Hattrick Season 67

[Donut102]

League

Dropped down into V. The league looks winnable, with two bot teams. Week 1 is the trickiest game, and I'm likely to field the 2nd team in order to progress in the Cup. Which suggests I could win the league, but fail to get auto promotion.

Cup

R2 last season. Target R3, with 3 rounds in the secondary.

Players

7 of my first XI are home grown. Average age 20. Excellent coach. Suggests another 7 seasons or so before being truly competitive, so priority will always be training (currently PM).
Of my 4 non-core players, 2 x titanic (15), 1 x 13, 1 x 12. £7m in the bank, and may upgrade one of the players for a Titanic post cup run.

Finance

Should make £1.5m profit this season, before player transfers. Stadium holds 62,000 which is more than enough. With cash in the bank and Coach still with Passable leadership, I'm in good shape.

New specs

I've taken a Powerful player from the academy to train as Defensive IM.
Still keeping with Technical Forwards - overall I think the bonus to Passing when played defensively outweighs the upgraded benefits on the other specs.
I do like the look of the Support player. Based on the dev blog it looks as if they will add to ratings, with a risk of confusion. I'll keep an eye on the forums to understand how & when the confusion event is triggered. If I get one through the YA I'm pretty sure I'll find room in the team.

Youth

Last season was a cracker, with 2 youths being retained in the first XI, and one sold for £0.5m.
The current pipeline isn't that great - nothing I'd want to retain at this stage.

[Bink333]

League

I'm still in the Prem. Aside from the monster LS that won last season's title, we have last season's Cup Finalist (great ratings and/or great CA potential) auto-promoting in, as well as a former double Prem title winner who won their qualifier and a pretty decent looking 2nd auto-promoting team (with double my squad TSI). The s65 Champions have invested well and have the highest wage bill and the biggest midfield in the Prem. I expect my ageing squad to have a best finish of 5th in them this season, and 7th at worst.

Cup

Won the Cup last season. So my target is to try and win at least one Masters gamem but much will depend upon the draw. This starts in week 5, so I'll be hoping I can get away with a PIC in the English Cup that week, and so I'll be pretty happy if I make it as far as R7.

Players

1st team consists of one 31 y/o, 2x32y/o, 3xsoon to be or already 33y/o, 7xsoon to be or already 34y/o (max stamina cap is solid at this age), 3x35y/o and 2x36y/o (max cap on stamina is passable at this age).

Only 3 of these are defenders.

Staff

All 4 are level 5. 1xassistant coach, 1xmedic, 1xform coach and 1xpsychologist. I did consider ditching the assistant for a level 5 tactical assistant having had some fun with one of those with my second team, and may revisit this if I think that shuffling the players around will help limit the opponent's effectiveness with any man-marking issues.

Finance

I've enough in the bank to cover my outgoings before my first home game. I'd like to buy a 3rd OCD or perhaps a mono-skilled powerful defender, next, but will wait and see.

New specs

I bought a Tech IM (my youngest 1st teamer) to help take on the head spec heavy midfielders fielded by pretty much all my opponents at this level. Every team bar one has 3 or 4 head spec IMs in the 1st team squad. The one that doesn't has 3 head spec defenders. I expect he'll be an obvious target for man-marking though, so may just use him as a 'decoy' to worsen the opponent's ratings if need be.

I've also bough a very cheap 35y/o titanic xp unpredictable forward with useful passing. Experienced unpredictable forwards look to have had a very nice boost to SE potential and play creative tactics under the new SE rules, so I'm interested to see how he performs.

Having done a few sums with the new man marking formula, I opted for a high playmaking powerful CD rather than a high waged mono defender. It gives me the option to play him as a DIM or to use him as a normal CD for man marking, but at this stage it is primarily a case for experimenting to see how he gets on. I'm still expecting to play 2-5-3 more than any other formation with my current set up.

I've sold a head spec OCD and a quick spec OCD to fund this lot (along with prize money)

Youth

I've promoted 3 with useful specs that are still under 20. I should have enough to promote over the coming season to ensure I've enough home growns to start a rebuild, which is around the corner.

