Roster/upgrade advice

[streacer]

Rod Estep 20 years
Has poor experience and passable leadership abilities
Keeper: supernatural +4

Virgil Beaty 23 years
Has weak experience and weak leadership abilities
Passing: wretched Winger: passable
Defending: magnificent

Noah Maddox 21 years
Has poor experience and wretched leadership abilities [Technical]
PM/stamina: passable/weak Passing: passable
Defending: solid Set Pieces: excellent

John Aguilar 21 years
Has weak experience and solid leadership abilities
Passing: weak Defending: magnificent

Paul Gallagher 22 years
Has weak experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Head]
Winger: titanic Passing: poor
PM/stamina: poor/passable
Defending: weak Set Pieces: solid

Bob Wilson 25 years
Has passable experience and wretched leadership abilities
PM/Stamina: titanic/excellent
Passing: poor Defending: wretched

Sebastián Perdiguero 24 years
Has poor experience and disastrous leadership abilities [Quick]
PM/Stamina: world class/excellent
Passing: poor Defending: inadequate

Hassan Moore 24 years
Has inadequate experience and passable leadership abilities
PM/Stamina: supernatural/excellent
Passing: poor Defending: solid

Ross Webb 22 years
Has inadequate experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Unpredictable]
Winger: world class Passing: solid
PM/Stamina: poor/excellent
Defending: inadequate Set Pieces: passable

Florín D´Alessandro 22 years
Has weak experience and passable leadership abilities
Scoring: magnificent Passing: inadequate

Elliott Schreiber 22 years
Has weak experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Technical]
Scoring: brilliant Passing: wretched
Set Pieces: solid


Only starting 11 listed, I have no depth so other positions (and unlisted skills) are negligible. And I just sold my other trainee (keepers).

I'm virtually guaranteed autopromotion to III unless complete disaster strikes. Give me $6M cash to work with, plus obviously I will sell anyone I upgrade.

I need to buy a new trainee (I'm looking at a 17yo week1 solid unless the prices are totally unreasonable... I want another U20 if possible.) And I need to upgrade.

III means I NEED to boost my midfield. Especially since my coach's leadership is dropping fast and I will not replace him any time soon... so I can't compensate with TS management like I usually do. Plus my middies are getting a bit old for my tastes.

My central attack is absolutely pitiful so I really need to to boost my forwards eventually, though my wingers keep me competitive temporarily.

...but I can only afford to upgrade one of the two. Midfielders are more needed but the problem is that they're already at higher level so I would only get a ~2 level upgrade most likely, while with forwards I could possibly pull 5-6. Plus my midfielders have decent secondaries but my forwards don't really... and secondaries are usually a cheap addon to an upgrade. So it comes down to midfielders being more needed but forwards being a bigger boost.

My plan right now is to train the keeper through next season (he should make Magical) before selling... so for next season my defense is acceptable, my wing attacks are acceptable... my midfield is semi-competitive but not really good enough, and my central attack is pitiful. Would be sweet if only my defenders were capable of CA.

Basically, what would you do.

[Alf]

geez, I'd like to have such a sucky team...

[damnMikeBrown]

Holy crap what a team. . .

I'm sorry..I can't even begin to comment on that team. It is so far above what I can comprehend as a IV team, that I have no valuable perspective.

Why, I'm curious, do you have 2x magnificent defenders, and the other is merely solid?

Nice damn wings...I like your IM's too, nice exp on them. The forwards I guess would be the weakest link that I see, that and the solid defender.

If you think you need more midfield, well, then you'd know better than I. There's only one way to fix that. . . Drop the lowest PM guy you have, and buy one at least 2 levels above what he is at (as I'm sure you know). If your attack is still wanting, look for some passing (as I'm sure you know). It won't help a ton and it will drive the price up, but every little bit helps.

I'd say Middie (as you say it's the needed spot), Striker, Striker, Defender

[Raven Hawk]

I like your wingers, but I think that you could improve both your midfield and your wing attacks with better wingers.

Try to grab something similar to what you have, but with better PM. I'm thinking Titanic Winger/Formidable PM/Excellent Stamina.

Then upgrade a Forward to Extra-Terrestrial. Find one with low stamina, and at least inadequate passing.

Then IM. Then Defender.

[streacer]

heh... yea, the solid defender looks really out of place doesn't he? If you're genuinely curious and willing to read me drone on, I'll try to go over the whole story.

I never really intended to have such a lopsided D-line. Originally I just ran out of money (my team is 100% USA so when I'm upgrading I tend to buy what I can find... in this case I found 2 mag defenders at decent prices before I found 3 brilliants or whatever my other option was) and I couldn't afford a 3rd one.

Also he has good passing so I was using him in a 4-4-2 to experiment with CA a bit (along with a solid passing/outstanding defender) which altogether got me a low formidable CA in good form.

Then while I was saving for the 3rd, I discovered that I really didn't need 3 good defenders. My keeper is enough to nail down all 3 defenses at decent levels (he can get high inadequate with no outfielder support) so I primarily use my defenders to reinforce specific areas. Very few teams have all 3 attacks that are strong enough to be a serious threat (at least in my series) but I can easily get my central +1 wing to a good enough level, which is nice since that's what most teams throw at me (plus a WTM/EIM or something.)

On the occassions that I do need to reinforce everything, I just split the 3 defenders and use my 2 defensive IMs as a crutch for the weaker side.

Simply put, a 3rd equally skilled defender is overkill. Which is why I sold the outstanding guy (also because I decided not to CA and wanted some of the money for his passing back.)

Finally, he is my SP taker (although I do have 2 guys 1-level below him) and is Technical... which I thought would come in handy since I was "hoping" to make a cup run this season.

Oh yea, and I also keep telling myself that I'm going to switch to defender training next season (been saying that for 4 seasons) so I don't really want to spend loads of money upgrading and then eat the transfer fees when I swap them out. Previously I had had 3 solid defenders and felt bad about that, which is the only reason I bought mag guys to begin with.



... related to why I don't need 3 defenders, is why I do run dual-offensive wings and would really like to get my central attack up. Having used my defense this way, I know how easy it is to defend against a lopsided offense.

The problem there is that with both wingers dedicated to offense, I only get 3 playmakers to work with... so even with my middies being better than my other players... my midfield really isn't up to par with what I expect to face in III and maybe one day II. Most 3-4-3/WTM teams would outpossess me.



PS, if anyone is interested... Elliot Schreiber (brilliant forward with solid SP) and Ross Webb (unpredictable winger with solid passing) were both partially purchased as experiments. Elliot has produced 2 longshots in 15 games (at least scored on 2... I was too lazy to read all the match reports and see if he had more that he missed on.) ~2 per season is pretty good IMO considering Solid SP as a secondary is basically free (assuming you can find it.)

But Ross Webb has, AFAIK, never produced a single unpredictable-assist in 28 games. Particularly irritating because one of my ex-players with I think poor passing, seemed to get them all the time. I really thought I might cash in with him.

[One_to7]

If you're fine having only 2 good defenders, you may want to think about making Hassan Moore into a full time offensive CD and buying another midfielder.

Or getting a winger a couple levels lower, but with some good PM. At least with the winger you'd have some options on how to play him.

[rickJ]

Does look like your forwards are the closest thing to a weak link, especially if you have a defensive coach (which I don't think you do)

I've enjoyed the outliner strategy quite a bit, I have one defender 2 levels better then the other ones and it allows for quite a bit of variations, right now I plan on my next defender purchase being 3+ levels above the current best, mind it's after a 3+ level winger upgrade and a 5+ level forward upgrade :)