Stalybridge, and their climb up the leagues

I just thought I'd make a thread about my exploits so far in FMH13 on my Galaxy Tab 7.

I decided to start at the bottom of the available English leagues and picked Staleybridge (probably because I insist on saying it the same way they said Stoneybridge in the Absolutely TV show of the '80s)

Starting in the BSN. I used a 3-4-1-2 formation with attacking on and it seemed to work quite well, and went straight up to the BSP

BSP. Finished in a playoff place, but got beaten in the Playoff final.

Still BSP. Stormed it this year with a record number of goals and points.

My best players were easily the best in the league, and Corey Gregory was the main man.

He was also the main source of goals, although Troy Hewitt kept him honest, and Sanchez Payne gave an outstanding return for a midfielder.

Hearts then activated Corey's Big Club Release Clause, but Troy Hewitt stepped up to be the main man up front, and Duncan Watmore came in.

League 2. Surprisingly, I did well after promotion. The board expected me to stay clear of relegation, but I said I'd get a respectable league position. We were both wrong...

I was comfortable in 2nd/3rd most of the year, but dropped down to 4th towards the end. I got back up to 3rd after I won my last game, and Exeter lost theirs.

My attack was still potent, but my defence has always been leaky, but there were now definite signs of creaking. My main tactic was to try and score more than they did. Last minute goals were always on the menu too, (for both teams) and there is never a dull moment when Staleybridge are on the park.

And then I'd just go and batter someone. Sorry Barnet...

I was also involved in the longest penalty shootout I'd ever been in. Rivers was my goalie for this match.

It was so long, it doesn't even fit on the screen, even after scrolling...

I had applied for a couple of jobs and the board didn't seem to like that much. I thought I was punching above my weight and kept on expecting the wheels to fall off, but they haven't. Yet.

League 1. Again the board expected me to battle bravely against relegation, and I said I'd get a respectable league position. I may be wrong again. 10 games in and we're...

I've changed from my previous 3-4-1-2 to slightly more conservative 3-5-2.

To be continued...

Thanks Marc.

Stalybridge Celtic League 1 campaign 2016/17

After a storming start (see last pic of first post) I started to drop off a bit, but by January we were still holding a strong 2nd place

The board were more than happy about the way things were going.

February came. Our form was starting to dip and we had dropped to 3rd, and the board were starting to be a bit concerned.

But at least they were pleased with my capture of Guinean BWM Junior.

This match illustrated our issues. 3 nil up after 13 minutes and...

we snatched a draw from the hands of victory.

By May, we had rallied a bit and managed to hold on to a playoff place.

We didn't trouble the top goalscorers chart this year, as our goals were more spread out throughout the team, but we topped the assists table.

At the start of the season, I had loaned Henoc Mukendi from Liverpool. He supplied most of the goals, and was also the main source of the goals. His form had dipped towards the end of the season, so I dropped him for a few games, but brought him back for the last few league games and he kept us in the playoffs.

So, into the playoffs we go. We get Coventry for the first leg of the semi-final. As it was 2 legged game, I decided to go for gaols and reverted back to the old faithful 3-4-1-2. Henoc was on fire and should have had a hat trick but for a penalty miss.

For the 2nd leg, I went more defensive (for me) and went to the 3-5-2 formation that I had used for most of the year.

The League 1 Playoff Final was between Stalybridge and Brentford.

Oh, well. Perhaps next year...

Henoc got the young player of the year, and I got manager of the year, but that was no consolation.

My manager rating.

So, another year in League 1 beckons. I reckon I'll have to strengthen my defense and midfield, or perhaps change formations. I do like the way I play though, and I can't recall ever being involved in a 0-0 draw, and I hope it stays that way.

I am well under budget for wages (I only use 20,000 a week of my current 29,000 limit) but have limited funds for transfer. I'll need to check and see who is willing to play for us as I don't think my rep is good enough to try and get some stars in. My midfield players (5 from about 8) are pretty much interchangeable, and they can all have a good game, followed by a terrible one, so need to get more consistency in there.

Obviously, Henoc will go back to Liverpool, so I'll need to replace him, or loan him again next year...

It always annoying when a team that finishes below you, beats you in the playoffs.

