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Hattrick Season 70

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Eastheath
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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#187230

Postby Eastheath » December 16th, 2018, 1:13 pm

running a bit late with last weeks games, its almost time for this weeks. Must be christmas...

Good news in the league, we won away as hoped/planned last week, 2-5, we edged midfield and a strong forward line did the rest. Except they didn't really, as two goals came from defenders and two came from midfield. Whats the point of having three magical/mythical strikers, I hear myself ask....

Bad news, got dumped from the Cup 0-4, not entirely unexpected as they were considerably better. So its the Jason Ivy Cup next....

Tonight we are at home to the league whipping boys, so I will have played the worst two teams in succession. We are currently in 5th, will be in 4th probably by tomorrow, but I suspect its a false impression, as 5th or 6th is the more probable eventuality at the end of the season.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#187390

Postby UncleIan » December 17th, 2018, 10:16 am

Away to the league leader, and predictions showed I'd beat them in defence with a wet lettuce, but would lose possession, my attack would trump theirs. Was tempted by a 4-5-1 CA, but in the end went with a 3-5-2 press, a little negative, but one point would be better than none. As predicted, lost midfield 56/44. They decided their wretched long shots ability was worth doing...I think if you're that bad at something, chances of success with it are a bit of a... long shot. Halftime was 1-1. So far so good. After the break they made two substitutions and we immediately scored, we got an injury to a midfielder, then we both made substitutions, and again immediately we got another goal with a counter-attack, then straight away another normal chance. During the second half a couple of chances were pressed away, including one in injury time. Final score 1-4. Chances were 6-5, so I'll definitely take that. Perhaps they had a bit of a cup hangover having gone out of the big boy's cups this week.

The win means we're top of the league, nine points same as second place, but +4 goal difference. Next week we're at home to 6th place, it's looking like a PIC would do. Which is nice.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#187442

Postby Bink333 » December 17th, 2018, 1:12 pm

The weekend got off to a good start, as England went to Venezuela with a 4-4-2/5-2-3CA and nicked all 3pts with a 0-1. The tricky bit was dealing with the loss of ratings as a result of nerves. Nerves because they have some divine plus lots of experience for several key personnel. They hadn't been beaten at home in for nearly 4 seasons, and the last time they were was by Denmark also using CA tactics.

In England we'd been dumped out of the Cup as expected 7-1. 1st team have switched to Sundays, and I'll be out of the Jason Ivy this week. On Sunday the 1st team duly lost 4-1, but it was the first league goal we scored this season. An ex-Albumen player was the one that bagged it as well, from the penalty spot...

In Oceania I've switched to passing for a short stint, and were at home to one of several sides on 4pts like us. As passing training doesn't suit combat on two fronts, I'll be getting dumped out of the Oceanic consolation Cup this week as well, and sent out a strong 11 playing 3-5-2 with 2xPNF 2xsitting midfielders, and OIM. As I'm building a tema of quicks and powerfuls, we conceded a corner head SE fairly easily, missed a quick SE, and had a PNF substituted by an unpredictable (who's name gets capitalised in the match reports, not 100% sure why). He produced an SE which we didn't convert and we also failed to convert a PNF event (bit unlucky that as their 23y/o GK has £3672 wages - not much GK skill compared to my titanic scorer's £20,952 wages). We did convert a pen and a chance up the centre to win 2-1, taking us up to 3rd, 5pts off the top and 3pts clear of 7th (now the team that lost this game to us.

In South Africa, the party continues with a 4th straight league win, this one 0-2. One of the 7 active teams has gone back to not having a human manager, and I'm home to 2nd next week, 3pts back, who play 3-5-2 as well. I opted for a 3-5-2 PIN this week, as the home team looked useful, and was rewarded with 160 hatstats compared to their 153. We had 54% of the ball, and 7 chances to their 3. Fans have gone from 100 to start with, up to 269 this morning, and 50 higher than this time last week. I'm hoping that helps generate a half respectable gate next week, as that will all be profit to reinvest into the club at some point, with the books showing net profit on this away game week of £4,734. I opted not to fork out £4,000 on flights to a friendly, and will be at home mid-week.

