Misreading the numbers?

[AlexJames]

Could someone please help explain to me why my 6'2" Target Man with Strength 14, Jumping Reach 12 and Heading 12 constantly loses foot challenges with players much lighter and weaker (often doing a weird little skip thingy in the ME animation) and regularly loses headers with players much shorter and with worse jumping reach? He also has decent other stats - work rate, vision etc. - for our lower league level, and I really expected him to boss this league, but he's looking a bust. Granted his tackling and aggression are fairly low, but are still often similar to the player he loses out to. It's infuriating.  What am I missing? I get that there are probably other things at play (morale?) but surely the numbers should matter? 

Similarly my GK with first touch 1 has never had a bad touch (I've watched 2 seasons of full highlights) despite regular suicidal backpasses from the defenceman in front of him. What's the point of this number if it's not applied??

[Svenc]

Attributes are weighted into things, so that generally the (superior) Player may outperform an inferior Long-term, however there is also randomness at Play. Also, a Defender oft has the upper edge, as whilst defending he is usually facing towards the ball shipped towards his goal, whereas the Forwards vice versa. You can enter columns into the Squad screen how much of this is your perception (and the nature of the weighted random dice roll), or how much there is to it. It's header completion stats. More on that below.

Even for lower league, that doesn't sound too highly in Terms of attributes, and this big of an Edge. It's been a while, but on Prior Releases it used to be easy to aquire Players who physically were far superior to the average Defender on that Level. We're Talking Jumping reach, strength, etc. 15/16+ , vs the league average of 10/11/12. On a lower league save in Norway, I had both my then Forwards with seasonal Header completion rates of ~70%, which is massive for a forward for the above reasons.


[SPOILER: There is several Attributes that tend to be overrated, in particular finishing related ones -- what makes a Forward scoring consistently in football also is not his deadliness in front of Goal, it's him getting in superior position for superior chances over and over again, which is part skill, part support by teammates -- and part the team he plays for, and how regularly they penetrate the Opposition defense. Superior finishing stats only mean he may put the odd additional difficult finish away throughout the Season. Also, whilst FM even at ist lowest Attributes aims to simulate Football (semi)pros, it's debatable how big the gap is in between technical Levels on this game]

[phd_angel]

19 hours ago, AlexJames said:

Could someone please help explain to me why my 6'2" Target Man with Strength 14, Jumping Reach 12 and Heading 12 constantly loses foot challenges with players much lighter and weaker (often doing a weird little skip thingy in the ME animation) and regularly loses headers with players much shorter and with worse jumping reach? He also has decent other stats - work rate, vision etc. - for our lower league level, and I really expected him to boss this league, but he's looking a bust. Granted his tackling and aggression are fairly low, but are still often similar to the player he loses out to. It's infuriating.  What am I missing? I get that there are probably other things at play (morale?) but surely the numbers should matter? 

Similarly my GK with first touch 1 has never had a bad touch (I've watched 2 seasons of full highlights) despite regular suicidal backpasses from the defenceman in front of him. What's the point of this number if it's not applied??

That's the beauty of football.  You have high expectations on expensive things that will not come to fruition...

[AlexJames]

This is true, but I feel this is how SI can sometimes too easily explain away ME issues or poor mechanics - "Its football, anything can happen". But this is a video game, and theres code behind it doing something

[Snorks]

How is his bravery?

It sounds to me like he is bottling challenges - tackling and aggression low as well would support this.

1 hour ago, AlexJames said:

This is true, but I feel this is how SI can sometimes too easily explain away ME issues or poor mechanics - "Its football, anything can happen". But this is a video game, and theres code behind it doing something

Yep, but the multitude of attributes and there relationship to one another, and how one can impact a number of others and the situaiton on the field and the ball physics and the decisions and .......... well, while it works through codes and algorithms it is so complex for us mere humans to understand. :-)

One day the AI will take over the world  

[Svenc]

Simply looking at numbers oft indeed tends to crack over engine weakness as numbers don't cover how they eventually come about. Still, since this Topic was named "misreading the numbers", well what are the  numbers then? Such numbers can be entered into each Teams Squad screen. One of such column lists the seasonal Header completion ratios.

- With the above forward stats, the Attribute gap between the Forward and the average Defender even lower league typically won't be that huge. 
- As the cb in a lot of Scenarios will have an Edge due to facing towards the ball when defending, the Players with the highest Header completion on this series typically Always will be centre backs
- From my experience, previous anyway, the seasonal header completion ratio on this series for a forward can vary between barely 40-50% (small and light Forward) and ca. 70+% (all towering Forward who has a big Edge over the league averages) -- either of which would be on the lower end for a CB

- You will never have a Player who will barely ever win a Header though, and vice versa one who completes 100%, from my prior experience anyway

Not sure how this compares to actual football ATM, but competitive sports typically is settled in smaller margins than is oft perceived -- and Players in the media are oft attributed stereotypical cliches even when they barely apply. (There's also something to be said that for punditry, players always tend to be either ***** or brilliant, with barely a shade of grey existing in between, but that's another matter).  

