Boring, Boring Crossing Manager Simulator

[shadowraiden90]

as enigmatic pointed out what Opta counts as crosses is not the same as football manager. 

FM also includes corners, you then go by Opta's stats of last season in the premiership according to premiership website https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/total_cross?se=54  southampton did 947 crosses accross 38 games which is roughly 24 crosses a game. you then have 2 teams your looking at 50ish crosses a match most likely.

you then take into account the premiership stats do not include corners unlike FM's stats do so if we add roughly 5 corners which is a pretty low average thats 30ish crosses per game which is in line with the games averages.

 

obviously the game can become bit skewed with how some AI teams may operate due to the influence you playing may have which leads to overall an extremely close to real life numbers amount of crossing essentially mooting the whole point of "ME has way more crosses than real life"

[tkg]

Are all of your 34 crosses per game actual crosses or crosses as defined by FM?

This season (IRL) the average number of crosses per game, in the premier league, is 19... but you can't stop there. You have to factor in the 5.3 corners and 10.4 free kicks per game too. When you include those values you quickly get beyond an average value of over 30 crosses per game (which is the average for the ME according to my findings so far).

One other thing to consider is the widely known issue of crosses that are being fumbled/brought over the line by the keeper. These resulting corners are almost all going to be counted as crosses too. Once that bug can be rectified you'll likely see a reduction in the number of crosses per match (assuming no other changes impact it of course).

Your choice of viewing mode (key,extended,comprehensive)  could even play a factor in your perception of how frequent crosses are compared to other in-game events. For example, I like to know how my team is playing out from the back but even on comprehensive i'm unlikely to see >50% of my keeper's initial passes. It's normally only if that event leads into another event, that the game deems more significant, that i'll actually see them. 

[upthetoon]

I don' ttink there' s any issue with crossing. In premier league matches you see plenty of crosses in the game. Atleast 20-30 per game.. And only about 5-10% lands in the box. 

[tkg]

3 minutes ago, upthetoon said:

I don' ttink there' s any issue with crossing. In premier league matches you see plenty of crosses in the game. Atleast 20-30 per game.. And only about 5-10% lands in the box. 

The accuracy values for the premier league are closer to 20-25%  

I'd say there are some issues with crossing at the moment, accuracy being one of them (since it's sitting at around 10% in the ME), but I'm not convinced there are too many crosses. 

The OP also raised concerns that the proportion of  goals as a result of crosses is too large. From his stats he scored 35.7% of his goals from crosses and conceded 27.9% as a result of them.

The current assist rate for the premier league from crosses is 34%.

So we have approximately the right number of crosses and right number of cross assists...but less than 1/2 the expected accuracy and a couple of really annoying bugs. Potentially a sticky situation for the developers as they might fix the bugs and open themselves up to a chorus of people complaining that crosses are too effective again, a sentiment they've likely grown very used to the last couple of years. The joys of game balance!

 

 

[Dave1990]

1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

But then, as pointed out, the gap is a lot smaller than you've suggested because SI considers corners and set piece to be crosses. (Not sure about pullbacks from inside the penalty area; OPTA doesn't count them as crosses though)

La Liga average crosses per game is about 37ish which is low by top 5 league standards, plus about 10 corners, plus a handful of crossed set pieces, maybe plus pullbacks too. So around 50ish crosses between the two teams playing.

Divide by a number less than two (because I bet you usually have the most possession by a fair margin) and you'd probably expect about 30 crosses (by SI definition) per game which really isn't anywhere near as different from the raw numbers as what you're suggesting...

 

I built a very dominant FM17 team that managed around 20 crosses per match including several corners. Though funnily enough, the teams I built that scored goals from crosses were a lot more attractive to watch...

 

I don't know what data you have seen, from those I could see the Liga teams have an average of around 19 crosses per game. with a minimum of 11 (Barcelona, which plays very centrally and almost never exploits crosses) and a maximum of 27 (Real Madrid, a very offensive team that constantly exploits the flanks and full-backs overlapping). That's why I expect FM to be closer to that IRL data.

With a 4-3-3 on FM17 that wanted to resume an offensive style of play like Real (wing back and IF in the right, complete wing back and winger in the left) I had an average of about 50 crosses per game, practically more than one cross every two minutes and almost twice Real's crosses attempts in reality. This I consider like a real crosses bombardment, which among other things is easy to reproduce. 

Then I agree with you when you say that some goals scored from crosses are beautiful to see. But I also saw goals from crosses that went against the laws of physics, with four first touches long passes all on the fly including the cross, a voleé and goal. This I would prefer not to see it anymore.

[shadowraiden90]

10 minutes ago, Dave1990 said:

I don't know what data you have seen, from those I could see the Liga teams have an average of around 19 crosses per game. with a minimum of 11 (Barcelona, which plays very centrally and almost never exploits crosses) and a maximum of 27 (Real Madrid, a very offensive team that constantly exploits the flanks and full-backs overlapping). That's why I expect FM to be closer to that IRL data.

With a 4-3-3 on FM17 that wanted to resume an offensive style of play like Real (wing back and IF in the right, complete wing back and winger in the left) I had an average of about 50 crosses per game, practically more than one cross every two minutes and almost twice Real's crosses attempts in reality. This I consider like a real crosses bombardment, which among other things is easy to reproduce. 

