Hattrick Season 69

[Eastheath]

Last three games, lost 0-2 at home to the team in 2nd, then drew 2-2 away to the team in 5th, followed by another 1-3 home defeat to the team in 1st.
I was a bit disappointed with the 2-2 draw, I thought we could nick that with a 3-4-3 CA, and sure enough were 1-2 ahead with 20 mins to go. Then our top defender got sent off, and within 4 mins they had an equaliser.
So, we sit in 7th, on 5 pts. 8th has 3 pts, but interestingly 6th also has 5 pts. 5th has 15 pts, so the best I could hope for is to nick 6th place and a qualifier.
And sure enough, in the next game I am at home to the team in 6th. His GD is superior, so basically I win this one or relegation is a certainty. All my squad is available, although one has a plaster. Might have a think about this one...

[Donut102]

Eastheath:

I win this one or relegation is a certainty

I see you won 4-0 to go into 6th - well played!

Going into this week I was in 3rd place. I had a routine 3-0 win.
1st was playing 2nd, and I meet 1st in the final game of the season. They drew fortunately, which promotes me to 2nd on 25 points, 1 point behind 1st, and 1 point ahead of 3rd.

A bot next week, and a routine winnable game the week after. Which will leave just the final match to secure the title.
I don't think promotion will happen, but delighted to be in a position to compete for the top spot.

[UncleIan]

I thought this week would be a coin toss. Away to 4th. We lined up in a 3-5-2 with an OCD to boost the midfield a bit more...we got humped. They edged possession, but their defence outclassed my attack. 4-0 final score. Chances were 4-2. Not sure I've ever seen so few chances. Neither team were pressing, not that I'm sure that makes any difference to the chances count. Anyway, we fluffed up, they didn't, confidence poor, fans unhappy, all that jazz.

Luckily, we had a bit of a cushion, 2nd and 3rd also won, so we're now four points ahead of 2nd, six points and loads of goal diff ahead of 3rd. Slipped below the auto-promotion line again. We're at home to 2nd next week, they've got a huge defence, though I should get plenty of ball. Thinking maybe of a cheeky MOTS to try and make sure of the game, and hence, the league, then use the last two games to prep for a qualifier. Nice position to be in. Of course, could all backfire horribly and I'll end up finishing 2nd in the league for the fourth season in a row, but 2nd and 3rd don't have an easy run in either, I mean, apart from playing me of course.

[Bink333]

Had a walkover on Sunday. That team is now 1pt ahead of me but +18GD in 6th. If I can get ahead of them I'd get a playoff - which I'd lose - but would be good for xp.

I'm away to 5th next who've lost their human manager.

Both of these teams have/had English NT players I used last season and this. I've lost one from the team that's lost its manager because he wasn't in the squad at the time the team went bot. The key striker from the team giving walkover was sold after our match yesterday, and I suspect player release rules may have been delayed until we met to avoid me gaining an advantage if their manager had logged back in.

In Oceania I won 2-4 away to the team in 8th, which puts me 5th on 18pts and a point behind 4th. I really should be aiming for a qualifier. I play the top two sides split by a game against 7th over the remaining fixtures, so that may happen naturally. 4th is a point ahead of me and they have 7th, 6th and 3rd to play.

[Eastheath]

Well yes, we managed to pull off a 4-0 win, so we live to fight another day.
The oppo pulled off his 2nd best hatstats of the season, which suggests he hadn't given up the ghost and went for it. Fortunately, we got our best hatstats of the season (on a PIN) and with home advantage I guess it all came good.

So its the heady heights of 6th for us, we are 3 pts ahead of 7th, with a goal difference 1 worse than theirs. Our next game is away to 5th, who are 7 pts ahead of us and they drubbed us 1-5 at our ground earlier, so its not an easy task. After that its home to 3rd, so the next couple of games are not promising and its a chance for 7th to catch us back up. Still, its better than having already been relegated!

Good luck to all as we hit the home stretch of the last 3 games...

