Week 17 Processing

Welcome to week 17.

First orders to be opened today are from Iain and again from Iain. Both last week's and this week's orders arrived friday morning. Looks like last turns orders are post marked 09.06.12 09:15pm Gatwick.

David Silva makes way for Iniesta in the league game.

Cup quarter-finals this week so plenty to play for alot of you and Real make a few changes to their cup team with the impressive Arbeloa returning along with other star names like Silva, Sanchez and Fabregas.

Iain is taking an interest in Levan Subotic and Robert Lewandowski.

Gary's Chelsea are next up and he keeps a settled side for the game at home to Leicester whilst carrying out some secret scouting missions.

Mark's Newcastle are next up.

Jeffrey Bruma makes a return to the league side whilst Balotelli starts in the cup game. Mark in a similar vein to Fulham has kicked back a large bid from Man City for Balotelli but has made a counter offer.

Richard's Leicester are next.

Walker returns at right back for the big game at Chelsea and there could be a big deal in the offing at Real Betis where it looks likely that Berlin will agree to a swap deal involving Sergio Busquets and Betis's Luis Gustavo.

Ben's Plymouth are next up.

Mertesacker comes back into the defence in place of the rested Vermaelen and Henry makes a rare start in place of the suspended Robinho for the league game against Everton.

Plymouth are also making an improved bid for Podolski who a few of you are also chasing. Bayern had knocked back Plymouth's first bid but this new bid seems to have found some favor at the german club and we'll find out later in the week if it's been successful or not.

Tom's Charlton are next up.

Samir Nasri is up for a slight review this week whilst Tom keeps a settled league side for the clash at Boro. But still no starting birth for Nasri in either league or cup team with Nigel Reo-Coker keeping the french superstar firmly rooted to the bench.

Paul Hemmings wrote:

Tom's Charlton are next up.

Samir Nasri is up for a slight review this week whilst Tom keeps a settled league side for the clash at Boro. But still no starting birth for Nasri in either league or cup team with Nigel Reo-Coker keeping the french superstar firmly rooted to the bench.

Had a chat with Samir, and he fully understands his chance will come, but to change a winning side this late in the season would be silly.

I felt I needed a bit of steel away from home in the middle of the park.

Will's Fulham are next up.

Fulham return to their wingers this week with Valencia and Robben given the job of trying to beat the Birmingham defence at St Andrews this week, while Tiago returns to the starting eleven as playmaker, in what should be a fascinating game. Will gives Phil Jagielka the difficult job of trying to stop Birmingham's Sergio Aguero.

Darren Bent makes a rare start in the cup team but things havent really worked out for him since his move to Fulham and he looks like he might be on his way to Manchester United who are considering a swap deal involving Jolean Lescott, again we will have to wait and see if that pans out later in the week.

Feyenoord's star is definately rising but a huge bid for Leighton Baines that involves three of their star players could jeopardise their immediate improvement as Boro look likely to accept a swap deal for Leighton Baines that involves Drenthe, Samba and Mignolet.

Matt's Barcelona are next up.

Yaya Toure makes a welcome return to the first team for the clash against Real Betis while Monreal comes in for the highly impressive but injured Jordi Alba. Matt also returns to his wingers with Cazorla coming in for Navas.

Jamie's Schalke are next up.

Neuer has recovered from his injury and returns in goal for the game at home to Leverkusen. But Osil is injured again for the fourth time in recent weeks. He seems to have been very unlucky with injuries this season with a recurring muscle strain, a visit to a specialist should soon clear that up though.

Schalke's team effectiveness is down to 94% atm and Jamie is looking to offload a few fringe players to help redress the balance slightly.

Richard's Birmingham are up next.

Mensah comes in for the injured Jonny Evans whilst Begovic takes over in goal from the dropped Gomes who will have to sit out the game against Fulham.

Rich has decided to go with the Sexy tactic for this game and has told his wingers to drop back into midfield and given Hernandez licence to roam amongst the Fulham defence seeking out the vital goals, something he may be far happier doing than playing as a centre forward.

Phil's Arsenal are next up.

The only change in the team to face Westham is the inclusion of Sagna in place of Gunter at right back as the classy frenchman returns to his rightful place in the team.

Rob's Inter Milan are up next.

No team changes for Inter ahead of their vital derby clash at AC Milan and a strong cup team too with the highly impressive Pepe returning to the defence.

Last orders this week come from Jamie's Watford.

Jamie brings Charlie Adam back into the side but only for the injured McGeady and Adam has been asked to play out wide left of midfield.

He is hoping to sign Papiss Cisse and offload Niko Kranjcar later in the week.

no turn from Stuart at Roma this week and I havent heard from him for awhile so I hope you're okay Stu.

