Dominating every game with better chances but not winning

[_mxrky]

 

On the verge of giving up with this game now tbh. SImply not fun oppo is so much more clinical than my players , when I have better chances and miss them all. My team already underperformed xg by 9 goals in only 18 league games....

 

 

 

[Prolix]

What is your question? 

Actually, I have questions:

• why a pressing forward with Standard LOE?
• why an attack duty forward offset to the same side as an attack duty wide forward?
• why an AM on support offset to the same side as an inside forward on support?
• which players are underperforming xG individually? what are their relevant attributes?
• how does your xG underperformance compare to all other teams in the league? what characteristics are shared by any teams who are overperforming xG?

btw, in real life Chelsea underperformed xG by nearly 11 goals this past season, so it does happen

Edited June 22, 2021 by Prolix

[_mxrky]

7 hours ago, Prolix said:

What is your question? 

Actually, I have questions:

• why a pressing forward with Standard LOE?
• why an attack duty forward offset to the same side as an attack duty wide forward?
• why an AM on support offset to the same side as an inside forward on support?
• which players are underperforming xG individually? what are their relevant attributes?
• how does your xG underperformance compare to all other teams in the league? what characteristics are shared by any teams who are overperforming xG?

btw, in real life Chelsea underperformed xG by nearly 11 goals this past season, so it does happen

I just chose pressing forward because the player has really high stats for that role.

I chose attack duty duty to get immediate support to the forward. Perhaps the other winger could be made inverted winger attack and have him on a support role. If su still has an attacking mentality even on balanced. On positive it is very attacking.

Basically all of my front 4 are underperforming xg. their finishing attributes could be better I suppose.Teama outperforming xg have world class finishers and strikers

 

 

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, _mxrky said:

I just chose pressing forward because the player has really high stats for that role

Which means that you view roles in isolation (as opposed to being part of an interactive system). 

Any player can play at least 2 different roles, and most can play 3 or even more. Therefore, always look to pick one that fits into the rest of the setup well.

However, I don't think that your selection of the PF on attack duty is a problem in and of itself in this particular setup. A bigger problem IMO is your insistence on the asymmetric formation without any good reason. 

But even if you are keen on using an asymmetric 4231, it would make a lot more sense if you swapped the sides of the striker and AMC. Like this:

           PFat

IFsu                 AMsu    IWat

Because that would help avoid the needless congestion caused by players (roles) operating in and/or attacking same spaces and thus obstructing one another. 

[Pasonen]

On 22/06/2021 at 05:10, _mxrky said:

 

Suggestion. Move Amc to center from Amcl position and add him move forward more often if you want to use support role. This way you will have 1 player occupying center channel inside the box and especially low crosses tend to find that spot (you can also set someone to cross center). Because st is in STR position he tend to make more runs to wide channel and you need someone going for the most dangerous scoring area.

[Mitja]

Game is punishing you for playing asymmetric perhaps.

[_mxrky]

On 22/06/2021 at 14:08, Experienced Defender said:

Which means that you view roles in isolation (as opposed to being part of an interactive system). 

Any player can play at least 2 different roles, and most can play 3 or even more. Therefore, always look to pick one that fits into the rest of the setup well.

However, I don't think that your selection of the PF on attack duty is a problem in and of itself in this particular setup. A bigger problem IMO is your insistence on the asymmetric formation without any good reason. 

But even if you are keen on using an asymmetric 4231, it would make a lot more sense if you swapped the sides of the striker and AMC. Like this:

           PFat

IFsu                 AMsu    IWat

Because that would help avoid the needless congestion caused by players (roles) operating in and/or attacking same spaces and thus obstructing one another. 

No I don’t I thought the pressing forward attack would work well in the system and I had the perfect player for the rol. Scored me 25 in 33 league games thus far.

Changed my tactic to this but added focus play on the right to create an overload where my inside forward and striker can attack the space on the other side. My inverted winger is in stay wide to ensure he doesn’t get in the am’s way. Working very well at the moment.

the assymetric works well for that purpose but also allows me to press in a 442 which has been particularly lethal on counter when i change my loe to lower to create a mid block.

still having some trouble in away matches. I remove counter press and/or changed my mentality to balanced which has helped slightly. Also apply a split block in that scenario as well.