[UncleIan]

League


Another season in IV.15 beckons. My third. The series has a bit of a new look, the one coming down a division looks like a monster defence team, and looks like we had 4th place swap to another league, then another monster defence team have swapped in. So that's three monster defence teams in the league now. No bots. And the stats page based on last season has us all within 5 points of each other in averages. Could be a pretty tight season. So I guess the last thing you want is a tricky away fixture to start the season...oh. Maybe I should have swapped to a series with a more benign fixture list. Oh well, too late now!


Cup

I will do my best, round two looks okay, I'd like to get further than round 3, but I guess I'm a little further up the rankings this season so it might be a struggle without a home game.

Players

Four of my five pure IM trainees are homegrown, the rest are wingers, who generally have better IM than some of my trainees, so will be pressed into service hopefully for some IMTW/WTM shenanigans. Goalie is okay, but mostly defenders are getting a bit old, strikers are getting a bit old. My strikers may need to hang on another season or so, until I can switch to passing training and get some younger bucks in.

Finance

Got £9m in the bank. Should really spend lots of that on a proper wingback as my only current one is my coach and is 34, and not much stamina now, and should probably hang up his boots.

New specs


I've missed a memo I think. I've seen player orders for man marking, but...

Youth


Did I imagine it or did I win the youth league during last season? You'd think that meant I had some decent players. Nothing sold for anything, not a thing, though two more are now trainees in the senior team, so that's ok.

[Eastheath]

League
after a couple of seasons finishing 3rd in series V, I suspect I might be doing the same again. The league winner lost his promotion qualifier, and 5th/6th won their relegation qualifiers, so the only change in the league is two bots in 7th/8th drop out and two bots drop in. The top team has strengthened in the off season, so they haven't given up the ghost and remain favourites for the coming season.

Cup
Round 2 and already we are at home as we have pulled a much stronger team. If they are going for the Cup, then they will win our next game easy. Cant remember last time we had a good English Cup run, but on checking it was round 5 in season 59, since then we've been knocked out in rounds 1, 2 or 3...

Players
Bit thin on the ground with quality, got 3 decent defenders, 3 decent IMs and 3 forwards, the rest is mix and match depending on injuries or tactics. I should add another IM, but moneys too tight to mention....

Finance
'Sitting' on £1.9m. Won't buy me a Yorkie bar in Hattrick world, have you seen the prices these days? Excluding transfers, I seem to muddle through...

New Specs
What? Saw something on man-marking, will have to read up. I hate the new match orders interface by the way, it is SO SLOW. And have lost Foxtrick as well, due to the latest Mozilla Firefox update. I presume a fix to the Fox is being looked at?

Youth
Probably my biggest frustration last season, need another home grown scorer to come through youth training but its not happening. Might have to buy one. Getting sufficient mother club money to cover scouting investment though...

Overall prospects
Weeks 7 and 8 we play back to back with the league leader. Hopefully by the time we get there we will be in a challenging position. Fingers crossed...

Good luck all - and merry xmas and a happy new year to you too

[Ashfordian]

League

My 2nd season in IV.58. Last season I finished 2nd behind the other auto-promotee who on winning the series secured autopromotion to III. This was the second season in a row where an auto-promoting team won the series at the first attempt.
The series has 4 new teams. The one coming down has sold up and is not buying yet. One of the promoting teams looks very dangerous and could make it 3 seasons in a row of auto-promoting winners.
Apart from the sold up team in game 1 I have a horrible start to the season at home to that dangerous promoting team in week 2, away to 4th in week 3 and home to 3rd in week 4. The games in weeks 2-4 will decide the season and I feel I need the cup PIC's to give me the best chance.


Cup

Round 2 is a starter team whose manager has not logged since getting the team so this should be an easy move into R3.


Players

I'm still training my 6 homegrown IM's but following the WTM/IMTW comments on here I am mainly adding to their wing skill while I make the most of two late 27yo IM's with 16 & 15 PM. I have two defenders that are over 30 and starting to become fringe players but they are future coaches so I will make the most of them while they have some useful skills and experience.
I am weak in attack but hopefully the wing training will bring that on as new strikers are not in the training plan until I switch to Passing training which looks to be 2-3 seasons away.


Finance

£9.6m in the bank. Yesterday spent £250k on adding 5000 to the stadium capacity. Don't really have any plans to spend this yet as strikers are a little way off so can see board reserves kicking in.


