The Hattrick Season 65 Thread

[Ashfordian]

A simple 8-0 home win against a new team keeps my 100% record going. This was after another 7-0 away win against one of the stronger teams in this series

I'm hoping my cup defeat was the ME's dishing out of bad luck for this season

Got a home game in Jason Ivy consolation cup and it could be a team ratings record as I am unable to PIC in it.

[UncleIan]

This week's game was a weird one, we were away, they are ownerless but have not gone bot yet, so very predictable, but also, unfortunately, very strong. I probably could have given them a good go at home, but away, not a chance. They play a 3-5-2 pressing. Thanks to injuries and suspensions, we played a 2-5-3 PIC. Probably should have also pressed thinking about it. Then you look at the ratings, and it was mostly 50/50 all over the park. Maybe I should have not PICd. So how did the game go? Well we were 1-0 at half time. Equalised on 54', but they scored the winner on 69'. Not that I'd set anything up, but I'd had struggled to go more attacking anyway. 2-1 final score. All so so, coin toss, that's the way it goes etc etc. Then you look at the chances, and they fell 8-1 to them. 8-1. Really then I got away without getting a hammering. Nice.

This drops me down to third in the table, on 7 points. Three behind the leaders, three ahead of 7th. We play 7th away next weekend. I'm very probably going out the cup this week, so that's going to make things a wee bit more tricky with two losses on the bounce affecting confidence. In danger of the wheels coming off.

[Bink333]

I was at home to the English Champions. They were in last place with just 1pt and have to play a hattrick masters match tonight against the Austrian Cup winner. They had most key players in less than solid form earlier this season as a result of re-raising TI (after lowering it to help them win the title).

I reckoned they'd go defensive, and they did with a 4-5-1 CA (which they used to get a 1-1 draw against me last season). I went 2-5-3 with 3 normal forwards, 2 normal wingers and a WBN to support one flank and an IMTW to support the other. That was for 70 minutes. After that I was on a 3-5-2 with 2xWBN and no IMTW in order to stamina sub my 35 year old SP taking forward, with the incoming WB taking over SP duties.

I had 10 of the 13 chances, and won 6-2 to move back up to 3rd in the table. hatstats of 536 this week and this has taken 2nd spot on my 'best match' stats.

[UncleIan]

WBA now "Concentrating on the league"

[Ashfordian]

Starting Hatstats of 365 in the consolation cup last night and a comfortable win against a team that did not even look to put out any players for training.

We had WoC TS for the game but with only 1 PIC a week in the league and a Passable leadership coach I'm not sure what level of TS we can maintain so I'm not sure those ratings will be beaten this season

[Donut102]

I've got off to a terrific start this season.
Made Cup R3 for the first time.
New hatstat record of 274.
Unbeaten in the league, albeit three games were against bots.
However the one human player I did play came second last season. I viewed the game as a certain loser, so put out the second string along with three future coaches just for experience. Sneaked a win 4-3.

I'm now looking at the league thinking I may have a chance for the title.

[UncleIan]

It was a tricky away fixture thanks to going out of the cup, and their 7th place in the league belied their quality. They play a predictable 2-5-3, and get a big midfield. Going banzaii suited me too, so 2-5-3 I went. I thought about pressing, but that seems a bit counter-intuitive when you line up to attack. We managed to nearly match them in midfield 51/49%, and our attack/defence ratios were more or less the same. So slightly miffed to go 3-0 down after 33 minutes, after two headed SE goals from their...left back. It didn't get better, 34 mins and an of mine IM goes off injured. His sub is more or less the same, but still, a +2, and that's a first team defender, IM, and striker out at the moment. In the end, we went down 4-2. Chances were 6-3. Ho hum.

So are the wheels coming off? Out of the cup and two losses in the league on the bounce. Things probably just reverting to mean. So we slide another place in the league to 4th, and my opponent jumps up to 5th. There's now a mid-table battle, with 3-5th on 7 points and 6th on 6 points. First and second are on 13 and 12, while 7th are on 4. I am at home to 7th this weekend, and it should be a winnable game, fingers crossed, though a draw wouldn't surprise me with both of us suffering from poor confidence. I definitely can't afford to PIC.

