Dulwich Hamlet Academy Challenge - Champion Hill to Champions League!

[Gareth Winter]

Not realy related to this challenge, but I thought you'd all find this goal amusing

 

[baye]

3 minutes ago, Gareth Winter said:

Not realy related to this challenge, but I thought you'd all find this goal amusing

 

 

match fixing 

[mattswin]

Hi guys, 

Reading through this thread & it inspired me to give it a go. Currently top with 9 games left in my first season using a variation of your 4-1-3-2 Mr Rosler, that you posted a screenshot of in the initial post, also using Franky's Hustler tactic when I want to go on the offensive.

I signed a few players that had been with the club previously & one of those guys, Shawn McCoulsky is just banging the goals in, 23 in the league thus far.

I did sign a player, Kevin Amankwaah, who had no history with Dulwich but I signed him as a scout & he hasn't played any games for the first team.

Matt 

[Gareth Winter]

@mattswin Welcome aboard  

 

[mattswin]

Cheers Gareth.

Just had my first youth intake & its not exactly great. I've only upgraded my Junior Coaching & its currently 'average'.

My Youth Recruitment however is 'fairly basic', so going to give the tip from officiallydeej a go to see if I can improve this.

[Gareth Winter]

Good luck with that mate, I believe @Mr U Rosler was having difficulty getting that tip form officallydeej to work. Don't know if he worked it out in the end or not!

[Mr U Rosler]

Hi guys,

Having a little break from the game, i'll be back soon.

The youth recruitment issue was on the changelist so it should now be upgradable via board request as it should have been in the first place.

Not tested it though.

[Gareth Winter]

50 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Hi guys,

Having a little break from the game, i'll be back soon.

The youth recruitment issue was on the changelist so it should now be upgradable via board request as it should have been in the first place.

Not tested it though.

I am unable to play due to the game crashing as soon as I try and continue, so I too am taking a break, all be it a forced one

[Gareth Winter]

Season 7 End

Back up and running

Just survived

My best RB left a few games from the end of the season, I am not pleased!

I've also had a board takeover, but they are not investing anything

Season 8 Expectations

Hope to push up the table and give the youth some more game time. Aiming for a mid-table finish.

 

[Mr U Rosler]

Good job Gareth,

I've played a few more games and are getting back into it.

[Gareth Winter]

I forgot to add that as well as losing my RB, I lost my top scorer to a Championship club!

[Gareth Winter]

I am re-signing the RB again in the January window, blowing my entire budget on him, but I have no alternatives and he's one of the best Youths i've produced yet. Costing me £300k to get him back! He went on a free ffs!

[Mr U Rosler]

Good investment.

I've had a couple more seasons in league 2, made playoffs but didnt get up.

Bit stuck at the moment but I have the makings of a decent team.

Will update later.

[Gareth Winter]

I've got bored of writing updates for this and instead decided to do them as a YouTube series!

I will post the updates here once I have uploaded them.

This is mainly because I am too lazy to mess about with taking screenshots all the time and uploading them. Be much easier to record my screen and talk through it

[Mr U Rosler]

Look forward to it.

Might copy you!

[Gareth Winter]

I can't decide whether I can be bothered to do a 7 season recap or just start from season 8. 

[Gareth Winter]

I decided to go with the full update.  Let me know what you think. I have only been messing about with the video software since yesterday.

Also if you think I could do with talking clearer or anything like that, please let me know

Please visit my channel and subscribe  oh and share it  

FM Life YouTube Channel

[Mr U Rosler]

Good job gareth.

I've yet to embrace video recording, I'm a bit of an old fart. I like what you've done. Might be time to get down with the kids and look into it.

[Mr U Rosler]

What software you using by the way?

[Gareth Winter]

Wondershare Filmora and the YouTube video editor along with the Game Recording tool that comes with Windows.

It was quite difficult to do. Not used to talking and explaining things,  hopefully it will get better as I do more of them

Thanks for subscribing

 

[Gareth Winter]

FInally got around to playing enough to get to my season 8 intake. 