Edited June 24, 2021 by _mxrky

[glengarry224]

On 21/06/2021 at 19:10, _mxrky said:

 

On the verge of giving up with this game now tbh. SImply not fun oppo is so much more clinical than my players , when I have better chances and miss them all. My team already underperformed xg by 9 goals in only 18 league games....

 

 

 

It does happen in real football.  Finland won with 1 shot and 37% possession.  Xg indicates the quality of the chance, not the quality of the finisher.  For the EPL, you'll want key attributes of at least 15 to really compete.  For shooting, the key attributes are Finishing (or Long Shots), Technique and Composure.  Of course, Concentration, Anticipation, Flair and Decisions (and others) will make a difference too.

Don't know Nunez but Depay is a good finisher.  Maybe try him on IF(a) or at striker?

[facman]

There could be a whole number of things going wrong, from the morale of the strikers, to the wrong people getting the chances...

Looking at your tactic it seems very lopsided, with a high amount of penetration on the right flank, and a high amount of support on the left flank, so I would imagine that the left flank is creating many of the chances, which are then falling to Nunez and Saka. Saka's composure and finishing aren't that high, however, so maybe he is fluffing some of the chances? Have you tried swapping Depay and Saka, so Saka can create for Depay?

With regard to the screenshots of the matches, there are some things I note. First, xG on its own doesn't really tell you much. You could have 100 long range shots on goal, each adding a little bit of xG to the total, but still lose 1-0 if the opposition creates one really good chance, and yet your xG might be higher than theirs. In the Sheffield Utd game, for instance, yes they got lucky with their 2nd goal, but their first goal had the 2nd highest rated xG in the entire game. All but one of your shots was rated lower than theirs. So whilst it looks like you created loads of pressure, you didn't really appear to create many cast-iron chances. I had an away game the other night against Man U (I'm Everton - 1st season) in which they had an xG of around 2 to my 1.2, but I won 0-2. My finishing was more clinical not because the game was cheating, but because the chances I created were good chances that fell to Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison, my two best finishers. Man U didn't score mostly because their shots were longer ranged efforts that Pickford could easily stop, and my defence and midfield prevented any real penetration into the box - I created the 2 best chances in that game and scored them both.

Against Leicester, if you take away the xG for your 1st goal, which was clearly an absolute sitter that your team created, the xG total for each team is broadly similar. The overall possession levels are roughly 50/50, number of shots on target are similar, and the screenshot even says that you created fewer high quality chances. I'm not sure how you consider that to be a game in which you dominated.

Against Spurs you were unlucky, creating more decent chances than they did, but without further details of who missed the chances I can only guess that they went to the wrong player, indicating the tactic needs adjusting.

Remember, xG is a statistical tool to help you analyse what might be happening in a game, not an objective representation of exactly how many goals you and the opposition will score.

[lahnim]

Your attack looks very congested around the opp box especially if you combine that with normal tempo and short passing like previously stated above which is similar to what chelsea faced. i would suggest you to change your left IF to Winger(A) and LB to WB(s). Your right sided IW to support duty.  and PF to AF with TI(pass into space). These changes will stretch your attack and give more variety to it.

[wazzaflow10]

On 25/06/2021 at 06:27, facman said:

So whilst it looks like you created loads of pressure, you didn't really appear to create many cast-iron chances.

Surely bad luck to give up 2 goals on 2 shots though. It's hard to argue that Sheffield Utd are that clinical. Typical FM! But the rest of the matches he seems to be creating better opportunities than his opponents during the match. Not every goal can be a sitter. Eventually one of the lower xG's should go in for him - it's just probability. 

I think one of the hard/frustrating aspects of this game is you can do everything right but so much of the game is just if you got a lucky roll of the dice that match. It often feels like as a human player that luck is not on your side. It becomes hard to separate the "I have a solid tactic that will perform well and over the course of a season there's going to be good and bad games" v  the "I lost and my tactic needs a complete overhaul." Speaking as a frustrated player myself of course.

 

[facman]

On 30/06/2021 at 18:40, wazzaflow10 said:

Surely bad luck to give up 2 goals on 2 shots though. It's hard to argue that Sheffield Utd are that clinical. Typical FM! But the rest of the matches he seems to be creating better opportunities than his opponents during the match. Not every goal can be a sitter. Eventually one of the lower xG's should go in for him - it's just probability. 