I saw some news this morning, about being permitted 18 players in the YA as opposed to 16 from here on in, and some other new YA tweaks, so I'll look forward to investigating that as well.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#187909

Postby Donut102 » December 19th, 2018, 6:41 am

Sunday was a nervy 4-2 win away from home, which leaves me 2nd in the league on GD. I face the leader in the double header in a couple of weeks, which will probably determine the league champion.

The cup was another good performance from the team. A new hatstat record of 387, delivering a 7-3 win.
Next week I have Prem opposition, as I'm the 2nd lowest ranked team left in the cup. One more week of home advantage :D
A bit like this week - if my oppo plays anything like his first team I'm out, but the focus is the league I have a (slim) chance. He's 2nd in the prem, undefeated, and only behind on GD. Surely he'll do an [expletive deleted] and send the reserves out of the cup match?

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#189023

Postby Eastheath » December 24th, 2018, 12:30 am

Last week we beat the league whipping boys 6-0 and moved to 4th as predicted. Tonight, as expected, we lost 3-1 away to the team in second, and slipped to 5th. Next week we are at home to the team in 3rd, and the double header that follows is against the league leader. So, its not looking particularly easy right now!
We won our first game in round 2 of the Jason Ivy Cup and have another away game next that can be won, depending on how serious the oopo takes the game.

Happy holidays/merry xmas!

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#189051

Postby UncleIan » December 24th, 2018, 9:46 am

At home to 6th this week, and they looked PICable, so we went with a standard 3-5-2, and while it was only 1-0 at the break, we ended up cruising to a 4-0 win. No injuries, no cards.

We're top of the league, but only on a +6 goal difference. We play 5th and 6th over the next four weeks, while second place play 8th and 5th, so I guess I'll be in better shape if I'm still top of the league in four weeks. 8th actually managed to put out 9 players this week, so no walkover, but you wouldn't be taking them too seriously.

Still in the George Carey pretend Cup for teams trying really really hard, and I'll admit I don't know how the seeding works, as we've got a home game against a team from V.

Entertainingly, well, okay, not really, but I have a 33 year old defender who is getting just enough osmosis training to put him up to formidable playmaking, and then loses just enough every monday to drop back down to excellent, this has happened for the last seven weeks, apart from between the seasons. His player development chart is like a 50s animation involving straight lines and an avant garde jazz soundtrack.

Merry Christmas one and all! Ho ho ho!

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#189233

Postby Bink333 » December 24th, 2018, 8:35 pm

This week England were at home to Slovakia. Based on how they started their opening game against Mocambique, I was wary of setting up on a CA, and the form changes for them allied with England having every outfield player in solid or better form, gave me some confidence that we could potentially nick possession on a 3-5-2 PIC, IF they went offensive, and if they went for m/f we'd be close enough to make a game of it.

To cover the latter I opted to use a 50% defensive coach, and as an insurance opted to press, using a PNF and a sitting (powerful) IM, as well as calling in a powerful CD played as OCD. It was a good job I did as they opted to PIN at home (the first of the top 7 teams to sacrifice TS for a result) and they went VERY offensive with divine+ attack ratings across the board.

We had 48% and pressed 3 chances away with a magnificent press rating (2 of which were theirs according to my reading of the live match feed) and they ended up with 4 chances to our 3. They'd opted for 2xWb and no central defence was gave us the optimum chance for getting a PNF chance, which we did and converted to take a 2 goal lead. Unfortunatley our Divine SP taker missed a pen, and they came back into it, so it finished 2-2. One of the most rewarding points I can remember earning in many years that one.

In England I was up against one of the weaker sides in my division with home advantage, but the now 18y/o forwards are still not sufficiently developed to exploit the oppo defence ratings, and so we went down 1-6 with low stamina not helping matters either. My £5m trainee picked up an 87th minute groin strain, and is +1. I may well play him midweek next week to give the doctor as much time as possible to get hom up and running again. He's currently 18/17 with 11.26 scoring , 7 passing, 6PM & 4wing.

This time next week, my powerful YS forward McCoist will be 17/1 and preparing for his first game with the 1st team. The player making way should pop to formidable scoring this week. He's an unpredictable, age 17/97, and I want to sell him for £1m if I can, and if not I may train him on the wing in PM at 50% (and/or some passing) until his TC squares up to the transfer fee I'm looking for.

