I've had this problem playing on FM11 and after a bit of trial and error and some testing would conclude that it is definitely down to tactics more than anything else. When I looked at the analysis page of scoring chances, most of my clear cut chances and half chances weren't in front of goal, but were more from an angle. So the key was to try and create more good chances in more frontal positions. Crossing the ball from the wing I find is quite inefficient and about 90% of the time the result is it doesn't beat the defender and bounces out for a corner. What has improved my strikers scoring rates is playing much more narrow and focus passing through the middle. I play with River Plate and on the widest pitch, which means that there is much more space in the middle of the park to play through as the opposition is a bit more stretched. I find that when the ball gets to my centre forwards they are in much better positions to score.
Having said all that, I think though that tempo is the most important aspect. I read on a forum, maybe this one, about the frustration of having 20+ shots a game and not scoring to which someone replied that they were having too many shots. When I looked at all my games I was having 20+ shots at goal, but I doubt that many were probably actually decent chances. I think this is down to having too high a tempo setting. I don't see tempo as actually relating to the speed you play at, but more to do with the urgency to make something happen. I think that with the high tempo that I used to have my players were prone to making the wrong decisions too often and particularly with shooting they would take the shot on at the merest sniff of goal. Some of these may still be classed as CCC, even if the angle was sometimes narrow or the ball was on the players wrong foot. Against weaker teams that I should be beating, I slowed the tempo down to the slowest possible. This has had a much better impact on my strikers who put the ball over the bar less, shoot less often straight at the keeper and consequently score more goals. I think the main thing is that they are snatching at shots less and instead of shooting at the first opportunity are working the ball into situations where they can score more easily eg looking for a passing option or getting the ball on their better foot. The number of shots I have has gone down, but I think I am creating much better chances.
Of course my analysis could be all wrong and I am sure there are lots of other contrary arguments, but from the initial experiments and reviews I've done these changes have worked very well for me and my River Plate side.
