The Hattrick Season 65 Thread

[Donut102]

Cant see a thread for the new season, so here goes.

I finished in 4th in Division V.
The league now has 3 bots. The team that finished 2nd last season regularly posts hatstats of 300, and I can only manage ~230. However I can beat most of the other human teams, so 2nd place has to be my target.
My first 4 games will be against bots, or the champion elect - which means I can focus on the cup in the early rounds, and take a view of my league chances in week 5.
I've got 3 good YA prospects, with the right specs, coming through which will dictate my training programme for the next few seasons. Probably defending & PM.

Best of luck in the new season.

[UncleIan]

West Bromwich Albumen have landed in IV.15. Ranked 40 out of 64. One team hasn't logged in since March, I guess they may go bot at the halfway mark, I can't remember how long it takes before you're botified, but I'm sure it can't be just six weeks or so. I also cross swords with Autumn Moon, who I've been in a league with before, six seasons ago, though it was one in which they came second in the league and I was seventh, so they probably don't remember particularly. I know I don't, though looking at the fixtures I remember it was an awful start I had from which I never recovered.

I'm hoping that the average/max stats from last season for all the teams massively count against me as I PICd probably ten of last season's games. Otherwise I'm in the plop. I have the lowest midfield by some margin, joint 6th for forwards, and joint 3rd for defence. Dropping into a league stuffed full of big midfields is not ideal at this stage of IM training. I've promoted a new coach with solid leadership, so can do some TS management when I've got no hope, and fingers crossed spring a few surprises along the way. Target, 7th or better.

[Bink333]

I've sold up in Oceania, bar a couple of high xp stragglers (I value xp more than the market does).

I was planning on selling up when my GKs popped to titanic to switch to low stamina defender training, and the team was too old to repeat their title winning exploits of last season. Just before selling up my wages were £150kpw and roughly half that of my English team.

I've spent most of the week finalising my training plan, allocating my budget for trainees from the TL and doing a spreadsheet to try to ensure I buy the best value (age vs GK/Def/SP) as possible. I've converted a divine+9 xp player to excellent coach, hired 2xlvl5 assistant coaches and dropped stamina to 5% (and raised TI back up to 100%).

The plan is to buy 4x20-21y/o GK aged 20-21 with crap defending/SP skill over the next 3-4 weeks for @£3m each. I bagged my first one this morning for 0.5% over my spreadsheet valuation (10 other transfer 'targets', have gone on to sell for between 2% and 20% above the spreadsheet valuation over the last 3-4 days).

My home grown GK and 5 YA promotees will make up the other training positions. 4-5 seasons of this should yield @£20m+ revenue from the 4 GKs at current prices, and that should help with getting the team back up to speed. The outfield player sales of my II.2 winning squad looks to have netted approx £9m...

In England, my aim will be to just do the best I can in the Prem, and regularly lay a few walnut whips at Widdy's altar in the hope that she can help me put a run of lucky results together. I'm also contemplating a coach upgrade this season, as the incumbent will drop to weak leadership in week 11. The funds for this (or new players) were spent on a signing on the eve of my qualification game. I do have a Head spec 17/0 solid def YA promotee to promote and list tomorrow, with a home lined up for him already, so it will just be a case for taking each week as it comes.

[Eastheath]

I have dropped to series V, league is ranked 118 out of 256.
Hardest game will be the first one, could even be the league decider. Will have to put thinking cap on later this week. Aim this season is to bounce back to series IV at first attempt...
Cup round 1 went OK, round 2 looks doable too.

[UncleIan]

That was a good start! Possession was 50/50, respective defence and attack trumped each other more or less equally, chances were 7-5 to me, and yet we came out of it 3-0. One of those coin tosses that goes your way, though I think him having their CD playing offensively may have opened the door a crack. Luckily my strikers smashed it open. Just the start I needed.

Looking at the stats, I think it's going to be tight, there's four teams on the same stats, 38, and my opponents got 39. Okay my stats are flattering me, a PIN at home while I'm still in the cup. I reckon I'm definitely in the fight though, it's probably going to come down to momentum and the rub of the green whether I'm second or seventh.