Then I agree with you when you say that some goals scored from crosses are beautiful to see. But I also saw goals from crosses that went against the laws of physics, with four first touches long passes all on the fly including the cross, a voleé and goal. This I would prefer not to see it anymore.

but your comparing your specific tactic stats setup to abuse crosses etc to real life where no such thing exists.

 

people have given you the data to argue their points i for one did so showcasing that in fact if you do include freekicks from wide + corners you in fact are below the average IRL stats.

you need to look at it from a whole game perspective not just your specific setup to break the game.

[Dave1990]

1 hour ago, tkg said:

The accuracy values for the premier league are closer to 20-25%  

I'd say there are some issues with crossing at the moment, accuracy being one of them (since it's sitting at around 10% in the ME), but I'm not convinced there are too many crosses. 

The OP also raised concerns that the proportion of  goals as a result of crosses is too large. From his stats he scored 35.7% of his goals from crosses and conceded 27.9% as a result of them.

The current assist rate for the premier league from crosses is 34%.

So we have approximately the right number of crosses and right number of cross assists...but less than 1/2 the expected accuracy and a couple of really annoying bugs. Potentially a sticky situation for the developers as they might fix the bugs and open themselves up to a chorus of people complaining that crosses are too effective again, a sentiment they've likely grown very used to the last couple of years. The joys of game balance!

 

 

You've centered on the point, finally. The problem is not directly connected to the percentage of goals scored from cross (which is slightly higher but acceptable) but the fact that the goals scored from cross in relation to the cross attempts aren't unrealistic. This is because, as I say last year, SI has intervened in the probably easier way. What do we do for the many crosses issue? We lower the total number (harder to do) or we try to reduce the percentage of completed crosses (much easier). They chose the second way, but they didn't only have an unrealistic result (too many crosses), but two (too many crosses with a too low percentage). I hoped in the first way, unfortunately it didn't happen.

 

18 minutes ago, shadowraiden90 said:

but your comparing your specific tactic stats setup to abuse crosses etc to real life where no such thing exists.

 

people have given you the data to argue their points i for one did so showcasing that in fact if you do include freekicks from wide + corners you in fact are below the average IRL stats.

you need to look at it from a whole game perspective not just your specific setup to break the game.

But do you really think that by setting up a tactic with two offensive fullbacks and the "look for overlap", am I trying to break the game? This happens in reality, but it doesn't seem to me that any team abuses the cross as it happens in the game.

If I wanted to break the game and exploit its weaknesses I would play with a strikerless tactic or with three strikers, those are the attempts to break the game.

[Mikke]

41 minutes ago, Dave1990 said:

You've centered on the point, finally. The problem is not directly connected to the percentage of goals scored from cross (which is slightly higher but acceptable) but the fact that the goals scored from cross in relation to the cross attempts aren't unrealistic. This is because, as I say last year, SI has intervened in the probably easier way. What do we do for the many crosses issue? We lower the total number (harder to do) or we try to reduce the percentage of completed crosses (much easier). They chose the second way, but they didn't only have an unrealistic result (too many crosses), but two (too many crosses with a too low percentage). I hoped in the first way, unfortunately it didn't happen.

 

You are still missing the point: there is no problem with the total amount of crosses. This has already been said many times, but please understand that FM counts corners and some free kicks into crosses, and that makes the amount of crosses seem like it would be too high.

If corners are not counted into crosses, my team nowadays has less than 20 cross attempts per match.

[Mitja]

don't know for 18 but on fm17 there are many games with 80+ crosses.  AI vs AI. the % of completed crosses is about 10%, which is way off.

I wonder if stats were actually more acurate on fm16?  

[tkg]

Bear in mind that I specifically said I don't think there are too many crosses  

The system is far too complicated and inter-connected to just dial down one thing and not expect other unintended knock on effects etc.

The cross accuracy is off, but as we've seen from the data the expected assist rate is roughly correct. What do we think would happen if the accuracy levels of crosses doubled, bringing it roughly in line with real life? My suspicion is way too many cross assists. That implies to me that there are other issues that would need to be improved upon at the same time. Perhaps defender positioning, changes to the ball's flight, increased difficulty in controlling a ball received at speed...etc. etc.

Barring a few issues i'd say crossing is in relatively good shape overall. The ability for weaker and more defensive sides to rack up exceptionally high pass counts is a little more concerning imo   

[Mitja]

I find it difficult to watch games without work into box ticked but it's true I preffer attacking mentalities. but then again we could argue that most top division teams irl try to work the ball into box. currently I think full backs  too easily find space for crossing and also they are not considering well enough when to cross. if this could be improved there would be less crosses and less corners too.  also ''first time crosses after first time 40 meter pass'' scenario is happening too often. ball control is way too good on 17, if there was a touch or two more to control the ball before crossing there would be less crosses too. more balls should get out of bounds too, like on fm16.

[Mitja]

also what I would love to see, is that players (especially FBs) should make far less forward runs once they get tired in second half. currently I think it's a little unrealistic for them to be able to run down the line for whole game. 

[Schotsmannetje]

What frustrated me about crossing in FM17 is how often crosses ended up at the first post and the goalie tapping it wide for a corner. 

[Dave1990]

3 hours ago, Mikke said:

You are still missing the point: there is no problem with the total amount of crosses. This has already been said many times, but please understand that FM counts corners and some free kicks into crosses, and that makes the amount of crosses seem like it would be too high.

If corners are not counted into crosses, my team nowadays has less than 20 cross attempts per match.

