30 Shots On Target Per Game - 0 Goals

[scottya86]

Hi guys, first post on here so be gentle

I am playing a game with Man Utd, playing a 4-1-2-1-2 Diamond Formation, every game i have at least 60% possession and 30 shots on target but hardly ever scoring!

I have tried different variations of RVP, Rooney and Falcao up front but none of them seem to get goals, my top scorer is Januzaj who's been playing AM for me!

I am sitting 7th in the league in december so i'm starting to get a bit pressure on me from the fans etc!

Is there any way to get your strikers scoring more goals

This is my usual team;

GK - Sweeper Keeper - De

RB - CWB Attack - Clyne

CB - CD Defend - Jones

CB - CD Defend - Balanta

LB - CWB Attack - Shaw

DM - Half Back Defend - Blind

CM - Roaming Playmaker Support - Di Maria

CM - Centre Mid Support - Herrera / Romero

AM - Attacking Mid Attack - Januzaj / Mata

CF - F9 - RVP / Rooney

CF - Advanced Forward - Falcao

any help is much appreciated guys

[DamianJMcGrath]

What is your team instructions - i.e., Attacking/Flexible?

To me (and I struggle a lot understanding tactics), the team looks decent. The wingbacks are very attacking but the half-back should provide defensive cover. I guess there could be a problem with a big gap between defence and midfield because the half back might be far back, and the central midfielders are on support duty, so they may be quite far advanced. I don't know much about the F9 role, but is there a risk Rooney would drop back slightly and into the same positions as your AMC?

The tactic looks attacking enough - the CWB's should provide crosses and passes for Falcao, and there are runners from deep with the AMC and F9, and Di Maria and Herrera should be good enough to provide midfield assists. If anything, I'd think your problem would be conceding too many in high scoring games.

It's issues like this that cause me a lot of confusion, because I wouldn't know how to fix the issue.

[scottya86]

What is your team instructions - i.e., Attacking/Flexible?

To me (and I struggle a lot understanding tactics), the team looks decent. The wingbacks are very attacking but the half-back should provide defensive cover. I guess there could be a problem with a big gap between defence and midfield because the half back might be far back, and the central midfielders are on support duty, so they may be quite far advanced. I don't know much about the F9 role, but is there a risk Rooney would drop back slightly and into the same positions as your AMC?

The tactic looks attacking enough - the CWB's should provide crosses and passes for Falcao, and there are runners from deep with the AMC and F9, and Di Maria and Herrera should be good enough to provide midfield assists. If anything, I'd think your problem would be conceding too many in high scoring games.

It's issues like this that cause me a lot of confusion, because I wouldn't know how to fix the issue.

Control and Flexible is my instructions... I can't remember all my team instructions at the moment as I'm not on my laptop with the game open.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

I don't think there is strictly too much wrong with the formation and roles.

Rather, you need to identify where the shots are coming from. 30 shots on target that are tame and from outside the box are not as good as 30 open goal shots being saved/blocked on the line. What are the quality of the shots? Under pressure? From range? Shooting through a sea of bodies?

Are you dominating? Is that the problem? By that I mean, are you pushing the opposition back so much that all they can do is camp in their box and park the bus? If so, you might want to ease off the gas, pull the squad back a bit. One of the more successful styles as a big team is a counter attacking strategy because it drops deep and forces the opposition to come out, meaning you get more space to operate in and thus, more time to put the chances away. That isn't a guarantee though, you need to identify why those shots aren't going in and the type, otherwise we'll be suggesting role changes that might only work as a one off.

[Cleon]

The fact that you have 30 shots a game tells us so much. It means you are very aggressive and will be shooting from all types of ranges and angles. This then tells us that the shot types are very poor.

So what you need to do is use the analysis tab and see the types of shots you are having and see if its the same players having them all the time. It's more than likely the shots are coming from a lack of realistic passing options available. Then you need to sort this out. I'm 10000% sure this is the case without even looking at one of your games.

[RTHerringbone]

I would love to see a few screenshots of 30 on target shots a match. You'd need to regularly take 50/60 shots per match to get that many on target.

