Consistently average average match rating

[Jtomsett11]

I've been playing with Farnborough and have been very successful with a flat 4-4-2 tactic I've developed. However, I don't seem to get any of my midfielders to 'play well' in the DLP (defend) role. Many of them are very well suited to this role, but the highest average rating over a season is usually 6.80 ish. I'm on mobile so haven't got actual data and figures, and this isn't a complaint about the nature of the game or anything like that.

Now I'm aware that match ratings aren't everything, but because I watch games on key highlights only (my relative success means I don't need to go too much deeper) I do use ratings as well as key passes etc to help decide who to keep and who to sell.

Really, I'm wondering the cause of the low (ish) ratings. Is it my players not doing their jobs? My tactic requiring the DLP to sit back and simply pass the ball around therefore they lack goals and assists (which boost match rating significantly) or something else possibly? Should I be looking at other statistics to help me decide who to keep?

I'll post up my tactic if that would help, but wondered if anyone has any ideas or experiences the same thing?

 

[TheGoodRebel]

Hi there. We’d really need to see your tactic before being able to offer any useful advice. It would just be purely speculative otherwise.

What I can say though is that roles don’t work in isolation. From my own experiences I’ve had a role perform poorly but then it’s performed well by actually changing a role for a different position. So we’d need your current setup firstly

[Starsurfer]

9 hours ago, Jaketomsett said:

I've been playing with Farnborough and have been very successful with a flat 4-4-2 tactic I've developed. However, I don't seem to get any of my midfielders to 'play well' in the DLP (defend) role. Many of them are very well suited to this role, but the highest average rating over a season is usually 6.80 ish. I'm on mobile so haven't got actual data and figures, and this isn't a complaint about the nature of the game or anything like that.

Now I'm aware that match ratings aren't everything, but because I watch games on key highlights only (my relative success means I don't need to go too much deeper) I do use ratings as well as key passes etc to help decide who to keep and who to sell.

Really, I'm wondering the cause of the low (ish) ratings. Is it my players not doing their jobs? My tactic requiring the DLP to sit back and simply pass the ball around therefore they lack goals and assists (which boost match rating significantly) or something else possibly? Should I be looking at other statistics to help me decide who to keep?

I'll post up my tactic if that would help, but wondered if anyone has any ideas or experiences the same thing?

 

As other users had and will repeatedly mention - players do not play in isolation. Football is a team game.

For example, if your DLP being a playmaker role, has no other players in space and available for a pass. His passes will very likely get intercepted, resort to passing back to the keeper, or not pass at all. This may result in his low match ratings.

Hope this helps in your tactic creation. 

[Rashidi]

12 hours ago, Jaketomsett said:

I've been playing with Farnborough and have been very successful with a flat 4-4-2 tactic I've developed. However, I don't seem to get any of my midfielders to 'play well' in the DLP (defend) role. Many of them are very well suited to this role, but the highest average rating over a season is usually 6.80 ish. I'm on mobile so haven't got actual data and figures, and this isn't a complaint about the nature of the game or anything like that.

Now I'm aware that match ratings aren't everything, but because I watch games on key highlights only (my relative success means I don't need to go too much deeper) I do use ratings as well as key passes etc to help decide who to keep and who to sell.

Really, I'm wondering the cause of the low (ish) ratings. Is it my players not doing their jobs? My tactic requiring the DLP to sit back and simply pass the ball around therefore they lack goals and assists (which boost match rating significantly) or something else possibly? Should I be looking at other statistics to help me decide who to keep?

I'll post up my tactic if that would help, but wondered if anyone has any ideas or experiences the same thing?

 

Generally an average rating is around 6.5 and below, at least that's my opinion. In most matches I will I expect to see average ratings range from 6.8 to 8. Depending on the goals scored, the band can change to 8-10. So a lot depends on your performance as a team.

If most of the team is getting 8's and one player has a 6.8 then there is an issue, this is an outlier, and its generally worth drilling into. Here a player is meeting expectations, whilst the rest of the team are exceeding theirs. This could be due to a host of reasons. If you are winning then its likely not tactical related. A small tweak to a system can make specific positions play better but its worth digging into the performance of the outlier than changing tactics around. So what do I do?

Match stats. There is detailed information in the game to tell you how a player has performed. Pass completion numbers and other stuff. What I am interested in finding out if he is a playmaker is whether he actually received a ball and whether he was making key passes and the like. Now as far as key passes are concerned, this isn't entirely up to him. There has to be a run into space for him to pick the pass out. So I need to look at transitions to find out if he had a reason to play them

There is a wealth of other information that you can glean, depending on your style of play.  For example, - this could end up being a chapter (note to self: include this as a guide for FM21),  Interceptions can be helpful for you if you want to play a high pressure game as opposed to tackling ratios which could be more relevant for a defensive style.

Stat analysis can be very very deep, and the game has a lot of information, some of it I am afraid is much harder to find.

 

Second thing you can do, and this is easier: 

Streaks: Players have streaks in this game all the time. Someone could be in a fine vein of form and will play out of skin, others may have issues that need addressing (happiness etc). Good form is easy all you need to do is track their average/last 5 games and be sensible in how you use that number.  Look at team talk analysis as well, this can be indicative as well of players who are slacking off. In my latest tips and tricks video, Foxinthebox explains how he uses that.

If a player is going through a bad run of form, you can talk to him, play someone else in there and see if that player performs better. If the other plays better then you know it can't be the tactic.

 

Third: If you believe that the first two points have been covered, then its time to look at the transitions in your tactic. Did the playmaker have options to play the pass? Are you playing at the right tempo and mentality? Sometimes we end up playing on high tempo, not giving the game enough time to generate options for the playmakers. Here it could be tactical.  The simplest is this:

DLP(D) are there players around him on yellows? Did he have to spend more time tackling than passing? Are players around him not doing enough work winning the ball and giving him time and space to execute? Great playmakers always had players around them who did the grunt work.

[Jtomsett11]

Thanks for all the advice so far. I thought I'd post the tactic:

Extra comments:: No matter who I play in the DLP (D) role they don't score above 6.8, but mostly not lower than 6.6 either. This compares to low to mid 7's for most other positions, with exception of GK and (this season due to poor form) my Pressing Forward. The rare exception for the DLP (D) is an assist or goal, but these numbers are low from this position. Pass completion is in the 90%s for DLP (D) and CM (S) - it is slightly hard to distinguish as I've swapped my CMs between the roles.

Immediate thoughts: Higher tempo could be reducing the effectiveness of DLP. He is also mainly responsible for intercepting and breaking up opposition attacks as he is one of 3 players who sit back. I may be misusing this position itself, but having success overall?

I've played around using a BBM rather than CM (S) as I wasn't getting enough presence on the edge of the area when breaking teams down, and use attacking forward/ complete forward rather than poacher, with mixed results. The DLP (D) has been in place since vanarama national. 

Any extra thoughts more than welcome, I stumbled across success with this tactic (although I did read quite a few of your guides @Rashidi when creating it) so appreciate there is always room for improvement!