Exactly, but on the other hand FM doesn't consider how to cross those who in reality would be a low crosses. And yet, considering the crosses coming from corners, the number of crosses remains much higher than normal. 

Just look here: 

It is useless to justify many crosses only with the exploitation of the flanks. Because in reality, teams that take advantage of the flanks and attack for the entire match, they can at most make 35 crosses in a game (take a look at Italy - Sweden to believe it). With this game you can make a cross every minute and a half very easily, and all of this is ridiculous for the best football simulator.

 

1 hour ago, Schotsmannetje said:

What frustrated me about crossing in FM17 is how often crosses ended up at the first post and the goalie tapping it wide for a corner. 

It's the same for me, I see it on average once every three games, but apparently we play at another game than programmers...

[enigmatic]

8 hours ago, Dave1990 said:

I don't know what data you have seen, from those I could see the Liga teams have an average of around 19 crosses per game. with a minimum of 11 (Barcelona, which plays very centrally and almost never exploits crosses) and a maximum of 27 (Real Madrid, a very offensive team that constantly exploits the flanks and full-backs overlapping). That's why I expect FM to be closer to that IRL data.

With a 4-3-3 on FM17 that wanted to resume an offensive style of play like Real (wing back and IF in the right, complete wing back and winger in the left) I had an average of about 50 crosses per game, practically more than one cross every two minutes and almost twice Real's crosses attempts in reality. This I consider like a real crosses bombardment, which among other things is easy to reproduce. 

Then I agree with you when you say that some goals scored from crosses are beautiful to see. But I also saw goals from crosses that went against the laws of physics, with four first touches long passes all on the fly including the cross, a voleé and goal. This I would prefer not to see it anymore.

My stats are for the match, which is why I divided them by a number slightly below two on the assumption you'd have more than half the possession

But we can do it with individual team stats too. So Real average 27 crosses. Add at least six corners to that since FM counts corners in crossing stats, probably two or three indirect free kicks from wide areas for the same reason, and possibly a few pullbacks because I think FM counts them and OPTA doesn't and you're looking at total "cross" numbers in the high 30s which is the level you were complaining about. 

And if you put your players on "cross less", encouraged your wide players to dribble infield and exploited the centre Barcelona-style you'd be closer to 20 crosses per game, which when you've subtracted set pieces from that again isn't far from the value for the actual Barcelona.

Sure, you can get very high values if you try to play a much wider and more attacking game rather than aiming for the balance most teams manage. But that should be possible too: Man Utd put in 81 crosses in a real life game against a very defensive Fulham (and yes, that really did seem like they'd been instructed to get the ball wide and whip it in and were mocking Moyes by how literally they carried it out)

-

The physics defying ones should have bug reports though as they're a bigger issue than tactic specific raw numbers. That was the real issue with FM16 which kicked off the crossing debate: most of the crosses and player runs to meet the crosses were a little too perfect, and even the overhit crosses got volleyed in from acute angles at the far post. Once you realised just how much better your attackers were at timing their run onto perfectly dipping crosses than the opposition were at defending them, it was impossible not to decide design tactics to encourage more and more of them...

[akkm]

On 11/22/2017 at 15:23, tkg said:

The accuracy values for the premier league are closer to 20-25%  

I'd say there are some issues with crossing at the moment, accuracy being one of them (since it's sitting at around 10% in the ME), but I'm not convinced there are too many crosses. 

The OP also raised concerns that the proportion of  goals as a result of crosses is too large. From his stats he scored 35.7% of his goals from crosses and conceded 27.9% as a result of them.

The current assist rate for the premier league from crosses is 34%.

So we have approximately the right number of crosses and right number of cross assists...but less than 1/2 the expected accuracy and a couple of really annoying bugs. Potentially a sticky situation for the developers as they might fix the bugs and open themselves up to a chorus of people complaining that crosses are too effective again, a sentiment they've likely grown very used to the last couple of years. The joys of game balance!

 

 

Just for clarity here on the real world numbers...

The current assist rate from the premier league of 34%...does this include corners/free kicks...on Whoscored I had a quick check and got a number of 32% from premier league but this includes corners/free kicks ?

 

[Dave1990]

Another season, this time I choose West Ham and I decide to buy nobody. I conclude in seventh position in Premier League, I lose the Carabao Cup final against Watford on extra time while I win the FA Cup against Manchester United. But this doesn't interest us, we are interested in how this tactic behaved, deliberately built not to exploit the flanks and not to operate a cross bombardment:
 

 

And the goals data are these:

 

GOALS FOR

From crosses: 35 goals   34,3%
From corner (direct and indirect): 14 goals   13,7%
From free kick (direct and indirect): 5  goals  4,9%
From penetrative pass: 17 goals  16,6%
From normal pass: 11 goals  10,7%
From long shot: 8 goals  7,8%
From long pass: 2 goals  1,9%
From defensive mistake: 6  goals  5,8%
From penalty: 5 goals  4,9%

TOTAL: 102 GOALS

GOALS AGAINST

From crosses: 20 goals  32,2%
From corner (direct and indirect): 5 goals  8%
From free kick (direct and indirect): 11 goals   17,7%
From penetrative pass: 7 goals  11,2%
From normal pass: 2 goals    3,2%
From long shot: 3 goals   4,8%
From long pass: 9 goals  14,5%
From defensive mistake: 3 goals   4,8%
From penalty: 2 goals  3,2%

TOTAL: 62 GOALS
 

275/1629  crosses    31,9 crosses per game   16,8% of completed crosses

 

The difference between what has been defined as a tactic that operates a crossing bombardment and a tactic that doesn't want to abuse it is only of 5 crosses per game. Too little to justify the abundance of crosses just as a tactical problem...