[Eastheath]

Our next game is away to 5th, who are 7 pts ahead of us and they drubbed us 1-5 at our ground earlier, so its not an easy task

Not an easy task we said, and that has proved to be prophetic.
We lost by the odd goal in 9, 5-4 in the end with our CA tactic. They scored 5 out of 10 chances, we got all four out of four.
Fortunately we stay in 6th on 8 pts, the team in 7th lost and stay on 5 pts, now with same GD as ourselves, and the bottom team managed to pull out a draw with the top team and now has 4 pts.
The next game is home to 3rd, who know how to get 50+ hatstats more than ourselves. 7th and 8th play each other, and I'm not sure how I want that to go as my final game is away to 8th. Its a bit close down at the basement end!

[Donut102]

Beat a bot team 10-0.
Couple of minor injuries.

Erm, that's it.

[Bink333]

In Oceania, in 5th I was at home to the leaders who were 6pts ahead of 2nd (they meet next week) and I play 2nd in the final game.

I set up with 2 sitting midfielders, in a 3-5-2 on a PIN with then having 52-61% possession, the big change here was partly down to my 5% stamina and partly down to them injuring my best IM (who was playing IMTW) and me best PNF. I knew I would struggle with their defence ratings and was hoping for some PNF action with 2 against a sonlitary central defender, and they knew they would struggle with my defence ratings so opted for the capricious play creative tactic.

My team has done a fair bit of set piece training (in order to sell GKs from my previous training stint) and the first SE chance came to us on a corner, which we scored just 3 minutes in. We then got lucky to convert a normal chance on 37 minutes and went into half-time 2-0 up. We then received the only other SE of the game , a quick one for my central IM who passed it to my best forward and he converted (shortly before his injury).

The win keeps me in 5th 1pt behind 4th, and I'd actually prefer to get a playoff for the extra xp for my trainees, but I'm also keen to get more data on my PNF chances/goals against stronger looking teams. I can afford to drop points against 7th this week. I've scored 21pts so far with just 17 goals for, which I'm quite enjoying as my powerful/quick player combination develops.

The injuries have force me to switch from PM to passing training this week, until the injured PNF has recovered, as my PM training schedule has been extended just so I can get another pop out of him.

In England I was facing the team without a human manager. I opted for a MoTs in the vain attempt to nick a point to try and steal a playoff place from the team handing out a walkover every week in 6th one point ahead of me. My old (35-37y/o midfield/defence) players and low stamina combination did me in though, we went from 3-3 at half time to 7-3 losers.

[UncleIan]

Win on Sunday at home to 2nd and that's the league won, so let's MOTS, win the league, and then just let the dice fall for qualification...

I thought we'd have the lion's share of possession, but they have a monster defence, and I'd just taken a pasting, so confidence wasn't great. I decided on a gung ho 2-5-3, while they lined up in a 4-4-2. We had 60% possession, but they'd definitely put up a wall in front of their goal. Halftime we were 1-2 down, but managed to pull it back to 2-2 in the second half, we missed a few chances, and that was that, a draw. Chances were 8-4, so I can feel slightly aggrieved, but *shrug* that's football, that's hattrick, it doesn't always go your way does it.

Question: Does "The Toffees players could smell victory in the air." have any meaning? It was just before they did a substitution. Or is it just filler?

Thanks to other results, 3rd only drawing too to slip to 4th, while 4th won to go 3rd, we're still 4 points clear of 2nd, 3rd are 5 points back, 4th are 6 points back. We're now two points below the auto-promotion line. I have no idea how the league is going to go, I need to PIC next week, so that's looking like a very tough match, while 4th are at home to 2nd, and 3rd should paste 8th. The final week I'm at home to 4th, while 2nd are at home to 3rd. Looking at how the games could go, I could still win the league without getting any more points, but obviously, I'd like to finish with a bit more of a flourish than that!

[Bink333]

Question: Does "The Toffees players could smell victory in the air." have any meaning? It was just before they did a substitution. Or is it just filler?

It's just flavour text.