In Oceania, I found a player I wanted for the price I was prepared to pay for £3.6m. He's a quick FTW with passable leadership, 16Sc 10PS 11W age 28/18. It used ALL of my available funds, and so I listed the PNF I'd bought for £3.6m in August for £5.4m I'd bought him a week a way from a scoring pop, and took him up a level in PM as well to 14Sc 13PM age 23/37. He picked up an offer 3mins before his deadline, and I immediately set about finding a solid leadership titanic defender with useful passing and SP, to train at 50% wing for 3 seasons then 3 seasons of defending (with a view to becoming a man-marker). I've already got a SP taking quick Wb for 50% training in the league, and my 4xWb trainees (2 quick, 2 powerful) will be getting 100% wing training after 4 weeks of passing training. I found and bought a Pakistani age 24/41 with 10Ps and 9Sp (4Wing). He was a snip at £2.8m, maybe 10% more than he's worth but his xp gains (weak at present) should ensure I get a tidy return from him when I sell him in his 30s. Red in the Prem made a very tidy turnover dealing in solid leadership players being given loads of xp from regular long Cup runs, and it is a model worth replicating. This lad is also a Powerful, and should become a man marker, which I've learned can be quite an asset for a CA team to have up their sleeve against teams who pose a threat with super-strong attack ratings. I am building a CA team primarily here, so it was another player ticked off the shopping list.

Next week I should also be promoting a quick 17 y/o excellent defender who I'll train until I can get a decent return from him and/or replace him with another YA trainee.

In South Africa, I was home against 2nd who were 3pts back. I'm playing bots for the next 4 weeks, so opted for a PIN and pulled 174 hatstats to their 135, winning 3-0. 5/5 wins and I'm 1 goal scored behind the auto-promote line. I'm pretty sure that a team 5 weeks old is likely to struggle in Div III, but I'm enjoying the challenge. The results are having a positive effect on supporters, and we had a crowd of 7406 for this one which has pushed the bank balance back up to 100k (after I splurged on some VIP and seats under the roof in my early doors stadium expansion). I've hired no staff as yet, but did set up a YA, with 2 scouts, and that will no doubt yield its own rewards. South Africa beat the mighty Netherlands 2-0 on Friday, although with Germany and Finland also in that group, the chances of a place in Q2 are slim, but it gave me a warm feeling inside nonetheless.

I hope you all have a Divine festive season, and pull a future U20/NT YA player over the period, to help with any New Year's hattrick resolutions!

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#189433

Postby Donut102 » December 27th, 2018, 8:57 am

The league was a routine 6-0 win.

Christmas day gave me prem opposition in the cup. Santa was doing his magic and we squeezed through 5-3 to the next round.
I'm officially the lowest ranking team left in the cup now, and this would appear to be the end of run.

Best wished to you & your families.
Donut

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#190144

Postby Eastheath » December 30th, 2018, 10:30 pm

Last game of 2018 ended in a 3-3 see-saw game against 4th. We had gone 2-0 up, then our top scorer was red carded, not his first either - seems to do one every season. By mid second half we were 2-3 down, but somehow pulled it back to 3-3 before the end.
That result left us in 5th, equal points with 6th. The next double header games are with the league leader, whose Divine defence means not many get to score against him. At best we might nick a 0-0 in the first game, when we are at home. We should win midfield, but thats about it....
The team in 6th gets to play the whipping boys twice, which means we will be in 6th in a fortnight and probably six points behind 4th/5th places.

In the Jason Ivy cup we are away to an equally matched team, so it is down to who fields the strongest side. I will be playing trainees so its fingers crossed.

Also, recently bought a 26yo mythical PM, to replace a 31yo extra-terr PM. Need to do similar with a defender. Maybe will do a bit of squad tidying in the next fortnight while we get whipped by the league leaders.....

happy 2019 all

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#190508

Postby UncleIan » January 2nd, 2019, 10:08 am

Christmas day we gave our oppo the gift of another round in the George Carey Cup. ;) They had stonking defence ratings so despite 67% possession and chances being 11-7, we went down to an 87' counter attack. Hey ho.