[Donut102]

Bink said:

I bagged my first one this morning for 0.5% over my spreadsheet valuation

To be honest I have a mainly homegrown set up as I've never really figured out the transfer market. I tend to list all sales for £0, and get what I get.

I'm interested in how you value prospects Bink - is it something you're willing to share? It might make me a little wiser as to which YA prospects I focus on, or if I train to sell where I could make the most money.

[Bink333]

In England, I won the YA lottery, selling a 17/3 head spec solid defender with the perfect age for U20 eligibility for £1.7m The funds have gone straight back into the emergency kitty, which will also be needed to fund a coach upgrade this season. Maybe. I've still been toying with lessons learned when Rent Collector won the Prem, which he bagged with plenty of coach changes. I had thought of doing this yesterday to help my CA, but didn't want to drop from excellent coaching skill with my England NT winger required in Q2 later this season, I think the earliest I could pull this sort of stunt would be next season, when the new NT manager turns to focus on younger players (assuming that doesn't involve my other winger). It probably wouldn't have made much difference to the scoreline tbh....

So, week 1. I was away to last season's Cup winner.

I opted for a 5-3-2, with both full-backs toward middle and my third WB operating as a CDTW. They managed to put out stonking attack ratings (magical/divine/magnificent - before the pullback/stamina effects) for week 1, as well as an ET m/f (!!!) and I dutifully lost 5-2. 12-3 on chances. I was pleased my quick defenders snuffed out their quick SE, and entirely unsurprised that they nabbed the corner head SE, as I'd only managed to field 3 head specs to their 'lots'. The result leaves me in 7th. Handily, the teams that finished 1st through 4th last season all drew, so I'm only 1pt off 3rd. Next week's oppo got a +6 to his 35y/o GK, but I've seen magic coach conversion spray fix players before, so I'm not holding my breath.

In Oceania, my GK purchase strategy has failed to yield any more transfer listed players that sold at/under my target price, and I've already started noticing the prices creeping up as the gate receipts have started flowing in. This means that it may have to be plan 'B'. Plan 'B' is less business and more a 'fun' plan which will revolve around training players that might provide entertainment with the change to Speciality effects in the ME coming into effect in s67.

@donut.

I look for 'value' in terms of skillsets vs age vs £price.

My GK formulae is current so I'll give you a walk through.:-

I decided I wanted a minimum of titanic GK no older than 21/111. This was based upon the resale vale of double titanic GKs aged 26-27 and under (the price seems to start dropping off above this age) and how long it takes to get their defending/SP up (approx 3-4 seasons). I figured that at low levels of defending each level is worth approx 3 weeks training at 5% with my coach set up, and that GK training was worth 7.5 weeks approx for each level above titanic. SP was worth 1 week per level up to around WC. Defending and GK when measured by contribution to the ME are also roughly a 3 vs 7.5 per skill level so both methods to underpin 'value' are sound.

The next step was to decide what value I placed upon a titanic GK aged 21/111 with disastrous defending and SP. This was circa 2.567m, partly on the basis that such a player would be worth approx £4.7m at todays prices aged 26.5-27, giving me a £2m profit for 4.5-5 seasons defender training, and supported by transfer compare indicating that my pricing was 'tight-walleted' in that such players usually sell for a bit more, but occasionally at this price.

With that as a baseline for a no spec, no leadership, zero U20 potential type player, just your bog standard GK, the next stage was to figure out what the market seemed to be doing revolving around that as my 'constant'. This was done by plugging formulae into a spreadsheet and playing about with it until it looked right.

My best fit result was that for every 1pt of skill a player had above this baseline (where 1pt = each 1 level of SP, above disastrous 3pts = each 1 level of defending above disastrous and 7.5pts = each 1 level of GK above titanic) the price should increase £40k, and for every week younger, the price should increase by 7.5k.

So, for example, if we found a titanic GK with weak defending and brilliant SP aged 21/7 the calculation would go:-

0 (GK) + 3*3=9 (def) + 10*1=10 (sp) =19. 19*£40,000= £760,000
15 weeks younger 15*£7,500= £112,500
baseline = £2,567,000

Suggested acquisition target price would therefore be £2,567,000+£760,000+£112,500= £3,439,500.

