Speaking of hidden attributes (my favourite subject)...

My Victory team is top, and my Nix team is 2nd, no surprises, as usual, I like to let them just go at it when they're playing each other with zero intervention.

Nix hosts the Victory - they end up getting smashed 5-0!!

But it gets worse - the team just collapsed - all ratings sitting in low 5s, a few in the 4s - I've never seen anything like it - what the hell happened!!!!

Victory were playing an attacking 3-5-2 (with an AMC in front of two mids and wing backs), Nix playing an attacking 4-2-3-1.

But somehow, I don't think it's got anything to do with the formations - Victory scored 3 goals inside the first 7 minutes of the game (ouch).

Probably do do with a few nix players falling on their faces and that Victory packed out the midfield.

Ok so Adam Federici moved off to the magpies for 6.65 mil after having a cry that he wanted to move. So i'm trying to sign this gun goalie who i've had my eye on for a few years. He's at blackburn who are in the championship and he wants to move so i offer 4.5 and they take. He accepts contract but fails his medical for a slipped disc he suffered at the end of last season. Grrr. He SHOULD be recovered by the time the transfer window is over but i had to sign this other keeper who is the same as federici to cover just in case but will become back up if i get this guy. Also i figured this was a glitch but he asked for $200(AUS) a week...yes 200 dollars. Plus a signing on of 975k. hmmm i still offered him the 91k he was on at blackburn because i had the space and i didn't want to take any chances.

Just going through some of my staff at QPR that were there before I joined. They have one scout and only one scout, with a Judging Potential of 7, and a Judging Ability of 8. #-o

:lol: That was exactly the same when i came to Fulham. Some of these clubs...tut tut tut.

Just played the most EPIC LOLZ game of my career. I'm versing Kuwait in the first match of the Asian Cup in the group stage. I line up with 442 and what to Kuwait line up with? 424. WTF? It was seriously screwed up seeing as i was massive favourites for the game and i'm ranked 17th and they are 70 something. I decided to pull a cm back to a dm just in case. So by the 16th minute i was up 3-0 and missed a penalty. The coach then realised his mistake and reverted to a 442. :lol: The damage was already done with me winning 7-2 and one of their goals a free kick. FMD.

Edited by socceroos_fan: 25/5/2009 07:15:26 PM

I can't recall ever seeing anyone start 424 - that's quite funny!

Sevilla and Athletic Bilbao do it all the time.

i did it once when i needed points worked a treat won 4-1.

It depends how good your team are at playing a flat back four and long-ball.

Never used a 4-2-4. Closest I've come was a 4-3-3, with 2 MC, and one AMC. Resulted in the greatest comeback I've ever seen. We (spurs) were at home to Arsenal, League Cup Semi Leg 2. We'd lost 2-1 in the first leg. At halftime in this game, we were 4-2 down, 6-3 overall. Basically needed 4 goals in 45 minutes, and to keep them scoreless. We did it in 20:d

Aston Villa do it all the time in my game.

Just had my "star" striker end a 19 hour goal drought - now he has scored 2 in 2.... Quite amazing, during the goal drought as he was still avg 6.8's...

Yeh - I said recently how you can have your striker score 7s without scoring or setting up - but more rarely will an AMC get a decent score unless they're actually scoring goals and setting up goals (well - it just seems a bit more hit and miss to me)

Out of curiosity Pipp, what are your AMC's positioning stats?

I forgot!!

I'll see if I can dig up a bit of history on my main ones tonight (I've put up pictures of the two I use for the Nix, and I use Ward and Costa Barbarouses in the Victory, both decent players).

In fact, I put up that 16 year old the other day. When you told me to sign him up, I was planning to do it when he came to the club on 1 Nov, and I did - thankfully he accepted the bare min. $700 per week.

I was about to say that about a week after that, I was checking the U20 NT, and there he was! Showed up for the first time. He's skipped the U19s and gone straight into the U20s! Clearly I signed him up just in the nick of time!!