I've got a better goalie now. Bouzanis. 44 caps for Greece, and he's twice as good as my next best keeper (allegedly) so he should be able to do a good job for me in L1, and I've got another centre back. A Cypriot bloke, can't recall his name. Henoc went back to Liverpool and wasn't available for me to re-loan him, so I've got a striker called Simpson on loan from Hull.

Details to follow.

I also got a 36 year old Scott Parker as I figured he still could do a job for us, and an old head might be useful in midfield.

Here is Josh Simpson, on loan from Hull.

And my new goalie, Dean Bouzanis. As I said earlier, he's got 44 caps for Greece so he can't (shouldn't...) be bad.

Although the board weren't too happy with that one to start with...

... they never mentioned him next month.

And here are my complete transfers for this year.

League 1 2017/2018

After 11 league games, we are more solid defensively whilst still playing 3-5-2. Bouzanis is playing well in goal, and bringing in Pavlidis to the back 3 (even though he prefers wing-back) allows me to play Donaldson as a BWM which he prefers to do. Watmore and Simpson upfront are getting my goals.

But then...

Watmore gets injured. I can cope with that as Hewitt and Simpson are still a deadly strikeforce.

and then...

So, Simpson upfront with 17 year old, former trainee, Rose, and we're struggling to score. Still managing to get wins though. Just. This was as close to a 0-0 as I've been yet.

With my striker crisis, I looked out for another striker to get for a few months until Watmore was fit. This guy fitted the bill.

although not enough to stop my first 0-0.

Come January, I'm doing well up in first place. Defence, midfield and attack all playing well and I survived having to play 4 games in 8 days over Christmas (3 wins and a defeat.)

Turns out Scottie Parker wasn't a great buy. He plays well enough, but he cannot last a full game and he decided to retire at the end of the season. So I decided to scout out some new midfielders. My scout liked the look of these 2, so I bid for both and got them at the January transfer window

34 grand to 1.4 million.

And just in time it would seem as Sanchez Payne gets a bad injury.

And Dunne has a cracking debut.

So looking good for the 2nd half of the year.

My team does tend to err on the young side, but not that young really.

The 11 picked there aren't my first choice 11. Rigg is my first choice LW and Watmore is my CF and both would normally be picked. Hunt and Dunne are on a rotation system (Both are CM playing as an APM) at the minute as neither has the fitness to last a full game and they usually haven't recovered sufficiently to start the next one. Cole's loan period has finished and he's went back to his parent club. He was only ever a short term loan to cover Watmore's injury.

Results have been stacking up nicely. Still top at the end of February 2018.

It's getting tighter, not helped by both Huddersfield and Millwall going on a (at least) 6 game winning streak, but I'm blaming the Johnstone's Paint Trophy*...

I got to the final, and it went to extra time and penalties, and I lost. Their goalie saved my first 3 penalties...

I then went into a crucial game against Millwall 3 days later with a team full of half-fit regulars and fully fit back-ups, which I lost 2-1. So, I'm now down to 2nd, and the gap is narrower.

Still hopeful of promotion, but we're getting to squeaky bum time, and I always have a bad run of games at some point...

* Well, it can't be my fault...

I've always been on windowed view. Some of the pictures are just cropped.

I have tried the full screen view but there seems to be a little delay to screen presses, and as there is no more info on screen (ie everything just gets bigger) I reverted back to the original view with borders.

We reach the run in to the 2017/18 League 1 championship. With 4 games to go, I'm 2nd, 5 points behind Huddersfield in 1st and 5th points ahead of 3rd placed Millwall.

In the next 3 games, we do well enough to attain a promotion place. Yay!

With one game to go, we are 2nd, 3 points behind Huddersfield, but we have a greater goal difference.

And lookie here. Look who we play in the last game. This could get interesting.

We beat them 2-1 to leapfrog past them and we are L1 Champions. I didn't see that coming. We stuttered a bit towards the end of the season, but we were really strong for the last 4 games, winning all of them.

Here's my full squad and their stats for the year.

We had the best players in the division, although Simpson has now went back to his club.

Managerial rating

Championship here we come.

Championship's where the standard takes quite a big jump from what you've been up against until now. Best of luck.

I'm expecting it to get a lot tougher now. My attacking 3-5-2 formation may not survive this coming season.

I'm expecting it to get a lot tougher now. My attacking 3-5-2 formation may not survive this coming season.

Fortune favours the brave!

(Apologies if that advice gets you relegated! )

This is one of the best careers I've read mate - hats off to you !!