Obviously, I recommend DYOR, and after a week of monitoring I'd currently suggest that any such GK selling within 110% of this formulae price is good value:- max £3,783,450.

There is an example on the TL that can be observed for the above example, playerid=416774155

The market is driven by all sorts of vagaries, including fashion, so all I try to do is to cut the emotion out of it, in order to search for value. Ideally that value should be linked to contribution to the ME, and/or how long it took to train the skills you are buying, allied with how long it will take to train to the level you plan to, and what the resale value is likely to be.

[Ashfordian]

Still here and with renewed motivation for s65

This seasons series is the easiest I have known it with a bot dropping down and the team in 3rd going bot so all my competition should be out of the way

First game was a win away against the relegated bot.

In this cup this evening I play Roding Rovers (a previous Fool), although he has not logged in this month and looks to be keeping the team ticking over only. This should be a comfortable win with the 'A' team out.

[UncleIan]

Managed to get through the cup this week, lost chances 7-5, but they were humped in the league so I guess confidence was knocked and they missed a few. I think it was 1-3 or 1-4. Next week a brief look suggests my opponents are a team I'd struggle to beat with my A team, might well be a PIC press and pray.

[UncleIan]

Was playing away against a decent midfield and good attack, so did my best boring 3-5-2 and PICd as I didn't think I had much hope. I think the game swung in my favour with an injury to one of their IMs on 29 minutes, the sub having played as a forward and winger recently, didn't sound like he was a natural replacement. Possession shifted from 58/42% in their favour to 54/46% - much more manageable. My attack trumped their defence though, and they had gone out of the cup losing heavily to a V team midweek. I tuned in with about 1/2 an hour to go and we were 0-2 up, much to my surprise. They pegged me back to 2-2 though, before my genius striker popped with the winning goal in the 86th minute. Get in! Lost chances 7-5 too, so all in all a bit of a result.

Then I looked at the other matches in the series to see that first place had only managed a 4-4 draw, and there was me having replaced him, sitting pretty at the top of the table! Very early days obviously, but still it's quite pleasing, stats suggest I'm the 4th best team so we're punching above our weight at the moment.

It could easily come crashing back to earth this week, my cup opponent had a slim loss at the weekend, maybe that will affect their confidence, fingers crossed, otherwise I'm probably toast. Fingers are crossed. If that goes Pete Tong, then my home match against second, a new promotee like me, but who looks very handy, will be all the tougher.

[Bink333]

First home game of the season for my lads, and up against Bedworth. I know Paul from meeting him a few times at the hattrick socials, but have had a terrible record against him with one win (nearly 7 years ago) 4 losses and 3 draws. I'd dropped points to them with a 3-3 in this fixture last season, but last week they'd picked up a +6 injury to their GK and so I was hopeful I could win m/f with better conversion rates.

I played 2-5-3 switching to 3-5-2 at 73 mins (stamina sub on my FTW). with 1xOCD, 1xDF, 2xWTM the team produced a utopian m/f which gave us 53%.

In the end we converted 7 of 9, and unlike last season when they converted 3/3, this time they had 0/3 with all 3 falling to their Right Attack, which is where I'd set my full-back / OCD combo as my only line of defence... I'm happy with my week two hatstats of 530. Last season against Bedworth in week 3, I managed 538, and these two games are now ranked 2nd and 4th on my "Best Game Ever" (World>>statistics>>best match).

The GD boost means I'm on 3pts in 3rd, 1pt behind the teams that picked up an away draw last week. All the home sides won this week, which bodes well for another tightly contested season, as there have been no home losses (just two draws from last week) so far.

This morning, two of my 3 forwards had a scoring skill drop. It is a timely reminder that I will need to buy a forward sometime this season, as well as doing a coach conversion.

I also had a blast on Saturday, going out for a hattrick social in Cardiff, with with Wales HPE and four-five other attendees. I hadn't been over the Severn for nearly 23 years, and never experienced the place on a Saturday night before. It is to be recommended!

[Ashfordian]

The reserve team managed a comfortable 7-0 home win against one of the promoted sides. The reserve team could win the series this season with the gulf between me and the other teams.