The other thing is, even though this kid, Carter, hasn't played a single game for me (he had NT duty pretty much as soon as he came to me), my Healey is already poutting him in the AMC spot ahead of Ward and Costa Barbarouses!

That's showing a bit of confidence in the kid! I'll definitely play him first op, probably be able to first game tonight - I think they've had the U20 WC or something.

I had another situation last night where the NZ NT were off doing something and I was left with about a dozen or so players to make a team up. I was forced to play this kid I had just recruited. He's a DC, and had to play him as an LB (red dot and all), he broke the record for youngest debut with the Nix, something like 16 years 100 days!

Carter will probably break the record for the Victory when I play him.

Has anyone got an interesting record for a young debutant?

Edited by pippinu: 26/5/2009 05:18:32 PM

Make that 4 goals from 3 games now - hehe glad I showed faith in him now... Hopefully it continues...

**** Make that 6 from 4.... He has turned a disappointing season into quite a respectable one considering...

Now hes out for a couple of months with an injury!!!!!

Edited by blakroz13: 26/5/2009 07:20:08 PM

Edited by blakroz13: 26/5/2009 07:20:59 PM

Mmmmk. I got to the final of the Asian Cup. It was harder than i expected and scraped through in the semi with Iran 10-9 on penalties. I've got 5 injuries all to key players and one suspension to a nob i like to call neil kilkenny. Doubt i'm going to win against South Korea. I'll post results of the cup when i play the final.

That's because Healey is fucking useless.

Hattrick on debut for a young regen lad called Robert Amos for Liverpool in FM08 - he was only just 17.

Healey does do some funny things (he's rated 1 for motivation! so I don't let him anywhere near the players before a game!) - but we've been through so much together, I can't imagine ever letting him go...

These are some stats of collected of the Nix's last dozen or so serious games. I've included Lake, our gun AMC with 18s for the more relevant ratings; I've also included Pearce, captain and gun right winger (both Lake and Pearce are being chased by a long list of overseas clubs with market values quickly approaching $3 mill); I've also included our best striker, Johnston, for completeness.

My thesis is that AMCs get marked more harshly than other positions, and have to do something special to get good match ratings. From the figures I have here, it looks like only a marginal thing, but there are glimpses of the sort of thing I'm talking about.

I name the opponent, scoreline (Nix score first), and then the three players in order, and I mention whether they had a goal or assist in that game (some teams are mentioned a lot because we played them in the knock out stages of the ACL).

Roar: 1-1; Lake 6.6; Pearce 6.7; Johnston DNP

Victory: 0-5; L 6.1; P 5.8; J 5.4 (in a game where everyone did terribly, as I mentioned once, the AMC was one of the better players, which is unusual)

Roar: 3-0; L 6.3; P 7.1 (1 assist); J 6.5

Jets: 2-0; L 7.2 (1 assist); P 6.9; J 7.4 (1 goal)

Victory: 1-1; L 5.6; P 7.2 (1 goal); J DNP

Glory: 2-2; L 7.3 (1 goal); P 7.1; J 7.7 (1 goal, 1 assist)

SFC: 2-0; L 7.5; (1 goal); P 7.2 (1 assist); J DNP

Roar: 4-0; L 9.4 (3 goals); P 7.3; J 8.1 (1 goal, 1 assist)

Victory: 2-1; L 6.8 (1 assist); P & J DNP

AU: 4-0; L 8.5 (2 goals, 1 assist); P 7.8 (1 assist); J 7.3 (1 goal)

Al-Ittifaq: 1-1; L 6.0; P 7.3 (1 assist); J 7.1

So it's not really conclusive (especially with Lake having so many good games!!), but there are little hints of what I'm talking about, that the winger and striker appear to be able to do less and get similar scores or more.

I couldn't be bothered doing the Victory, I think it would look clearer there. Only this morning, I played a friendly where we absolutely thrashed Preston Lions, everyone scored 7s and 8s, except for two players, Ward played first half at AMC, scored 5.8, and Costa Barbarouses played the 2nd half and he scored 5.4 (or vice versa) – this is the sort of thing that happens often!!