The game has had two pieces of bad news this week as two long term managers are considering their futures in the game.

Mark doesnt have time to visit the forum anymore and he feels its to his detriment with all the rule changes and transparency of late, but hopefully he will decide to stay with us and work through this tough patch that has seen Newcastle's form dip of late.

Geoff is finding it impossible to rebuild his City side after it was dismantled while he was in game two and he too will hopefully work through this.

Both are long time players and both have been tremendously successful in the past and both have come to expect continued success but the current format of the game does limit the number of winning teams that can be accomodated.

If anybody has any thoughts then I'd be happy to listen to them especially Mark and Geoff of course, although I will write to both of them as neither get onto the forum very much.

I'm going to enter the orders now which will take the rest of the day I expect, then tomorrow I'll be ready to run the games.

Paul Hemmings wrote:

The game has had two pieces of bad news this week as two long term managers are considering their futures in the game.

Mark doesnt have time to visit the forum anymore and he feels its to his detriment with all the rule changes and transparency of late, but hopefully he will decide to stay with us and work through this tough patch that has seen Newcastle's form dip of late.

Geoff is finding it impossible to rebuild his City side after it was dismantled while he was in game two and he too will hopefully work through this.

Both are long time players and both have been tremendously successful in the past and both have come to expect continued success but the current format of the game does limit the number of winning teams that can be accomodated.

If anybody has any thoughts then I'd be happy to listen to them especially Mark and Geoff of course, although I will write to both of them as neither get onto the forum very much.

Real shame this as both managers would be a great loss to the game.

The only thing that Mark is missing on the forum is Paul's commentary. Personally, this makes the game very enjoyable for me and I remain grateful to Paul for spending his time doing this.

However, in terms of playing the game, it isn't essential for Mark to be on here when the commentary happens. It just goes back to a traditional PBM for him. Other than that, the forum is non-existant in between turns, with no discussion or activity anyway.

I would strongly encourage Mark not to pack it in due to not being able to get on the forum, as it really wouldn't affect his management much at all.

Any rule changes are always put on the newsletter by Paul too, so nothing would be missed there either.

In terms of Geoffs problems, I think most of us feel his pain.

It seems to be increasingly difficult to do deals between clubs since a lot of the changes. I am not saying this is a bad thing, quite the opposite, I like the changes that have been made and it is definately a more realistic game now with the squad limits, attitudes etc.

You just need to take a look at the transferred players list compared to this time last season, when it was jam packed with transfer compared to a handful nowadays.

Again, I feel this is a good thing.

Can understand Geoffs frustration in that all his bids are being rebuffed or ignored all the time.

I go back to my point in the other thread 'Available/Unavailable' in that maybe we could do with some indication of which players managers would listen to offers for, forum managers, reality managers and non fourm managers included.

Would it be difficult to introduce a list Paul, which is kind of a cross between the transfer list and the permanent bids file, which can be requested with a special action code whilst not being harsh on the players morale. Where managers can use a dealing, maybe 'AVAILABLE', to put them on there to notify other managers that they might listen to offers. Maybe an indication of what they might be after, money or players wise.

Think this would work for both us managers to see what players are transferrable and also for reality managers to see which ones we might sell for the right price.

At least then managers like Geoff who are trying to rebuild can see which players he has a realistic chance of obtaining, rather than just making specualtive bids for players that some managers deem 'untouchable' and getting increasingly frustrated at them being rejected.

Agree with Tom, would be a big help for all I reckon

Also hope Mark does Stay, top manager and one I'm still to get the better of lol.

We can't lose the current European champions - it's not all bad in the northeast, I think most of us have or will hit a point where deals slow down, it's about the fine tuning and he's still got a wonderful set of players to go forward with

I think this little period of frustration for Mark and Geoff is possibly due to the increased pitch size. I agree with Tom, the transfer market used to be awash with moves on a weekly basis. I think it's a good thing that it quietened down a little, but for the moment I would suggest that people are keeping the status quo because they're unsure, or at least have been up until the last turn or so how the move to the bigger pitch would affect them.

I know that I've backed out of deals because I'm uncertain as to the overall performance of various players and their adaptation to the bigger pitch. I think when the pitch has settled down, and managers can make informed decisions as to whether "last weeks shoddy performance" was down to the players or the pitch or the TM's being too high, or the ST's not being involved enough etc etc

Once this becomes clear and settled, I think you'll find the transfer market opens up again.

Also don't forget that Stu hasn't been around, and he was responsible for at least 8 deals per week!

Morning Phil, how's my protege?

Morning Rich, im alright just about to go take my car for a MOT....... could reduce my bank balance and reduce amount of friendlies each week!!