Are free kicks ever scored in FM18?

[Etebaer]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Svenc:

Junuzovic since then hasn't scored one in two and a half seasons -- this 25% is based on short-term run in the 2014/2015 season. This is something called "regression to the mean", and anybody looking at such "miracle" conversion rates knows that there's only one way, which is drastically down. A good one in three 33% is the conversion of one on ones for a top forward, give or take. 20%-25% is the long-term general shot conversion of class forwards, which includes much better finishing chances than a free kick, including tap-ins, close range finishes with the defense/keeper caught wrong footed, etc. Throw a six sided dice ten times, there is an actual chance of throwing the six in half of those throws. Do that a hundred times, though....
https://understat.com/player/301

I do think too though that free kick conversion in-game is too low. It's oft acknowledged by the coders too, and it's traditionally oft assigned to knock-ons off the in-game ball physics model (similar to amount of wood work hits, etc.)

He suffered several injuries, a couple of different Coaches etc.

Statistics are often misdleading bcs of that...

...i have no Access to more dtailed statistics or newer ones...

...you can not know, at best estimate what the Coaches orders to the Players are, how injuries affected certain abilities for the worse etc.

Fact is that there are good Free Kickers and good Corner Kickers and Teams that take Advantage of that like Hertha Berlin and Teams that do not like RB Leipzig who suffered a 2:3 vs a 10 man Hertha scoring 2 from Corners.

Hertha also is good a Free Kicks having a dedicated Trainer and Training for it.

Versatility is a Weapon and good "Standards" (Corners, Free Kicks, Penalties) dont take that much Training time especially as Training has a diminishing return so more of the same becomes ineffective the more you do it after a certain threshold.

You need to look behinds statistics and understand the mechanics of things - if you dont you get cheated by statsitics.

Funny Example:

A Jump from a Ten Stories Tower has a 90% survival rate as at 9 out of 10 Stories no death occurs!

You only understand the fault of this statistic when you understand the mechanic of jumping out of a Building!

[Svenc]

45 minutes ago, Etebaer said:

You need to look behinds statistics and understand the mechanics of things - if you dont you get cheated by statsitics.

Hence the questioning of that 25% conversion rate -- if you'd put money on him keeping that even remotedly, no matter the coaching, his skill, or anything, you'd lose a ton of money fairly quickly. It's the sites publishling such stats that don't understand the stats. They also oft point out how poor Ronaldo / Messi would be, take a look, this bloke from Werder Bremen outscored Messi by 400% this term! Even the best skill and best preparation do this much (good point though arguing that set pieces may be neglected at some sides in preparation!). And over the short term, in particular from free kicks, where goals in general are rare, any added goal, or two or three can make anybody look superior short-term. This is the influence of random chance. Chance isn't endlessly repeatable though, skill is.

There's players / teams some better and some worse. As far as set piece tactics are concerned, FM's fairly limited arguably too though... If Junuzovic is able to better Messi's conversion by the end of his career (and Messi's are above average), that may be telling. I wouldn't rule that out, it's one of his specialties, even though he apparently hasn't converted one now in more than 25 attempts running. However, he will never, ever have a 20%+ conversion, unless he's an alien. That's impossible, and fairly common sense. Such short-term stats don't tell anything, and they always show you guys making top ten lists that would never make that top ten in their entire career again, no less as it sometimes takes no more than 3 goals a season to make that top ten. If you go through the lists, there are guys on it that simply are on it because one of their two goals was actually a goal rather than getting saved, being blocked, or being off target, as most direct free kicks are (on average, only 1 attempt in 20 is at all a goal). Calhanoglu, etc. are much the same, btw. An oustanding, impossible to maintain 2014/2015 season with 5 goals  fairly predictably is followed by much more grounded performances, bringing his conversions down a good deal (he's scored one free kick in about 40 attempts since then).

The key words here are "Sample size", "regression to the mean" and "random chance", and any site highlighting such short term stats / lists as something significant doesn't understand either.

[Etebaer]

Bcs i dont have Access to more detailed and better statistics does not mean you cant get more out of them.

Last season (16/17) Marvin Plattenhard (Hertha BSC) who is for sure no Messi scored 3 times per Free Kick and had also 3 assists per Free Kick from Herthas 15 Goals resulting from Standards - since Hertha started to train this stuff explicitely they become better every season with it.

