Week 18

I fancy Real Betis.

I've said on the bottom of my turn to Paul, that's in the post. That if people have a problem with Atletico as a feeder club, then I'll happily take Betis.

Stu, if you want Atletico...you can have them, they'd be your main club, so Will could get some sleep. And I have a bit of an affinity with Betis

I'm happy either way.

If you'd all like to PM Will and Tom (newly appointed to the ethics committee) in the future when considerig club moves, that'd probably just save time! Lol

leat your not bitter Rich

Is this a post record? Can we draw a line under this now????
11 pages of which i think 3 are about week 18 lol

Week 18 sucked.

My players rated 403 this week, team of the week, manager of the week.

Lost to Burnley. Sucks.



Reserves team of the week in Premier league, 5 points behind manager of the week, lost 1-0 at home.


I vote we go back to arguing.

Breaking news...Tom Hurst to head FIFA delegation into cleaning up football.

You heard it here first.

Manilla envelopes to be marked for 'The Hurst Family- FIFA headquaters"

All bribes gratefully received.

How can anyone lose to Burnley and be manager of the week?

tom...if your player's are playing that well and not winning then there is something fundamentally wrong. So, rather than think all is well you should pour over your match reports from the last 5 or 6 turns and see whats going wrong.

is your defence conceding stupid goals? are you getting hit on the break? are they scoring from long range? does your keeper have butter fingers?

do your midfield players make incisive long and short passes or are they squandering posession and giving it away cheaply? are they making killer balls or just passing it about? as arsenal know too well in real life, its all very well having lots of posession but if you do little with it and concede posession cheaply then you are asking for trouble.

are you attackers getting enough supply? if they are, its worth noting the number of chances they have, the number of shots they have and also the number of goals they score. it sounds obvious but is it literally just that they can't score?

analyse everything.

if you concede stupid goals then you need to start playing an AM

if you concede goals from outside the box all the time then you need a better keeper. atleast one with high SS

if you arn't making the most of posession then you need a better pm or tm.

and if you arn't making the most of chances then......you need a better forward.

one or more of those four things should solve your problems and convert those stupid and needless draws and defeats into wins.

not that I know what that's like of course

this is coming from a man who got a team of world beaters relegated???

well yes, but remember some of the best analysts either were crap managers or would be......

gareth southgate.....glenn hoddle......gary lineker....alan hansen......mark lawrenson......

I put myself in that bracket. who said I had a team of world beaters anyway?! not me

really I should get someone else to manage Roma and i should just oversee things from 'upstairs'. or give myself a posh title like Damian Comolli.......director of football strategy. what sort of fucking title is that?! apart from one that says kenny dalglish can't do the job on his own.

Got to be honest, have known for a while that although I have been dominating possession and generally my players have been outstanding, I am not getting enough bodies forward.

Will look at all those points stu, cheers.

Comolli is the guy who sorts the deals out and deals with agents and clubs. Kenny tells him who he wants and he does his best to pay over the odds for them!!

full backs on ATT commands, cb's on FFD commands? maxwell has been doing amazingly well for me since he can bomb foward. that will create more chances and get your LH and RH to join in more aswell. the danger then - as I found out this week - is getting caught on the break. i'm hopefully going to remedy that by playing an AM and just play one forward. If your best striker is better on the ground then use a ST, use a CF if he's better in the air. then its just a case of setting something like 80% on your tactical options for high balls for a CF and 20% for a ST. that's how I usually go. I don't think having one forward instead of two will generate less opportunities, just make sure freedom of movement is set to A (all). as long as your two pm's and am are willing to get forward then they will. if they wont then i'd switch from playing LH and RH to DL and DR who tend to get forward more and overload. LH and RH pretty much just hog the line. both my full backs and wing halves are on ATT commands.

Interesting mate.

I do have my full backs on FDL and FDR, and they do help a little at the minute.

Usually play with two DYs as I havn't got any widemen at all. Hopefully looking to change that in the future, to give me a different option.

Also thought about the forward thing and packing the midfield. Would've done that this turn if i was away from home, but as I am at home to Leicester, I cannot go negative. Need to give Rich's defense something to think about at least.

Nothing to lose against the league leaders, odds stacked firmly against me, but nevertheless, I'm sure the lads will give it their all.

if only someone would offer u two quality winghalves...........

Yeah, quality.

Thanks for your offer of two shit ones.

i thought theyd walk straight in....

fair enough. I really feel that a CF is a waste btw if you use DY's. two strikers would be better. unless of course you get your DY's to DOL and DOR but even then they need to have good qu, cg, dr, tk in order to be effective. if you think about it, a DY essentially needs AE, TA, SP, SH. so, as soon as you throw commands on them you're asking them to do more and use more skills. so, if you are using DOL and DOR then they then need.....AE, TA, SP, SH, QU, CG, DR, TK becuase you're asking them to be wide players as well as central ones. if any of those skills are less than 6 then i'd suggest not using that command. also, DOL and DOR is dangerous to use on DY's without playing an AM or BW because what you'll see happen is your PM's push forward to create, and to fill the void left by your wide drifitng DY's and all of a sudden you've a gaping hole in the middle of the pitch. if rich play's FAS or CAT against you he will win 9 times out of 10 because he can just knock the ball over the top to his TM who will be unmarked for the whole match.

all in all the best suggestion is look at the players you've got in each position and the commands you're using and instead of putting square pegs in round holes stick to your strength. so, if your DY's really are'nt that pacey or much good at crossing or dribbling then don't use DOL and DOR. instead i'd look at their trademarks to get the best out of them. if they have ENG as a trademark then use the TRY command. if they have good attacking attributes/trademarks (shoot from distance, shoot from edge of the box) then stick them on ATT. forget the going wide with DYs if they don't have good enough skills because what you end up trying to do is a bit of everything, which just weakens their effectiveness.

lol, they would at the minute.