Championship Season 2018/19

I had a bit of money to get some new players in. The board only gave me £200K, but a huge wage limit. I juggled them about to get just over a million in transfer funds.

These guys were all found during a scouting search and they all came highly recommended.

I took a punt on Leon as he was free. He's turned out quite good and is a regular starter. As a commanding German centre half, I will insist on calling him Jurgen...

The first few games in the Championship came and went with decent results. 2 wins and 2 draws leave me undefeated.

September arrived and brought a win, a defeat, and 4 draws. Drawing too many games so far, but at least I'm being hard to beat.

We're out of the League Cup though. Played L1 teams in all rounds so it was a shock that we got knocked out.

So, just the one defeat in the League so far, and out of the League Cup, I think I'm doing well. The board seem to have other ideas though...

And then things start to go a bit downhill. Had a comfortable 4-1 lead in this game but threw it away to get a 4-4 draw.

The rest of my October results.

I tried a new formation for most of November. The 4-1-2-2-1 did OK, but I wasn't convinced by it.

And, really? Just when I thought I'd survived this game 0-0 after sustaining 2 injuries...

I've now decided that if I'm going to be at the bottom, I'm at least going to attack and play with style, so out comes the old faithful 3-4-1-2 again.

It would seem that I'm now a bit out of my squad's depth, but aslong as I can remain up, I may be able to consolidate and sign some better players.

January 2019 and my fortunes go up a tad. Went through January in the league unbeaten, but get put out of the 3rd round of the FA cup to (Premiership) Leeds United.

I've changed goalie from Bouzanis to Laurent. I got Laurent from Roma at the start of this season and my scout said he was better than Bouzanis, but his first few games didn't indicate that, so I went back to Bouzanis. However, Bouzanis had a couple of terrible games, so I gave Laurent a go, and he played much better, so he's now my starting goalie.

First game of January, and the Stalybridge we all know and love are back.

4 wins and a draw from 5 games is a great return, and sees us move back up to 10th.

Here's the cup defeat to Leeds. It started off badly, but I rallied and came back strongly, and was unlucky in the end as there was nothing wrong with our dis-allowed goal...

I forgot to take a screenshot of February's fixtures but they went OK, and I consolidated my mid table position.

I took this picture as one of my centre-backs scored a hat-trick!

March came and we played well again and moved our way up to just outside the playoff places, but as you can see, it was very tight near the top. 3 wins, a draw and a defeat is not a bad return from 5 games.

I've mentioned my 3-4-1-2 quite a lot but I don't think I've shown it or my tactics, so here it is. I use attacking, short passing, but no pressing, and play the offside trap.

So, to April and the run in to the end of the season. I get a couple of decent results and get myself into a playoff place. Now, all I have to do is to hold on to it...

April started OK, but it went downhill. The playoff place soon disappeared as I lost 3 of my last 4 games (drawing the other one) and I plummeted back out and down the league.

A decent season, and at least I stayed well clear of relegation for the majority of the season. Our players didn't trouble the top goal scoring table, but we did well in the overall rating and assists.

Josh Rigg has been with me for a few years now, and he's turning into a great winger. He supplies a lot of goals via his crosses, and he gets a few himself as he is a great free-kick taker too.

Liverpool scouts turned up to watch Reece Pope. He's a great player and I got him 18 months ago for £35 grand.

A bid of £4.3 million was less than his rated value of £4.7 million and I'm not about to let him go for less than he's worth. I'm not going to stand in his way if they, or Arsenal who are also interested in him, come back with a bigger offer. (but don't tell them I said that...)

I've also tried another player in my search for good centre backs. Steve Hudson played well throughout the season but the other 2 could be a bit dodgy. I'll see how Ruben Garcia does. A bit of a no nonsense Argentinian at the back might not go amiss.

Manager rating

I've also just snapped up Josh Simpson on a free. He played well for me when I had him on loan in League 1 so we'll see how gets on in the Championship. He may just be a squad player though as Watmore and Robinson are my first choice strikers.

Here's the rest of my transfers so far.

The guys who left were mainly players who had never really played. The exception was Aaron Barry who had done a good job for us back in the Blue Square days, but was out of his depth in the higher leagues. I wish him well and I'm sure he'll do a good job for Hyde.