One goal out of three comes from cross, and if you we add goals that come from set pieces, we get a number that gets almost 60%. In my opinion, it is too much, and this makes the game boring and repetitive.

I couldn't find trusted numbers on the percentage of crosses completed in reality, even this in my opinion is a problem to fix.

[Cougar2010]

3 minutes ago, Dave1990 said:

The difference between what has been defined as a tactic that operates a crossing bombardment and a tactic that doesn't want to abuse it is only of 5 crosses per game. Too little to justify the abundance of crosses just as a tactical problem...

One goal out of three comes from cross, and if you we add goals that come from set pieces, we get a number that gets almost 60%. In my opinion, it is too much, and this makes the game boring and repetitive.

I couldn't find trusted numbers on the percentage of crosses completed in reality, even this in my opinion is a problem to fix.

What about the opposition formations? opposition tactics?

Both of these play a part and as I've posted previously teams defend the middle particularly when up against stronger teams because its the most dangerous area.  This has a knock on effect of leaving more space out wide which then leads to crosses & goals.

In football assists come from three generic area - left, central & right.  Two of those three areas are wide with assists from those areas generally being crosses so you should expect a fair amount of crosses & goals from those areas whatever the tactic.

[Svenc]

Another thing to watch out for in general may be lateral movement/ support for advancing backs. Imo central midfielder on more recent releases "bunch" quite heavily. This is a situation where a back is "forced" into a cross as he has no other options, simply upon receiving the ball out on th left. This is naturally also influenced by tactics, but similar to FM 2013ish, were added long shots were taken in parts due to a lack of supporting movement, may influence too.

 

The reason why Alves FM 2012ish here can chose different at 0:20 sec is because he has support, after all.  Noto something I've specifically payed attention to yet, but may be worth watching.

 

 

[herne79]

On ‎21‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 19:11, Dave1990 said:

And then I often see crosses coming from inside the penalty area, that's why I don't rely on FM data, but only on my eyes.

So rather than telling us the FM data that one third of your goals come from crosses (or, to put it another way, two thirds of your goals do not come from crosses - think about that for a moment), what do your eyes tell you?

[Dave1990]

2 ore fa, Cougar2010 ha scritto:

What about the opposition formations? opposition tactics?

Both of these play a part and as I've posted previously teams defend the middle particularly when up against stronger teams because its the most dangerous area.  This has a knock on effect of leaving more space out wide which then leads to crosses & goals.

In football assists come from three generic area - left, central & right.  Two of those three areas are wide with assists from those areas generally being crosses so you should expect a fair amount of crosses & goals from those areas whatever the tactic.

Surely, but here I dont' mean: "crosses are bad, I don't want them." Here I try to say that crosses are too much, whether you try to exploit them, or whether you not try to abuse them. As I said before, ME hasn't changed for three years to this part and SI has only tried to "control" the result (i.e. the goals from crosses) rather than the cause (too many crosses). Reason for which you can largely abuse it by simply setting full-backs to attack (completely ignoring that attacking full-backs don't just have to cross but move around to free space, provide support, and if they find no teammates in the area they may decide to pass the ball back instead to crossing, while in the game 8 times out of 10 they crosses anyway).

51 minuti fa, herne79 ha scritto:

So rather than telling us the FM data that one third of your goals come from crosses (or, to put it another way, two thirds of your goals do not come from crosses - think about that for a moment), what do your eyes tell you?

I answer you that if one goal out of three arrives on cross action (excluding the crosses on set pieces) with a tactic created to not exploit them, and on the other hand is so also for goals against, all this is exaggerated. And it gets even more exaggerated when on a maneuvered action (excluding crosses) I score only a quarter of goals, and opponents even less than 15%. There are too many goals on crosses because there are too many crosses in general, and this type of goals combined with set-pieces goals are too frequent compared to reality.

[Dave1990]

1 ora fa, Svenc ha scritto:

 

The reason why Alves FM 2012ish here can chose different at 0:20 sec is because he has support, after all.  Noto something I've specifically payed attention to yet, but may be worth watching.

 

 

That precise situation on FM12 was much more realistic, but it seems we only notice it! : D

[enigmatic]

1 goals from 3 being from non set piece crosses is pretty much bang on the PL average for 2015/16.

If anything, it's your corner success rate that's anomalous.

 

[Mitja]

15 hours ago, Dave1990 said:

Surely, but here I dont' mean: "crosses are bad, I don't want them." Here I try to say that crosses are too much, whether you try to exploit them, or whether you not try to abuse them. As I said before, ME hasn't changed for three years to this part and SI has only tried to "control" the result (i.e. the goals from crosses) rather than the cause (too many crosses). Reason for which you can largely abuse it by simply setting full-backs to attack (completely ignoring that attacking full-backs don't just have to cross but move around to free space, provide support, and if they find no teammates in the area they may decide to pass the ball back instead to crossing, while in the game 8 times out of 10 they crosses anyway).

current trend in my league is that most teams started to use less aggresive full backs and their attacking roles are spread to more advanced positions.  wbd + wbs + explot flanks is now a standard tactical setup for most teams playing 4231, 4411 and 433 formations. then when in need of scoring only then they switch to attacking, wbs + wba combination.  I must say such football looks really fantastic..