Meanwhile in the league we were away to 5th, no mugs, and checking out previous games I was a little taken aback to see I might not win possession, and a PIC was definitely out. It was a job for the standard 3-5-2. The whole thing looked like a coin toss. In the end, we edged midfield, but only just, then our best striker got a +1 after just 10'. They scored first but at halftime we were 2-3 up. They equalised early in the second half, but missed a couple of chances, while we banged a couple more in, for a heartening 3-5 win, chances were 6-5, so a little slice of luck, or maybe their confidence wasn't great, or just coincidence that they missed three corners.

Second place whipped the whipping boys 2-6, so we're 1st on 15 points and a +4 goal difference only over 2nd. 3rd is on 10 points, so we're starting to make this a two horse race. My double header starts at home to 5th. They ended up 3rd last year, so it needs some careful consideration of how to play it over both legs for maximum reward. Unfortunately 2nd is at home to the team I beat this week, so I may have softened them up for them.

Hmm, training estimation for youth teams? Okay, well that's a useful feature! I'm winger training at the moment, I've got a 17(26) lad that's just reached "pullable" state, solid winger and passable PM. It shows two more weeks of winger training will bump him to excellent, so best keep him in the youth squad for a final pop. Need to decide whether to make a quick buck with him, or add him to the roster, that will definitely mean shifting a trainee or two out the door, as we have a slight log jam at the moment, an embarrassment of riches really: 9 homegrown IM trainees, 3 bought in winger trainees, and only 10 training slots! Hmm, seems I already have a nice problem. Do I keep the conveyor belt going, and let the best ones go, jeopardising team quality, or cut some of the younger ones that aren't quite making the grade?

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#190527

Postby Donut102 » January 2nd, 2019, 11:54 am

League was a routine 3-0 win.

The Cup, however, was much more interesting. This was the first time I'd made it through to R7, and I faced another Prem team. I'm a bit limited in what I can do with my team, so it was a standard 253 AIM proposition. However my defence was never going to stop their attack, so I used my best defender to mark one of their midfielders. I chose their Technical IM as you get a boost in the man marking.
It kinda worked - I got closer to their midfield, but not enough to make the difference. We eventually lost 3-1, which if fairly respectable.

In the double header I face my main rival for the league. With no cup distractions I can play a stronger team - and hopefully seal the league title in the next two weeks.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#190598

Postby Bink333 » January 2nd, 2019, 4:17 pm

England were at home to Tanzania. The Tanzans had played a blinding CA against Sweden in week 1, and very nearly got a result, and I figured they would most likely opt to do something similar. In the end they played 4-4-2 with all centrally placed players set TW, and I had opted for 2xOCD in an offensive 2-5-3. They had 3 CA chances 1 in each attack sector, so should have scored 2, but were unlucky to only bag one. England scored 2 normal goals as well as a long shot and a late late quick SE, so we won 4-1 to move into 2nd. Away to Wales this week, who are a point behind, and will not be making it easy for us.

In England my yA player promoted as planned as was thrown straight into the league game to allow the £5m lad to rest up a little longer and play mid-week (by which time he was fully recovered). I switched to PM training, and the TC for my unpredictable was a long way short of the £1m I mentioned last week. I will use YA players for the 50% wing slots, with a view to bolstering the coffers, and 100% training places will now revolve around 4xPNF trainees, as well as a quick and my home grown resilient.

In Oceania, we lost 1-3 to the team in 2nd. We had 48-42% and scored a quick SE (made by an IM and passed to a forward) but failed to convert 4 normal chances. They used 3xCD which pretty much negated chances for a PNF goal, but I'm looking forward to facing them next season after some wing training has improved my side attacks. The loss means the team sits 4th, 8pts off the leader who we face in the double header, and 5 behind 2nd whom we face again after the coming fortnight. We're also 3pts ahead of 5th and 6pts clear of 7th, so on target to stay up atm.