The 'A' get another run out in the cup against a IV side. We will be PIC and that should be good enough to comfortably beat their cup team. If they put their full team it will be a bit closer. This is good fun taking my anger at the match engine out on my cup opponents

[Eastheath]

Oops, have fallen behind a bit with my reporting. Lets catch up.

OK, back in series V, and as I said earlier, the first game could be the league decider, at home to the strongest team in the league. We threw the kitchen sink at it with an early MOTS. I'm glad I did now, as we came out winners 5-4, hatstats of 319 v 274. It was good to get points on the board early on, and not have to play catch up.
Week 2 showed the effects of having poor TS, as we struggled to come from behind to win 1-2 with a weakened midfield (one key player was suspended on a red card) against a pressing team, with hatstats 161 vs 284.

Still, we have 2 wins out of two, and sit in 3rd, equal on points with teams that have played the league bot and therefore have a positive GD.
In the Cup, we went out in the second round 3-0, having lost a midfielder to a redcard after only five minutes, that and the poor TS gave us little chance against an evenly matched team. So the Cup was sacrificed for league glory. I'll take that. Just need to make sure we get the league glory now...

Next league game is at home and against a pointless ream. Good chance to keep up the pressure at the top.

Still training scoring, have some potential strikers (one solid, two passable) coming up through the youth ranks, although we also have two already solid 16yo wingers who will promote as soon as they pop at 17. Not trained wingers before.

[UncleIan]

I'm happy with my week two hatstats of 530.

Do you know you have the highest ratings of any team in England this season? And Rockingham Arms, formerly of TMF, is 3rd in the max stars (you're fourth, slacker).

And I'm 5th in the most consecutive wins, but that's just chance and happenstance.

I got through the cup last night, the PIC at the weekend helped, as did my opponent losing I think, the ratings looked like the result should have been a coin toss, I won midfield 52/48%, my defence beat their attack roughly 55%/45%, while my attack lost to their defence 39/61%. Somehow we went into half time 0-4 up, and ran out 1-5 winners. Chances were 6-9. I was on a PIC too. I'll take that. Only fly in the ointment was a +1 to a winger, but his replacement isn't too shabby, in fact, they were bought at the same time with the same market filter, so they're pretty much interchangeable.

Ohh, this means I've got a home match in the cup, against a team that's doing worse than me in IV. Looks beatable, but also no mugs.

I also had a blast on Saturday, going out for a hattrick social in Cardiff, with with Wales HPE and four-five other attendees. I hadn't been over the Severn for nearly 23 years, and never experienced the place on a Saturday night before. It is to be recommended!

Went on a stag weekend there a year or two back, yeah, it's a bit more wild than a small Surrey market town that's for sure. And the natives (and incomers) seem friendly. I will gloss over the details, but it was fun. Looked round there with the nipper for uni too, scrubs up nice during the day time also. I liked it a lot.

[Bink333]

I'm happy with my week two hatstats of 530.

Do you know you have the highest ratings of any team in England this season? And Rockingham Arms, formerly of TMF, is 3rd in the max stars (you're fourth, slacker).

Thanks for the heads up, I suppose this was bound to happen eventually with the drop in user numbers...

I had a look at last season's stats for England, where I averaged 2nd behind last season's Prem champions on ratings, and averaged 7th on stars. Rockingham were 9th and 6th respectively on the averages. The maximum tab has me top on both with Rockingham 9th on ratings and 6th on stars.

All we have to do now is to get some silverware!

[Ashfordian]

I got through the cup last night, the PIC at the weekend helped, as did my opponent losing I think, the ratings looked like the result should have been a coin toss, I won midfield 52/48%, my defence beat their attack roughly 55%/45%, while my attack lost to their defence 39/61%. Somehow we went into half time 0-4 up, and ran out 1-5 winners. Chances were 6-9. I was on a PIC too. I'll take that. Only fly in the ointment was a +1 to a winger, but his replacement isn't too shabby, in fact, they were bought at the same time with the same market filter, so they're pretty much interchangeable.

Ohh, this means I've got a home match in the cup, against a team that's doing worse than me in IV. Looks beatable, but also no mugs.