Now imagine what really good Players could do if you would dedicate some time to it and not badmouth Standards as inferior side "not from the ballplay" Goals.

[Svenc]

55 minutes ago, Etebaer said:

Bcs i dont have Access to more detailed and better statistics does not mean you cant get more out of them.

Last season (16/17) Marvin Plattenhard (Hertha BSC) who is for sure no Messi scored 3 times per Free Kick and had also 3 assists per Free Kick from Herthas 15 Goals resulting from Standards - since Hertha started to train this stuff explicitely they become better every season with it.

Now imagine what really good Players could do if you would dedicate some time to it and not badmouth Standards as inferior side "not from the ballplay" Goals.

 

Hertha may be a decent set piece side, but as for the direct free kicks, slightly proving the point (guys making such top lists by scoring as little as 3 goals to never appear on any such list again and somebody, same as such sites, making such connections or at least overrating the impact  -- possibly upon reading media stories about training drills incorporated at the ground*). Think about it, 3 goals. So far Plattenhardt has scored 0 this season (including the Europa League and DFB Pokal). You may have a really good argument that set piece preparation may be neglected in football these days though -- how much is impossible to tell, naturally and depends. It could as well be that sides prepare for them fairly well, but that may include defending of set pieces as well (keeper training, defending drills, etc.) All contributing to what we eventually witness.

FM in generally from my experience tries to go by what happens in football. If goals from direct free kicks are rare, that will be tried to be approached in-game. And in-game they are imo some rarer than in real football. Hopefully as argued Si don't merely look at the amount of goals scored though, but the actual conversion. If there are indeed significantly more direct free kicks awarded, then it follows there would need to be more goals scored off them. Not so much so that things are perfectly 100% realistic. But to create a balanced game experience, that somewhat mirrors football, rather than a fantasy. Else you'd see tons of free kicks missed, which is also frustration guaranteed. Basically the opposite to Fifa, which must see every third shot go in by definition, as matches only last 2 x 6 minutes or there would be no goals at all.

* coincidentally, the 2014/2015 BL season also had introduced the vanishing spray (Freistoßspray). Immediately several media outlets connected the "miracle" one season scoring rates of Junuzovic, Calhanoglu et all to it. Whereas in leagues where the opposite was observed, it was vice versa.

 

[kandersson]

@Svenc yes this is one topic I am very interested in . I will start saying that it is very understandable if SI had chosen to nerf free kicks conversion rates, because I suspect that due to high number of free kicks in the game 'realistic' rates would result in a very high number of DFK goals. This would probably result in easy exploits (e.g. stockpile dead ball specialist with 20 for free kicks) and also make for a dull match experience dominated by chances from set pieces, which is particularly problematic in a video game as high frequency of these chances would be boring to watch when scored for the user, and ultra-frustrating when scored for AI - the one thing I strongly disliked about FM12 was the impossibly high number of goals scored from near post corner kicks, again, didn't like when I scored but absolutely hated when I conceded 

A player like Messi has quite low conversion rates irl, mostly because... he's not really that good at free kicks  But he's Messi so he'll take every single one (of course the usual suspect Cristiano Ronaldo takes as many, and he really shouldn't but still). This is a conversion rate chart over a 2-3 year period I think (a bit outdated, couldn't find a more recent one) that helps identifying bona fide specialists:

You just see that Messi and Ronaldo simply don't belong with the elite. Volume and % matter the most here so you can say that Pjanic and Calhanoglu are (were) the best FK takers, which is something that also meets the eye test. Messi and Ronaldo... a different beast! It would be interesting to have conversion rates available in the game but then again i suspect they'd be massively (yet understandably) far from the real thing so maybe that's the reason we have not access to these data. From what I've seen in FM18 it's much easier to see free kick scored against very weak opponents (thanks captain obvious!) as my star kicker would often score 2-3 in 18 games of the weak Piaui state championship in Brazil, and then usually score 0 in the remaining 60 matches of first division and cups.

[looping]

I agree et piece preparation is neglected in football these days though. How much? A lot. But a lot means a lot. And the same happens in fm.

Nowadays, it's quite obvious managers tend to ignore set pieces. They 'd rather focus in open play. That's a fact and nobody can deny it, at least the football I watch (Spain, and specially if you go to Liga 123 or 2B).