I think one of the hard/frustrating aspects of this game is you can do everything right but so much of the game is just if you got a lucky roll of the dice that match. It often feels like as a human player that luck is not on your side. It becomes hard to separate the "I have a solid tactic that will perform well and over the course of a season there's going to be good and bad games" v  the "I lost and my tactic needs a complete overhaul." Speaking as a frustrated player myself of course.

 

We all have matches where we wonder how we haven’t won, and where we think the AI is somehow cheating. The issue is that if you’re seeing it over and over then there’s something wrong with the way you are playing - either with tactics or team dynamics or team selection, for example. Recognising that there is a problem with ‘me’ and not the game is the first step to take in overcoming it. On the other hand, one of the biggest traps to fall into is confirmation bias, in which everything that goes against you in a match is ‘the computer cheating’.

The OP maintained that he was dominating games, then proceeded to show evidence that didn’t suggest that he was. The Sheffield Utd second goal was an aberration, but the other goal and the other matches weren’t.

I had a game against Man United earlier in the season that I won 2-0 where I’m sure the AI thought I was cheating - I mentioned it in my post above. I also drew with Southampton 2-2 at home after hitting the woodwork multiple times and missing an absolute sitter, whilst they only had about 4 shots in the match.

[wazzaflow10]

1 hour ago, facman said:

We all have matches where we wonder how we haven’t won, and where we think the AI is somehow cheating. The issue is that if you’re seeing it over and over then there’s something wrong with the way you are playing - either with tactics or team dynamics or team selection, for example. Recognising that there is a problem with ‘me’ and not the game is the first step to take in overcoming it. On the other hand, one of the biggest traps to fall into is confirmation bias, in which everything that goes against you in a match is ‘the computer cheating’.

The OP maintained that he was dominating games, then proceeded to show evidence that didn’t suggest that he was. The Sheffield Utd second goal was an aberration, but the other goal and the other matches weren’t.

I had a game against Man United earlier in the season that I won 2-0 where I’m sure the AI thought I was cheating - I mentioned it in my post above. I also drew with Southampton 2-2 at home after hitting the woodwork multiple times and missing an absolute sitter, whilst they only had about 4 shots in the match.

I agree "domination" wasn't correct. Certainly not to the degree we've seen of 30+ shots to opponent's 3. I do think the OP's feeling of "I should have won these games" is mostly valid though. That's where the luck v tactical debate is difficult to pull apart imo. It appears your tactic has the ability to snuff out quality chances from opponents. I'd expect over the course of the season though some of those less valuable shots to go in as they did v Soton. After a  game like that I think there's many players including myself that would look to change up a successful tactic because of a game like that. We're never quite sure what went wrong. Was it the roles/duties/formation? Did the players just have a bad game/moment? Did the other team just have an amazing day at the office? 

The game takes a lot of practice and patience.

[facman]

53 minutes ago, wazzaflow10 said:

 That's where the luck v tactical debate is difficult to pull apart imo. It appears your tactic has the ability to snuff out quality chances from opponents. I'd expect over the course of the season though some of those less valuable shots to go in as they did v Soton. After a  game like that I think there's many players including myself that would look to change up a successful tactic because of a game like that. We're never quite sure what went wrong. Was it the roles/duties/formation? Did the players just have a bad game/moment? Did the other team just have an amazing day at the office? 

The game takes a lot of practice and patience.

It does take practice, and I’ve been playing since CM01/02, so have quite a lot of it! 

One thing I would mention is that when it comes to tactics, I don’t have ‘a tactic’. I have 3 tactical setups with different formations, roles and duties, and team instructions. These are broadly interchangeable and I will use some or all of them in a match as I watch the action unfold, depending on what I would like my team to do to either reduce the effectiveness of what the opponent is doing or to improve the effectiveness of my team. Sometimes I won’t need to change anything, but against Man U several changes in TIs were made by me after 10 minutes to directly counter what I was seeing to shore up my defence (eg reduce pressing intensity by a notch to stop my midfield from getting pulled out of position) and create counter attacking opportunities (eg Pass into Space).

As the game has developed over the years what happens in the 3D match engine more closely mirrors what happens in real games (although it isn’t perfect), allowing the player to see what is going on in real time. I firmly believe that if you can watch and analyse a real football match then you can do the same in game.