The video can be found here

 

[Mr U Rosler]

Looking good Gareth!

I've restarted again, old save got a bit stale + I hope a restart will see me able to expand Youth Recruitment.

Quite a different squad this time, a bit weaker in fact but I've got a new 4411 which is monstering the League at the moment.

image hosting site over 5mb

A good start to the re-start!

Hopeful this save we can make it all the way to the Prem!

 

[Gareth Winter]

i know what you mean, I am struggling to stay motivated with it!

I don't think I will restart though. If I do I might do the dafuge challenge instead.

Can be another video series then

[Gareth Winter]

Season 8 Summary

Survived by the skin of my teeth again.

 

[Mr U Rosler]

Not much fun grinding in League 2.

I smashed Conference South with a less than stellar team.

I think might be onto something with the 4411, much higher points total and goals scored than my other 2 promotions at this level with weaker squad.

I'll put it up later if you fancy having a go, the feedback would be very useful!

[Gareth Winter]

16 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Not much fun grinding in League 2.

I smashed Conference South with a less than stellar team.

I think might be onto something with the 4411, much higher points total and goals scored than my other 2 promotions at this level with weaker squad.

I'll put it up later if you fancy having a go, the feedback would be very useful!

Yeah do it mate, I am getting frustrated with my current formation.  It works amazingly with Spurs, but cannot get any consistency with Dulwich

I started this season reasonably well though. Just not scoring enough.

[dom.march@laposte.net]

1 hour ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Not much fun grinding in League 2.

I smashed Conference South with a less than stellar team.

I think might be onto something with the 4411, much higher points total and goals scored than my other 2 promotions at this level with weaker squad.

I'll put it up later if you fancy having a go, the feedback would be very useful!

I Mr U Rosler, could you share your 4411 I'm having problems with my Weston Super Mare side and be glad to test it

[Mr U Rosler]

1 hour ago, dom.march@laposte.net said:

I Mr U Rosler, could you share your 4411 I'm having problems with my Weston Super Mare side and be glad to test it

Will do.  Wont be back home till 6pm uk time though.

[Gareth Winter]

41 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Will do.  Wont be back home till 6pm uk time though.

Where are your priorities....?

I won't be playing until then anyway

That's if I have any energy after cycling 2.5 miles home.

[Mr U Rosler]

Wow, a whole 2.5 miles.... it like a stage of the Tour de France 😁

[Gareth Winter]

41 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Wow, a whole 2.5 miles.... it like a stage of the Tour de France 😁

I am just starting out 5 miles to work and back every other day.

Some of the crazy people here run 5 miles each way...

[Mr U Rosler]

Its more than I do!

[Mr U Rosler]

Ok,

I’ve restarted. Last challenge got a bit stale, back 2 back promotion saw me get to League 2 in double quick time, I then spent 8 season there, made the play offs 3 times but didn’t get up.

Meantime the final update came out which should allow a Youth Recruitment upgrade at some point, it may well be save game compatible but I never saw it so I’m giving it a go again.

Other than that there is a couple of mistakes I’d like to correct, I was a bit cautious with Junior Coaching last time around to keep a lid on expenses, I think you need to push hard early, I’d say you can safely take it to ‘Excellent’ (one level below exceptional which is the highest) as soon as you can.

‘Excellent’ Junior Coaching was costing me £95k a month in League 2 (I think its scales with the league you are in). This is just about manageable, I would hold off on the upgrade to ‘Exceptional’ ideally until you are established in the Championship. ‘Exceptional’ in League 1 was costing me £300,000 per month which is too much to manage.

Even post update I think the option to increase Youth Recruitment is much harder to obtain and I’d take it whenever you get the chance.  

Tactically I’d also been stuck in a maze, trying to drag a poor team out of League 2 simply by doing something tactical is not really on any more but I was nonetheless driving myself mad trying to come up with something that would work.