[UncleIan]

This week we were away to 5th, which doesn't sound like that tough a match, but they were only 7 points behind me, and sort of just about keeping up with the chasing pack, oh, and I'd MOTSd the week before so was needing a recovery PIC. In the end went for a standard 3-5-2 and a PIC Press Pray. With a little tweak to try man marking their best striker with a WB. As expected I lost possession, 57/43%, but my defence was winning 60/40, while my attack beat their defence by varying amounts. Turn up for the books, they'd decided to press too. I guess in fear of my attack, and maybe not realising I'd MOTSd at home last week, so weren't expecting to win midfield. Anyway, they missed a chance, scored, we equalised to end the half. Second half and one of my defenders gets a silly yellow and will miss the last match, one of theirs got booked for a vicious challenge then got subbed off injured a minute later from a kick to the baws. That revenge wasn't served cold! I then had a succession of tactical subs to get fresh legs for the pressing tactic, during that ten minutes they scored again 2-1, but we managed to score from a complex free kick routine to level things up. Final score 2-2. One point gained rather than two points dropped I reckon.

So how's the league looking? 2nd lost to 4th, while 3rd as expected pasted 8th and moved up to 2nd. We're on 28 points and +24 goal diff. The new 2nd place are on 25 points and +23 goal diff. They're the only ones who can catch me now. Next week we're at home to the new 3rd place, while 2nd are away to the new 4th. I would expect 2nd to lose, but then 4th could be looking over their shoulder to a potential qualifier. Me? Looks like I'll lose possession, and so it might be a coin toss, but the odds are slightly in their favour I reckon. If I lose and 2nd win by more than one goal, that's that and I'm second, so I need a point. Though thanks to the suspended defender, I think I'll be going for a 2-5-3, so a press doesn't make any sense, and a PIC to prep for the qualifier certainly doesn't. Might have a play with AOW but I'm already losing midfield by a chunk, so putting the wingers offensive might be giving up too much. Oh, and auto-qualification is out the window as I'm 4 points below the line. Hmm, I suppose I should MOTS to give myself the best chance to win the league first, then worry about the qualifier second, as they're usually a one horse race anyway. Things to ponder for sure.

[Donut102]

A straight forward 5-1 win at home on PIC.

Leaves me in 2nd on 31 points, 1st has 32 points, and 3rd has 30 points.
I play 1st away from home, and 3rd has an easy win.

It's as simple as I have to win to take the title. A loss or draw means I drop down to 3rd. Right now I have no injuries or suspensions, and team spirit is very high. I'll have to MOTS, and the current auto-promotion line is at 36 points. Promotion is therefore unlikely, but I'd like a shiny new trophy!

[Bink333]

Managed to lose 0-5 to the team in 2nd. They're 7pts behind the leaders who should get auto-promoted to the Prem, now on 37pts (lucky to have two rebuilders, plus one gone awol and one gone ownerless).

I'm now a point behind the team giving 5-0 walkovers every week, and 7th, with an away game against 4th to come.

I expect another couple of seasons of pastings, at least until I get down to V.

With my second team in Oceania, I was in 5th at home to 7th. The team a point ahead of me in 4th were at home to 3rd, whilst the leaders were at home to the team 3pts behind them in 2nd.

I set up with my weakest PM trainees (training went back to PM this week after the forward recovered from his knock), including two powerful full-backs playing as sitting m/f, and both wingers set defensive, with 4 ex-YA non-trainees in defence, and my 2 decent GKs getting 45 minutes each with my recovered PNF up front.

This gave me 75% of the ball at kick off with approx 90% defence and 44-52% in attack. Despite having formation experience confusion 5 minutes after kick off, we won easily. A 4-0 win with one PNF goal and no sitting m/f events reported.

2nd and 4th both lost so I'm up to 4th. I'm away to 3rd this week, but would have to win 0-10 to nick third off him. I'm hoping 5th beat 6th next week and that I lose so I can have my 5th place back and get the added xp from a playoff match for the trainees. I'll definitely be PICing again next week.