I'm also reminded that the Nix are about to play in the WCC. Their first opponent is Los Angeles – guess who the danger man is – Becks!! I couldn't believe it! He's 38 (but he's still got a few 20s, incl free kicks, crossing, passing and corners are 18 or 19 – but his pace was something like 6 lol).

It's because Beckham is invincible.


I went back to my Arsenal game, Im failing terribly, would it be easier or harder if i quit them and took up a lower league job?

Sentimentality will get you nowhere in FM.

It's not so much that as that their variance in ratings is substantially less extreme. There's nothing wrong with Lake's ratings. And in the games where he's not playing well perhaps you need to drop him deeper or something to lose his marker.

It's not so much that as that their variance in ratings is substantially less extreme. There's nothing wrong with Lake's ratings. And in the games where he's not playing well perhaps you need to drop him deeper or something to lose his marker.[/quote]

That's something I haven't tried too often - one problem with Lake is that he is a specialist AMC (I'm trying to expand his range of positions - but it's very slow going!)

From experience, Yes. I'd do a top league 1 team like millwall or leeds or leicester. The only problem you could face would be the expectations to promote but it shouldn't be too hard if your playing with a good team.

Here is all my transfers - http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/1627/picture12g.png
Two goalkeepers, CB, ML, ST and a ML who was intended for a striker but others are in good form and i'm short on wide mids atm.
Happy with the depth of the team now but a little worried about my CB's who have been very leaky. My main cb i've been playing in midfield now because i sgined anton and put him in there but i'm thinking of taking one of them out for a bit just to get it stable. Might be a bit of them just trying to gel together.

Edited by socceroos_fan: 27/5/2009 10:41:06 PM

A Lower league can be easier because the expectations and player variables can be less. But things can also go drastically wrong. The main benefit to the higher league teams is that you can pretty much buy in the players to make an awesome team.

I have always found managing a team in the lower leagues more enjoyable, nothing more satisfying than watching the team that was slated as relegation candidates from the L2 and make them into an English Powerhouse.

Yeh i know what you mean blakroz. It's the same with me. I've always managed a league 1 or championship side and the only really 'top' team i've managed in a comp is melbourne and even they weren't the best team in the comp.

An exciting night of FM with the Nix in their first ever WCC.

We eased past a Becks led LA team - by the 20 minute mark, he was sucking in the big ones and never really presented us with a problem - a regulation 3-0 win.

We then came up against Werder Bremen, a much tougher customer. The first hint that we were in with a chance was when I noticed they lined up with a 4-1-4-1, they were actually paying us some respect, and no doubt were wanting to curb my gun AMC!

What they didn't bank on was that I've got gun central mids as well, one of whom rifled in two free kicks for a 2-0 lead at half time!

We were absolutely cruising when they changed back to a 442 late in the game, and their sub got two back in the last 10 minutes (grrrr...)

It eventually went to penalties, at which time a left the room to make myself a cuppa, to come back and see Bremen miss their 2nd penalty and hand us victory!!

So it was onto the final, against Sao Paulo. It was a tough tussle, no team could find a clear cut opening, although we did force a few saves and hit the cross bar.

It too went to extra time, and just when I thought we were about to head to our 2nd pen shoot out in 3 days, another sub for Sao Paulo found the back of the net from a speculative shot - and that was the game, 1-0. A very bad game from Lake, 5.2 only!!

But I'm proud of my boys, 2nd spot in the WCC isn't too shabby and we still earned a cool $4 mill for our efforts (already got my eyes on a Uruguayan left winger!)

The squad will be different for sure next season, at least 4 of my very best are being chased by a long, long list of overseas suitors (meaning an inflow of cash of at least $10 mill - pretty soon, the Nix will be absolutely swimming in money!!)

You seem to get killed when the opposition make substitutions. Do you change your opposition instructions when they make a change?