I’d ended up with an imbalanced squad with players re-trained to play all over the place and still wasn’t settled on a tactic so I’d decided to start again, I conceptualized a tactic I felt was the best I could do based on my now considerable experience with the Match Engine (to be explored later) and gave it another go.

It took me a couple of go’s before I got Dulwich this time. Initially it looked a lot weaker than the squad I started with last time, no Rowley, Mitchell, Djalli, Daniel and most alarmingly no sign of Hallwood or Morch as GK, Preston Edwards is normally my back up but he was going to have to be first choice this time around and he’s not great. Really gonna need an Academy goalkeeping prospect soon or we could be held back.        

However, there were a couple of hidden gems as we will soon find out and it was refreshing to play with a new team anyway.

Plugged in the 4411, after a disappointing 0-0 at home to start the season things clicked and we had 26 points after 10 games and were 6 points clear already. We were scoring for fun and a few ‘stars’ started to emerge amongst players I’d not seen before.

Tactically I started to get that feeling I’d ‘found something’, a feeling that’s been sadly missing this year and I was going into games expecting to win and score plenty.

We never really had a blip only losing 5 games all season, Dartford hung in there impressively and closed to within 2 points of us with 10 games to go but we just kept winning and they couldn’t keep it up as we racked up over 90 points.

Elsewhere we’d improved Junior Coaching 1 level, I’ll put in a request to raise it another level as soon as its available. Youth Intake was excellent with 2 great looking forwards, I play with 1 striker but one of these 2 is also an accomplished AMC so he can be my 2^nd choice here, the other is an accomplished MC so can get game time there. I also have a promising Left Back although he has work to do. So I’m pretty set already with the makings of a decent team, just need a Goalkeeper and a couple of Centre Backs in the next intake.

I am pretty confident about next season in the National League, I remain convinced by my tactic and have a good handle on my squad, I reckon a top 10 finish with an outside chance of the play-offs.  

 screencast

  

[Mr U Rosler]

Ok, I have good feeling about this one, I’ve worked a 4411 with everything I’ve gleaned from hours and hours of tactical testing and tweaking. The caveat is that I’ve won the League with a team predicted to finish 8^th, I’d already done that twice on my previous attempts at this challenge with a 4132 and a 451 although those promotions were with stronger squads and with a much lower points total than I got this time round.  

However, the tactic makes sense on a lot of levels.

free screenshot software

The Vision

There’s a few things going on here, best to break the key components down and hopefully you’ll see how they all fit to make a coherent tactic.

Wide Play (or lack of)

The idea was to create a tactic where the wide midfielders are really quite narrow, we don’t want them crossing from outwide, we want them passing ideally from within the width of the penalty area. Pass completion rates are far better than cross completetion rates, a pass across the 6 yard box is deadly, the vast majority of crosses from the byline are useless.

Additionally, operating narrowly they simply become ‘wide strikers’ positioned for a Shot on goal.

This behavior is encouraged by setting up very narrow and focusing play through the middle.

Turning 2 into 5

The next issue to deal with is the inherent weakness of 442, 4411, 4231 tactics and that is being out numbered in midfield. The midfield battle is absolutely key and with only 2 players you’re bound to lose it. We address this in 2 ways, the first way is to employ an AMC/support rather than a 2nd Striker, he will put in a solid defensive shift effectively making a 3^rd midfielder. Used correctly he can be just as, if not more effective than a Striker. See the return from mine below.

The next bit is clever, we employ Inverted Wingbacks who effectively add ANOTHER 2 PLAYERS to our midfield trio giving us 5 PLAYERS in central midfield! As we are employing Wide Midfielders and playing centrally we don’t need attacking width from traditional fullbacks.

So we go from being stretched with 2 midfielders to dominating centrally with 5 players. This is very real and you will soon see this in effect.

These are the general principles of play, overloading centrally with what I call ‘effective width’ at the tip of the tactic, conical but flaring at the end.

On top of that there are a few other things included which seem to work well, one I will elaborate on further.