[Eastheath]

someones found their scoring boots, although its a little bit late in the season.
Having lost 5-4 away to 5th last week, this week we were at home to 3rd, and keen to hang on to 6th place. Knowing we would lose MF, it was a PIN CA 3-4-3 approach against their 3-5-2 with play creatively.

They took the lead on 13 mins 0-1, and we then lost our GK to injury on 21. His stand in is a passable GK and seriously nothing to write home about, so a drubbing was well on the cards!

We found ourselves 1-3 down before the break, but early in the second half had made it 3-3. Then it was 4-5 down with three minutes to go, before we nicked an equaliser and it finished 5-5! They had won midfield, and it was our six chances to their eight, so I feel slightly lucky.

The draw was useful, because 7th beat 8th, which relegated 8th and brought 7th to within a point of us. Now the tactics get interesting.

We are 6th on 9 pts and 7th is on 8 pts. Our final game is away to 8th, who will probably want to exert a final bash at a win before going down. My decision is - MOTS to push for the win, then struggle with the qualifier, or try to win with a PIN, save something for the qualifier but risk not holding on to 6th. The team in 7th is away to 5th, who will finish 5th regardless, so they will PIC and preserve TS for their qualifier, meaning 7th is likely to win, which means we have to win....which I guess answers my question. bu99er.

Would be a shame to go down, now that we've found our scoring boots....

[Donut102]

It was a nervy final match of the season, which I needed to win to take the title.
We went down 1-0 early in the first half, and pulled it back to 1-1 by halftime.
In the second half we knocked in 3 quick goals, and the score finished 4-1.
Hatstats were dead even at 284 for each team, and perhaps in hindsight the scoreline flattered my team.

My opponent in the Qualifier is somewhat more substantial, achieving about 100 more hatstats than I.
An injury to my PNF doesnt help.
I've decided to switch away from more normal 253 to 352, and unusually for me I'm going to have a go at man marking. With 2 x TDF, 2 x CDO and 2 x WTM its a formation set up to maximise midfield and maybe sneak a SE goal.

[UncleIan]

Last match of the season already. Needed at least a draw to definitely finish first, and we all know qualification games are just an opportunity for a bit more experience (I mean, apart from that one time...), so an obvious extra MOTS, just two weeks after the previous one, 2-5-3. They still edged midfield, just, while my attack edged their defence, they loaded a wing, presumably predicting my 2-5-3, but didn't have any special orders. I was thinking it was going to be a coin toss. In the first half my keeper came up trumps, and we managed to score with a counter attack, an unusual event with only two at the back I'd have thought, 1-0 at half time. Early in the second half one of my many players with no speciality scored with a header, then we popped another one in, missed another, while my keeper played a blinder. Coin toss? Chances 5-5, final score 3-0. Get in!

That's the league wrapped up, second did their best with a decent 0-4 win, but in the end, the trophy comes back to Albumen towers. Not too shabby seeing as the stats suggest we're 4th best on both ratings and evil stars, and my players rarely make team of the week. Maybe it's not too much to crow about as our league is apparently 59th best of 64.

So on to the qualifier, I'm assuming they PICd this week, as they were already safe from auto-relegation, and it looks a big ask to me, not a ridiculous mismatch for sure, but they have the upper hand just about everywhere. Perhaps I should line up in my friendly in a 4-5-1 just to try and confuse, but it looks like they play 4-4-2 normal come rain or shine anyway. A MOTS Press and Pray and set them penalty takers is the route to take I think, keep the score down or try and limp towards penalties. Not really and inspiring tactic but hey, probably the best chance we've got. Then again, looking at the stats, getting promoted I'd be the worst team in that league by a long chalk, okay, other promotees might be terrible to, but getting a pasting every week isn't a great appeal.

[Eastheath]

Quick re-cap - we had to match or better the result of the game involving 7th, in order to secure our 6th spot and a qualifier to stay in series IV.

It didnt start well. We went a goal down away to already relegated 8th, and 7th went a goal up away to 5th, who were probably PICing in prep for their qualifier. All going Pete Tong, as they say. By half time we had squared it up at 1-1, but 7th were still in the lead so we were going down.