Think me on the left and you on the right would make a difference to my team at the minute.

And thats with your right foot crossing the ball. Paul would have to introduce a minus CR skill for you.

Stuart@Roma wrote:

fair enough. I really feel that a CF is a waste btw if you use DY's. two strikers would be better. unless of course you get your DY's to DOL and DOR but even then they need to have good qu, cg, dr, tk in order to be effective. if you think about it, a DY essentially needs AE, TA, SP, SH. so, as soon as you throw commands on them you're asking them to do more and use more skills. so, if you are using DOL and DOR then they then need.....AE, TA, SP, SH, QU, CG, DR, TK becuase you're asking them to be wide players as well as central ones. if any of those skills are less than 6 then i'd suggest not using that command. also, DOL and DOR is dangerous to use on DY's without playing an AM or BW because what you'll see happen is your PM's push forward to create, and to fill the void left by your wide drifitng DY's and all of a sudden you've a gaping hole in the middle of the pitch. if rich play's FAS or CAT against you he will win 9 times out of 10 because he can just knock the ball over the top to his TM who will be unmarked for the whole match.

all in all the best suggestion is look at the players you've got in each position and the commands you're using and instead of putting square pegs in round holes stick to your strength. so, if your DY's really are'nt that pacey or much good at crossing or dribbling then don't use DOL and DOR. instead i'd look at their trademarks to get the best out of them. if they have ENG as a trademark then use the TRY command. if they have good attacking attributes/trademarks (shoot from distance, shoot from edge of the box) then stick them on ATT. forget the going wide with DYs if they don't have good enough skills because what you end up trying to do is a bit of everything, which just weakens their effectiveness.

I'm actually quite glad you said this, as I have been thinking the exact sme thing. My two Dys aren't widemen and havn't got wide men stats. For that reason I have avoided giving them DOL and DOR, and kept them on TRY for their engines.

Makes sense, I do try to stick square pegs in spquare holes, and I actually was saying this to Will today. Would like decent wide men though to try sonething different and have a different option.

Interesting about the CF/ST thing though, that might be something I can look at. Also, an AM could be the next way to go.

Appreciate the help Stu, thanks.

id have 'willingness to do fuck all with right foot attribute' - constantly

rich would have 'willingness for calf to go after five minutes' - gloryseeker

how are u struggling stu with roma.

just read your anyalysis, sounds spot on for me

a CF will only score really from wingers or wing halves. ones that hog the line. they're pretty redundant in non- wideman tactics.

hmm....what seems to be happening with you (and this is without seeing your match report so its a basic generalisation) is that your players are passing the ball about with not much in the way of an outlet. the trouble with playing ST and CF together is that both are central. which probably means your pm's end up knocking it high to your CF from the middle of the park - which is food and drink to most CBs (seems that way in CF anyway). Unfortunately the stoke approach doesn't work in this game

I think tom you will create better with two strikers. Rupert's Empoli side used to play 2 DYs and he always used 2 ST's (aguero and higuain) and they would go left and right in the space between CB and full back aswell as drop off to draw the CB's out. at the moment your opposition defenders are probably just ganging up on your forwards in the middle of the box (full backs included as there is no width). playing ST and S2 will give your opposition more to think about i think.

Will@Fulham wrote:

how are u struggling stu with roma.

just read your anyalysis, sounds spot on for me

its a funny old game.

the problem had this week was I was winning 3-1 with 5 minutes to go. I then had 3 tactical subs made and one of my players that came on (Cassani) was caught dozing twice. cost me 2 points and I drew 3-3. you could call that unlucky but the same happened in a game that I was beating Fiorentina 4-2 - I ended up drawing 4-4!

my problems have varied all season tho. I used MIX for the first 5-6 games (I was using that last season). the problem I had was I wasn't creating anything. One game I remember against Genoa I had one shot all game and it wasn't even on target! My creative players were pretty poor and out wide I only had wingers.

So I then changed to ATT to make use of my best skilled players (Krasic and Di Maria) as wingers. I lined up with CB CB LB RB AM DL DR LW RW CF. It worked in that I was scoring goals but I was also conceding loads.. during this point i brought in some pm's and started training the slow tactic.

i then switched to slow about two turns ago and i've started with CB CB LB RB PM P2 LH RH ST CF. i've had the same issue with conceding so i'm now trying an AM and ditching my CF.

so, i've changed tactics a few times which I spose hasn't helped, altho i suppose given that i used MIX and ATT my players were already superb understanding it shouldnt have made much difference. continuity wise, i've used 21 players this season and although that's probably quite a lot, I had only used 16 players up until week 14 and a lot of those changes were forced ones from suspensions and injuries. so on that front i've been much better.

its just been a case of getting it right i guess. I think the flaw with MIX and ATT is there's little tactical focus. its just a bit of this and a bit of that. think of it like chucking a load of fruit in a blender and drinking it. that's been my team for most of the season. Slow has much better focus and i think i'll improve next season cos I shall be sticking to this tactic now that i've got the players to make it work. I've wanted to use slow before but not been able to really as i didnt have enough creativity.