[Dave1990]

13 ore fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

1 goals from 3 being from non set piece crosses is pretty much bang on the PL average for 2015/16.

If anything, it's your corner success rate that's anomalous.

 

Both things in my opinion are anomalous, how is unusual the number of goals against in situations of indirect free kicks, too many and almost all come from a random scrum. 

From data that I consulted, I noticed that in Serie A 2016/2017 season the team that scored more cross-action goals was Torino with 20 goals, 28% of the total goals. While the team in the top five European leagues that crossed more in a normal action was Inter with 940 crosses, far fewer than what we get in the game, and it's a team that in reality abuses of crosses with Candreva that he's a player who has more crosses per game than any other player in Europe.

[tkg]

I'm interested in knowing where you got that data from?

I'm looking at the Whoscored data for Serie A 16/17:

Torino scored 17 goals where a cross was registered as an assist. Their total assists were 54. This gives a 31.5% cross assist rate. This was 1% above league average.

The highest cross assist ratio belonged to Atalanta with 48% of assists being crosses.

Inter Milan attempted 1204 crosses, which equated to 31.7 crosses per match, which was well above the average of 20.4 for that league. That said.....don't forget that whoscored doesn't include corners/freekicks as crosses whilst Football Manager does.

Now I'm not saying your data is wrong and mine is right. At least not until you tell me where your stats come from so I can verify for myself

But what is important to remember is that different sources classify events differently, making direct comparison an inaccurate means of analysis. You have to adapt the data from one source to match the other. 

 

[themadsheep2001]

48 minutes ago, tkg said:

I'm interested in knowing where you got that data from?

I'm looking at the Whoscored data for Serie A 16/17:

Torino scored 17 goals where a cross was registered as an assist. Their total assists were 54. This gives a 31.5% cross assist rate. This was 1% above league average.

The highest cross assist ratio belonged to Atalanta with 48% of assists being crosses.

Inter Milan attempted 1204 crosses, which equated to 31.7 crosses per match, which was well above the average of 20.4 for that league. That said.....don't forget that whoscored doesn't include corners/freekicks as crosses whilst Football Manager does.

Now I'm not saying your data is wrong and mine is right. At least not until you tell me where your stats come from so I can verify for myself

But what is important to remember is that different sources classify events differently, making direct comparison an inaccurate means of analysis. You have to adapt the data from one source to match the other. 

 

Unless I'm mistaken, whoscored use OPTA as their standard. Makes that a good base to work from.

[Guest]

Whoscored was always my go to for statistical analysis, reliable data & easy to reference against FM data.

[upthetoon]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 00:15, Dave1990 said:

GOALS FOR

From crosses: 35 goals   34,3%
From corner (direct and indirect): 14 goals   13,7%
From free kick (direct and indirect): 5  goals  4,9%
From penetrative pass: 17 goals  16,6%
From normal pass: 11 goals  10,7%
From long shot: 8 goals  7,8%
From long pass: 2 goals  1,9%
From defensive mistake: 6  goals  5,8%
From penalty: 5 goals  4,9%

TOTAL: 102 GOALS

The difference between what has been defined as a tactic that operates a crossing bombardment and a tactic that doesn't want to abuse it is only of 5 crosses per game. Too little to justify the abundance of crosses just as a tactical problem...

One goal out of three comes from cross, and if you we add goals that come from set pieces, we get a number that gets almost 60%. In my opinion, it is too much, and this makes the game boring and repetitive.

I couldn't find trusted numbers on the percentage of crosses completed in reality, even this in my opinion is a problem to fix.

30%+- from crosses... isn't this perfectly realistic?? How many percentage goals from crosses are you expecting? 5%? 10%?

The only strange thing I notice is the number of goals you have scored from set piece...

[BlueAnderson]

The amount of crosses are fine, it’s accuracy. But there’s a deeper problem - defenders don’t defend (good) crosses too well on FM - so if they increased the accuracy - there would be an anomaly of cross goals. 

[Dave1990]

Il 1/12/2017 in 16:32 , tkg ha scritto:

I'm interested in knowing where you got that data from?

I'm looking at the Whoscored data for Serie A 16/17:

Torino scored 17 goals where a cross was registered as an assist. Their total assists were 54. This gives a 31.5% cross assist rate. This was 1% above league average.

The highest cross assist ratio belonged to Atalanta with 48% of assists being crosses.

Inter Milan attempted 1204 crosses, which equated to 31.7 crosses per match, which was well above the average of 20.4 for that league. That said.....don't forget that whoscored doesn't include corners/freekicks as crosses whilst Football Manager does.

Now I'm not saying your data is wrong and mine is right. At least not until you tell me where your stats come from so I can verify for myself

But what is important to remember is that different sources classify events differently, making direct comparison an inaccurate means of analysis. You have to adapt the data from one source to match the other. 

 

I'm not sure that whoscored doesn't consider the crosses coming from a corner, having not found something that confirm or deny this.