Take for example, King's cup. Athletic Bilbao-Formentera, Real Sociedad-Lleida and Real Madrid-Fuenlabrada. There was a huge quality difference among these teams. In open play, Athletic, Real Sociedad and obviously Real Madrid, widely outplayed their opponents. Widely. It wasa obvious who was the best team, despite the lack of effort and concentración big sides showed (which finaly costed the loss for 2 or them and a quite humiliating situation for Real Madrid).

Open play was a fact but what happened when we had a dead ball? Things turned around. Lleida was a constant threat with corners and free kicks. The same can be said about Fuenlabrada and, actually, Formentera won the round due to a goal after a corner. You can argue lack of concentration and effort influence a lot in these situations but can also be said Formentera scored min 90, so it's hard to believe Atheltic players were not concentrated at that momemnt.

Anyway, what makes my point valid is a general pattern. I don't follow Fuenlabrada but I closely know how Lleida and Formentera play and they put a lot of time and effort in set pieces, the same most of the teams in Segunda B third group do. To some extent, most of the matches in 2B come to nothing in open play due to inherent equality among teams (with singular exceptions, Mallorca) who play basically the same football. Wons or losses are decided mostly by set pieces: a corner here, a dfk there, a counter after a defensive corner...

That's why those teams showed superiority in dead ball situations against La Liga opponents. They work on it and they know what they do. You could easily see blocks, Deep runners inside the box, a lot of movement. The feeling of danger, every time any of them took a set piece was huge.

There are other examples. For instance, Girona in La Liga. I don't have the stats here but it doesn't really matter to make my point. Girona is, in open play, a very limited team. They have some good players (Maffeo, Stuani) but overall they are not better tan the vast majority of teams. But they control set pieces. Lots of goals have been scored after corners or Ifk. For instance, 2 goals against Atlético (2-2) or the 3 points they took from Espanyol (0-1). Girona it's widely better tan other teams in that aspect. That doesn't mean they don't concede sometimes (Atlético scored after a idf, IIRC) but, overall, they make the difference there and that's because Pablo Machin and Girona played many seasons in Liga 123, where set pieces are also very important, almost the same tan Segunda B. I don't know the exact stats and they might contradict me but the feeling of immediate danger when Girona has a dead ball arround the box is huge, and other managers know it. They insist a lot: Girona is very dangerous in set pieices. And they certainly are: not only scoring (which finally, can be incidental) but the chances created and the sense of something is going to happen is constant.

Atlético to some extent is a similar example. They won a league due to a good defense a lot of 1-0 wins exploiting set pieces. Even the decisive goal against Barcelona (1-1) was a header by Godin in a corner. Godin had a great season in that aspect.

Another example could be Julio Alvarez. I ignore if you know who he is. He played many seasons for Numancia scoring a good number of goals for a central midfielder. IIRC, he has a weird record of not scoring a single goal in open playfor 3 seasons while still being the top scorer of the team. Julio Alvarez is known by their outstanding dead ball skills and he made the difference for many years in Numancia. Penalties, free kicks (direct and indirect) and specially corners. I'm sure Numancia would have been relegated if they didn't count with him. IIRC they almost got promoted (or even got) twice and perhaps 30% of goals involved Julio Alvarez.

The most extreme case I've ever seen is my favourite team Llagostera. They got 7 promotions in 10 years due, essentially to set pieces. IIRC and statistic shown how in the last 5 years (profesional football) 40% of their goals come after a dead ball. Season 13-14 they scored 61 goals. 30 came from set pieces. I saw the stat somewhere I'll try to find it again (it as some years ago), but the pattern is clear (except season 15-16, where something strange happened). In the present season, Llagostera is struggling but again the same pattern: 12 goals scored (certainly a problema in 19 games) 9 of them directly related to free kicks, corners or penalties. 

What's my point, then? My point is dead ball situations are ignored by top managers. The variety and quality of the play I see in teams who pay attention to it is certainly miles away from what other teams do. Many times it seems to me they just hoof the ball there, somebody moves in the near post, someone in the far and let's call it a day. There is no real thinking behind, no real effort. They focus in open play which is nowadays completely overrated. In set pieces is where a manager can place his players where he exactly wants (very difficult to do it open play, due to its dinamic and constant movement) and make them move how exactly he wants.

You can argue it's also easy to counteract but If you have a good taker and a variety of plays it's much harder tan stopping open play, at least IMO.

