Data analysis: help i'm overwhelmed!!

[Andre75]

Hello all,

I'm loving the FM17 beta but I'm also finding myself a little overwhelmed with the amount of info I can access. I love it but not really sure how to use the mountain of data FM17 gives me. What is it that you guys are focusing on? and how do you use the information to make changes to your squad/tactic? thanks

[tmpusr]

I typically look in the "Analysis" tab (in "Tactics"), looking mainly in the "Goals" section.

For instance this is how it looks like in my case:

As you can see, my team tends to score pretty much equally during the match, except for two spikes right before and right after the half time. If you average those two numbers, you get 22.5, which is close to the rest.

Now, as an explanation I believe that this happens because I put pressure on opposing teams by winning the ball high in the field (I'm very happy with my team's closing down abilities) which forces defenders to make a lot of decisions. Right before the half time they are usually more tired and therefore more error-prone. For the negative spike after the half time I believe it's because I tend to add OIs on the half time and my team might need a few minutes to adjust.

In terms of defense, I concede many more goals towards the end of the games. This happens probably because due to the high closing down, the players tend to get more tired at the end of the game. Additionally, many times I'm winning comfortably towards the end (e.g. 3-0, 4-1 etc) so the players just don't care that much. Finally, in close games I have the bad habit of going forward a lot, so a good chunk there is due to the space I leave behind.

Employing midfielders and defenders with better stamina should help the first problem and faster defenders should help with the third. I'm not sure what I can do for the second, but I'm not really worried about it either.

Now let's look at the goal types and assists:

As you can see, most of my goals come either from placed shots or from headers, almost exclusively from inside the box. This makes sense because I have the option "Work ball into box" and also the vast majority of my assists are either crosses, through balls and free kicks, all of which typically target players in the box. I'm very happy with this, since that's exactly what I was looking for. Finally, looking at the assist locations, we see that there's a balance among all areas. If I had for instance a winger that would be much better than the rest, I would expect to expect to see a spike in his side (and if that didn't happen I might adapt my instructions and/or formation to help him shine).

(As a note, I came up with my current tactics using the information here. The first version of my tactics didn't include the "Work ball into box" and "Pass Into Space" options, thus encouraging more attempts from outside the box and less through balls.)

Unfortunately, my defense seems to concede similar goals from similar assist types. Almost all the goals of my opponents come from placed shots or headers from inside the box. Looking at the assist locations there's a spike on the right hand side. This happens because for the first half of the season, I tried to use my right full back with the "Attack" duty, whereas my left full back was always on "Support". After looking at these statistics, I realized that I even though I was allowing more assists on my right side, I wasn't getting more assists on the attack thus it was a bad decision. After switching him to "Support" both sides became pretty even both offensively and defensively.

The through balls on the other hand I believe are a result of not employing a DM (I'm playing 4-2-3-1, with CMs). Due to my higher closing down instruction, central defenders tend to move towards the player with the ball (if centrally) when the midfielders are not on him, which leaves a lot of space behind them for through balls. For my second season, I will experiment on this, by dropping a CM to DM, even though I'm reluctant because I'm afraid that this will hurt my team's ability to regain possession higher on the pitch.

Hope this helps