Need Your Advice

[jddurango]

Well, I've made it through several weeks with my new team and am doing fairly well. I am currently 4th in my league (1 pt from 3rd) with zero chance of promotion this year (which I believe is good from what I've read here).

I followed Mr. Wednesday's advice and have been using all the familiar tools suggested here(abc of tactics, hattrix, HAM, etc). I bought a passable trainer(defensive minded), expanded my stadium to 13,400 seats (with the appropriate seating breakdown), sold some of my older veterans and purchased some 17-18 yr. old trainees for Scoring which i have had at 100% intensity since Day 1. I am running a 3-4-3 in friendlies and league matches.

It is time to start thinking and planning ahead to get to the "next step" and I need your advice on what to tweak:

1.) Team/Trainees: Can you please look at my team (below) and tell me what you think. Do I need to sell/drop any particular players or to add/buy regular players or trainees to my roster ( i carry 23 now. I purchased a decent goalie since my original goalie sucked bad)? I THINK i have enough trainees, not exactly sure tho. I now have 3 that are Solid Scoring each having made it to Solid the past 2 weeks. I think I have one or two more trainees about to hit Solid Scoring soon.

My team and trainees are the main area i need help and your advice with.

2.) Finances: I have now had 2 home games with my newly expanded stadium. I currently have 577 supporters. This week I was about 300 seats short of a sellout and made a whopping $94K on my league match (two weeks ago I made $55K). I was slightly in the negative, now after this weeks match will have approx. $62K in the bank, which is exciting! Do I stay the course, expand slightly again before costs increase next season, use the money to buy trainees now? I am at a loss as to how to maximize my situation now that I've gotten this thing off the ground.

3.) Youth Squad: I had my youth squad at the minimum till last week and bumped it to the middle cash output amt.($10K i think it is). YS is currently Weak. I've never pulled anyone worth crap, so I've fired all of em to date.

4.) I have 3 Goaltending coaches, 5 Asst. Coaches, 1 Psych, 2 spokesp's, 5 psysio's, and 2 docs(had several hurt one still bruised up).

I am happy with my team but really don't know how or what to improve from here.

Any advice or comments are appreciated!!!

thx!

jddurango

Team: Purgatory Hellraisers (223573)

Your 23 players

Alain Kone
TSI = 320 , 18 years, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: wretched Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: wretched
Winger: poor Defending: wretched
Scoring: solid Set Pieces: wretched

Albert Mooney
TSI = 770 , 23 years, poor form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: weak Passing: poor
Winger: solid Defending: solid
Scoring: disastrous Set Pieces: wretched

Arik Alberman
TSI = 160 , 18 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: wretched
Winger: wretched Defending: passable
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: wretched

Bernard-Henri Bats
TSI = 2 050 , 18 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: wretched Keeper: passable
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous Set Pieces: wretched

Danny Evans
TSI = 270 , 18 years, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and passable leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: wretched
Winger: passable Defending: poor
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: weak

Dean Beasley
TSI = 330 , 17 years, solid form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: poor
Winger: passable Defending: wretched
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: inadequate

Edgar Partridge
TSI = 300 , 18 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: passable Passing: weak
Winger: poor Defending: poor
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: wretched

Gary Smith
TSI = 160 , 19 years, poor form
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Powerful]

Stamina: wretched Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: wretched
Winger: passable Defending: wretched
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: poor

Gilberto Vergara del Toro
TSI = 330 , 18 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: passable Passing: poor
Winger: wretched Defending: poor
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: wretched

Jackie Schaffer
TSI = 430 , 19 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: wretched
Winger: poor Defending: weak
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: weak

Jalmar Vellend
TSI = 640 , 18 years, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: weak
Winger: inadequate Defending: weak
Scoring: solid Set Pieces: wretched

John Palmer
TSI = 390 , 25 years, inadequate form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities

Stamina: wretched Keeper: weak
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: wretched
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: passable

José Arandia
TSI = 360 , 29 years, poor form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: excellent Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: passable Defending: poor
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: passable

Juan Bardolet [2 accumulated bookings]
TSI = 570 , 18 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: passable Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: passable Passing: poor
Winger: weak Defending: weak
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: poor

Nolan Hinson
TSI = 350 , 26 years, poor form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: solid
Winger: poor Defending: disastrous
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: disastrous

Paul Mays
TSI = 260 , 24 years, inadequate form
Has poor experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: passable Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: disastrous Defending: inadequate
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: passable

Pedro Wilson [2 accumulated bookings]
TSI = 320 , 30 years, inadequate form
Has weak experience and weak leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: poor
Winger: passable Defending: passable
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: disastrous

Porter Thomas
TSI = 240 , 27 years, inadequate form
Has poor experience and poor leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: passable
Winger: wretched Defending: wretched
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: inadequate

Sergio Iglesias
TSI = 0 , 52 years, poor form
Has outstanding experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: disastrous Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous Set Pieces: disastrous

Stanley Read
TSI = 350 , 17 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: passable
Winger: inadequate Defending: wretched
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: passable

Viktor Heitzmann
TSI = 300 , 18 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: passable Passing: weak
Winger: wretched Defending: poor
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: passable

Vincent Murdock [1 accumulated booking]
TSI = 520 , 17 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: wretched
Winger: weak Defending: wretched
Scoring: solid Set Pieces: inadequate

Will Dorsey
TSI = 1 620 , 23 years, solid form
Has poor experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: passable Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: wretched
Winger: weak Defending: solid
Scoring: solid Set Pieces: weak

[Mr. Wednesday]

First, it looks like you need to do a little stamina training for your IMs or sell off what you have there and buy a couple of new guys who have better stamina.

