Eto'o i dont think it can be blamed on that so i'm not sure what it is, apart from my tactics but i still get a good number of CCC's a game too.

I just want to see if i can get rid of those annoying situations when a player gets the ball on the edge of the box and then decides to shoot rather than take the ball into the area.

All ideas, comments & solutions are welcome.

[Lyssien]

Some things you can try:

1) Make rare use of long shots for all your attacking players or at least those who seem to shoot long more often than you 'd like to.

2) Lower Creative Freedom. Players with high CF shoot long too often, I find. As an alternative, take off long shots for players with high CF.

3) This is the advanced one. If your players are to look for the pass, they need to have options. Do they? Team width, passing length and fellow players positioning on the field (not the attribute, their location) is key for this. But this is very tactics oriented, so it's hard to give advice without knowing what your tactics is.

[AmA Deo]

Some things you can try:

1) Make rare use of long shots for all your attacking players or at least those who seem to shoot long more often than you 'd like to.

2) Lower Creative Freedom. Players with high CF shoot long too often, I find. As an alternative, take off long shots for players with high CF.

In my game I have also had the problem with alot of long shots. All of my players have 7-8 in Creative Freedom. Nine of them have Long Shots on Rarely while two of them have set it on Mixed. I have tried different kinds of passing styles, but every time my players seem to make a long shot! It's annoying, and I don't know if I can do anything else to prevent them...

[boywonder9]

I think what FM defines a long shot as and what it would be considered in real life are quite different. Players shooting from distance when they appear to be in free are generally shooting from 18-25 yards. I'm guessing that isn't a long shot, because even when my forwards have long shots at rarely they still attempt from that range all the time. This is also affected by any preferred moves forwards might have. Players that like to place shots into corners or dribble keeper go deeper into box. Players that like to blast it shoot from further.

[bothered]

Yeah...my thinking was to ask for general ideas so i know what to look for rather than handouts so i can try and work it out for myself. Thats why i didnt go too give too much away with my tactics.

I do have Width on the first notch of "Wide" and Passing the first notch of "Short". I'm thinking that might be a problem for a few things because my formation is quite narrow in shape. Its a 4-1-2-3. The three forwards play next to each other and the main width comes from the fullbacks. The DM looks after the defense whilst the FB's bomb on and the 2 CM's create and have FWR mixed so they're there to pick up the pieces.

I have everyone on rare long shots but i do have high Creative Freedom on the 2 outer forwards so i'll check that out too.

[bothered]

I think what FM defines a long shot as and what it would be considered in real life are quite different. Players shooting from distance when they appear to be in free are generally shooting from 18-25 yards. I'm guessing that isn't a long shot, because even when my forwards have long shots at rarely they still attempt from that range all the time. This is also affected by any preferred moves forwards might have. Players that like to place shots into corners or dribble keeper go deeper into box. Players that like to blast it shoot from further.

I'm thinking PPM's are an option for this problem and i'm going to look into that. Its just they seem to stop on the 18 yard line and shooting rather than going into the box.