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dafuge's FM10 challenge

dafuge

By dafuge,
in Challenges, Sign-Ups & Experiments

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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Hastings United, Season 2010-11 – Season One, Blue Square South

Summary

It was a season simply geared towards survival. That was not really in question. However, the inconsistency of the team was maddening, and at times we looked like promotion contenders rather than relegation battlers. Our defence was great, but we simply couldn’t score enough goals.

Transfers

Lots of players in, probably too many, but they seemed to improve the team at the time! Sam Hatton was definitely the best of the bunch, though the team’s stars were mainly players who were already with the club.

Competition Reports

Blue Square South

Fairly consistent in terms of being inconsistent, which meant that our table position never changed much. We never really looked likely to go down – even after our worst run of the season, we weren’t bottom. From the time we hit 18th onwards, it was never really a possibility. The problem was, clearly, scoring goals. Our defence was top-half standard, but only two teams scored fewer goals than us this year. Major priority is to find a prolific goalscorer and I’d love some advice on how to do that!

The Final Table this season. St Albans pipped Hampton & Richmond Borough on the last day of the season as H&RB lost to Weston-Super-Mare while St Albans beat Tonbridge. It was probably justice, as St Albans had been top of the league for the vast majority of the season, and constantly from the 12th game until the 36th, after which the two switched positions after each game! Literally!

The playoffs saw two 2-0 away wins, for Bishop’s Stortford at Chelmsford in the first leg, and for Lewes against Hampton & Richmond in the 2nd. Both of the other legs were 1-1, so Lewes and Bishop’s Stortford met in the Playoff Final...

The e.on FA Cup

Decent run before defeat to promotion-chasing Chelmsford.

The FA Trophy

Soundly beaten by BSP outfit Gateshead.

The squad.

With selected stats for all competitions, ordered by the amount of time they spent on the pitch – a rough guide to their importance to the team I suppose.

The obvious thing from here is something I will mention later – the need to cut the wage bill. I have done some already, more to come I hope.

Key Players

Phil Parkin

Easy choice as the player of the season, for me. His first season in the game, possibly the first time a 1st year regen has ever been player of the year for me. He looks like he could even be Premiership potential eventually – my big task will be to keep hold of him. Certainly, one of my coaches believes he could be a leading League Two player in the future.

Chris Lock

Not a spectacular player but he does a good job and he could end up being my skipper next season, I think.

Sam Hatton

The highest paid player at the club, and arguably my only decent signing. Need to try to persuade him to take a wage cut, however.

Kevin Milton

Decent player, although entirely unspectacular. Should be a first choice next season I think.

Notable others:

None, really. We need more strength up front, for sure. Alex Hird was the top scoring striker, although Bradley Gray had a better scoring ratio. Not that that is saying much. How to find a proper striker?

Finances

A total mess, unfortunately. Cost-cutting exercises necessary in July and August. Hopefully should only need a couple of new players, though.

Club Records and Awards

>> Lowest Attendance: 241 v Havant & W, League, 23rd November.

>> Biggest Win: 3-1 v Tonbridge, League, 26th December.

>> Biggest Defeat: 4-1 v Bath, League, 22nd January.

>> Highest Scoring Game: 3-3 v Staines, League, 11th September.

>> Most Games Lost in a Row: 3, 4th to 18th December.

>> Most Games Without Winning: 6, 16th October to 13th November.

>> Most Games Without Conceding: 2, 30th October to 2nd November.

>> Most Games Without Scoring: 5, 29th January to 26th February.

>> Top Goalscorer: Sam Hatton – 7 Goals

>> Top League Goalscorer: Sam Hatton – 7 Goals

>> Most Goals in a Match: Tony Boot – 2, v Staines, 11th September.

>> Most Assists: Martin Foster – 4

>> Highest Average Rating: Phil Parkin –

>> Most Man of the Match: Phil Parkin – 8

>> Worst Discipline: Martin Foster – 5y0r

>> Youngest Player: Phil Parkin, 16y 263d v Thurrock, 14th August.

>> Oldest Player: Martin Foster, 33y 183d v Bishop’s Stortford, 30th April.

>> Fastest Goal: Alex Hird, 2m17s v Weston-Super-Mare, 5th March.

>> Youngest Goalscorer: Phil Parkin, 16y 266d v Lewes, 17th August.

>> Oldest Goalscorer: Sam Vardy, 28y 164d v Thurrock, 14th August.