In South Africa, my £100k started burning a hole in my pocket, and after looking at the TC of an Ex-YA player in my Oceania team, I realised that a 19-20 y/o excellent/solid pm/def combination with spec were selling within this budget, and found and bought a 19y/o double excellent unpredictable for £76k who has bumped a similar player from my original squad into a 50% training slot (but he's 24y/o and with no spec), who can now play as a CD in the important league games. We were facing the 8th placed bot this week, so had a fairly straightforward 9-0 win. The finances show a £15k profit this week with an away game on Sunday, so I'm giving some thought to hiring some assistant staff next week. 2xlevel 3 assistant coaches and a level 3 medic look affordable, and will improve training times and net reduce injury risk. My half-season old YA already has a passable GK (popped this week) and he's just turned 16, but without a cap reveal yet, as well as a similar aged technical with weak passing with a solid cap, and I'll have to give some thought to at least partially training one upon promotion in order to boost the coffers a bit.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#191624

Postby UncleIan » January 7th, 2019, 9:20 am

At home to 5th this week. Looked like possession was going to be even, maybe a shade to them, but their attack is awful, so I went 2-5-3 to try and make the most of any opportunities I did get. True to expectations we had 48% in the first half, but went 1-0 up. In the second half, I said their attack was awful, we won that battle 60/40, so even playing 2-5-3 got a counterattack, which we duly scored. 2-0. The got one back, but we scored another with a free kick. 3-1. They made a sub and must have worse stamina than me, as we ended up we 54% possession for the last 15 minutes. Held on for a 3-1 win. Chances were 6-5 so it was either well deserved, played for and got, or lucky, depending on your point of view. I'll take it whatever.

I stay first, and second slipped up at home to 6th, only getting a draw, so we're two points ahead of them now. Oh wow, halfway through the league, so yeah, couldn't be doing much better, apart from losing in week 2, we've won all the other matches, can't complain about that! As I said, two points ahead of second, five points ahead of third. Oh, and 10 ahead of 5th. We're three places above the auto-promotion line, not thinking about that yet, but it shows how we're getting on comparatively - we're doing alright. Our league is ranked 53 of 64, so either we're all rubbish, or our whipping boy is dragging us down. Actually, looking at that, it must be so tight, just looked at the 6th ranked league and their average rating doesn't seem that much different to ours.

Had a bit of a billy bonus this week, got 140k in transfer fees for two former/mother club players. Finances looking pretty healthy at £4m. Looks like I'm averaging £78k profit every week.

Basically, no complaints here!

Next week will be a tough away game, might have to be realistic, go defensive and play for a draw, or now I've softened him up, maybe carry on with the banzai style, it'll probably be decided on form.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#191663

Postby Donut102 » January 7th, 2019, 12:00 pm

Key couple of weeks in the double header for me vs 1st place

I was in 2nd place going into this week on 18 points, behind 1st place on GD. 3rd was someway back on 10 points.

At home this week, confident I could win midfield on a PIC. Went 253 with 2 x WB def as opponent prone to using AOW, with 2 x WTM, and 2 x FTW plus 1 PNF. I like the FTWs as I have little wing skills in the team and they can spread my scoring skills across all three fronts.
End result was a very comfortable 3-0 win, with my opponent trying a CA strategy but going 253 which seemed odd to me.

However he did post some respectable defensive ratings even with only 2 at the back, which means I'm going to tweak my tactic for the return leg away from home. Still confident I'll dominate midfield, I'm going to stick with 253 but with 2 x CDO, and 3 x FN AIM. If I win, I should be home & dry for auto promotion to IV which will be nice!

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#191826

Postby Eastheath » January 7th, 2019, 11:14 pm

Well, last week we said that "The double header games are with the league leader, whose Divine defence means not many get to score against him. At best we might nick a 0-0 in the first game, when we are at home. We should win midfield, but thats about it...."

Nostradamus, eat your heart out. Well, not quite. We won midfield, their Defence was ranked Divine, but we couldn't nick the 0-0, we lost 0-2 instead. Nearly prophetic, but no cigar.

We are away to the league leader next week, and it feels like it should be a damage limitation exercise. Will stay focused on getting a qualifier slot in preference to relegation....

The Jason Ivy Cup proved more interesting, where we won 2-4 away in an evenly matched game. We had almost wrapped it up in 90 mins, until they equalised in the 89th at 2-2. Two goals in ET got us through.