The data listed were taken from this article, which is based on OPTA data: http://www.sportmediaset.mediaset.it/calcio/seriea/serie-a-2016-2017-tutti-i-numeri-e-le-statistiche_1155412-201702a.shtml

These days I noticed this article about Candreva, where it is stated that the Inter's player is the one has attempted the highest number of crosses in Serie A, 165 to be exact, which become 11 per game. And Candreva almost entirely bases his game on crosses, the same thing that Inter does: http://www.goal.com/it/notizie/candreva-re-dei-cross-di-serie-a-precisione-non-eccelsa-ma/sb8dhmvj4nhy15iuv6gte31lt

But what happens if try I to set up a winger/at on FM?

I take for example a simple friendly match made by my friend with his fantasy team (we both play an online tournament) against Atletico Mineiro:

83 crosses, 64 if we don't consider the corners. 64 crosses of the same team in about 95 minutes make a cross every minute and a half, and if you consider ball possession of 51%, the percentage of crosses is totally out of control, an indecent stuff. All this because Acuna is set winger/at, from him arrive 26 crosses on action, 17 crosses also from Carvajal set FB/At.

Someone will say that everything is normal, which is a tactic created to deliberately exploit crosses and make a bombardment. But if it's enough to set a winger or a fullback to attack to see only crosses, I think it's not just a tactical problem. We have already seen that the most stubborn crosser of the Italian League and perhaps European doesn't reach 15 crosses per game, while in this game two players exceed this figure which is already very high. But if for someone it is normal that a tactic not focused on crosses make an average of 32 crosses per game (we do 25/26 considering the corners), I understand why no one tries to fix this problem correctly.

[Svenc]

4 hours ago, Dave1990 said:

But if for someone it is normal that a tactic not focused on crosses make an average of 32 crosses per game (we do 25/26 considering the corners), I understand why no one tries to fix this problem correctly.

It could be that or as hinted at, it's a current limitation you have to deal with some until some more rewrites and  / or it is isn't high up the list of priorities. It should be very high on the list if that hugely impacted the game's balance in a real bad way. For instance, if it would allow bad teams to easily score cheap goals off crosses all over (to simplify things slightly), in particular when all they do on the flanks is having a (mediocre) winger, who in typically defensive AI fashion sees no much support out wide, as the full back isn't encouraged to overlap, oft not even encouraged to push up to support midfield or the winger in front of his and rather stick back in the backline. E.g. sh*t wingers being inherently too powerful as they would be too easily allowed to pump a few crosses in. As it may rather relate to how FM models defending, which doesn't overly allow teams shifting over as units, and thus players getting isolated, it may be connected a few to that here. Which likely won't be an easy bug/positioning fix, but would require a long-term makeover of the entire defensive phase. Which is, you could bring it up time and time again, it won't be fixed until that makeover may transpire.

Stats are symptoms, not causes. I personally considered this far more serious on FM 17 for instance, as wide areas will never be as dangerous as central spaces, even on FM, which is never going to be a real match of football. This allowed stuff in-game that no cross on the flank will ever be able to do: Teams from two divisions below to "dominate" the pitch and let the superior side chase the ball like hapless puppies simply by having more players centrally. This also had a thread over multiple pages in the bugs section with numerous players reporting match play,  and analyzing it, rather than just stats. It thus was quickly demonstrated and, apparently acknoweldged by SI, to be a HIGH priority issue. I haven't seen any such threads connected to crosses yet, at best some collecting purely data. May be a decent way to start....   if numbers stick out hugely, it would be on the radar likely anyhow, as SI do soak tests collecting all kinds of data. They would also need to check whether their definition of a "cross" was actually in line with Opta too, btw. For various things it isn't, which also includes interceptions, and on older releasese even (blocked) shots.

[Dave1990]

13 ore fa, Svenc ha scritto:

It could be that or as hinted at, it's a current limitation you have to deal with some until some more rewrites and  / or it is isn't high up the list of priorities. It should be very high on the list if that hugely impacted the game's balance in a real bad way. For instance, if it would allow bad teams to easily score cheap goals off crosses all over (to simplify things slightly), in particular when all they do on the flanks is having a (mediocre) winger, who in typically defensive AI fashion sees no much support out wide, as the full back isn't encouraged to overlap, oft not even encouraged to push up to support midfield or the winger in front of his and rather stick back in the backline. E.g. sh*t wingers being inherently too powerful as they would be too easily allowed to pump a few crosses in. As it may rather relate to how FM models defending, which doesn't overly allow teams shifting over as units, and thus players getting isolated, it may be connected a few to that here. Which likely won't be an easy bug/positioning fix, but would require a long-term makeover of the entire defensive phase. Which is, you could bring it up time and time again, it won't be fixed until that makeover may transpire.

Stats are symptoms, not causes. I personally considered this far more serious on FM 17 for instance, as wide areas will never be as dangerous as central spaces, even on FM, which is never going to be a real match of football. This allowed stuff in-game that no cross on the flank will ever be able to do: Teams from two divisions below to "dominate" the pitch and let the superior side chase the ball like hapless puppies simply by having more players centrally. This also had a thread over multiple pages in the bugs section with numerous players reporting match play,  and analyzing it, rather than just stats. It thus was quickly demonstrated and, apparently acknoweldged by SI, to be a HIGH priority issue. I haven't seen any such threads connected to crosses yet, at best some collecting purely data. May be a decent way to start....   if numbers stick out hugely, it would be on the radar likely anyhow, as SI do soak tests collecting all kinds of data. They would also need to check whether their definition of a "cross" was actually in line with Opta too, btw. For various things it isn't, which also includes interceptions, and on older releasese even (blocked) shots.