>> Fans’ Player of the Year: Phil Parkin

MY team of the year:

Scarsella

Brown – Milton – Parkin – Lock

Foster

Hatton – Smith – Turnbull

Gray – Hird

Subs: Howe, Cochlin, Craddock, Vardy, Thomas (A or Z!)

Overall XI….not even the same as the computer generated Seasonal XI, which we know is a bit rubbishy. This one gets more significant after a few years, methinks. This one is clearly wrong for me – how Milton isn’t there is beyond me. He is in the Season XI. But as I said, this one will evolve and improve.

New Youth Cohort

This year’s pick of the bunch, who might well go straight into the first team, although Dennis Palmer looks decent too, and has been put straight into the first team squad.

I think it’s pretty clear that the main issue is finding a decent striker. Anything else that could be improved? Any other thoughts? But my main question is simply how do I find the new Danny Roberts??! To be honest, he doesn’t even have to be that good, he just needs to be able to bang in 20 a season and that will make such a huge difference. Will be returning to my Arsenal game for a while to wait for some responses, please do help me! I need it! I’m already looking at a few reserve team strikers from big teams to try to get some goals into the side but none seem interested. The other big target is to considerably cut the wage bill – a fair few players have taken wage cuts, and quite a few more won’t be getting new contracts, as the squad size will be trimmed significantly, and a couple of quality players will be bought in key positions.

Previous Seasons:

None Yet!

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Thebaker

Thebaker

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Missing Hastings already, so please give me some feedback quick so I can get on with the new season!

some of your players look terrible attribute wise, your strikers are some of the worst i've seen. most people signed up scottish youth strikers like Fitzharris and Mcshea in the first season who could get 30-40 goals a season, i did and they were still playing for me in league 1.

if i'm honest i would not have signed players with such low attributes, i look for at least 8-10 in key areas.

scan the scottish sides and prem sides for youth players, nearly all will be better than what you have and see if you can sell or pay off your existing players.

Think you should have gone for a few quality players and less quantity.

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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Yeah - it got to the stage where I was panicking last season because I couldnt find any decent players. Will definitely be on the hunt for a quality striker this year, without a doubt. Plus a couple of quality loan signings and probably one or two defensive players as I've lost a few on free transfers at the end of the season, which has cut the wage bill but left me a bit short. And the lack of strikers is a problem I'm all too aware of.

So you think scouring U18 teams in the Prem/Championship is the way to go?

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Thebaker

Thebaker

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So you think scouring U18 teams in the Prem/Championship is the way to go?

just look at the youth players released on 1 jul each year from the better clubs and the u-21 and u-19 national sides, england, ireland, scotland and wales since players from other countries are unlikely to join and you can't scout most of them

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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just look at the youth players released on 1 jul each year from the better clubs and the u-21 and u-19 national sides, england, ireland, scotland and wales since players from other countries are unlikely to join and you can't scout most of them

Cheers, will try that for sure. I had a quick look at them at first, but couldnt get anyone released from the big clubs to join me. Will have a closer look now.

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mocko666

mocko666

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Greyed out Man when I start off I usually check the premiership, then championship then league one transfer history for players they release, your bound to find some quality players and youngsters who would cut it at probably league two level. At the very least blue square. Good luck.

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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Scotting and Welsh leagues arent active though so not many players from there...and even players released from Birmingham arent interested in moving to Hastings...

And have had a look through some Championship teams' released players, too, and again none are interested. Even in League Two I'm yet to find any.....

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Thebaker

Thebaker

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Cheers, will try that for sure. I had a quick look at them at first, but couldnt get anyone released from the big clubs to join me. Will have a closer look now.

most wont, but some will, you may have to trawl through them. keep your scouts searching for young players as they will often ask for less wages then an older player at the same level of ability. also switch the high earners (over 100 p/w) onto full time contacts as they wont ask for much more than the part time contracts, you may also be able to reduce the contract length if it runs for a while.

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Thebaker

Thebaker

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Scotting and Welsh leagues arent active though so not many players from there...and even players released from Birmingham arent interested in moving to Hastings...

rangers and celtic are the main one, welsh clubs are not worth the effort, nearly all players in the welsh national youth sides are from english clubs.

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mocko666

mocko666

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Seems strange that you havn't managed to find any in the chamionship or at least league one. I usually find at least half a dozen but then again I don't know how low Hastings reputation is. For example a lot of people managed to get Eikrem who if i recall correctly is a Man Utd youngster. Correct me if I am wrong I don't have the game up atm.