Ian

[Donut102]

Rode my luck on Sunday. Played the 2nd team, set up 253 with orders to switch to 343 if in the lead by more than two in order to build up some formation experience.

My hatstats were 196 v 214, so should have been a close game. In the event I went 3-0 up by the 32nd minute, switched to 343, and knocked in another goal for good measure. Opponent failed to score, so a nice 4-0 win.

My model estimates that I should have lost 3-1, so the HT gods clearly smiling on me.

Will go out of the consolation cup on Tuesday, which means the first team can be focused on the league. Unbeaten so far, and the title starting to become a real opportunity.

[Bink333]

I was away to someone I know quite well from the hattrick socials, and from working with him when England won a medal with him as the NT manager when we were both last in the Premiership, nearly 20 seasons ago. Paul is the current England NT manager as well, and won a hattrick of Prem titles with his old team, whereas the best I've ever managed is 3rd.

My pre-season calculations about needing a new coach around week 11 when my coach was due to drop to weak leadership were a little off. He dropped in week 3. So, after the cup game last week, I had a good long think about spending £1.5m to turn an ET xp solid leadership player into an excellent coach (to help maintain training for my England NT wingers - and perhaps for the next cycle of building resources under concentrated training). If I didn't change coach, I'd definitely have to PIC either yesterday or tomorrow, and whilst the predicted ratings look great for a CA tomorrow and I may yet still opt do that, that a coach upgrade would at least give me the flexibility, and help to make my approach less predictable for other managers to plan against.

So I upgraded on Wednesday. Last week Hacked were at Home against Bedworth and pulled a magical high m/f and scored 3 goals in the last 10 minutes to draw 4-4 after Bedworth who had produced a low mythical m/f were allocated chances early in the game.

Initially I was a bit surprised to see Paul (the Hacked one) getting such a high m/f and wondered if he'd MoTsed last week. His cup m/f rating seemed to indicated not. He also wouldn't have TI tricked because of his own England NT players form concerns. As usual I'd recorded all his first teamers form and stamina pre the Thursday update (as well as my own) and noted he'd two forwards +1 in form, an IM -2 in form and a CD -2 (as well as a GK-2). After looking at this information blankly for several days and having established that last week was a PIN m/f and that he'd topped up TS on Tuesday, I was trying to guesstimate what sort of minimum m/f I'd need to make a game of it without opting to CA.

Then, I remembered the old TMF m/f spreadsheet. I'd not used it since the new match engine appeared several years ago, but I figured it would still help to give an approximate effect for form changes. I had a rummage around in my extensive library of excel spreadsheets, and found it! I plugged in some data and adjusted the form, and the sheet suggested a 3-4 sub-level drop. I decided to aim for that, and set up with a 2-5-3 with 2xOCD, 2xWTM,2xHDF. Mythical v high it said on the match orders page. Great, I thought, now we are there. I'd been wanting to play an IM as an IMTW to ensure one side's attack would more easily convert any chances, but at the cost of 2 sub-levels of m/f I figured that wouldn't work.

With his GK drop, I figured I'd have just over 50% in all attack vs defence sectors, have more than 50% defence vs his central attack unless he played both strikers normal (which would give me m/f advantage). His side attacks were dangerous anyway, so they were going to succeed with any chances there, I thought.

The next aspect for match prep was to deal with any of the starting 11 with stamina issues. This was my normal forward and and IM, both aged 35 with low solid/high passable stamina. They are fine for 70 minutes but then there was going to be drop off. I decided that the only change I liked, was a switch to 4-5-1 with 2xDWB and 2xIMTW. So I set it.

Maybe I should have started with that and then switched to 2-5-3 to attack late, but you can never tell when and where the chances are going to fall, and decided to stick with this gamble.