I'm convinced that you are right, the problem is when SI ignores repeated reports.

Last year I reported a bug on individual closing down, which can be set doubly in the role of DM/de for example, beyond the fact that you can select individual closing down not selectable only changing the tactic team shape. This shouldn't exist in a tactical simulator done well, but unfortunately exists for 3 years and those who wasted time reporting the problem (me and others) was ignored. As well as markings on set-pieces, where instead of seeing a lost mark during the action we often see the player that not mark the direct opponent from before that the set-piece is kicked and ignore it completely.

Without going OT this is also referred to the crosses situation, which as you have already said to have a change needs a total restyling of the ME. That's why for my  point of view the match engine of FM 18 is almost identical to FM 17 that was almost identical to FM 16, leaving out the question of the screens that this year I just can't digest.

[Dave1990]

Yeah, the problem was just my tactic...... 

[themadsheep2001]

22 minutes ago, Dave1990 said:

Yeah, the problem was just my tactic...... 

You probably shouldnt pull @Cleon tweet off his twitter and out of context. If you're misrepresenting him, Cleon isn't one to take it lightly 

[Cleon]

13 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

You probably shouldnt pull @Cleon tweet off his twitter and out of context. If you're misrepresenting him, Cleon isn't one to take it lightly 

I am creating a tactic that focuses on through balls, or atleast that's the aim in a 3421. The tweet was in reference to that and it being far too many crosses for what I wanted. So definitely taken out of context. I also don't think 46 goals from crossing is a lot if I was on about crossing in general either bases on the other sources of goals and the shape I was using...............

[Dave1990]

I still think that in a tactic clearly built not to exploit the crosses (inverted full backs, there are no wingers) 46 goals directly from a cross are definitely too many, is equivalent to more than a goal in three. Also because if I wanted to build a tactic that deliberately exploit crosses, I easily get an abnormal number. 
 

[Cleon]

26 minutes ago, Dave1990 said:

I still think that in a tactic clearly built not to exploit the crosses (inverted full backs, there are no wingers) 46 goals directly from a cross are definitely too many, is equivalent to more than a goal in three. Also because if I wanted to build a tactic that deliberately exploit crosses, I easily get an abnormal number. 
 

I didn't use any of those roles and you know zero about what I was creating and how I was set up to play. Stop taking things out of context. You know nothing about the roles I use, I still use wingers. I didn't say I wanted to cut out crosses I said I wanted to focus on throughballs. That does not mean I want to abandon everything else and don't want crosses. Crosses will still be a part of the play, they just won't be the main focus of my style of play over time once I sort out the balance. But this will take time as I want to focus on the throughballs getting higher before I reduce crossing. Hence the tweet saying it was still too may goals from crosses as I'm still building for a style.

So please don't speak on my behalf to suit your agenda. 

[bleventozturk]

Just one thing I want to mention about the number of crosses: it caught my eye that Dave1990's team instructions above included 'whipped crosses'. Bear in mind that I am still playing FM 15, but I only recently noticed that when I pick 'whipped crosses' in an attempt to only change the type of crossing my team uses, this actually increases the number of crosses drastically. My conclusion was that I was misinterpreting what this TI does. Or maybe it was coincidence? I don't know. Any word on this from the tactical experts here?

 

[Dave1990]

16 ore fa, bleventozturk ha scritto:

Just one thing I want to mention about the number of crosses: it caught my eye that Dave1990's team instructions above included 'whipped crosses'. Bear in mind that I am still playing FM 15, but I only recently noticed that when I pick 'whipped crosses' in an attempt to only change the type of crossing my team uses, this actually increases the number of crosses drastically. My conclusion was that I was misinterpreting what this TI does. Or maybe it was coincidence? I don't know. Any word on this from the tactical experts here?

 

In fact, as you said it should simply be about the types of crosses, if the crosses increases only because you insert the indication "whipped crosses" means that there is a problem.

[herne79]

On ‎20‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 17:56, herne79 said:

If, on the other hand, anybody has conducted hard and fast soak tests over multiple saves and seasons that can demonstrate the number of crosses attempted/made is way over the top compared to real life, the best thing to do is open a report in the bugs forum with all the data and let SI take a look.

How are you getting on with that @Dave1990?

[Dave1990]

1 ora fa, herne79 ha scritto:

How are you getting on with that @Dave1990?

After reporting several bugs last year (the one on the corners with a man often alone on the second far post, the one on closing down in the individual instructions and in defensive midfielder role for example) and having seen that this reports are beautifully ignored despite the wording "info provided", I think it is useless to waste time reporting the game problems.

[bleventozturk]

1 hour ago, Dave1990 said:

In fact, as you said it should simply be about the types of crosses, if the crosses increases only because you insert the indication "whipped crosses" means that there is a problem.

Well, I used it for 2 games, and in both games both my wing backs on support duty ended up with 15-20 crosses each. Without it, everything else being the same, they typically average 5-8 crosses per game. I am sure the opponent's tactic plays a role too, but the difference was drastic, so that TI must be encouraging them to cross more for sure. And it shouldn't be that way in my opinion, or if it is, there should be at least an explanation on the TI.

I discover a lot of things in FM match engine by trial and error. For whatever TI I chose, I am never sure what it will really do before trying it in isolation. That part of the game needs a lot of improvement, to make it more user friendly. 