New specs

Been playing a couple of single matches against the same team with the same line-up but one with all specs and playing creatively, the other no spec and no tactic. While only a tiny sample, the game without the specs was more of a formality that the game with all specs playing. At the moment I'm of the view that I will still be picking players based on form with specs being the decider between two equal players.


Youth

Made £22k from the youth team in S66.
In 7 weeks time I will promote a 17.0 Powerful Solid Def, Passable PM/Wing, Inad Scoring player with a 2169 HTMS potential. My first team training is a mix of Wing, PM & Def with Passing in the future so fits nicely with this player.


Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to fellow HT'ers

[Bink333]

Had a pretty good start to the season. I was a way to the Champions and opted for a throw everything at m/f in a 2-5-3 and to try out the revised play creative tactic. (so, no IMTWs 3xDF 2xWTM and 2xOCD). The game had the feel of a Charity Shield about it...

This gave us 50/50 possession, although that was smudged a bit when one of my OCDs took a knock and continued playing. We had 3 SE chances, my bargain signing missed the unpredictable event but boosted the tactic rating, my head spec forward missed his corner head SE (they had lots more head specs on the pitch), and my quick SE went in. They had one LS and converted and also converted an indirect free kick, but we got a big slice of luck converting 2 of 3 normal chances with a magnificent left flank vs divine defence and supernatural central attack vs divine+2 both going in. Final score 2-3.

That's a massive 3pts to pick up, as no-one beat them at their place last season.

This week I'm at home to the auto-promoting team that I beat in the Cup Final....

[Ashfordian]

That's a massive 3pts to pick up, as no-one beat them at their place last season.

This week I'm at home to the auto-promoting team that I beat in the Cup Final....

I saw you got this great win but that is some tough start you have to your season.

Finishing 2nd I match your fixtures and after having an easy win against a team that has sold up, I'm against the best of the promoting teams on Sunday. This is the start of a run of 3 really tough matches for me. Hopefully I can stay in the cup with the TS benefits it brings.

[UncleIan]

So that's three of us that finished second last season. Yep, Christmas Eve gave me a very tough start to the demoted team, they had a huge defence and loads of possession, and one decent attack avenue on the wing, so I went 2(WBs)-5-3, and lost possession 60/40, on a PIN too, and chances were 9-2, so maybe lucky to walk away (apart from a striker that got carried off) with a 3-0 defeat. Not an ideal start to the season. What goes around comes around and hopefully the last match when we'll all be at home won't be a dead rubber.

Got through to R3 of the cup with a PIC B team. Next opponent seems like I should be able to get through with almost the same. Famous last words.

R2 match was a easier prospect. All very odd, the manager is logging in, they have 21 players, but in R1 played a 1-5-3. I assumed that was an aberration and set my orders accordingly but with a PIC. Nope, 1-5-3 again, and no subs, so when we injured a striker it didn't get any better for them. Confusion events abounded, and we outclassed them all over the pitch. Chances 10-1, and after 80 minutes it was still only 1-0, and I was a little concerned, but we scored 3 in tha last 10 minutes for a 4-0 final score.

Early days but we're 4th in the table, and with a very tricky away match to another promotee next round.

Loving the new training page, but...where are they hiding the team spirit/confidence ratings now?

[Donut102]

The first two league games of the season were likely to be the toughest. Playing the B team in the league, and got draws in both fixtures leaving me on just 2 points. The title is still up for grabs, but cant afford to drop any more points.

Cup is getting my A team. Through to R3 for the only the second time. Really not sure about my opponent tonight, but will simply play my best formation and see what happens.

[Bink333]

Team spirit and confidence are now located on your club main page.

I was at home on Sunday to the team that I faced in the Cup Final. They opted for a 5-3-2 CA and I was 2-5-3 okaying creative with a mythical m/f. I had 14 chances in all, (and 21 so far this season) compared to their 3 CA chances, and scored 2 of my 4 SE chances managing to miss all the normal chances. I'm thin on the ground with defenders at the moment, and played one with a plaster. The other one was injured +1, hoping I get him back soon! They could easily have scored 2 from their CA chances but the match engine was being particularly harsh with respect to normal chance conversion, and so my strapped up CD and an ex YA player (coming in as a def sub with inad defending) managed to keep an extremely rare clean sheet in defence.

