Season 23 Week 1 processing

Welcome to season 23 week 1

Ive started opening your orders and wanted to wish everybody good luck for the coming season.

Anybody got any predictions ?

I predict it might be a struggle this year....

The premier league is full of big teams this year. This is the most competitive I think I have ever seen it.

France again will be a tough league, with plenty of strong oppostion.

big games every week in the premiership.

should be awsome - as tom said should be the most competitive and interesting its ever been.

am sure there will be plenty of surprises and shocks along the way for us all.

speak for yourselves.... I'm waiting for the football league show and Garth Crookes to know nothing about the foxes

Another big season this year at Barcelona with Betis joining the usual contenders in Spain, RIch has built a very strong team there and they are more than capable of causing upsets.

I predict a Barcelona league, cup and European Cup treble this year.....................

Flamengo should be a force in Brazil this year but they always seem to disappoint. Have entered Copa Libertadores to see if I can give Rob and his Boca team a challenge!

Good luck to everyone

I also predict that every other Tuesday I'll be glued to the livescores!

thanks for the comment Matt. Betis' target this year is third with some sort of positive result over the big two somewhere along the line. I still dont think we've anywhere near enough to compete... but I hope we'll get closer than last year. Ongoing transition at Betis.. but with a purpose of one day getting involved with the big two. Wont be this year though

This year will be both tough in England and France. Few changes at both Lyon and Plymouth so will have to see how both teams get on but priority this year must be the European Cup for Plymouth to go one step further than last year. Would be nice to improve on Lyon 's 4th place finish last season as well!

I've been in the English Prem for some years now and I don't think it's ever been this competitive. Personally, I fear for my Newcastle side... a lot of new blood has been brought in but the team lacks cohesion for me... looks okay on paper but will "okay" be enough? I doubt it but we'll see. Also, the coaching team seem to lack guidance on tactics too... with the recent experiment with ISF being a disaster.

In Spain... Seville will be content with a mid table finish after also undergoing a lot of personell changes themselves.

Good luck everyone.

Thanks for that guys.

I'm still entering the orders here, probably be doind the same tomorrow as well, so the games wont be run until wednesday morning at the earliest. I'll keep you posted though.

Plenty of new players to add to the database this week and some interesting deals as well, and a couple of whoppers.

On with the orders now...

All turns received ok Paul?

Morning gents, nice to see you both up and about early. Big day for you both, I wonder if Jamie has any more tactical switches to make to stop Tevez

Think he'll be ok this time around, Carlos looks as though he has come back carrying a little extra around the waist. Might take him a few weeks to get back up to speed.

Whats worrying is the fact that he still looks the fittest in the whole squad!!

Who have you got opening day Rich?

Obviously we never expect to win, but would you be disappointed with less than three points?

I'm away at Leeds. I have to be dissapointed with less than three points every week to be honest. Although, the switch to FAS still needs properly bedding in. My 1st Team and Squad understanding has dropped to "Above Average" which worries the pants off me. No doubt Leeds and whoever else I'm up against this season will have been perfectly honed for weeks. So, to be honest Tom, I dont really know what to expect. 433 has been great in friendlies, but it's only competitive outing was against Jamie in the semi-final, which is really hard to measure what a 1-0 defeat to Jamie actually means. Especially when your best player is injured on 43 mins and is replaced by a half-fit Australian hair-dresser who doesnt know the system from a wet weekend in Erinsborough.

With a player like Nasri, you will be fine. The worst part is waiting for the tactic to settle. It is painful waiting for it to work, but if you are patient it will come good I'm sure. You certainly have the right players in and around Nasri.

Will be interested to see which tactic Will finally decides to settle on, with all those attacking players it might be difficult to keep them all happy, but more importantly might be difficult to keep them all playing in their strongest positions.

Although I can always see him going with width, it is how attacking to make the width that I think he is thinking about? Indecision might be his worst enemy.

Will?

I have to say I empathise totally with Will's position. At Betis, i've got more high quality wingers than you can shake a stick at. Well, quality for Betis anyway. Ribery, Callejon, Yarmolenko, Cuenca, but I can only crow-bar Cuenca & Ribery into the side at DY. I was playing FLY for ages last year and it was working well, then the AI changed and the wingers were totally ignored. Basicallly Busquets gave it to Ganso who set up a goal. The wingers may as well not have been there. But of course, the system saw it as a 4-1-5 formation!... so when I didnt have the ball, I was as open as anything. So, if I'm just going to be using Busqets>Ganso>Milito.... then I might as well have a couple of DY's that can go in the right direction... I of course fixed this issue by signing the highly defensively minded French Elephant man that is Ribery.