I got this right winger on loan, and I'm sure he'll come in handy booking holidays for the lads... Sanchez Payne was playing right wing for us last season, but he's not a winger, so I decided to get a right winger to complete a two pronged attack with Rigg on the left wing.

My scout said Jed O'Brian was a must buy, so I did. He gives me more choice at the back.

Reece Pope stats, then and now.

Slight increases all round in the last 18 months, but his pace, stamina and strength have shot up a fair bit. He badly needed to pick up some stamina as he could barely last a game last season.

I've only played a few games so far, details on them to follow, but here's my first round League cup game against L1 opposition.

It would seem that Josh Simpson is staking his claim for a starting spot, and there's going to be good healthy competition for starting places up front.

It all bodes well for a good season. Lets hope I can get at least a playoff place this year.

Championship 2019/20

Having strengthened our team, we set off on another League campaign. Our aim this year, is to get at least a playoff place. I only just failed last year with a terrible run in, so we shouldn't be too far away.

Our league campaign was ticking along nicely, so I'm going to concentrate on the League Cup for most of this post.

After losing our first league game, we went on a wee run, and won our next few. The table at the end of August made good reading for us.

Our next League cup match was away at QPR. They are in the Premier League so it was looking to be a tough game for us, but we made light work of them, and gained £80K for the giant killing.

The 3rd round draw gave us a home tie against Tottenham.

Spurs were going to be a tougher challenge as they had beaten the mighty Man City to win the League cup 2 years previous.

Watford made a bid of £2 million for our £950K rated player Carl Collin. Collin is a versatile player whose best position is right full-back, but he's equally adept at centre back, or as a ball winning central midfielder (current position), and he can do a job as right midfield too. I didn't want to sell him so refused the bid. He was unhappy that the bid had been turned down, but he'd just have to accept it. We're much better than Watford so I'm sure he'll soon forget about them.

My only other unhappy player is my new centre back, Jed O'Brian, and ironically, he's unhappy because he dislikes Carl Collin... They are just to have to get on with one another as neither of them are going anywhere.

So, to the Spurs cup game.

Well, that went well, and the board agreed as they gave me more transfer monies. Spurs were clearly not the team they had been, although they left Bale on the bench for the whole game even though he's still one of their best players.

First league game after demolishing Spurs was away to Ipswich. 3 nil down after 23 minutes and things looked dire. We got one back just before half time, then battered them in the 2nd half to get a 4-3 win.

My ground capacity is still only 8608, and my board have agreed to increase it. It must be easily the smallest ground in the division, although I was surprised when it wasn't full for the Spurs game.

Things looking good so far, and we have a 4th round League cup tie at home against Arsenal to look forward too.

I never thought of that. I was only 58 short of my capacity so that makes sense. It might be nice to see a sellout, but I didn't realise you worked out both tickets and attendance.

Enjoying reading your posts.....i'm currently running a save with Harrogate Town and i may just have used your tactic. Working quite well so far - finished 5th and lost 5-0to Halifax in the play off final (board had wanted a respectable league position) in my first season in the BSN and currently top after 5 games in my second season. Slightly disappointed about the number of goals i'm conceding however i suppose something's got to give with such an attacking formation. My left winger is also killing the league with assists (he's got to double figures already!) and my otherwise very average poacher is banging them in left, right and centre.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on.

Yeah, you do concede more than usual with this formation, but you do notice a difference once you start to "upgrade" your centre backs.

The tactic is just basically the 3-5-2 attacking that is there in the game. All I've done is fine tune the roles to suit my players. Although both my strikers prefer to play as advanced forwards, I always use one as a poacher.

I also can't decide on a goalie. I've went back to Karl Rivers, a young goalie that I bought from Rangers a few years ago. I played him back in the lower leagues, and he was OK, but I replaced him with better and older goalies over the years, but he now seems to have developed a bit and is now playing more consistently.

I tried to fit the players to the system at first which didn't work quite as well but i've had more success recently. As you alluded to, it's got better now i'm in the second season and i've been able to sign a few players.

In terms of the 'keeper scenaro i'm having the same issue and ended up going with the older, more experienced guy particularly given the lack of experience in my back three. Unlike the PC version, the 2D match engine doesn't seem to show your 'keeper having a blinder (75% of the time the striker either scores or blazes it over and you don't see the build up) so I always get the sense that he's playing rubbish - but perhaps that's just because there are fewer scenario's within the match engine in order to keep it responsive?