[Cleon]

I would love to see a few screenshots of 30 on target shots a match. You'd need to regularly take 50/60 shots per match to get that many on target.

I'm hoping that's an error and he meant 30 a game.

[Burnsey85]

I'm not going to be much help here as I'm still getting used to the tactics myself, but I played a similar formation in my first season as Man Utd apart from I changed Falcao from an AF to a poacher around January and although he was scoring a decent amount before that, he was unreal as a poacher. Especially with Rooney in the F9 role. Shame I couldn't keep him at the end of the season, and I've never really replaced him.

[Jops14]

I play this formation all the time and have found a similiar problem, my team is:

GK: Rulli

FB(A): Danilo

CB: Balanta

CB: Umtiti

CWB: Shaw

DM (Anchor) : Amartey

BBM: Goretzka

DLP(D): Ward-Prowse

T: Roberts/Mastour

CF(S): Regen

ADV (A) Messi

Now i've experimented a lot with the striker roles over the seasons, the biggest problem i've found is midfielders and strikers taking a lot of shots from distance, which is why you get so many shots, they opposition tends to pack the edge of the area leaving no space, and so your players just shoot. Defensively you largely have the roles spot on, the wingbacks should be providing you a lot of chances, where I believe yours is failing is the CM roles and the AM role.

Basically from what it looks like is the only attacker you have is the wing backs and falcao, the Attacking Midfielder will likely play too central and therefore not crate much movement or chances, and the midfielders aren't providing enough options in attack (a BBM tends to get further forward).

I would try dropping the F9 for a DLF in support mode, the false 9 drops much much deeper and in my experience often gets lost in the game, and an attacking midfielder will drop deeper. the AMC then needs to be changes to a Trequartista or a Shadow Striker, essentially they will then provide a lot of side to side movement and run past the strikers, giving you an extra scoring option.

See if those changes make a difference, i've found I still dominate a lot with a lot of shots, but they are better at taking chances now. I dropped the F( as even with messi, just wasn't impacting the game

[Thunda]

Also, take a look at the number of team instructions you're setting. Sometimes, you can have far too many (or tweak too many in-game). For instance, playing Control but upping the Closing Down, Def Line, Passing length for example - can nearly make your Control(led) game an Attacking game.

Football, as someone once said, is a simple game. Tell the team to play Control / Flexible and let them get on with it.

[Jambo98]

Like others, I will assume the 30 on target per game is a typo and you mean 30 shots total.

One thing that immediately strikes me - Where is your movement in the final third? Who is arriving in the box or running in behind? The width comes from CWB, which although they get forward, are unlikely to get into the 18 yard box. Your 2 centre mids are not likely to get beyond the play. You AM in theory is the one man who might, but he is running into an area where there are already 2 strikers. You need to create space, movement in the final third. Thats what gives the passing options which prevent the long shots.

First and foremost, stop and think about what you wanted to achieve when you built your tactic. What was your vision of how you would hurt the opposition and score goals? What was your supply line to your 2 strikers?

There are a number of options to change things around. But assuming your formation is the one you want to keep, you could look at:

Setting one of your strikers to Treq or Complete forward (this very much needs the right player, but you should have some at your disposal). Both these roles should create more lateral movement in the final third (working off memory on the CF - you might need to manuall set "roam from position" and/or "moves into channels" and maybe "run wide with the ball"). This lateral movement might give more changes for your AM to get into spaces.

Setting your AM to a support duty and one of your CM to an attack duty - Again this might create more movement between the lines. The attacking CM will get into the box, and again its about providing a passing option to prevent the long shot. From what you say, there is no issue with you getting enough of the ball, but final third passing options are where you fall short.

Those are suggestions without fully knowing the problem - Defo think about (and maybe even write down here, to help clarify the thinking in your own mind) the things your tactic sets out to do, and how. Then also watch some game clips (or use the analysis as suggested by Cleon). As Cleon also says, its almost certain that a number of the long shots will be because of lack of passing options. So pause the game at the moment the long shot is take, and look at the positioning of the players on your team not in possesion. Ask yourself what you could change to make them get into better positions to recieve the pass, or perhaps a TI you might change to give them more time to get into position.

