Getting my striker to score

[dmayne07]

Hi guys,

Wonder if anyone had was having some issues with strikers both being involved and scoring chances this year? Never something I've ever had a problem with, in fact probably the opposite where decent PL strikers will still bag 25+ in a top half team. We're top on xG and I was a long way ahead last year, with respective 4th place (1 game to go) and 7th place finishes.

I've attached a pic of Marcos Leonardo below and if you exclude the Conference League because of the sheer volume of awful teams he's played against, he's only bagged 15 in 36 PL games. Plenty of assists too but the average rating kind of gives you an idea of his general performance. He's below his xG in the PL and last year he scored 11 in 33 and his xG was over 18 which is a ridiculous difference. You'd expect decent strikers to outdo their xG and certainly world class strikers in a team that creates loads. Looking at the top scorers in the league, they're outperforming their xg by somewhere from 3 all the way up to 8, which is what you'd expect.

Maybe it's the tactics that are not giving him as many chances but he's still not performing as he should, and doesn't have a single weakness (maybe jumping reach but still enough to not get totally bullied). CA wise he's probs in the top 10 strikers in the world. In the ME, he seems to score quite a few offside goals but my team refuse to ever pass into space, play through balls and even cross from the byline are rare. No PI on any players except the wide players may have stay wider or cut inside depending on the role and flank they're playing on. I've tried him as PF, AF, P and CF. Poacher weirdly lead to a lot of those assists but didn't like the idea of him being even more isolated when he's so well rounded.

I don't want some meta tactic to make an already easy game, easier but if anyone wants to suggest some tactical tweaks or is experiencing the same it would be interesting to hear. Not harming my success really but is affecting my enjoyment of having such a beast who doesn't score that much (relative to his ability!)

Cheers

[Johnny Ace]

13 hours ago, dmayne07 said:

I don't want some meta tactic to make an already easy game, easier but if anyone wants to suggest some tactical tweaks or is experiencing the same it would be interesting to hear. Not harming my success really but is affecting my enjoyment of having such a beast who doesn't score that much (relative to his ability!)

To be honest, it's not far off being a Meta tactic 

Like you say, his only weakness is his Jumping Reach, he has the Strength and Balance to hold his own but then you have two Wingers and two Wingbacks (on Attack) which will be looking to get crosses into him 

The CM(A) will be doing your striker no favours as he'll be trying to get into the box and on the end of chances rather than help supply the striker. Same for the Winger(A)  

So, two key things there for me, the supply to the striker  

I'm not sure if you've seen the 4-3-3 DM thread, but the first post I did on there (the out and out striker) was all about supplying the goal scorer 

 

[rich10]

Thanks for posting this.

I've also had this issue, I'm managing Inter Milan (defending Serie A champions) and so I'm almost always the dominant team in games. So this originally lead me to playing very high lines both offensively and defensively, short passing, slow tempo and counter-pressing in a 4-1-2-2-1 system with an advanced forward and 2 AMCs feeding him, as well as 2 attacking wingbacks providing crosses (see attached) - and this resulted in Lautaro Martinez getting 52 and 48 goals in each of the previous 2 seasons on FM23 (I ported this save over into FM24).

Since FM24, however, I've seen a significant decrease in his goals scored or involvement in team build-up play (he's often mentioned as being isolated in the Last Match Passing comments, and I've tried changing his role to be a more deep-lying one (DLF, CF-SU etc..) with no joy. He just wasn't making the same forward runs he was on FM23, never breaking into the box and so no through balls were played into him. I should mention here that I hadn't changed his traits at all as a player.

And then very recently I had a bit of a break-through, I lowered my lines to mid-block with a high defensive line, but kept the trigger press set to 'more often', set my passing to standard with a standard tempo (on balanced or positive mentality), and gave Martinez a bit more support with a Shadow Striker behind him...and NOW I'm seeing those attacking runs into the space behind the opposition. It's only been 2 games but what I'm seeing is much more like it.

It may not be the answer you're looking for @dmayne07, but it's helped my team. I wasn't losing games but they always seemed more of a frustrating slog until now in FM24 with TONNES of corners (even when I'm pretty sure the ball touched no one) something SI are aware of and need to fine tune. 