They also lost a CD to injury at more or less the same time that I subbed a DF and my player they'd chosen to man mark with a CD came on 10 minutes into the second half. It made for interesting reading toggling between the ratings at 55 and 60 minutes, but we were unable to capitalise so it's purely an academic exercise..

A 2-0 win sees just us and one other team unbeaten after 2, and they've scored one more, so go top.

Next week I'm away to the s65 Champions, and expect to face a divine+ m/f. My job this weekend, will be to bend over and take what's coming.

[Donut102]

Through to R3 for the only the second time. Really not sure about my opponent tonight, but will simply play my best formation and see what happens.

Won 6-1, so through to R4 for the first time. Record hatstats for my team @ 288. Next week will be much tougher, against a team which regularly delivers 320+ hatstats. However, I think I can edge midfield which may make the crucial difference.

[Eastheath]

Lets start with the Cup....
Went out in round 2, partly because I forgot to set a proper team for the game, this festive season does divert ones attention somewhat....
Then we had an interesting game in the following george carey cup round, where we were 2-0 down with 15 minutes to go, after which the oppo proceeded to have one player sent off and two others were injured and subbed. In the confusion that followed we happened to score three times and nicked the game

In the league...
We won the first game at home 4-1, usually a tricky opponent but we seemed to edge it this time. Second game we won away to a weaker oppo 2-4, which leaves us in equal first on 6pts with 2 other teams, but in 3rd on GD.

The next game is at home to the league leader, who have yet to let a goal in. They have a monster defence in comparison to the rest of our league, which will take some breaking down.

Next George Carey Cup game is at home to a slightly stronger team, so it may come down to who wants it more and the team they field. We will be playing trainees.

[UncleIan]

This week we were away to a team that had swapped leagues to come into ours, must have seen something they liked. It was their second home game in a row, and so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect...and my basic expectation was a sound thrashing. I could get close in midfield, but then lose everywhere else, so I decided to go for a 4-5-1 PIC press and pray. Well, I thought about a CA, but their attack ratings were too good I thought. Come gameday and their midfield was even bigger than I'd expected, and we were losing possession 60/40. Oh dear! First half, and they missed a chance, scored a chance, and a chance for someone was pressed away. Oh, and our striker was subbed with an injury (+2), his replacement equally decent though. Second half, they scored three more, had one of their strikers injured, and another chance was pressed away. We did get a consolation goal, so the fans aren't totally unhappy. Final score 4-1.

Three games, three points. Not great. Where does that leave us in the league? 6th, with two other teams in 5th and 7th on 3 points, 2-4th on 6 points. 8th on 0. I thought this season was going to be tougher, now I know how much tougher. Looking at the games played so far and the stats, I'd say it's a coin flip, could end up anywhere between 3rd and 6th. Not sure the fans will be too happy with that. Hey ho. Glad I expanded the stadium!

Still in the cup, need to have another look at the game, I think it might be tough.

[Eastheath]

Well that was unexpected.
We played at home to the league leader, who were yet to concede a goal, with big defence and midfield.
Despite being at home, I though our only option was to counterattack.

We went 0-1 down early on, then in the last nine minutes of the first half, we scored SIX goals.
Second half was evens, at 2-2, making the final score 8-3. We scored all 8 chances, they scored 3 out of 6. Which was nice...

Which leaves us in equal 1st, and top on GD. Next game is away against the other league leader. Heavens know what will happen then!

[Donut102]

Straight forward 3-0 win at home to a team recently promoted from VI. Use the B team, but was disappointed with the score line - should have been 6-0. I think the ME took my goals and gave them to Eastheath!

Now in 3rd place, 2 points adrift of the league leader. Three easy games coming up, including 2 bots, before I face the 2nd place team in the double headers.

[Bink333]

I was away to the s65 Champions, and went with a 2-5-3 with everything thrown at midfield except for a powerful DIM. I also elected to use the PC tactic. My only 'defender' was playing as DIM, in part to take 2 MM IM targets and play them as OCD. The opposition decided against playing their MM defender, and their conversion rates were the same as mine, despite having better attack vs defence % than my own.

Crucially, they had 53% possession and this meant they received 10 normal chances to my 5. One of these 'normal' chances was a power forward SE which isn't an SE at all because it's a normal - other chance. They scored 6 of these chances (including the power forward other-normal not an SE, SE chance). My lads scored 3.