Now, If FM tried to replicate real life, they certainly did. Limitations in set pieces are extreme. You can't even place your players where you want them to be. You can choose if they stay back or go upfront, but you can't place your players where you want them to be. Not even in the preestablished positions that the game allows, players swap. On top of that, this year takers don't follow instructions I feel. I specifically placed my tall stringer and both my cb in the near post for some reason, but my taker keeps randomly choosing what to do instead of strictly following my instructiosn (if I said near post, FFS near post).

My approach to football massively involves set pieces and I fm is almost ignoring them. While it's following what nowadays happens in real life, I feel is a huge limitation if you want to make the difference (like RL examples I exposed) with set pieces.

Despite  that, I usually lead the table about goals scored in Dfk, ifk and corners in the game. Overall, I most of the times have a positive balance, scoring far more tan conceding, but that can also be related to the fact I always sign good takers (Gustavo Scarpa is top) and have tall players, which seems the most you can do in the game to exploit set pieces.

 

 

[kingjericho]

9 minutes ago, looping said:

I agree et piece preparation is neglected in football these days though. How much? A lot. But a lot means a lot. And the same happens in fm.

Nowadays, it's quite obvious managers tend to ignore set pieces. They 'd rather focus in open play. That's a fact and nobody can deny it, at least the football I watch (Spain, and specially if you go to Liga 123 or 2B).

 

 

Great analysis on your post but I disagree with the quoted part. Many managers work intensely on set pieces. Jorge Jesus had very strong corner routines in Benfica and in Sporting as well. It's very easily noticeable a manager who works them (JJ) versus a manager who doesn't (Rui Vitoria, Benfica's current manager).

Regarding FM, I have some goals drom DFK and also from IFK so I don't think the game is unbalanced in this regard.

[Robioto]

I'm in my 9th season and can't really say I've noticed issues with freekicks. In the past 2 seasons I have scored 2-3 a season with my 16 set piece taking regen. I'll check when I get home.

[looping]

55 minutes ago, kingjericho said:

Great analysis on your post but I disagree with the quoted part. Many managers work intensely on set pieces. Jorge Jesus had very strong corner routines in Benfica and in Sporting as well. It's very easily noticeable a manager who works them (JJ) versus a manager who doesn't (Rui Vitoria, Benfica's current manager).

Regarding FM, I have some goals drom DFK and also from IFK so I don't think the game is unbalanced in this regard.

 

1 hour ago, looping said:

I agree et piece preparation is neglected in football these days though. How much? A lot. But a lot means a lot. And the same happens in fm.

Nowadays, it's quite obvious managers tend to ignore set pieces. They 'd rather focus in open play. That's a fact and nobody can deny it, at least the football I watch (Spain, and specially if you go to Liga 123 or 2B).

I have no understanding what JJ does and what happens in Portugal... So it's only reinforcing my point: it's very easy noticeable a manager who Works set pieces, fact is I don't remember myself watching a match where JJ was involved.

The point in FM is the lack of variety and possibilities compared with open play: we have roles like Ramdeuter or inverted wingback as fancy and hyped as hardly ever used  but I can't choose where I want my cb to be in an idf.

[Viking]

I've had plenty of free kicks scored so far in my saves. That said, I have no idea how many to expect during a season.

[Svenc]

7 hours ago, kandersson said:

 

You just see that Messi and Ronaldo simply don't belong with the elite. Volume and % matter the most here so you can say that Pjanic and Calhanoglu are (were) the best FK takers, which is something that also meets the eye test. Messi and Ronaldo... a different beast! It would be interesting to have conversion rates available in the game but then again i suspect they'd be massively (yet understandably) far from the real thing so maybe that's the reason we have not access to these data. From what I've seen in FM18 it's much easier to see free kick scored against very weak opponents (thanks captain obvious!) as my star kicker would often score 2-3 in 18 games of the weak Piaui state championship in Brazil, and then usually score 0 in the remaining 60 matches of first division and cups.

Those are exactly the kind of stats I meant though, oft published to point out how many players were like 400% more efficient than Ronaldo/Messi. Don't fall for that. It's a click bait. The average free kick conversion is about 5% (1 in 20). Over the span of his career, Messi is above that average. Simply an added goal, or two, or three over the course of a season or two massively influences that conversion rate, as there are so few goals scored off free kicks in general. As said, Calhanoglu, Junuzovic et all haven't at all much scored since back then. Most of their goals were scored in a single season, the 2014/215 one, which is included in here. If you are realistic, truly "skill" in statistics only shows after a big, big sample size, like 100+shots. Everything else is a severe misunderstanding of statstitics, of "regressions to the mean", and of "sample sizes" in particular. As argued, if you roll a dice ten times, there is a reasonable chance you would roll a 6 50% of the time. Do that a hundred times plus however...Purely looking at the 2015/2016 season (which wasn't over by the time of the above graphics), Messi would come out totally top too, scoring about every 8th shot. Only long-tem over many many repeats would the actually "skill" show. Understanding this is also vital to understand any kind of "scoring streak", not merely from free kicks, but from anything.