[dmayne07]

On 17/11/2023 at 07:32, Johnny Ace said:

To be honest, it's not far off being a Meta tactic 

Like you say, his only weakness is his Jumping Reach, he has the Strength and Balance to hold his own but then you have two Wingers and two Wingbacks (on Attack) which will be looking to get crosses into him 

The CM(A) will be doing your striker no favours as he'll be trying to get into the box and on the end of chances rather than help supply the striker. Same for the Winger(A)  

So, two key things there for me, the supply to the striker  

I'm not sure if you've seen the 4-3-3 DM thread, but the first post I did on there (the out and out striker) was all about supplying the goal scorer 

 

Haha, don't tell me it's meta! I just try and strip back the tactics and keep it fairly basic.

Do you think your post in that thread still holds true though? Last year I never had any issues with strikers scoring and in fact had much worse strikers score at a goal a game in the PL (unrealistically so don't mind that being tweaked). This is my test save anyway so not the end of the world but because of that I had a look at his CA and hidden attributes. Only Haaland and Mbappe have better than his 179 CA and his spread of attributes is also great. He's got 15+ for most personality traits and consistency (which is especially meaningless in my opinion) and important matches are 14 and 12 respectively just he might score 2 in a game then not score for 5 games.

Still miles ahead on xG this season and whilst he is actually slightly out performing his xG, his average rating is below a 7 which is ridiculous for a guy who's so well rounded and playing in a pretty dominant team (basically the worst of all my first team players). I tried your suggestions and it's made no real difference. Just at a loss as to how to get him more involved. Even got to a 4231 and that's not made a massive impact. His numbers are by no means bad but for a player at his level in this team, they are very poor. I think all the changes to the ME have made issues stick out more to me as I've never really paid too much attention to the issues. I reckon he's had 1 chance in the 3 seasons from the ball being played over the top. I've moved to balanced on tempo and passing, with pass into space and early crosses, even chucking in 'take more risks' and midfielders never play an early pass to him. Played Tel (and it's not a great version of him) and my players do actually play more direct passes over the top at times. Just weird and feels kind of broken to me because even if he wasn't one of those players who does well in the ME, you'd still expect a lot more goals and better all-round performance. Seems the games solution is often to make him fractionally offside or point blank blocks from cutbacks.

I am greedy though; I want my striker to score a goal a game, wingers with 1 in 2, a goalscoring midfielder and to keep clean sheets  I'd prioritise the goal scoring striker over everything else!

[dmayne07]

On 17/11/2023 at 09:40, rich10 said:

Thanks for posting this.

I've also had this issue, I'm managing Inter Milan (defending Serie A champions) and so I'm almost always the dominant team in games. So this originally lead me to playing very high lines both offensively and defensively, short passing, slow tempo and counter-pressing in a 4-1-2-2-1 system with an advanced forward and 2 AMCs feeding him, as well as 2 attacking wingbacks providing crosses (see attached) - and this resulted in Lautaro Martinez getting 52 and 48 goals in each of the previous 2 seasons on FM23 (I ported this save over into FM24).

Since FM24, however, I've seen a significant decrease in his goals scored or involvement in team build-up play (he's often mentioned as being isolated in the Last Match Passing comments, and I've tried changing his role to be a more deep-lying one (DLF, CF-SU etc..) with no joy. He just wasn't making the same forward runs he was on FM23, never breaking into the box and so no through balls were played into him. I should mention here that I hadn't changed his traits at all as a player.

And then very recently I had a bit of a break-through, I lowered my lines to mid-block with a high defensive line, but kept the trigger press set to 'more often', set my passing to standard with a standard tempo (on balanced or positive mentality), and gave Martinez a bit more support with a Shadow Striker behind him...and NOW I'm seeing those attacking runs into the space behind the opposition. It's only been 2 games but what I'm seeing is much more like it.

It may not be the answer you're looking for @dmayne07, but it's helped my team. I wasn't losing games but they always seemed more of a frustrating slog until now in FM24 with TONNES of corners (even when I'm pretty sure the ball touched no one) something SI are aware of and need to fine tune. 

Not sure I could ever bring myself to play without wingers .

I've actually tweaked to very similar tactics to you and thought I'd cracked it by playing him as a Poacher but then he scored about 2 in 10 averaging a 6.5 . As I said above, weirdly, a much inferior Tel seems to get more chances. All very strange.