My DIM didn't press away any of their chances.

There were 4 SE chances (not including the power forward 'normal' not an SE at all chance). Had I received all 4, I'd expect to have been able to bag at best 2 more goals, for a 6-5 scoreline, but as it was I didn't get any, and they got all 4, scoring one to win 7-3.

I think I might have to rename the 'play creative' tactic the 'play capricious' tactic, as this was pretty brutal, even if you could argue that it was merely the swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune (bearing in mind that last week I had 14 chances to my opponent's 3).

[Donut102]

The opposition decided against playing their MM defender

It's always useful to get your thoughts from the 'top' Bink. Is man marking being used the top teams?

I looked at man marking when the detail came out. From the dev blog:
- the man marker has to have a def skill the same or higher than the player being marked
- if opponent not on field you lose 10% of the man marker's contribution
- if opponent is in a opposite sector, you lose 50% of the man marker's contribution (def vs fwd, WB vs Winger, IM vs IM)
- All other case you lose 65% of man markers contribution
- Penalty to man being marked = def^3.5/(def^3.5 + high skill^3.5)

So take a Titanic defensive midfielder being used to mark a Titanic midfielder = both lose 50% of their rating.
Or a Titanic defender being used to mark a Titanic midfielder = player being marked 50% of ratings, man marker loses 65%.

I cant see a case for using man marking to deal with strong forwards or wingers. The risk of receiving a greater penalty on your own team seems to outweigh any penalty you could inflict on your opponent.
Ditto for IM vs IM.

But Def vs IM seems plausible, even though you would suffer a 65% reduction. I need to work the maths:

Assume both play 352 with titanics across the board, WTM. Neutral ground etc.
With MM, possession would be 50% for each team. Using the model of chances = (P1^2.7)/(P1^2.7 + P2^2.7), each team would get 5 chances, and say convert 50% leading to a 2.5-2.5 score.

Say a def marks an IM. Their def falls by 0.65/ 3 = 21.7%. But opponent midfield decreases by approx. 0.5/ 4 = 12.5%
Using my model, possession increases to 53.3%. My conversion rate remains unchanged at 50%, but opponent increases to 54% (assumed penalty only to central defense, representing 35% of all chances)
Expected score is now 2.9-2.2, and the fans go home happy.

Conclusion:
Man marking can work if you have a mono-skilled defender.

Any flaws in my logic?

[UncleIan]

Woo-hoo! Through to R5!

Setting up, I thought it might be a bit of a coin toss, even with giving up on the weekend and splitting the first team IMs across the two matches. Turned out they got a bit more possession than I expected, 56/44, but my attack was 50/50 v his defence, and my defence was roughly 60/40 v his attack. I think I got the rub of the green here, as we all know a little possession goes a long way. Was 1-1 at the end of normal time, when we'd had a negative experience event after 70 minutes, not something I've seen very often. Their one goal was a penalty too. Extra time and we both scored, 2-2. Penalties - I'd set my penalty takers, and it looks like I'm still reaping the benefits of some concentrated set pieces training a while back. Not sure they set theirs, as there was lots of "nerves" and "loose shots" etc from their penalty takers. And we go through 5-6 on penalties. Ooof, 9-3 on chances, they woz robbed!

Oooh, a home game next round! And looking at the stats, that could well be that for the main cup.

[Bink333]

The opposition decided against playing their MM defender

It's always useful to get your thoughts from the 'top' Bink. Is man marking being used the top teams?

I looked at man marking when the detail came out. From the dev blog:
- the man marker has to have a def skill the same or higher than the player being marked
- if opponent not on field you lose 10% of the man marker's contribution
- if opponent is in a opposite sector, you lose 50% of the man marker's contribution (def vs fwd, WB vs Winger, IM vs IM)
- All other case you lose 65% of man markers contribution
- Penalty to man being marked = def^3.5/(def^3.5 + high skill^3.5)

So take a Titanic defensive midfielder being used to mark a Titanic midfielder = both lose 50% of their rating.
Or a Titanic defender being used to mark a Titanic midfielder = player being marked 50% of ratings, man marker loses 65%.