The reward is another away game to a better rated Series IV team, so maybe our cup luck will run out shortly.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#192075

Postby Bink333 » January 9th, 2019, 12:45 am

England were away to Wales on Friday. I figured we could win m/f if we both played PIC but that left us open to them playing PIN and making more of a 50/50 game of it. The alternative was to CA, but they'd already shown their hand at being pretty useful with the attack ratings. Deciding which way to go was pretty much a coin flip, but in the end I opted for the CA. Set up with a 5-2-3CA with 2xCDTW and 2xPIMD (sitting midfielders) which resulted in some seriously nice defence ratings, although a marginal to fail vs their attack % + possession. They went PC2-5-3, PIC, so we'd have been better off with the other side of the coin, but we somehow got away with it, both teams having key chances on their weakest attacking flank, and the game being decided by a corner-head SE awarded to us (and converted) despite the odds being in their favour to get that with possession and equal numbers of head specs on the pitch.

In club football England, training PM, we managed to score our third goal of the season. So yes, business as usual on the auto-relegation front. In training, both 18yr old brilliant scorers popped their PM, the quick to excellent, the powerful to solid. That's what £9.5m buys you these days...

In Oceania we were away to the league leaders, setting up in a 3-5-2 with 2xWbTM & 2xPIMD against a predictable 3-5-2AIM. It was sunny, which really doesn't suit my Quick/Powerful specced side. They had 54% possession, with 37/40/39% in attack at kick off (rising to 67% & mid forties attack come 80 minutes thanks to stamina drop offs) and they turned the game around in the last 30 minutes from 1-2 down to win 4-2. I'd opted to use my latest signing as a CD man marking one of their 2 forwards which meant that their attack was 33/37/36% after the adjustment at kick off, which augers well for when the set up has better stamina.

In South Africa we were away from home against an ownerless team that plays 3-5-2 with a default line-up. They were 3rd in the league. I opted for a PIN 3-5-2 using 2xWTM and a WbTM to cover the default set-up. We had 53-51% (drop caused by my low stamina) but we had 7 chances to their 4 and won 1-3. 2nd lost away to 4th, which means that at mid season we've won 7/7 and have an 8pt lead over 2nd. 28 goals for and 3 against. The team in 7th is the only one that has used their initial budget to buy in a squad for training, which carries it's own penalties in terms of lost HG bonus, but it remains to be seen whether the approach I've taken is going to result in me running head first into a brick wall if (&when) the team auto-promotes into III. Probably, is the short answer, but it is fun while it lasts.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#193293

Postby Donut102 » January 13th, 2019, 8:08 pm

Well that went badly!

Opponent knocked out 347 hatstats which I totally didn't expect. Lost 6-1.
His superior GD pushes me down to 2nd place, and will probably stay that way to the end of the season.

Oh well...

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#193379

Postby UncleIan » January 14th, 2019, 10:25 am

Donut102 wrote:Opponent knocked out 347 hatstats which I totally didn't expect. Lost 6-1.


Oops! I guess they're paying attention (not that I'm saying you're not!) and decided they could PIC everyone else, so hadn't really shown their true colours? Always very difficult to tell when someone's hiding their true performance well.

We slipped up too, away to 6th place, and after a 3-0 win last week that I thought was a bit jammy, I wasn't expecting great things, I also realised the owner hasn't logged in since week 2, so I knew what I was facing, just couldn't do much about it. Lost possession 60/40, which is never a good start, my defence won 40/60, and attack was 50/50. My defence won despite me playing 2-5-3. We scored with a CA. They scored twice. 2-1 final score. Maybe I should have CA'd generally, or maybe a press for a draw. Hey ho.

We're on 18 points, 2nd and 3rd have swapped places after 2nd lost to 5th, they are both on 16 points, 4th is on 15.