As for the free kick conversion, I'd be very interesting in them too, hopefully somebody will do it (if SI don't do them). At the moment, we are ASSUMING there is massively more free kicks taken. But we cannot tell exactly, unless we would count them (which you would need to). But why not ask SI about it? @Neil Brock, @Jack Joyce, do you know whether the ME staff purely looks at the amounts of free kicks scored -- or is it their actually CONVERSION? It may well be, after all, that there are more free kicks awarded in FM than in real football, and that the conversion then would be some off. E.g. any direct free kick then possibly not having a similar impact as it might have in an actual match on football on average.

 

[kandersson]

5 minutes ago, Svenc said:

 

Those are exactly the kind of stats I meant though, oft published to point out how many players were like 400% more efficient than Ronaldo/Messi. Don't fall for that. It's a click bait. The average free kick conversion is about 5% (1 in 20). Over the span of his career, Messi is above that average. Simply an added goal, or two, or three over the course of a season or two massively influences that conversion rate, as there are so few goals scored off free kicks in general. As said, Calhanoglu, Junuzovic et all haven't at all much scored since back then. Most of their goals were scored in a single season, the 2014/215 one. If you are realistic, truly "skill" in statistics only shows after a big, big sample size, like 100+shots. Everything else is a severe misunderstanding of statstitics, of "regressions to the mean", and of "sample sizes" in particular. As argued, if you roll a dice ten times, there is a reasonable chance you would roll a 6 50% of the time. Do that a hundred times plus however...

As for the free kick conversion, I'd be very interesting in collecting them too, hopefully somebody will do it (if SI don't do them). At the moment, we are ASSUMING there is massively more free kicks taken. But we cannot tell exactly, unless we would count them (which you would need to).

This is a case where I go with the eye test and not just with the moneyball! On that list, I think Pjanic and Calhanoglu are great dead ball specialists. The others, not so much. I think Messi is not either, he got better in time, and has been scoring some (he attempts A LOT) but he doesn't have that natural talent, not at elite level. Elite level to me is Zico, Maradona, Baggio, Zola, Mihajlovic, Pirlo, Marcelinho Carioca, Juninho Pernambucano. Today I think Pjanic is near that level, Calhanoglu got that long suspension and now is (not) playing awfully at Milan but he does have 'it' imo. So when stats (volume + % over a significant amount of time) support my eye test I tend to give them more value. Junuzovic for example has the %, but lacks volume and fails the eye test for me 

[Svenc]

34 minutes ago, kandersson said:

This is a case where I go with the eye test and not just with the moneyball! On that list, I think Pjanic and Calhanoglu are great dead ball specialists. The others, not so much. I think Messi is not either, he got better in time, and has been scoring some (he attempts A LOT) but he doesn't have that natural talent, not at elite level. Elite level to me is Zico, Maradona, Baggio, Zola, Mihajlovic, Pirlo, Marcelinho Carioca, Juninho Pernambucano. Today I think Pjanic is near that level, Calhanoglu got that long suspension and now is (not) playing awfully at Milan but he does have 'it' imo. So when stats (volume + % over a significant amount of time) support my eye test I tend to give them more value. Junuzovic for example has the %, but lacks volume and fails the eye test for me 

Good point - with free kicks it's difficult either way, as just a goal or two influences those numbers -- and most players don't take that many free kicks over their career in general. Still if somebody scores 7% of 100+ attempts, that's far more trustworthy than somebody scoring 25% off 25. Which is the reason anybody listing such rankings based on like 30 attempts for some players is fairly useless. It's basically the opposite to penalties. Those are, more often than not, simply scored. It's the one "scenario" where the keeper is in a severe disadvantage. No matter how "poor" the player for his level, he'll most likely score from them. He may even do so ten times in a row Therefore, statistically it's tricky, far more tricky certainly than for "events" that see a much higher frequency -- such as shots. Nonetheless, there is no player in world football that would ever keep a long-term 100+ attempts dfk conversion of like 20% when the average is about 5%. I wrote that elsewhere, but top level competitive football is decided in margins, not in players competing in altogether different leagues.  Everything else is a fundamental misunderstanding how sports, any sports, works and is being settled. Would still love to see Juninho's "stats".