Just after kick off I had to take SWMBO to the O2 to see Take That, and the round trip took 1hr 10minutes so when I logged back in I was 2-1 up and had just switched to 4-5-1. They'd bagged the corner-head SE after ten minutes (we both had 5 on the pitch at this stage) and fluffed a quick SE, and my lot had bagged a left and right chance. 3 chances to 2, and my conversion rate should have been about 50%. The game had 5 further chances. My lot had two more, first, both down the left and both converted to take it to 4-1 and boost my relative defence ratings up enough to edge their attack (from about 50/50 when 2-1 up) reducing my 4-5-1 side attacks to about 50% from having been edging it before.

They had 3 chances in the closing stages of the game and converted none. The gamble paid off and so we've bagged all 3pts. HTMS suggested we had a 34% chance of winning that one hatstats of 508 vs 498 and although possession was recorded as 50/50 they actually had a better rating (just) the entire match finishing mythical (high) to my mythical (low).

The result puts me up to 2nd. Both the newly auto-promoted teams won away from home yesterday as well (on CA) and are 1st (3pts ahead) and 3rd (on GD). The other result was a draw for the team that had been 2nd at home to the reigning Cup holders (on CA) so they now sit 4th and 5th.

After the game I watched the GP from Canada and then returned for the pick up from the O2. The round trip took 2hrs 30 minutes, with over an hour spent stationary on a queue to get around an emptying car park. I couldn't stop grinning though. Neither could she, but I suppose that was the Gary Barlow effect...

[Ashfordian]

A comfortable 6-0 home win by the B team to maintain our 100% record and we've yet to conceed a goal. Starting hatstat ratings of 277 on a PIC in the 2-5-3 formation. It is all about keeping the team ticking over this season and hoping to keep a 100% record as we hopefully promote to IV.

The A team will be playing in the consolation cup as we achieved £75k in gate reciepts last week.

Outside of that, we sold a player for £1.2m so are sitting there with £5.5m in the bank.

[Eastheath]

Just noticed we now have a 'thanks' (or rec) button. Will try to catch up with the thanking/reccing over the past week or so.

We won the previous week 1-7 against the league bot, and this week beat the team in 5th 5-0, to retain 1st place with Pld 5 W5. We are on 15 pts obviously, #2, #3 and #4 are all on 12 pts. Its tight between the top 4.
We play #4 away next, and then its a tough double header against #3. Favourites for the league will probably be #3, then #2, then ourselves. Assuming we beat #4 next week, the double header becomes crucial. Would like to think we can still win this league.

Having finished my 128 flag collection (away games) some time ago, I now see that the Hattrick International flag has been added, so I have another one to collect again. Have almost finished my (home games) flag collection too, with 118 of 129 in the bag and another one coming this week. Helps to keep the interest going!

[UncleIan]

After three competitive losses on the bounce, or four if you count the consolation cup (I don't, because we lost), we needed a win badly. So a home match against 7th was just what the doctor ordered, but with poor confidence I couldn't risk a PIC, so a standard 3-5-2 PIN was the way we lined up. Logging in during the first half I saw we had 53/47% possession, and on average our attack/defence ratios were a bit stronger than theirs. Bit of a boring match really, which was just what we needed. 2-0 at half time, and 3-0 at full time, we missed a couple, they missed one, and chances fell 7-2.

We move up to third place in the table on 10 points. First two are on 16 and 15, while 7th are on 4. Mid table respectability is my aim, and this weekend's result went a long way to at avoiding auto-relegation. Long way to go still mind you.

Oh yes, sold a solid 17y0d goalie for 102k, which was nice, who played one game as a central defender for a team, then gets sold for £170k, TSI had stayed the same, more or less. What's that about?

[Eastheath]

the tricky away game to #4 was indeed, not a straightforward slam dunk. We did manage a 0-2 away win, but at the expense of a +1 to our elder IM and coach. They won the midfield ratings, so our CA strategy with a beefy defence seemed to do the trick.
We stay top on 18 pts, #2 and #3 are on 15 pts, and #4 is on 12 pts. The rest is cannon fodder (our series V is ranked 119 out of 256, so this is not Champions League stuff).