I cant see a case for using man marking to deal with strong forwards or wingers. The risk of receiving a greater penalty on your own team seems to outweigh any penalty you could inflict on your opponent.
Ditto for IM vs IM.

But Def vs IM seems plausible, even though you would suffer a 65% reduction. I need to work the maths:

Assume both play 352 with titanics across the board, WTM. Neutral ground etc.
With MM, possession would be 50% for each team. Using the model of chances = (P1^2.7)/(P1^2.7 + P2^2.7), each team would get 5 chances, and say convert 50% leading to a 2.5-2.5 score.

Say a def marks an IM. Their def falls by 0.65/ 3 = 21.7%. But opponent midfield decreases by approx. 0.5/ 4 = 12.5%
Using my model, possession increases to 53.3%. My conversion rate remains unchanged at 50%, but opponent increases to 54% (assumed penalty only to central defense, representing 35% of all chances)
Expected score is now 2.9-2.2, and the fans go home happy.

Conclusion:
Man marking can work if you have a mono-skilled defender.

Any flaws in my logic?

No clear flaws, no.

I look at it this way. If I am trying to win midfield, will I gain more from playing a mono-skilled defending normal WB as a man-marker to their IM, or by playing an OCD not man marking at all? Sometimes with injuries and what-not your hand could be forced here, but the most cost efficient option in terms of wages (and more recently the transfer prices) seems to be the OCD. At Prem level you certainly need no less than a magical mono-skilled powerful defender to make this MM option an option at all IMhO.

On the other hand, if I'm trying to use CA tactics effectively, can I increase my possession and defence %s by man marking an opposition forward with a normal CD? From what I've observed in the Prem so far, the answer is usually yes. Ideally the defensive skill level here would be ET-Mythical, and a powerful or no spec (if mythical) look to be adequate for the job. Ideally this player will be your set piece taker as well, as this isn't affected by the skill reduction.

Yesterday, I was playing the unbeaten leaders who have been CAing with an effective MM on opposition forwards in every game to date. I'd made it tricky for him by utilising 8 different players as forwards in the league in the first 3 games, and I was pleased to see that no MM report appeared after 5 minutes.

I'd opted (in the interest of scientific research) fro the play capricious tactic again, and it did not disappoint, awarding two unpredictable GK events which both resulted in goals. For them. 0-2 down I was struggling and after 5 flank attacks which deserved a 50% conversion rate had produced no goals, I was resigned to my fate. On 60 minutes, my conditional subs kicked in to boost my side attacks, and I was half-expecting a man-marking notice to appear on the incoming player, but it looks as though I managed to dodge the bullet completely. Then we bagged a goal through the middle, which was unexpected, before pulling level. It finished 2-2 and this moves me up to 2nd 3 pts adrift of my visitors.

This week's learning curve on the new SE rules concerned quick defenders 'directly opposing' quick SE events from players in midfield or wing/fwd. One of the games involved a quick WB stopping a quick fwd SE. It turns out that a quick wing back can stop 100% of quick SE from his opposing wing slot AND from his nearest opposing forward, with a quick CD (on that same side) having a 25% chance of stopping it if there's no quick WB next to him.

The middle CD in turn has 100% chance to stop quick SE from the oppo middle IM or Fwd, and 25% if that quick SE comes from a left or right sided IM.

Quick defenders placed in the left or right CD slot have a 100% chance to stop a quick SE from their opposite IM ONLY, but have 25% chance to stop quick SE from middle IM, middle Fwd, as well as the 25% against the wing/fwd on their opposite side.

Tonight we play R1 in the masters. I'm hoping the rain that is forecast can swing possession into 50/50 range, as my opponent usually plays 3xTDF, and they have no powerfuls...

[Eastheath]

Ah well, normal frustrating service has been resumed....
After last weeks 8-3 win, we were away to joint top, and having thought I couldn't win MF, we went for a 4-3-3 CA, but we overdid the loss in midfield, resulting in a 65/35 ratio to them, when I could have probably made it 55/45. In my experience that would have kept the score down. They also got their best hatstats of the season, so were really going for it. 4-0 reflects our naivety pretty well. It didn't help that one of our defenders got crocked and subbed and another was put on a plaster, but I think we had lost it anyway.
So, we are back to 4th on GD, =2nd on points. Next two games are against bots, so hopefully we can keep hold of the coat tails of the leader....