Next week we're at home to 5th, looks a bit coin flippy to me, will have to try and think of something to sway the odds in my favour.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#193433

Postby Bink333 » January 14th, 2019, 12:41 pm

On Friday England were at home to Sweden. We were in a position to PIN with a gimme against Mocambique's 17 year olds next week, and I set up to cover a possible Swedish MoTS as well as a CA. This gave us a magical midfield which looked like overkill because they CA'd and the conditional changes to sacrifice midfield for more attack were not required as despite having potential to score on the flanks (especially the right where we had no defence) their chances did not fall to their strongest sides, and so we won 1-0. We clocked up 551 hatstats which is the most I've managed as England manager, and put a smile on my face for the weekend. It was also the third best rating in Q1 this week, and the 6th best in Q1 for the season to date.

It's the first time England's NT have ever beaten Sweden in a competitive game, and as the top seeds in our group with 9pts from 6 games, they are now 7pts behind us. The other seeded team are on 7pts after Venezuela rode their luck and won away with a CA to Slovakia (who are in 3rd with 10pts). Japan are 2nd on 15pts having won every game since they lost at home to us in week 1. Over the weekend, both our Quick Wbs were injured for their clubs, including our best set piece taker (out +4). We've been quite fortunate on form/injury so far this Q1, and hopefully the other quick will be fully fit by the time we are due face Japan a week on Friday.

In England my trainees lost 7-0. I sent a mail to the Tunisian U20 manager about my only non-English PNF trainee (after he popped to solid PM this week, who is about 3-4 weeks ahead of where Edison (last season's England U20 PNF) skills were at. The Tunisian manager has called some players of similar 18/19 age group to give xp this season while they have been eliminated from Q1. He wasn't that interested however, telling me that The Girl's primary skill was 3 levels behind the players he's already called. He's a long term trainee for their NT anyway, with solid leadership, which will hopefully help me build a future coach with NT experience. I'll have to discuss with their next U20 manager who may be more open to the idea of utilising multi-skilled specialist players at U20 level. Having said that, he's about half a season older than my key English prospects, so clearly isn't an ideal fit for a U20 squad, but when you manage a side that gets knocked out at the Q1 stage more often than not, that shouldn't really be as important a consideration, so we'll have to wait and see.

In Oceania, having lost 4-2 last week we won with exactly the same scoreline this week against the league leaders, including a quick SE, but we also had two injuries. As this team only has 10 high TSI outfield players, that's pretty much underlined that my plan this season will be to once again aim for a 5th/6th position (playoff spot for the xp gains). The win puts us up to 4th, 8 points behind the top 2, but just 3pts ahead of 6th, and 9 clear of the relegation places. We were due one more week of passing training after this week, before switching to wing, but one of the injured players needs that week to pop, so I'll be switching to wing training next week, and return to finish off the passing when the injury position clears up.

In South Africa, last week's opposition team without a human manager was botifed for this one. We won 10-0 on a PIC, and remain top, 8pts clear of 2nd. The weekly income position has been steadily improving, so I decided before last week's training updates to hire some assistants. 2xlvl3 assistant coaches and a lvl3 medic on 16 week contracts. Total cost is £8,160 a week, and we had our first ever 10k plus gate for the game on Sunday which put £71k into the club's bank account, giving us a profit (after deducting the new staff costs) of £74k.

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Re: Hattrick Season 70

#193885

Postby Eastheath » January 16th, 2019, 1:24 am

Lets start with the Cup game.
Away to a better team, although they only edged midfield 52:48, and chances fell 7 to 5. Despite that, we took the lead twice, they brought it back to 2-2 before taking the lead, then it was our turn to bring it all square again with 13 minutes to spare. They then got the winner in the 89th minute. Grrrrrr...

The league game was a return match against the league leader, at their place. Having lost 0-2 at home, was mildly relieved to 'only' lose 2-0 again. Midfield was lost again, 53:47 and chances fell 10 to our 4.

That leaves us in 6th, 2 pts above 7th, 5 pts behind 5th and 6 pts from the relatively safe merits of 4th. Unfortunately our next game is away to 5th, so we will have to try to get something from this game as 6th is closing in...

Now that we are out of the cup and have new Hattrick countries with leagues, I have the opportunity to get my country league visits collection back to 100%, starting with Sao Tome, which I believe is a large lump of rock somewhere off Africa, famous for producing Nuno Espirito Santo, the Wolves manager. And not a lot else.


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