So the big games now are the head to head with the team now in #2. They pull better ratings, higher TSI and hatstats etc., so if I can walk out of the back to back games with equal bragging rights (2 draws or a win each) I will be chuffed. Time for some heavy thunking....

[Ashfordian]

This week I was away to one of the only two strong-ish teams in my series but their strength is in attack ratings rather than all over the field.

Again the 'B' team was out. Starting ratings were 260 each, me playing 2-5-3 and my opponent 4-5-1 CA. I was winning MF by a smidge, Passable VH for me against Passable H for them. I suspect their CA swung it in my favour. Their CA was only Magnificant.

We ran out 2-0 winners maintaining our 100% record and have still yet to concede a goal. We should comfortably win the return fixture when we are at home.

We pushed our luck a little by saving the 'A' team for the consolation cup where we should have enough against our opponents but it is looking close tonight.

The double header is up next week with me starting at home. I've got an interesting opponent who would be stronger than me, except his top 11 players average stamina is around poor VL.

[Bink333]

It's been a strange week for me.

I was lining up at home on Sunday with a R7 neutral ground game on Wednesday, followed by a double header (home then away) against the team currently topping the Prem table.

I knew that Posti (in 4th spot) wouldn't let me get away with a home PIC in the league, I needed magical+ to be sure, and the numbers just about worked (assuming a MoTs) from my cup opponent whom I reckoned was good for a supernatural m/f and ET defence across the back, for me to PIC the Cup.

In the league with 538 hatstats (2nd best match ever on my stats), a utopian m/f gave me 54% and 9 chances to 5. I scored 1. Not only that it was a corner-head SE. My normal chances should have had a slightly better than 50% conversion rate but we picked up 0 from 5. I'd left my right defence open to attack/conversion, but their 3 normal chances came up the middle, and they failed to convert those or the Quick SE they had. My goal came in the 6th minute and so I had a long and nerve wracking wait for the confirmation that I'd picked up 3pts.

The other two sides in the top 3 were the auto-promotees this season and both won at home, and Red won at home to remain 2pts behind 2nd/3rd and 5pts behind the leader.

In the cup, the m/f was just in my favour and I had advantage in all 3 attack sectors and central defence.

My stuttering conversion rates could only get better for the Cup.

Or, so I thought.

51-53% of the ball gave me just 5 of 13 chances and despite a divine central attack rating, no chances were allocated in central attack. We duly lost 3-1 with 460 hatstats and my strongest 11 out on the pitch.

So, we now move onto the double header against Prem topping Paignton, who remain 3pts ahead of us at the top of the table. I'll need the misfiring problem to sort itself out in time for Sunday if I want to stay in the hunt to win the Prem this season.

[UncleIan]

It was a tricky away match for the mid season double header. Looking at their past ratings I reckoned we'd edge midfield, and just have to take our chances. Not a great plan when your confidence is still recovering, but it's the only one I had. Lined up in a standard 3-5-2, expecting them to do the same. They did. Unfortunately they also pulled out a much bigger midfield than I'd seen in previous matches, and so they were edging possession, and defence, and their attack was 50/50. Still in the bounds of what I'd consider a coin toss.

I tuned in after 25 minutes to find I was 2-0 down. Lady luck came a calling, and one of their wingers was sent off after 35 minutes, injuring one of my players, but his replacement was a good 'un. I now edged possession. Still a coin toss. We got back into it in the second half, levelling the match, then missing the winner, and the match ended 2-2. On balance, one point gained rather than two points lost.

I stay 3rd on 11 points, as 4th lost and I was playing 5th. Sadly 7th won, or maybe it's not sad, as we won't have a whipping boy and we'll all have to pay attention to the end. Just 5 points separate me in 3rd from 7th on 6 points. 2nd are five points ahead of me. Two horse race for the title.