Hope some of that helps.

[m.u.f.c 1878]

I'm United on my save, playing the 41221 diamond, with success and lots of goals.Without looking, I'm around 28 games in with 1 st and 2nd league top scorers.

I'm lining up like this as my base tactic, but different team instructions for different occasions/opponents.

Sweeper gk

Wbl a

Dc d

Dc d

Wbr a

Anc d

B2b s

Rp s

Ap a

Dlf a

Cf s

The movement and creation with the front 3 is superb.One game v city this season(3 rd season)I had 11 ccc.

[scottya86]

Thanks for response guys! I did mean shots and not shots on target! I have swapped the centre mid to a box to box, the attacking mid to a trequartista and false 9 to a deep lying forward and I'm getting better results now, upto 4th and 2 points off second 24 games into the season, cheers !!

[pl3rious]

i can feel you bruh

[Cleon]

It's clear you have issues as only 11 are on target, its poor tactics. Look at all those long ranged shots from 20 yards out, 32 I think I can count.

Anyone can create that many shots if they really wanted to but its pointless, you could have 500 and realistically you aren't causing the opposition that many issues if all are from that kind of range. You may aswell create 4 good chances instead tbh.

[pl3rious]

nothing wrong with my tactic, the opponent just parking their buss between near post and far post

[macca72]

Out of interest, how did you get on vs Arsenal, Liverpool & Chelsea?

Just curious as you have quite a blunt force approach.

[bababooey]

A better way of looking at things is CCC's vs goals scored. Shots in general don't always speak on the quality of your strikers or their chances. If anything an insanely high number of shots means you're problem is that you're too aggressive and shooting from bad spots. As others have said.

So if you were getting like 10 CCC's a game and missing them all then there would be an issue. But even IRL plenty of CCC's are missed. Look at Southampton v Man United yesterday. Southampton were the better team, but they missed some key chances. United didn't, and won.

[jumbohotdog]

Out of interest, how did you get on vs Arsenal, Liverpool & Chelsea?

Just curious as you have quite a blunt force approach.

He has not faced them yet

[macca72]

He has not faced them yet

I has assumed that by the time I had responded he would be through a couple more games

[Cleon]

A better way of looking at things is CCC's vs goals scored.

No, no it's really not. CCC's in FM aren't that clear cut in all honesty. CCC's aren't always easy chances due to how the calculations under the hood work.

nothing wrong with my tactic, the opponent just parking their buss between near post and far post

43 shots only 11 on target and only win 2-0? You're wasteful and not very good at breaking sides down, that's clear from the stats alone. Your making do now but you wait until 2nd season hits if you keep this form up when you aren't as successful

[pl3rious]

Out of interest, how did you get on vs Arsenal, Liverpool & Chelsea?

Just curious as you have quite a blunt force approach.

cheers bruh

not using brute blunt force at all

[pl3rious]

43 shots only 11 on target and only win 2-0? You're wasteful and not very good at breaking sides down, that's clear from the stats alone. Your making do now but you wait until 2nd season hits if you keep this form up when you aren't as successful

i disable transfer and tottenham have only 3 natural striker(my formation use 3 striker). i must train townsend, lennon, and lamela to be a striker

i apologize if my tactic is too weak for you

[Jambo98]

A better way of looking at things is CCC's vs goals scored. Shots in general don't always speak on the quality of your strikers or their chances. If anything an insanely high number of shots means you're problem is that you're too aggressive and shooting from bad spots. As others have said.

So if you were getting like 10 CCC's a game and missing them all then there would be an issue. But even IRL plenty of CCC's are missed. Look at Southampton v Man United yesterday. Southampton were the better team, but they missed some key chances. United didn't, and won.

Understand your point, but i would strongly urge no one to judge there tactic or system on "CCC" within the game. IT is entirely flawed, and has been for a couple of years. Watch some games in detail, and recoil in horror when you see some of the actual in game events which are, and are not, classed as "CCC" in the stats.

Its unfortunate, and more than a little annoying, that you cant overly rely on this analysis/stat, but really you need to watch your games and your tactic in action to judge whether it is creating suitable chances.