As Football Manager players, we normally put a fortune of opinion into our tactical overture. not good the formation, the actor roles and the instructions, but besides how and when to press the opponent ( enhanced by FM22 ’ s new pressing system ), if we should pass short or long and if certain roles should chiefly Defend, Support or Attack. It ’ s a beautiful matter when you are winning but it can be a bloodcurdling perplex to solve when you are on a suffer streak .
The rapid rebel of the popularity of analytics in football is now reflected in-game through a kind of useful visualisations in the Hub. You can maximise this feature to give you deeper insight into how your team are playing in every phase of play and in every part of the peddle .
historically it can be unmanageable to figure out precisely where things are breaking down, but FM22 ’ s fresh Data Hub can empower you to well see some of these challenges and tweak your tactic to get more from your organization and your current players. It ’ second deserving hold in mind that the better analysts you have, the more information you ’ ll have to play with.
In this second part of his series, FM Stag explores how you can obtain key Defensive Insights from the Data Hub .
Managing Huddersfield – An Example
My Huddersfield side are presently 20th in the Sky Bet Championship, hovering perilously above the relegation partition after 20 games. We ’ ve conceded 45 goals, which is incidentally twentieth in the Goals Against board besides. How do we stop leaking thus many goals ? If we concede fewer goals, we should win more points…
Pre-Data Hub me :
Our Centre Backs should actually be aerially dominant. I think that ’ s how best to defend attacks in this division. I think that we need central Defenders with higher Jumping Reach and Heading Attributes. I remember a few highlights where one of our cardinal Defenders missed a header as the ball dropped and let the opposition striker in behind. That must be it. Let ’ s go and get a pair of new ( giant ) defenders in the following window. otherwise, we risk losing even more matches .
besides, our goalkeeper must be atrocious. He ’ s the one lease in the goals and he ’ s let in excessively many. We need a better shoot show-stopper, that ’ s the long and short of it. so, let ’ s add a fresh keeper to our mid-season denounce number and that ’ ll fasten things .
Data Hub me :
Navigates to the Data Hub, clicks ‘ Ask For ’ and looks at a handful of excellent visualisations from my performance Analysts that will give me real number insight alternatively .
Let ’ s first look at our antenna analysis and see if my intestine feel was right .
Interesting. We actually win more of our opportunities to head the ball than the average team in the league, sitting as the fifth most effective headers of the ball in the league. In fact, looking at this visual image, lone four teams ( Cardiff, Reading, QPR and Barnsley ) successfully complete a higher percentage of headers than we do .
possibly, with that in mind, our biggest trouble is my other gut instinct issue, our first-choice goalkeeper. Let ’ s look at the Advanced Goalkeeping visual image on the Data Hub > Player riddle to see how he compares with his peers .
Ok, so that international relations and security network ’ t it either. Lee Nicholls is successfully saving about precisely the average act of shots aimed in his management of all the goalkeepers in the Sky Bet Championship. Looking at this visual image, his approximately 76 % successful Save Percentage ratio puts him correct in the middle of the clique. When we look at the erect metric unit on this graph, he has only conceded two more goals than his expect Goals Against suggest .
Looking at those two Scatter Graphs alone, the trouble is neither our aerial ability, nor the shot-stopping ability of our goalkeeper. We could be performing better, but by these defensive metrics we should be comfortably mid-table, not facing the atrocious prospect of a relegation struggle .
What else can we look at to see what the problem could be then ?
Read more: David Prowse
now I see something. A agile glance at the Defensive Actions Zone Map and clean issues are starting to surface. An incredible 48 % of our defensive Actions, such as tackles, blocks or interceptions, occur in the immediate sixth of the deliver nearest our own finish .
merely 8 % of our presses ( or blocks or interceptions ) happen in the opposition half and only 1 % in the final third.
Is there any early insight we can glean from elsewhere ?
Looking at the Team Possession graph we can see that we are, statistically, the worst team in the division at winning back possession. While relatively reliable at keeping a halt of the ball when we actually have it, we very rarely win it back .
besides worth consideration is the Tackling – Midfielders chart, which shows me that our unconstipated midfield players attempt A LOT fewer tackles than the average midfielder in the Sky Bet Championship. Josh Ruffels is the outlier here but he is apparently trying to defend all on his own .
What insight does all this give me?
It wasn ’ t our aeriform art or our goalkeeper ’ sulfur deficiencies. The reality is that we don ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate win the ball back much enough, don ’ metric ton crush in the resistance half and regularly trust on last-ditch defending truly conclude to our own goal line .
possibly before spending money on fresh defenders and a goalkeeper, it ’ vitamin d make sense to incorporate some tactical tweaks and shuffle our musician choice alternatively. It can ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate distress .
We already play a slenderly higher defensive occupation, so the last-ditch tackles are not a resultant role of the team sitting besides deep. That said, we were using the team Instructions to Play Out From the Back and Distribute the Ball to Central Defenders. Let ’ s not do that anymore. clearly, we are inviting the urge, losing the musket ball regularly enough to concede chances, and this is leading to about half of our defensive Actions being within 30 yards of our own goal line .
Jordan Rhodes has been our alone striker. While hush a baneful Poacher with some excellent qualities, his express Pace and Work Rate means that the bet on is passing him by. possibly a talented Poacher is a luxury we can ’ t presently afford in our stream position. While not american samoa clinical as Rhodes, Danny Ward is quicker and boasts higher work Rate and Teamwork Attributes. He would make an ideal Pressing Forward. If we press from the presence with more efficiency, in theory we will take the battle for possession higher up the pitch, far away from our danger zone. therefore, conceding fewer opportunities that lead to goals .
In Summary
Data entirely can not win football matches. There is no clamant acquire formula in Football Manager, in the like manner that the consequence of a football pit in real animation can be truly unpredictable and based on emotion, desire and all the early intangibles that make us love football .
That said, figuring out in a few clicks precisely where my tactic seems to be breaking down and giving me cognition of how I can improve it without tearing it all improving and starting again ?
That ’ second insight. That ’ mho potent. That ’ s realism .
I have only touched on a couple of the many available visualisations available in the Data Hub with this Defensive Insights article but there are lots of options for you to explore in more detail .
What will you use your Data Hub for ?
Keep an eye out for far Data Hub articles, for exemplar exploring how to use it as a scouting instrument .
happy oversee ,
FM Stag