Playing Deep – Setting the Trap 

Playing deeper has 3 benefits.

·         Its reduces the effectiveness of counter attacks (no simple balls over the top)

·         It encourages our opponent to take long shots (they really can’t be bothered to break us down and will lose patience and take a long shot)

·         As we draw players onto us (‘support’ players in particular) the ‘trigger’ to counter attack is activated more regularly giving us some deadly break away goals.

Those are some key concepts, I’ve considered everything but it’s far too boring to go on and on, you should now have an idea what I was trying to do and hopefully recognize it when you see it in matches.

Anyway, enough theory here’s the tactic with CHASE & HOLD version to use as required.

https://www.mediafire.com/?h2vobc9j0ng1995

https://www.mediafire.com/?x19hs7jdiqjm350

https://www.mediafire.com/?x19hs7jdiqjm350

 

Couple of players.

 

My left midfielder, 21 goals and 13 assists!

adult image

 AMC - Doing a lot of defensive work but still making a major contribution to attacks

image hosting

[Gareth Winter]

OK I am on a 12 game winless streak. Apparently beating Arsenal U23's on pens doesnt count.

So might plug this in and test it for you

 

[Mr U Rosler]

nothing to lose!

[Gareth Winter]

24 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

nothing to lose!

You say that, but my pride is at stake lol.

[Gareth Winter]

So far i've played 3 games with it and lost them all 4-1

[Mr U Rosler]

???

[Gareth Winter]

Finally won a game. 5 games in. Beat crawley of League 1 in the Check a Trade trophy and qualified for the next round

[Gareth Winter]

Two in a row, the tactic is kicking in

[dom.march@laposte.net]

12 hours ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Ok, I have good feeling about this one, I’ve worked a 4411 with everything I’ve gleaned from hours and hours of tactical testing and tweaking. The caveat is that I’ve won the League with a team predicted to finish 8^th, I’d already done that twice on my previous attempts at this challenge with a 4132 and a 451 although those promotions were with stronger squads and with a much lower points total than I got this time round.  

However, the tactic makes sense on a lot of levels.

free screenshot software

The Vision

There’s a few things going on here, best to break the key components down and hopefully you’ll see how they all fit to make a coherent tactic.

Wide Play (or lack of)

The idea was to create a tactic where the wide midfielders are really quite narrow, we don’t want them crossing from outwide, we want them passing ideally from within the width of the penalty area. Pass completion rates are far better than cross completetion rates, a pass across the 6 yard box is deadly, the vast majority of crosses from the byline are useless.

Additionally, operating narrowly they simply become ‘wide strikers’ positioned for a Shot on goal.

This behavior is encouraged by setting up very narrow and focusing play through the middle.

Turning 2 into 5

The next issue to deal with is the inherent weakness of 442, 4411, 4231 tactics and that is being out numbered in midfield. The midfield battle is absolutely key and with only 2 players you’re bound to lose it. We address this in 2 ways, the first way is to employ an AMC/support rather than a 2nd Striker, he will put in a solid defensive shift effectively making a 3^rd midfielder. Used correctly he can be just as, if not more effective than a Striker. See the return from mine below.

The next bit is clever, we employ Inverted Wingbacks who effectively add ANOTHER 2 PLAYERS to our midfield trio giving us 5 PLAYERS in central midfield! As we are employing Wide Midfielders and playing centrally we don’t need attacking width from traditional fullbacks.

So we go from being stretched with 2 midfielders to dominating centrally with 5 players. This is very real and you will soon see this in effect.

These are the general principles of play, overloading centrally with what I call ‘effective width’ at the tip of the tactic, conical but flaring at the end.

On top of that there are a few other things included which seem to work well, one I will elaborate on further.

Playing Deep – Setting the Trap 

Playing deeper has 3 benefits.

·         Its reduces the effectiveness of counter attacks (no simple balls over the top)

·         It encourages our opponent to take long shots (they really can’t be bothered to break us down and will lose patience and take a long shot)

·         As we draw players onto us (‘support’ players in particular) the ‘trigger’ to counter attack is activated more regularly giving us some deadly break away goals.