Theory being, if I drew this week, I should win this week. My striker won't have recovered, so I might toy with a 4-5-1, but actually another draw would be pants, so will very probably play the standard 3-5-2 again.

Oh yes, and our series is ranked 10th of 64. Crikey!

Ian

[Eastheath]

The heavy thunking didn't work.
We lost 1-3 at home. Having pulled equal hatstats, they were clearly the better thunkers with strategy and planning, and won midfield as expected.
Next weeks away game to the same team now seems a lot harder!
The loss drops us from #1 to #3 on GD, the top three of us each have 18 pts.
Will try drinking rather than thinking next time, cant do any worse...

[Bink333]

So this week was my 14th anniversary of signing up for a hattrick team.

For the first week of the double header, I was in 2nd place at home to the Prem leaders who were 3pts ahead of me, Paignton Dynamos who'd auto-promoted into the Prem this season.

I figured they'd be aware of my TS and home m/f potential, and look to put up a big defence. They actually decided to press for damage limitation rather than CA, which I suppose is a reflection on the threat posed by my attack ratings. I duly obliged with utopian/divine attack ratings across all 3 sectors and an ET m/f looking to stamina switch to 3-5-2 (my 35 y/o forward would be puffed out at this point) and to go 4-5-1 if we managed to get 2 goals in front, as Paignton's manager has shown he's no stranger to going more offensive when the game is against them.

In the first half they scored the corner-head SE and pressed 3 events away. We scored 1 as well, and had 60% of the ball. Then in the 56th we bagged a wing-head SE scored by my 35 y/o (I was playing 3 Head spec forwards and no others in the starting line up), but they equalised just 7 minutes later. I'd just got back from KFC with the 15y/o to discover this as I went 3-5-2 and reduced my attack ratings down to ET across the board (46-50% of the respective defence ratings at this time). I was convinced that the pressing tactic was going to give them the draw at this point.

Two minutes after my powerful full-back had come on, they had a quick SE chance for one of their wingers. Both their wingers are quick (as are mine), and up until minute 70 I'd been fielding just my 2 quick defenders (to help prevent quick SEs as the ME chooses defenders first - biased toward the player lined up to oppose the player given the SE chance). I'd done a late 'switch sides' order to help try to avoid the chances for a tech-head SE on my head spec defender (that was due to come on if we were 2 goals in front). This had shifted my quick full back over to the side where the quick SE happened to get allocated, and so rather than the poweful player being left for dead just two minutes after his introduction, the quick SE was snuffed out by my quick full-back directly in position ahead of the winger in question.

So still 2-2. 3 minutes later my powerful full-back stuck it in the nose bag, which caused a small fist pump at home. 10 minutes later the super-sub did it again, and my 4-5-1 order took effect with just 5 minutes left on the clock. We won 4-2.

The win takes me to the top of the Premiership table on GD. 3rd placed Les philosophes lost away to 5th, who remain 3pts and 4pts behind, respectively, and last seasons Cup winners Red won away from home to move up to 3rd just 2pts back.

So far so good, but there's a long way to go to the end of the season. I'm away to Paignton and then away to 5th placed Jol over the next fortnight, so I've plenty to think about!

[Ashfordian]

I have maintained my 100% record but lost my clean sheet record as I conceeded a corner-->head event (they had 9 outfield heads on the pitch)

The 3-1 home win result looks quite confortable but it hides the ME's attempt to undermine the game. After 65 minutes I was 7-1 down in chances despite being ahead in MF for 55 of those minutes and while I won MF over the whole game chance distribution was 8-5 to them.

We play them again next weekend but this time away from home so I'm likely to be behind in MF for a longer period of the game. I may have to PIN my first game of the season.

I'm still in the consolation cup. I should have enough but the move to neutral ground is definitely going to make this harder. The 'A' team are out though so hopefully they can get me to another round

[UncleIan]

I duly obliged with utopian/divine attack ratings across all 3 sectors and an ET m/f

Blimey!

That is all.