I didn't make it through

Starting ratings were 333 v 292 and I had 53% MF throughout the game. I logged in after 80 minutes and saw that it was 6-0 chances to me but the score was 0-0. It was then I realised that I was going to lose the game. They got 2 chances in the last 10 minutes, one being a freekick that they scored and they won 1-0.

I have no idea how I lost the game. They were playing 2 OCD's and losing MF which I think leaves defence exposed but I got no return from it.

[UncleIan]

Well, luck swings to and fro doesn't it?

Sunday I was at home to second place, nearly a full house, but it was raining. I decided I couldn't afford to PIC, stuff the cup run, so a PIN it was, with a standard 3-5-2. They went 3-5-2 and pressed (outstanding). We had 60% possession, and relative attack/defence ratings were about the same. Should have been a home win then? We went 0-1 down in the first half, they had an IM red carded, and I had a player off injured, though his replacement is pretty handy. I suppose that we pulled it back to 1-1 I should be grateful, but when you see it was 7-1 to me in chances, it's hard not to think of it as two points dropped. They had four pressing mentions in the report, four! Ho hum, swings and roundabouts.

On the bright side, as third lost to fourth, we're still top of the table on 7 points, stats say we should be around 4th, but it's very close. I'm away to 7th next week and I'm thinking it's a PIC and pray.

[Bink333]

I was away to babaganoush who auto-promoted to the Prem this season. I managed a mythical m/f and about 50% of the ball and the match engine went mad, giving me 9 chances to their 5.

I'd set up to go more attacking if we went behind late in the game, and we went ahead initially, then squandering loads of chances before they finally took the lead in the 75th. Then we went attacking at the expense of defence, and as they were still due chances with my lot having had the lions share at this point, I wasn't sure how many more I'd get, certainly not as many as them, and so although I'd helped address the conversion rate problem, they were always going to hold on, and so the match finished 5-4. I was pleased with the 513 hatstats away from home though.

I'm back down to 6th on 3pts, and home to last seasons Champions who have 1pt after 2 home games and no doubt will be keen to turn their season around. They have been struggling with form after raising TI after the push for the title last season, but that should be all fixed by this weekend...

I managed to pop and sell my 27 y/o GK in Oceania for a shade under £5m, and the team is now in the early stages of 5% stamina defender training with 2lvl 5 assistants under an excellent coach. I'm already looking forward to the Thursday skill pops going off like popcorn in a microwave.

[UncleIan]

It all kicked off in real life last night (nothing serious at all, just went from evening sitting in front of the telly to evening full of holiday discussions), forgot completely about the cup until just now. The proper cup.

We were at home, so bossed midfield in a 2-5-3, they were 2-5-3 too. Midfield 56/44, but their attack trumped my defence by more than vice versa. It proved to be an all action game, magic of the cup etc. After half an hour it was 2-2, and we went into the break 3-4 down. Second half was a bit feistier, we equalised, then "With the scoreboard clock showing 71 minutes, the inexperienced Bromwich team fell into disarray." - a bit rich I thought, I think before the match we were no worse than excellent in 2-5-3, we're back to outstanding now so I'm as confused as my team were. On 72 minutes an experienced defender got a straight red, and one of their players got bruised. Then a minute later one of my strikers got a yellow. 90 minutes and it's still 4-4. Extra time and my other defender gets a yellow, and another of my strikers gets a +2 injury. Also...we scored twice, unanswered, final score 6-4. Yay! Chances were 7-6, so a real coin toss this one.

Next week looks similarly "interesting" in the cup. Morden Corinthians from III.2. Looks like a team of senior players, and the fans think "they have the edge", and looking at recent stats of matches, they ain't kidding! PIC and pray.

After last night the team picks itself for the weekend, one defender banned, one injured, that'll be a 2-5-3 then.

I'm now second in the England "undefeated" list with 17 games unbeaten. I notice 4th is the team that got promoted when I got demoted two seasons ago, Asgard. That season he had promoted from V, and is now first in II.1. Not too shabby, three consecutive promotions.

Ian

[Eastheath]

3-0 home win keeps us in second place, equal points with top place but well behind on GD.
Next game is away to the bottom team which is a bot, so we will be able to keep the pressure up.
Out of the george carey cup too, so that means we are back to friendlies in midweek.
meh