Those are some key concepts, I’ve considered everything but it’s far too boring to go on and on, you should now have an idea what I was trying to do and hopefully recognize it when you see it in matches.

Anyway, enough theory here’s the tactic with CHASE & HOLD version to use as required.

https://www.mediafire.com/?h2vobc9j0ng1995

https://www.mediafire.com/?x19hs7jdiqjm350

https://www.mediafire.com/?x19hs7jdiqjm350

 

Couple of players.

 

My left midfielder, 21 goals and 13 assists!

adult image

 AMC - Doing a lot of defensive work but still making a major contribution to attacks

image hosting

Thanks will try it !

[dom.march@laposte.net]

13 hours ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Ok, I have good feeling about this one, I’ve worked a 4411 with everything I’ve gleaned from hours and hours of tactical testing and tweaking. The caveat is that I’ve won the League with a team predicted to finish 8^th, I’d already done that twice on my previous attempts at this challenge with a 4132 and a 451 although those promotions were with stronger squads and with a much lower points total than I got this time round.  

However, the tactic makes sense on a lot of levels.

free screenshot software

The Vision

There’s a few things going on here, best to break the key components down and hopefully you’ll see how they all fit to make a coherent tactic.

Wide Play (or lack of)

The idea was to create a tactic where the wide midfielders are really quite narrow, we don’t want them crossing from outwide, we want them passing ideally from within the width of the penalty area. Pass completion rates are far better than cross completetion rates, a pass across the 6 yard box is deadly, the vast majority of crosses from the byline are useless.

Additionally, operating narrowly they simply become ‘wide strikers’ positioned for a Shot on goal.

This behavior is encouraged by setting up very narrow and focusing play through the middle.

Turning 2 into 5

The next issue to deal with is the inherent weakness of 442, 4411, 4231 tactics and that is being out numbered in midfield. The midfield battle is absolutely key and with only 2 players you’re bound to lose it. We address this in 2 ways, the first way is to employ an AMC/support rather than a 2nd Striker, he will put in a solid defensive shift effectively making a 3^rd midfielder. Used correctly he can be just as, if not more effective than a Striker. See the return from mine below.

The next bit is clever, we employ Inverted Wingbacks who effectively add ANOTHER 2 PLAYERS to our midfield trio giving us 5 PLAYERS in central midfield! As we are employing Wide Midfielders and playing centrally we don’t need attacking width from traditional fullbacks.

So we go from being stretched with 2 midfielders to dominating centrally with 5 players. This is very real and you will soon see this in effect.

These are the general principles of play, overloading centrally with what I call ‘effective width’ at the tip of the tactic, conical but flaring at the end.

On top of that there are a few other things included which seem to work well, one I will elaborate on further.

Playing Deep – Setting the Trap 

Playing deeper has 3 benefits.

·         Its reduces the effectiveness of counter attacks (no simple balls over the top)

·         It encourages our opponent to take long shots (they really can’t be bothered to break us down and will lose patience and take a long shot)

·         As we draw players onto us (‘support’ players in particular) the ‘trigger’ to counter attack is activated more regularly giving us some deadly break away goals.

Those are some key concepts, I’ve considered everything but it’s far too boring to go on and on, you should now have an idea what I was trying to do and hopefully recognize it when you see it in matches.

Anyway, enough theory here’s the tactic with CHASE & HOLD version to use as required.

https://www.mediafire.com/?h2vobc9j0ng1995

https://www.mediafire.com/?x19hs7jdiqjm350

https://www.mediafire.com/?x19hs7jdiqjm350

 

Couple of players.

 

My left midfielder, 21 goals and 13 assists!

adult image

 AMC - Doing a lot of defensive work but still making a major contribution to attacks

image hosting

Careful, no Hold version to download...

[Mr U Rosler]

Hmmm,

Tactic is a bit too open now I've moved up a level, still scoring a lot but conceding too many.