It is a bit tricky to know how your goalie is doing. My youngster seems to doing OK just now so I'm just leaving him in there.

I asked the board if they could expand the stadium. They agreed it was a bit small and said they'd do something about it.

They must have went on a run of games after I beat them...

Again, our league games and results are going along nicely with 4 wins and 1 defeat for October.

The 4th round of the league cup at home to Arsenal came up at the end of October. I had put out a slightly weakened team for the previous league game (which I won 2-1) in preparation and hope that I could play my strongest team against Arsenal.

Not quite as convincing as my last 2 cup wins, but I'll take it.

And surprisingly, I didn't get as much as I got for beating Spurs. I get Birmingham in the Quarter Finals. They're Championship too, so we'll see how that goes.

Note how my capacity for the Arsenal game was up by about 2500. They improved the stadium in just under a month, although they never told me they had...

Just to let you know the stadium upgrades straight away once they agree to it. Enjoying your posts keep up the good work. Good luck in the cup

Just to let you know the stadium upgrades straight away once they agree to it.

They get some really speedy builders in then? I was expecting some kind of delay.

I think in the full pc game there is a delay but not in the handheld version

impressive career , i may have to try a low league growth, best ive done so far is stay with Arsenal til 2023 and repeatedly win basically every cup possible, keep it up m8!

Thanks for the comments.

I have to say, that I think this is my best game ever. I don't think I've taken such a small team this high before in any version of CM/FM, and I've played since the first CM on the Amiga, although I stopped at FM2009 as they got too complicated for my taste and my laptop struggled to display the 3D match engine.

Looks like a cracking career! Keep it up, looks like you will be in the Premier League soon enough.

November brought 3 draws and a defeat from 4 games. Not exactly championship winning form...

On to our league cup quarter final with Birmingham. The first hour was quite boring, but then they took the lead. After 76 minutes, I went all or nothing and changed from 3-4-1-2 to an even more attacking 3-4-3 with 3 central strikers. I equalised, then they took the lead again on 89th minute. I got a last minute equaliser to take it to extra time. Made my 3rd substitution at this point. I took the lead in the first half of extra time, but because I had made my 3 subs and had 3 strikers on, I was locked into the 3-4-3... Managed to hold on for the win.

We're now into December 2019. Against Forest, I took the lead in the first half. At half time, Reece Pope was having a nightmare and had a rating of 5. I was toying with relacing him, but decided to leave him on as we were winning. Glad I did...

3 wins and 3 draws from a very busy December.

I thought this was rather amusing. Southampton are managed by Iker Casillas too...

Our form was a bit up and down, but this was an up...

So to the league cup semi first leg. A narrow 1-0 win away to Stoke was a decent result with the home leg still to come.

January 2020 saw 3 good wins, a draw, and a bad defeat, but I'm still managing to hang about in the promotion places. We also got an expected win against L2 Torquay in the 3rd round of the FA cup.

And Francisco Martin has signed a pre-contract and he'll join us in the summer. He's only rated about the same as my "other young midfielder" Nathaniel Hunt, but his stats are quite impressive.

On to the 2nd leg of our league cup semi final against Stoke. I dominated and won the match in the first half hour, and then held on for a 4-1 aggregate win.

The other Semi final was an epic encounter between Man Utd and Chelsea. Looks like I would have my work cut out in the final.

Now, it was on to the FA cup 4th round against Middlesbrough. This was a tough encounter held over 180 minutes, and it needed penalties to win it. It went to 9-8 on penalties and there was only one miss, and that was from Sean Hudson, one of my centre backs.

4 wins a draw from 5 league games keeps us nicely up at the top of the league

Another screenshot that can only happen in the world of FM...

As our next game was the League Cup final against Man Utd, I decided to have a look and see how they were doing. Oh...

I went into the game not expecting much, but I set us up for our usual 3-4-1-2 attacking style and got stuck in.

Well, that went well! I gave Man Utd a completely unexpected 3 nil drubbing.

Our next game was against Bournemouth. I wasn't expecting much after the excertions of the league cup final, and we went 3-1 down after half an hour, but our never say die spirit came to the fore and we came back for a 4-3 win.

Is there no stopping us?

Oh, yes, there is. I knew we were doing well recently, but I had no idea our unbeaten run was that long.

4 wins a nd a defeat from our 5 league games this month, and we're still at the top with a handy margin for us to hold on to.