[DownTheFrank]

How's his balance and bravery ?

[AlexJames]

So the player in question is Martin Rennie - signed in 2020 from Montrose in Scottish League 1. He's not amazing by any stretch, but I'm playing as one of the worst teams in Scottish League 2, so purely by the numbers should be one of my best players. However, whilst the rest of my team seem to be over-performing (I somehow currently find myself top of the League), I can't seem to get anything out of him. Playing as either a TM(S) in a 4-4-2 or a TM(S)/ TM(A) in a 4-5-1. He struggles to hold the ball up (often gets bullied off the ball with one of the aforementioned little skip animations), barely engages in attacking headers, and those he does win tend to get flicked on straight to the opposition goalie (I get that he needs support around him, but the headers aren't even in their direction).

Could just be that he's rubbish, or out of form. Any suggestions on how to get the best from this kind of player? I'm looking at signing a replacement TM, but their stats are pretty similar to his. Have toyed with pressing intensity and tackling aggression, with not much success.

[Snorks]

'The little skip animation' would indicate that he is avoiding a challenge - I still think his Bravery is in question.

[AlexJames]

He has Bravery 12, Balance 9 which I think is pretty decent for this level.

[Snorks]

Not sure if Bravery is level-related though. I would think you have top-level players with similar. Balance, yeah can see that being generally lower but bravery I think is unrelated.

[Svenc]

Prior you could pretty easily get strength Jumping reach Players 16/17+ lower league, which would usually increase the amount of seasonal Header completion ratios (a column to be entered in the Squad screen manually) by quite some margins, and thus your percentages of employing him successfully. Like, what I said -- those numbers you are looking at. Which is, the Right ones.

 

In particular in Terms of physical Attributes (including pace) you could have Always gotten a real Edge over average opponents as opposed to the tiny margins -- however, the higher up the league pyramid, the better the physicals of players, and that big time edge fades.

[CityAndColour]

I misread the "long shots" attribute all the time. 5 seems to actually mean 20.

[Grifty]

I’m doing a mini test of this myself. I have a 6’5” striker with 15 jumping reach and 11 heading. So far any crosses he connects with where he is challenged by a defender seem to trickle wide or no power straight at the keeper.

In January I have a new striker who is 6’0” with jumping reach 15 and heading 18, so will see if he wins as many Ariel fuels and if he can head properly.

I know it’s not quite as clear as that but it will give me a good reference point.

[AlexJames]

Watching the games it just seems like my other forwards - 6' Poacher and 5'9 PF - do a much better job of general Target Man responsibilities than my actual TM. Actually in over 2 seasons watching full highlights I don't think I've ever seen a flicked-on header go to another player on the same team (including for the opposition). Not sure why I adopted this tactic now I think about it, ha!

[Lord Rowell]

Might be helpful to take a screenshot so we can see all his attributes, and preferred moves as well.

[wattzy]

There's probably a number of things going on that the match engine isn't really showing properly. It could be that the balls up to him are poor because of the quality of the midfield/defence's passing. In cases like that it might be that the smaller players are doing a better job in the same role as they have the speed/agility to get to a poor pass/longball/cross, whilst your big man doesn't. 

Could it be that he's playing in a support role and therefore the other striker is always beyond him so he can only ever flick the ball on? He could have the best heading ability in the world, but does he have the intelligence to know where his striker partner is when behind him? It could be worth playing him further up the field with the second striker slightly behind. That way he might be able to hold the ball up or head it down. 

Or, as you said earlier, he might just be rubbish 

Keep playing around. If other players are outperforming him it might just be that he's not good enough to fit your style of play.

[Svenc]

Just like in actual footie, There's also a crapload of perception/confirmation biases (and Bugs).

https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2011/09/cognitive-biases-in-football.html

Which is why Looking at some actual performance related numbers is a semi-decent starting Point -- or at least, may put things into perspective some.

 

Not going to repeat myself here though endlessly, shrugs.  

[Hovis Dexter]

On 29/06/2019 at 19:34, Svenc said:

Just like in actual footie, There's also a crapload of perception/confirmation biases (and Bugs).

https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2011/09/cognitive-biases-in-football.html

Which is why Looking at some actual performance related numbers is a semi-decent starting Point -- or at least, may put things into perspective some.

 

Not going to repeat myself here though endlessly, shrugs.  

