[IF/IW not cutting inside when they have the chance to do it]

On 03/03/2023 at 21:23, kertiek said:

any change with the last update?

It's slightly better but players (not just wingers) are generally still far too reticent to take a man on directly.

You see far too few progressive carries by defenders and midfielders in buildup for the same reason.

[Unrealistic pass completion rate in lower leagues - the death of direct game.]

On 07/02/2022 at 21:27, TheArsenal63 said:

This whole issue isn't limited to passing. There is a huge problem with the discrepancy in players ability and their suitability for a certain style of play.

The problem is that it is nearly non-existent, the game is far too tactics driven and players (apart from goal scoring maybe) don't make enough of a difference to styles.

If i have a team of players with passing of 5 to 8 and I ask them to play tiki taka, they should TRY but it should be obvious in the game that you just don't have the players for it.

I don't think this is a short term fix but for the next FM, players stats need to start mattering more in this game.

You can play the short passing game in league because the engine is not weighted enough towards stat checks for players. I'm seeing players with extremely low vision and passing play line breaking passes CONSTANTLY and CONSISTENTLY.

It's all linked to player stats and their impact on the engine.

This is definitely part of it, but some of it is likely also tied to the bizarre risk evaluation behaviour of players in their own defensive third.

You will regularly see - and frankly this is kind of terrifying to me - players pass the ball back to their own GK in their own box with opposing players everywhere around them. I frequently see backpasses to the GK right after corners with 5-6 opposing players still in the box. At the same time, however, getting CBs to hit long diagonals - even with the right role and the right PPMs - is incredibly difficult.

Something is fundamentally off with respect to which passes players think are on or not.

[Wingers are not stayin wide (just as they did'nt in FM21)]

This is, as other posters have already alluded to, not a new issue. It has - unless my memory fails me completely - been present in every edition of FM since at least 2018, and frankly probably longer. I know for sure that I have been involved in discussion about this issue on the bug forums in every recent edition of FM.

It is, however, a fairly sneaky issue to detect unless you look directly at what is happening during the finishing stages of attacking moves. Pass maps actively lie to you and mask the issue - let's take a look at an illustrative pair of examples.

In this image, nr. 7 is playing as an IF-A with "Sit Narrower" and the "Cuts Inside" PPM. His narrow, advanced positioning is not a surprise - this is basically where an IF-A should be.

In this image, nr 12 is playing as a W-S and has the "Hugs Line" PPM. He's visibly deeper and wider than the IF-A from before, so things should be okay, right?

No. Unfortunately not. Let's take a look at their positions at the end of attacking moves.

This is from the first match. A midfielder is driving into the attacking 3rd with the ball, and the IF-A is roughly where he should be - centrally and ready to attack the box.

This is from the second match. Now we see the problem. The W-S - who additionally has the "Hugs Line" PPM - is... sitting in the left half-space? Note that the FB is not on an aggressive role that inherently pushes the winger inside - he's just a simple FB-S. The winger should be sitting far wider than the box and stretching play, but instead he's positioned like I've told him to play IF-S or IF-A! This happens with every wide role in the AM strata and has happened in every FM edition in recent memory!

I've uploaded PKMs of both matches for you guys to dissect - but honestly you can just open any PKM of a match from the last 2+ years and you will find this exact issue in every. single. one. Wide players in the AM strata explicitly behave like wide forwards off the ball, regardless of role, duty, instructions, or PPMs, as soon as the ball enters the attacking 3rd.

Juventus v Paris Saint-Germain.pkm Juventus v Palmeiras.pkm

[AI Possession massive]

Wow, that last pass map is excellent, and completely encapsulates my issue with how CBs currently behave. There's literally not a single ball into the opponent's 3rd from their own half in all 271 passes - something that should be happening quite regularly with most modern ball-playing CBs.

[AI Possession massive]

As can be gleaned from other posts in this thread, the core of this issue seems to be the decisionmaking by - and lack of pressure on - centerbacks, who are far too conservative with the ball and complete far too many of their passes.

The attached .pkm is an excellent example - 300-odd passes by Atalanta's CBs, and every CB on both teams has a passing completion percentage well over 95%. This is despite the presence of Bonucci on the Juve team, who has the "Tries Long Passes" PPM, fantastic passing ability, and is encouraged to hit speculative passes into space by the "Pass Into Space" TI. There is simply not a snowball's chance in Hell he should be completing 100% of his passes and making 0 key passes in any game.

Likewise the Atalanta CBs should not have 300 passes between them when Juve's players are explicitly instructed to press them aggressively, and instructed to prevent short distribution by the Atalanta GK.

Atalanta v Juventus.pkm

[AI Possession far too high]

This is a serious issue, and one I can support with just about as many PKMs as you need. It's particularly bad with teams that play with 3 at the back.

A quick look at the stats from this match shows Atalanta completing almost 700 passes. Of those, almost 300 were made by the CBs, with Palomino and Demiral making respectively 93 and 111 passes each at 100% accuracy, and Toloi making 78 passes with 97% accuracy. And this, for the record, is despite telling my team to press these CBs at every opportunity and prevent short distribution for most of the match.

Needless to say these are completely preposterous numbers, particularly since Atalanta lost the match 4-0 and the CBs should therefore at some point have started making more adventurous passes rather than conservatively playing keep-away. The numbers from my own CBs are much more reasonable - roughly on par with my midfielders - although their completion percentages are also much, much, much too high.

Given that Bonucci has 17 vision, was played in the BPD role, has the "Tries Long Passes" PPM, and "Play Out of Defence" was not used, yet completed 100% of his passes and failed to register a single key pass, I suspect that the root issue here is incredibly conservative decision-making by CBs on the ball.

Atalanta v Juventus.pkm