Its a funny old game. By 67 mins we had taken the lead 1-2 and 7th were 2-1 down, so we were back to being safe.

Not so fast. By 75 mins we were 3-2 down and 7th were 3-2 down, an equaliser from them and we were going down again.

Fortunately, while we lost 3-2 in the end, with 8th getting their first win of the season, 7th couldn't get the equaliser and finished 4-2 down, so we got our qualifier.

Our oppo in the qualifer is a bit of a strange one, an older team of 32-35 year olds from series V that, even if we MOTS, appears to be pulling equal or better ratings/stars in defence midfield and attack, despite having half our total TSI. I'm assuming stamina over the 90 mins will lean in our favour towards the end of the game, nevertheless the game looks harder than I had expected.

[UncleIan]

Our oppo in the qualifer is a bit of a strange one, an older team of 32-35 year olds from series V that, even if we MOTS, appears to be pulling equal or better ratings/stars in defence midfield and attack, despite having half our total TSI. I'm assuming stamina over the 90 mins will lean in our favour towards the end of the game, nevertheless the game looks harder than I had expected.

Do they only have 16 players or something? Oh wait, looking now. Yeah, old timers. Lots of experience, lots of loyalty, no stamina. And yes, they do seem to pull some decent ratings. Looking at the midfield graphs for recent matches theirs looks like a black run, while yours is more of a nursery slope. If you have a decent IM sub, throwing them on at 60 minutes or so, you'll be tilting the game your way at the end, to an extent. Still looks like a tough match though, good luck!

[Bink333]

My English team duly relegated with a 4-0 loss ensuring 7th. My £5m PNF trainee popped to outstanding scoring age 17/78 last week, which was nice.

His £250k 'back-up' PNF was injured on 29, but is fully fit to play an end of season friendly against my 2nd team tonight, so 61 minutes for him in that one. He'd only started because my Tunisian (also a PNF) was suspended.

I'm looking forward to seeing at least 2 of these trainees get a chance at U20 level.

In Oceania, I was keen to slip back to 5th and get a qualifier. I sent the same PIC weakest m/f (wb/pnf in training) I could field with cannon fodder at the back, and my usual useful GK pair (who stamina sub for each other at half-time in every game). We lost 4-0 and slipped back to 5th with a respectable 24pts one pt behind 4th. Not bad for just 21 goals scored....

This gives me a qualifier against a bot. Lots of extra xp for the trainees, and nothing for me to worry about.

In my Oceania YA, my quick excellent defending potential trainee popped to solid on Saturday morning, and started a new league on Monday. That means he's about 6 weeks away from hitting his defending cap (age 17/17ish) and promoting. The first team has approx 6 weeks left of planned PM training, before we switch to oassing (5wk) and wing (3 seasons) before going back to defending. I'm still umming and ahhing over whether I should keep him to train sub-optimally in a 50% wing slot (although with 5% training under an excellent coach he'll still get to magnificent from a poor cap upon promotion - and that's without getting any additional 30 minutes 100% training in Cup based friendlies that go into extra time). 3 seasons of defending after that would get him to supernatural, which makes him a pretty useful understudy to the other 4 NT (hopefully) worthy Wb by the time their stamina is due to be increased and I push on with some more SP training.

There's a great training speed tool to bookmark here:- https://hattrickportal.pro/PlayerTrainingCalc.aspx to work this sort of stuff out.

The alternative would be to sell, but the home grown bonus is what's swinging it atm.

Thinking out loud and rambling a bit.

Good luck for your qualifiers gents!

[Donut102]

My £5m PNF trainee popped to outstanding scoring age 17/78 last week

Gosh thats a lot of money for a 17yo. I bought a titanic PNF aged 21 for £2.8m. But I guess my player isn't an U20 prospect, and I know you really value experience.

I have, however, spent £6m on a new GK with a view to switching to Def training next season after the cup run.
I maybe bought the player a little earlier than I wanted, but I was fed up of losing money to board reserves as I was over the £10m cap. With end of season bonus about to be paid, and a lucrative cup run it feels a bit like free money.