Second, your trainees look good -- stay the course until they reach at least formidable scoring (end of next season) and you'll be able to cash them in. Your other players look a little young in spots, but I'm also not sure if the guys are good enough in stamina to actually sell as trainees if you were to try to do that, so I guess you should hang onto them.

Third, there's a few guys who you should let go:
John Palmer
TSI = 390 , 25 years, inadequate form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities

Stamina: wretched Keeper: weak
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: wretched
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: passableThe passable set pieces are OK (nothing special), but he's got nothing else that's good enough to get him on the field. Fire him and live with whatever else you have for an SP taker.

Nolan Hinson
TSI = 350 , 26 years, poor form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: solid
Winger: poor Defending: disastrous
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: disastrousAt best, you could get a newb to pay for the solid passing, but I don't think it's worth the effort. None of the primary skills is good enough and he's too old to try to do anything with the PM. Fire him.

Porter Thomas
TSI = 240 , 27 years, inadequate form
Has poor experience and poor leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: passable
Winger: wretched Defending: wretched
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: inadequateSee my comments for Hinson and Palmer, this guy is like a lesser combination of the both of them.

[Vikas]

Mr. Weds pretty much covers it all as usual :)

I'm spotting 4 18 year old playmakers on your roster, but you're training scoring right...
These midfielders are gonna need solid stamina, or passable at the least for now. Off season is near, you can use the 2 weeks with only 1 match to train stamina as it trains all guys, not only the ones that played. The other thing U can try is to pick up some older playmakers with a bit of experience, if you can find any cheap ones.

Other than that, you only need 1 goaltending coach, because all this guy does is (try to :P) keep your goalie in decent form. You'd rather spend the money on extra ass. coaches.

[Alf]

What Vikas said on assistant coaches. 1 goaltending coach is enough since you train scoring. Switch those 2 extra trainers from goali to assistant, and that will boost your training speed.

And don't go into debt !

[BreizhManu]

3.) Youth Squad: I had my youth squad at the minimum till last week and bumped it to the middle cash output amt.($10K i think it is). YS is currently Weak. I've never pulled anyone worth crap, so I've fired all of em to date.

Stay like that until YS reaches passable (studies have shown that the progression until passable is the same with 10k/week and 20k/week) after that it becomes interesting to put 20k/week (8 weeks to reach solid and 16 after that to reach excellent while it's 16 weeks to reach solid and no excellent possible with 10k/week).
Don't worry about the level of your pulls, I didn't have any "sellable" ones until passable, and no good ones until solid.

4.) I have 3 Goaltending coaches, 5 Asst. Coaches, 1 Psych, 2 spokesp's, 5 psysio's, and 2 docs(had several hurt one still bruised up).
like Vikas said, 1 Goaltending coach is enough.1 Physio could be enough too (nobody knows how they work).
Instead I think you should have 9 Asst coaches and maybe 5 spokies.

[jddurango]

OK, thanks a ton guys!

I made a mistake at first and thought my MF's got Scoring training so a lot of them are 17-18 yr olds that I bought when I first started(along with my Forward trainees). For some reason I thought I read that Forwards got full training and MF's got 1/2 training. A Def or two is very young as I ditched some older vets and purchased some young Defensive guys too so I could rely on them for a few seasons. That explains the youth on/of my team.

I had 9 Asst Coaches but they got in a fight and disrupted team spirit last week so I sold 3 off and have just 6 now. I'll sell the GT coaches and only keep one, per your advice.

Thx Wednesday, I'll sell those guys off as they are pretty much dead wood anyway. I'll probably try to buy a MF or two that has decent/good stamina.

I was keeping Palmer as a backup Goalie but you're saying ditch him and not expend the money for him, which I"ll do too. I assume I'm just to plug any random, non-GK player in for goalie on my friendly matches??

Question: Should I rotate in some MF's into the Forward position in Friendly matches to get them some Scoring training?

Thx for all your advice...things aren't as bad as I thought they might be! :)

jddurango

[Alf]

- You should rotate your middies in freindlies, they will train "scoring" while they need "playmaking, defense, passing, stamina"

- your coaches disrupted because you probably had over 10 assistant coaches (3 gk + 9 assistants) : 10 is the limit

[Mr. Wednesday]

Thx Wednesday, I'll sell those guys off as they are pretty much dead wood anyway. I'll probably try to buy a MF or two that has decent/good stamina.If you're talking about the guys I said to fire, selling them off probably won't work, since most other players will agree with my evaluation.

[Desnudo]

I think what Alf meant to say is that you should not rotate your midfield into the forward position during friendlies. Scoring only matters to forwards. Midfielders don't need it. If you don't have enough forwards to fill all your training slots (only the forward positions receive enough training to notice) then I'd suggest getting additional forward trainees.

[Vikas]

He doesn't have much money to spend on more trainees :) Though you're right he'll need to fill up to 6 forward trainees as soon as he can.
I don't know if you do right now, but you could give that 23yo solid def/scoring training, as his market value will raise if he gets a quick scoring pop to excellent, giving u the opportunity to sell and buy back 2 trainees.