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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Signings so far this pre-season (any reaction?)

Calum Whitaker on loan

Kaid Mohamed on a free

Marcus Cassius from Bromley for nothing

Nikki Lewis on a free

Sebastian Lake-Gaskin on a free

Obviously there is a bias towards strikers there - we needed it badly. Lake-Gaskin looks to be the best of that lot, though Nikki Lewis looks a good prospect too.

20 players out, so the wages should be much lower :)

Any thoughts? Will be searching for a left back and a central defender before the season starts, too. There was a large exodus of players who didnt want to renew their contracts...

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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Well looks like two more defeats at the start of the season. Could this be an issue with tactics? The team seems to me to be a bit better than last season now.

EDT: We've equalised in the 2nd game but its still not looking great, Bath have had 15 shots to our 3.

EDT 2: We got a draw. But again, thats not exactly brilliant against a Bath side who only finished 11th last year. And still not a single goal from a striker....

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SnakeXe

SnakeXe

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I played 4-5-1 between BSS and Championship. Rigid, Direct, Low Creative Freedom. Keep it simple, don't try and reinvent the wheel with it, leave most things default. One possible idea is to turn everyone's long shots to rarely unless you have someone ridiculously good at it (I mean 15+), as at that level it's usually a sure fire way to give the ball away.

As for players who did well for me, I don't think I had many strikers at all who weren't newgens. I had Beckford and Anichebe in the Championship, but that doesn't help you much now! I seem to remember Magno Silva Vieira being a decent player at that level as he's incredibly fast.

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Cerneo

Cerneo

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Posted

North Ferriby 10/11

Table

Graph

Season Review: Got off to a slow start and got bogged down with little injuries here and there, picked up mid season and we rolled into a play off spot. Ended up losing in the finals to Northwich who had been besting us all season.

Playoffs: First Leg, Second Leg, Final.

FA Cup

FA Trophy

Cup Review: Got the first round in the FA cup and lost a close game to a BSP side, Northwich knocked me out on the FAT, foreshadowing the playoff final.

Transfers

Squad

Finances

Season        Division            Position                 Achievements
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2010/11       BSN                 4th                 Lost in Playoff Finals

Next Season: Get promoted, find another defender or two and maybe some better wingers.

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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I played 4-5-1 between BSS and Championship. Rigid, Direct, Low Creative Freedom. Keep it simple, don't try and reinvent the wheel with it, leave most things default. One possible idea is to turn everyone's long shots to rarely unless you have someone ridiculously good at it (I mean 15+), as at that level it's usually a sure fire way to give the ball away.

As for players who did well for me, I don't think I had many strikers at all who weren't newgens. I had Beckford and Anichebe in the Championship, but that doesn't help you much now! I seem to remember Magno Silva Vieira being a decent player at that level as he's incredibly fast.

Thing is I have no wingers, which is why I have a 4-1-3-2 formation. Other than that, I have pretty much the same sort of settings as you suggest though I will definitely try to stop them shooting so much.

Might try to buy Silva Vieira though the two I have this season have improved the team a bit, and we've just beaten Staines away, our 2nd win of the season, and now we're in mid-table. But will try the long shots thing. Thanks for the advice, keep it coming!

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DanGLiverpool

DanGLiverpool

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Going to Wembley after a 3-1 aggregrate win over Rotherham in the League 1 Playoff semi finals

Facing Colchester at Wembley :thup:

Did it, albeit twice. I won it 3-0, then got a crash dump. I had to replay the final again, and this time won only 2-0. Shame as I like bigger scores, but oh well, going to the championship nonetheless :thup:

Still only favoured personnel though

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radicell

radicell

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Dartford - Blue Square Premier - 2013/2014

League: 7th (view)

FA Cup: First Round

FA Trophy: First Round

We were very close to a playoff spot this year, and we were in contention for one all year round. However, a final-day slip against Gateshead saw Tamworth and Accrington pip us to 7th spot, with Tamworth grabbing the final playoff spot.

Next year, it's time we dragged ourselves out of the BSP and into the professional leagues. The highlight of the year was re-signing Jeet Padaruth, who had apparently forgotten about his unhappy times with us after being re-signed by Barrow and then released on a free.

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foost

foost

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Made it to the UEFA Cup, don't know if i must be happy with that since it will give me a lot of games, where I need my players to be good in teh Championship, but we gonna give it a go :)

Group draw is been made:

Group L:

AEK

Sevilla

Guiseley

B.Jerusalem

Could be worser. Ok Sevilla will probably destroy me but the rest is ok, i guess.