Goes to show, its all about the quality of your players really.

I'm still picking up points and are not in trouble, will complete 1/2 a season with the tactic 'as is' before tweaking it for the 2nd half of the season for comparison.

There's a lot I still like, the behavior of the IWB, the goalscoring Wide Midfielders. Likely will lose the AMC & slot him into the DM slot as long as this does not impact the behavior of the IWB's, alternatively we can go to a back 5.

The current set up could still be the 'chase' tactic.

 

Will report back.    

[Gareth Winter]

Yeah I think that is the issue I ran into.

I was getting destroyed at the back!

[Mr U Rosler]

Ok, half a season with the tactics as provided.

Not bad for a newly promoted team, 3rd best attack but 4th worst defence.

I reckon I can shore up the defence without hurting our attack too much.

img host

[Tyler42]

So far Ive tried this challenge and Im stuck in the VNL at the year..... wait for it: 2027! ! ! 

My 1st season was great, finished 2nd, few points short from first place. I lost the playoffs (I end up doing so 4 times in total)

All my key players, and I mean all, dont want a new contract since they all think they are too good for my club now. So I pretty much my whole 1st team in the summer and to rub salt in the wounds: most of them retired since they didnt find a new club. 

Ohh did i mention that any half decent youth player I  get through my ranks ended up wanting a bigger challenge? Only to end up at the reserves at some L2 team and then becoming a free agent.

 

I really dont get how this will be possible since all the good players leave, but hey, its my first time doing a Youth Academy challenge and its the first time Ive not gotten a club to a professional level within 5 seasons (And Im at my 10th in this save)  I like the challenge.

[Gareth Winter]

Welcome aboard the merry go round Tyler

[Mr U Rosler]

Hello Tyler, welcome to hell!

2nd and 3rd seasons, both in National League missing out on play offs.

images hosting

screen capture windows

 

Now settled on a 451 but focussed through the middle. Good balance between attack & defence.

 

screengrab

 

[Mr U Rosler]

However........ now tracking PA/CA via editor.

Borderline behaviour but I like empirical data not vague suggestions from my coaching team.

Makes it a bit easier but we know its a tough challenge and it allows the nerd in me to properly track player development which is what I enjoy most.

I rationalise that if I was training every day with these guys i'd back myself to have a fairly good handle on there current & future ability.

Post the last patch and my restart i'd say i'm getting better players so if you've hit the wall on your current save its worth a restart with editor ability tracking, its much more enjoyable.

My players so far, PA on the left, CA at the end of each season recorded. Data missing when they leave. Latest prospects come in by year towards bottom. 

 

	PA	2017	2018	2019	2020
Preston Edwards	70	57	60 +3	60 =E	60 =E
Quade Taylor	95	62	64 +2	67 +3	68 +1
Harry Randall	67	60	60 - E	60=E	61 +1
Paul Rogers	60	58	57 -1	57 =E	56 -1
Abdi Noor	82	64	68 +4	68 =E	67 -1
Jake Humphries	104	64	75 +11	80 +5
Sofaine El Bekri	67	62	62 +E	62 =E	62 = E
Nathan Ralph	95	68	67 -1	67 =E	68 +1
Fabio Saraiva	70	60	60 -E	62 +2	63 +1
Daniel Carr	90	61	61 - E	61 =E	60 -1
Michael Chambers	81	58	60 +2	65 +5	65 = E
Ade Batula	75	42	44 +2	44 =E
Dumebi Dumaka	95	58	59 +1
George Chappell	94		34	46 +12	46 - E
Danny Bircham O'Malley	115		48	51 +3
John Stewart	111		30	46 +16	61 +15
Albert Gashi	94		22	29 +7	38 +9
Joseph Udoh	107			38	58 +20
Kevin Osei	98			36	51 +15
Cristian Rosu	95				45
Jordan Mackie	90				45
Liam Powell	99				42
Gerald Parks	85				45
Gavin Morrison	72				29