edit: Due to that problematic, the "finite" amount of kicks and goals scored -- real managers have an advantage here. They don't merely have those perhaps 30-40 shots their man takes over the season. They can observe their guys in training doing their thing every single day, repeat times, in specifically training drills! If they want to, they can have their guys taking nothing but free kicks 90 minutes long. Whilst that is no competitive match, it allows them to determine far better who's "got it" some more and some less... maybe one day some of that could be included in the game too in some form.

[kandersson]

5 minutes ago, Svenc said:

Good point - with free kicks it's difficult either way, as just a goal or two influences those numbers -- and most players don't take that many free kicks over their career in general. Still if somebody scores 7% of 100+ attempts, that's far more trustworthy than somebody scoring 25% off 25. It's basically the opposite to penalties. Those are, more often than not, simply scored. It's the one "scenario" where the keeper is in a severe disadvantage. No matter how "poor" the player for his level, he'll most likely score from them. He may even do so ten times in a row. Therefore, statistically it's tricky, far more tricky certainly than for "events" that see a much higher frequency -- such as shots. Nonetheless, there is no player in world football that would ever keep a long-term 100+ attempts dfk conversion of like 20% when the average is about 5%. I wrote that elsewhere, but top level competitive football is decided in margins, not in players competing in altogether different leagues.  Everything else is a fundamental misunderstanding how sports, any sports, works and is being settled. Would still love to see Juninho's "stats".

Yeah most stats in football are tricky compared to other sports ('assists' for example feel so wrong to me to for a number of reasons). The only stats we care about is 'goals' really 

Free kicks might be even trickier. For example I think Mihajlovic was one of the greatest dead ball specialists ever because every single free kick he took (from basically everywhere on the pitch) was a legit threat for the keeper. Then he could score, or have the shot saved, or hit the post, or send the ball slightly high but he was always a threat. That's when you're really elite imo. After that, even the all-world elite specialist will still score relatively low totals of goals from direct free kick in a season/career.

For some reason it seems to be quite hard to find stats about goals from free kicks (not only on FM!), you'd think it could be a somewhat relevant data and relatively easy to track but apparently it's not!

[Svenc]

21 minutes ago, kandersson said:

For some reason it seems to be quite hard to find stats about goals from free kicks (not only on FM!), you'd think it could be a somewhat relevant data and relatively easy to track but apparently it's not!

So true, and those highlighted (the above even is from Whoscored.com, which I personally like!) then collect those "random farts in the wind", e.g. some guy awarded the "top ten deadliest free kick taker in Europe" award, because one of his shots went past the keeper (maybe even because of a total keeper blunder). Which allowed him to score 3 goals that season, rather than merely 2 (upon which he wouldN't appear anywhere). Seasonal stats in general are useless, as far as free kicks are concerned imo. In-game, they are also only collected over a single season, after which they are reset!

In parts you won't find much because not everything is made public. Clubs pay money for more elaborate data as interpreting it the right way can give you some edge. Opta et all certainly collect a few more though, including which kicks were at all on target, blocked, etc.  Hopefully for SI assessing a few more insightful won't be a problem ever since, as accessing some of it was hopefully part of that deal back then... https://www.sportbusiness.com/sport-news/prozone-says-game-sports-interactive-partnership

 

[craigd84]

Just a quick question.. why don' goal keepers take direct free kicks on here anymore? I could have them take them on FM17. 

 

But on here if I select them as free kick taker I do not get any free kicks.

[Hovis Dexter]

It's  January in my first season with Hartlepool and so far we've scored two direct free kicks. Don't see anything wrong with that.

[masno]

I've played 3 seasons in Spain, 1 in Italy,2 in Brazil, 1 world cup and the first DFK I saw was in wolves, bit strange because I saw at least 2 a season on my saves in FM17.

[jere_d]

There were 5 in total in the prem my first season. I forgot to take a note of how many were in my second season. But 5 dfks in a season is ridiculously low. In real life we have 8 and even that's low for the prem. Raised the issue a few times and was ignored.