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GreyedOutMan

GreyedOutMan

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Who's your parent club GreyedOutMan? Had Man Utd as mine so that helped with getting in some quality loan signings to supplement the players I found.

Board for some reason dont think one is needed! Can't get one. But glad to see that someone else uses those deals. I think they're perfectly legit - if you can do it, that is.

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Thebaker

Thebaker

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Old Firm have only released three players between them since the beginning of the game, and none this season...will keep trawling through other clubs.

you are looking at youth players under transfer history and not players out?

Can't believe that Fitzharris doesn't exist, scored loads of goal in BSS and BSP for me, Rangers and Celtic released load of youth players at the start the first season and i signed about 7 of them inc Fitzharris.

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SnakeXe

SnakeXe

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you are looking at youth players under transfer history and not players out?

Can't believe that Fitzharris doesn't exist, scored loads of goal in BSS and BSP for me, Rangers and Celtic released load of youth players at the start the first season and i signed about 7 of them inc Fitzharris.

Probably you started out with a different database.

Could be in for a quintuple season, finally managed a decent performance in both League and FA Cup :thup:

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foost

foost

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We won 3-0! Must say we played one of our best games ever. Triangles everywhere on the field. Real, as it should be, TOTAL FOOTBALL!

If we stay playing like this I think promotion will be easy.

Sevilla won 3-0 vs AEK...

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SnakeXe

SnakeXe

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We won 3-0! Must say we played one of our best games ever. Triangles everywhere on the field. Real, as it should be, TOTAL FOOTBALL!

If we stay playing like this I think promotion will be easy.

Sevilla won 3-0 vs AEK...

Sounds great, keep up the good work! Judging by Sevilla on my game (my record vs them is P5 W5) you might even give them a game :)

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foost

foost

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Oeh, that would be awesome. But to be honest I don't think we deserve to be in the next round judging my team. It is really high Championship class and low/decent premier at the moment.

Right, going to field a B-Team in the FA and League Cup since we play way to much matches hehe

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ugen64

ugen64

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Link

I did this challenge for a few seasons last year, but I didn't bother to post any screenshots or anything because I thought I'd just give up after a month or two like I usually do. The story wasn't that exciting anyway - I got Dover (one of the easier teams) promoted immediately, then got stuck in mid-table in the Blue Square Premier for a few seasons (I think my highest finish was 10th).

Anyway, picking a team was a lot easier this time around, because Boreham Wood have an annual friendly with my favorite team Arsenal. So with the factor of name recognition and all... :)

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foost

foost

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Right.. We have been playing some games now in the UEFA Cup

1st: Guiseley - B.Jerusalem 3 - 0

2nd: AEK - Guiseley 1 - 1

3rd: Sevilla - Guiseley 1 - 0

4th: Guiseley - Sevilla 1 - 2 (they scored in the 87th minute :()

5th: still to come

6th: still to come

AEK and Guiseley both got 4 points, B.Jerusalem has got 3. So still possible to get further...

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michaeltmurrayuk

michaeltmurrayuk

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Still cant get a win for love nor money, though. This looks like it might be an even more difficult season!

First if you haven't already I'd advise applying patch 10.2 as it made improvements to both the defence and keepers and fixed some issues with the DMs.

Tactics wise the first thing you need to do is pick a philosophy (the different ones are explained a lot better here than in game)

Then pick your formation and player roles - player roles are very important - try and match them to your players strengths whilst keeping a balanced team playing how you want (for example one DM role I've noticed has your DM running all over the pitch closing players down, the other causes him to sit in front of the defence).

With your player roles set when signing players look at the attributes the game highlights for each role first.

Then it's just a case of seeing what's going wrong in matches and trying to fix it - I've found if you are spending most games defending adopting an attacking strategy can work, whilst if you are getting caught on the break using Control works as does setting my full-backs to defensive.

Another thing to do is to set up your set-pieces, though corners don't seem as effective this year.

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SnakeXe

SnakeXe

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Another thing to do is to set up your set-pieces, though corners don't seem as effective this year.

I wouldn't say so, I've gotten 20 goals out of my centre-half this season without doing anything particularly special. I just looked at where most of the goals came against me from corners and created a routine to exploit that (fyi, it's the far post).

But anyway, here's what I came in to post :mad:

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