Nice! Looks like you're on real roll. Also nice to see that the tactic works all the way up the pyramid - 100 goals for in any division is good.

Your tactic has had me promoted from BSN to BSP, where i am currently sitting pretty at the top of the tree after 18 league games. The shipping goals issue has gotten better since buying some decent defenders as you'd said and my left winger seems to love the freedom (48 assists last year!).

I hadn't noticed I'd broken the 100 goal mark until I posted that picture.

Strangely, my left winger gets loads of assists too, and it doesn't seem to matter who I play there, they always play well. Normally it's Josh Rigg...

But when Josh is injured or needing a rest, my left winger can be a 32 year old with crap stats, and he still gets good ratings.

strange one on the left wingers....

a couple of things i am intrigued to know is how your finances are relative to the rest of the league? Are you finding your wage budget restrictive?

judging by your team, you are like me and enjoy buying youth players and bringing them through however how easy have you found it to attract established premiership-quality players?

a couple of things i am intrigued to know is how your finances are relative to the rest of the league? Are you finding your wage budget restrictive?

judging by your team, you are like me and enjoy buying youth players and bringing them through however how easy have you found it to attract established premiership-quality players?

I have 1 million pounds to spend, but I'm near the top of my wage budget. I mainly sign players on Bosman's or on free transfers, so I haven't spent a lot on transfers. I usually end up moving funds from transfers to wages so I can sign new players, and to give existing players new contracts. I'm hoping for a windfall when (if) I get promoted to the premiership. The board say our finances are fine, though obviously I can't be getting a great deal of money through my 11,000 capacity stadium.

The only premiership player I've signed was Scott Parker, but he was 36 and nearing the end of his career so he doesn't really count. The only other player that I signed that I've even heard of was Gavin Rothery and I only know his name through previous CM/FMs.

Finances. I don't have enough knowledge of teams at this level to know if that's good, bad, or indifferent. I would guess it's on the low side, but at least I'm secure.

Another new signing for the summer on a bosman. Again, he's only rated as decent, but he has good stats. I'm going to play him on the right wing as Cook will be heading back to Blackpool at the end of the season.

This is an indication of my luck when we get near to the end of the season...

April fixtures were dire. There is no other word for it. 1win, 2 draws and 3 defeats. I'm just falling apart, and getting 2 of my centre backs sent off against Villa means I'm without them for the last 2 games of the season.

May fixtures. A 3-1 loss and a 2 all draw sees us only win one of our last nine games leave us in 3rd. Gutted. I've been in the top 2 all year, only to drop down right at the end.

Playoffs beckon when I can muster up the courage to play again...

I decided last night to just go and do the playoffs and get them over with.

The semi final was against Birmingham who I had just drawn 2 each with on the last game of the season. The first leg could have went better, but a 2-1 away defeat is not the end of the world with a home leg still to come.

We get them back to Stalybridge and we give them a lesson in fluid attacking football. It looks like my form has come back just when we need it most.

We get Aston Villa in the Playoff Final.

The final is a tough game that goes to the full 120 minutes. After 90, it's 1 each. Into extra time and Villa get an injury. Unfortunately, for them, they;ve used all their subs so have to play the remainder with 10 men. I had already went for the 3 strikers up front and that was too much for Villa to cope with, with only 10 men. Our Northern Irish international striker, Karl Robinson, gets what would turn out to be the winning goal after 116 minutes.

Now to the awards which turned out to be a Stalybridge benefit. I get manager of the year. Reece Pope gets player of the year, and we get the top 2 in the young player of the year with Thomas Cook, and Karl Robinson.

Thomas Cook was only on loan and has to go back to Blackpool. I would love to buy him, but don't have the funds.

I went and had a wee look around to see who was available for nothing, and you would, wouldn't you?

I don't think I actually need him as I have 3 good strikers, but he's free! He can also play just behind the front 2 so he should still do a good job for us if he looks after his fitness.

Manager rating.

The Premier League won't know what's hit them....

Well done mate

You certainly don't do anything the easy way

That's my 3rd playoff final in this save, and my first win. Even when I win them, I still hate playoffs. It just seems so unfair on the 3rd best team. "Yes, you've proved you're the 3rd best team in the league over 46 games, but you've now go to prove you're the best cup team out of the teams that finished 3rd to 6th." It's just ludicrous.