Thanks for the link. Some very good articles in that blog.

 

[MrPompey]

On 24/06/2019 at 20:53, Snorks said:

'The little skip animation' would indicate that he is avoiding a challenge - I still think his Bravery is in question.

I thought  that animation meant he was muscled off the ball ?

In response to the OP if you watch live football there are plenty of smaller players beating stronger bigger players in challenges and tackles. Circumstances also apply e.g. player with back to opposition player running in with momentum. For the scientific among you 

All objects have mass; so if an object is moving, then it has momentum - it has its mass in motion. ... Momentum depends upon the variables mass and velocity. In terms of an equation, the momentum of an object is equal to the mass of the object times the velocity of the object.

How light is a football? Mass in Motion is a good reason why football players in a wall facing a free kick protect their crown jewels...just in case that mass in motion strikes

[ajt]

4 hours ago, MrPompey said:

In response to the OP if you watch live football there are plenty of smaller players beating stronger bigger players in challenges and tackles.

Tim Cahill.

Great info Sven, that blog post is gold.

[AlexJames]

7 hours ago, MrPompey said:

In response to the OP if you watch live football there are plenty of smaller players beating stronger bigger players in challenges and tackles. Circumstances also apply e.g. player with back to opposition player running in with momentum. For the scientific among you 

 

I wasn't saying there aren't - look at n'golo kante, for instance - just that I would expect this to be reflected in the player stats. Tim Cahill has Jumping Reach = 15, so you'd expect him to win headers.

My original point was I see a lot of instances where player stats don't seem to relate to their performance on the ME. For example a 5'7" LB with poor jumping stats beating a 6'3" CB for a header, or a CM with low workrate and strength/ tackling stats wins 100% of challenges against (seemingly) better players, or how my GK with a first touch of 1 has never had a poor first touch in all the games I've watched (just looked, and Romelu Lukaku has a first touch of 10, so my GK's should be terrible haha!), or a how players with poor Long shots/ finishing seem capable of multiple 30 yard screamers.

Some of this is down to Bugs and issues with the ME, others is a misinterpretation of the numbers. Was mostly just annoyed with my terrible Target Man being awful. Though he did score the other day (1 goal in 16), so that was nice.

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, AlexJames said:

I wasn't saying there aren't - look at n'golo kante, for instance - just that I would expect this to be reflected in the player stats. Tim Cahill has Jumping Reach = 15, so you'd expect him to win headers.

My original point was I see a lot of instances where player stats don't seem to relate to their performance on the ME. For example a 5'7" LB with poor jumping stats beating a 6'3" CB for a header, or a CM with low workrate and strength/ tackling stats wins 100% of challenges against (seemingly) better players, or how my GK with a first touch of 1 has never had a poor first touch in all the games I've watched (just looked, and Romelu Lukaku has a first touch of 10, so my GK's should be terrible haha!), or a how players with poor Long shots/ finishing seem capable of multiple 30 yard screamers.

Some of this is down to Bugs and issues with the ME, others is a misinterpretation of the numbers. Was mostly just annoyed with my terrible Target Man being awful. Though he did score the other day (1 goal in 16), so that was nice.

That's because of the randomness of the weighted "dice rolls". The plyer with the superior stats is more likely to win any Event, but not Always will. That's also apart of Football naturally (or Messi would rarely ever win a Header). Additionally, as argued the Players with the best Header completion tend to be Always CBs in-game, as they tend to face towards the playing direction of the ball. 

However, if your perception of Football is that there's HUGE gaps in between the Performance of Players (in particular on any competitive Level they are playing in), I'm not sure where you get that from except for bad punditry (in particular as somebody playing Fantasy Football, where stats Play a role, therefore you should have an interest in them). Any club on any Level anywhere spends lots of resources on gaining any small Advantage they can, and oft enough fail. From experience, if you want SIGNIFICANT edges over peeers, you should look for far higher numbers but the ones you listed in the Opening post. A jumpin reach / strength 16/17+ Kind of Forward on lower league was capable of Winning up to like 3/4 of his headers, at least on Prior Releases either way. Again, the stat you are meant to be Looking at (and compare to rival Forwards of opponents) is the Header completion rate, to be manually entered as a column into your Squad screen.

 

Don't Focus on isolated Events (except for reporting possible Bugs). Don't be fooled by possible randomness. Focus on the actually longer term Performance, as anybody in actual Football does (except for all that bad punditry). That said, Ultra low Ratings in first touch have never translated to Players not being able to stop a ball in FM. In parts this is intentional, as SI according to their own words asssume that as soon as Players are loaded up from the db, they are by Definition "Footballers". However, how well the game is able to replicate various Levels of technical skill in particular is up for debate….