Yesterday I discovered another new thing that I would not expect to be the case: In my tactic I was using a DLP (s) in the DM position. I would expect that player to receive a lot of passes in the build up of attacks, sure, and that is actually what is happening in ME. What I wouldn't expect is the effect of picking that role for one player on the TEMPO that my team plays with. The entire team moves, dribbles, passes the ball around significantly slower when that player in the DM position has the DLP role. Why? Again, I don't just mean that my more attacking players keep passing the ball back to the DLP when I say slower tempo. Even when other players are passing the ball around between themselves, without the DLP involved, they are doing it in such a slow tempo, so I'm pretty sure picking that role affects the entire team tempo. I changed that role to BWM (s) for experiment, and the increase in tempo was drastic. I wish the game would tell us all these important consequences of our choices.

 

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, bleventozturk said:

 Why? Again, I don't just mean that my more attacking players keep passing the ball back to the DLP when I say slower tempo. Even when other players are passing the ball around between themselves, without the DLP involved, they are doing it in such a slow tempo, so I'm pretty sure picking that role affects the entire team tempo. I changed that role to BWM (s) for experiment, and the increase in tempo was drastic. I wish the game would tell us all these important consequences of our choices.

 

That doesn't make any sense, if anything there would be a bug. This sounds more like perception or anything, or would be connected to anything specific going on in the match at that time, also the scoreline and opposition tactics. Perception issues are nothing new, back then  the "slider gurus" had really wild theories of explaining the then "time wasting" slider, which upon enquiring officially with the main coder never made anything else but encouraging exactly what it said on the tin, which is encouraging players to dawdle on the ball in areas of no pressure, plus taking their time when the ball is out, etc. (bad theory back then was that it encouraged to slow play down, in a "neutral", rather than time-wasting sense). Guys would observe that dawdling on the ball (there is actually lines of match commentary triggerd alongside to it oftenly), and so that misconception was born (in a German fan translation of the game, as a consequence, there was no instruction to encourage "time wasting" whatsoever for a few years, naturally all off then). Whipped crosses is a good example of something that isn't explained well (I'll throw in work ball into the box as well, connected to crosses after all).

AFAIK whipped crosses encourages the players to also attempt crosses from deeper positions already, to "whip them in quickly", so an increase in crosses would be natural. I am not sure here though either and I agree with you on that point. It's something worth raising in the Ask SI thread, perhaps though. Including raising instructions that aren't as clear-cut as internally may see them. In the end they are still encouragements though. If you wouldn't provide the movement, or would kill space by different means, there's no way you're going to see a certain play. Similar, if inherent player traits would interfere -- as a simple example, I signed up on FM16 to Celtic, and found that ALL of their wide players had that cut inside trait, which prevented me from playing traditional winger tactics. Which is why the UI may in the future at least opt to include the attacking shape encouraged -- and where it may squeeze the space a tad much, and actually prevent the type of play you intend to put up (as far as possible anyway).

[Andrew_Goats_Gruff]

On 19/11/2017 at 17:29, Dave1990 said:

I just finished my first year career with Athletic Bilbao, where I used a tactic very similar to what I used on FM 17. And to judge the variety of the game, I recorded all kinds of goals scored and against in all the 66 official matches of the season. The result is this:

 

GOALS FOR

From crosses: 49 goals
From corner (direct and indirect): 17 goals
From free kick (direct and indirect): 9 goals
From throw-ins (direct and indirect): 14 goals
From penetrative pass: 22 goals
From normal pass: 9 goals
From long shot: 6 goals
From long pass: 4 goals
From defensive mistake: 3 goals
From penalty: 4 goals

GOALS AGAINST

From crosses: 17 goals
From the corner (direct and indirect): 4 goals
From free kick (direct and indirect): 3 goals
From throw-ins (direct and indirect): 7 goals
From penetrative pass: 5 goals
From normal pass: 3 goals
From long shot: /
From long pass: 6 goals
From defensive mistake: 3 goals
From penalty: 5 goals

My tactic is this: 

It is a tactic that doesn't want to abuse crosses and in fact, wants to build the action centrally, with a great ball possession.

Considerations of my experience: FM18 is very similar to FM17, which did not differ much from FM16. And in fact, from three years I see almost the same things with every kind of tactic, where crosses make the part of master. I have an average of 37.3 crosses per game, and all this with a tactic with just a flanks-man. Sincerely, I was hoping this year to see a very different match engine, at least from this point of view. And then, if I continue to see these things on average once every two games (and also consider them as a key actions), sincerely the desire to play passes me fast.

https://gyazo.com/3b1d94f83f4080ecc9c30827e0e8d612

In addition, there are the same bugs in individual closing down already present on fm16, it's not nice to see them ignored for 3 consecutive years... There are so many other things that have been reported last year that weren't fixed, but I don't make the list because I would be taken for one who criticizes without construct... And considering that this year I find the game much more cumbersome and less orderly than the previous chapters, as far as the match screen concerned above all , I find difficult to enjoy it as ever before.  

 

 

Couldn’t agree more, the cross goals on this are total disgrace and if anybody doesn’t believe, then do scout reports on all the league leadinf teams. Absolute state.

 

29 cross goals in Man Utds last 20 games alone.

Premier League champions Man City recorded 33 assists from crosses alone in the last 20 games lol.

Championship champions..

28 cross goals in the last 20 games. 

S.I have to admit this is a huge problem this year to give us hope for fm 19.