So, in summary, empathise with Will's situation. I'll take Robben on loan if you're struggling to accomodate him Willy.

Start of the season is always exciting. Hopes, expectations and fears all waiting to kick you in the nuts. I feel like Rich in that I feel like any dropped points are a disaster. In Italy there are actually loads of good players and very solid teams and it's not uncommon to play teams full of 97 97 or better players (Roma for example have the joys of Hulk and De Rossi among many others) plus the reality managers rarely make any mistakes. On the other hand 2 dropped points can cost you the league in Argentina. I know either River or Boca will win the league it's all about not slipping up. No pressure then.

If people are willing to divulge, it would be interesting to see what tactics we are all starting our first game of the season with. To see if we are all going in one direction or still have a variety of different options amongst us.

I am going with the following :

Charlton - FAS
Nantes - FAS

Both Leicester and Betis go in with 433 FAS

Brum-GK, LB, CL,CR, RB, AM, DL, DR, TM, ST, S2 FAS

Will be using SEX as well tho this season dependent on opposition and venue.

Gremio-GK, LB, CL, CR, RB, AL, AR, PM, DL, DR, CF ATT

bugger just wrote a post out, but cos got distracted by annoying customers i got logged out and it didnt save it

Phew, that's just saved me 2 mins of my life from reading a load of gibberish.

me ? indecisive....... i dont know what u mean

Basically my whole game plan now totally and utterly revolves around width.

so depending how the system now recognises or plays it, then that will have a massive bearing on how i do.

it'll be very much a WHV 442 with Milner missing out and Robben and Valencia on the flanks.
add to that the attacking threat of Baines and walker then its all about the widtth.

So the hope is that between the four of them they can get enough ammo to the front pairing of Carroll and Balotelli (playing very much big CF with Mario feeding off him).

hopefully Sandro and Zabaleta will give me sufficient grit and stregnth to build on in the middle of the park, but their jobs are very much destructive ones.

Seems to make sense in theory.

concerns i have,

How the 442 system will work, will the ball go out wide, will it come back in to the front men, will they get on the end of it?

How long Carroll and Mario not only settle but establish a partnership,

but my biggest concern is Sandro.

in real life he is impressing hugely alongside Dembele in spurs midfield so that isnt a concern at all long term especially as his international cap tally for Brazil continues to grow.

iv always made a point of playing some sort of experinace in that imortant central role and i worry that his comparative lack of experiance coupled with a unequal pt cr might mean that at some point i have to revert to palacios for a bit -but lets hope not.

do have some options if not with milner being able to drop into a DY role if i need to go more attacking or even jam him out on the left and shove Robben up top.

need to get more competiton for places within the squad too, but that will take a little time and money, could do with some better facilities too.

overall very pleased with the way the team shapes up on paper but just think itll take a bit of time to see the benfits of it.

u watch though couple of bad results and ill be training my players in FAS and flogging Valencia off quicker than u can say knee jerk reaction

Tom@Charlton wrote:

Phew, that's just saved me 2 mins of my life from reading a load of gibberish.

lol,

too late i found it!!!

Will going against the trend with width. It makes a lot of sense and it's what I was trying to do with Ribery and Di Maria at Inter last season but SLO does negate the impact of the wide men a lot. I have to say I love the idea of playing it out wide .... John Robertson anyone but my fears are it'll end up more Gary Crosby. The other issue for me is you also have a very lightweight central midfield and with most people playing 433 with a TM that could be an big issue .... if you don't have the ball you can't pass it to your wingers.

I have totally sold out as I obviously have no real belief systemand I'm reverting to 433. The other thing that always appealed is the old-fashioned Italian trequartista ... Baggio, Del Piero and Zola. I think in Jovetic I have a potential world beater to create the chances for my forwards. We'll see how it all pans out ..... roll on tomorrow.

I'm just entering the last of the orders atm, should be done by this evening, then tomorrow, wednesday, i will be ready to run week one.