Wingers not crossing

[kThien]

Hi,

I am having trouble with my wingers and their role.
They won't cross nor try any through passes, but rather, tend to pass the ball back to the fullbacks instead of trying to run with the ball to the byline and cross(settings I've chosen).

Strangely, this started to happen about 2 patches back, but after the first patch, I got used to it because the wingers would decide to cut in (even though I've set it to otherwise) and score tonnes of goals, with one of them winning the balon d'or due to high average ratings. Then the next steam patch was downloaded, and now they won't try any killer balls or anything but play it safe.

It's like the game has decided to completely ignore my tactics, and now I'm finding FM boring because of that...
-Oh and I have match prep all full - didn't make the rookie mistake of constantly tweaking.

Anyone have any experience or solutions? Help is much appreciated!

 

[webbmt12]

It's probably because your wingers have unfavorable traits like 'Cuts inside' and 'Play's one Two's'. The only way you change this is by training them out of it. If you ask your coaches to train the wingers to have traits like 'knocks ball past opponents' and other preferred moves, which make them more likely to cross but I can't remember their names.

It took me 3 quarters of a season to get Draxler going past full backs and to then cross or even score. Initially, he would go one on one with a full back and play it back to another team mate instead of being brave and going past him.

It seems to take a while to train players out of it and sometimes you can't change them at all; even if in real life managers pull players into their office or spend a couple of weeks training them to cross more or something- but for some bizarre reason SI doesn't seem to understand this!

Otherwise, you could buy players that have the correct attributes and traits to cross the ball. You could also change your tactics to float crosses or 'hit early crosses.' Hope this helps.

 

[kThien]

Thanks for the reply.
I know what you're saying but I believe it's definitely not that.

For instance, I have Gareth Bale, who likes to curl balls etc, and I haven't tried to learn new moves either - very strange.
I have another regen who I use on the right with the following: tries killer balls, places shots, knocks ball past opponent, hugs touchline.

Another prominent problem is my striker who likes to run with the ball, from deep, yet I have both set to none in tactics. He doesn't even have the preferred moves for them either.

Too much time invested into this save, I am baffled...

 

[webbmt12]

Must be annoying. You seem to have so little control over your players on this game.

 

[apvmoreira]

i have a theory.

What you will need is a winger with a preferred foot right or left very good and the other feet need to be at least ok. You can see this is the player as only left/right foot, right/left foot or either.

So, now you need to put the preferred foot on the same side, this is left side with the preferred foot.

Now, the other team OIs would normally "show weaker foot" and here comes in hand the not so weaker foot that they have left.

For example, Bale on the right side, tends to go to the center, using the best foot (left). If the defender don't let him go we will go to the line and cross. This plus "hugh the touchline" could improve your crossing

 

[kThien]

Thanks apvmoreira, I will try that out!
I've never encountered this problem before in my years of playing FM... Perhaps it's a way of SI changing things up once you've found the god-code ?

Prior to this conundrum, I was literally replicating the invincibles for 3 years in a row. My strikers were usurping Messi and his rightful balon d'ors.
Still, it makes no sense as to why a few tweaks of the tactics wouldn't fix it.

 

[Coupdhaha]

If you set it the crossing to "mixed" you might get him crossing more.

If you only have him crossing at the byline or something, and he's not getting to the byline/ beating the man often... well, he's not going to be crossing much.