WSL - transfers + transfers

It has been a quite active couple of months for Tottenham. Turns out this database creates a huge amount of games, so my team is definitely in form. Since the last update we've been doing spectacularly well, and I feel that the squad is finally gelled the way I wanted. On that note I'm starting to find out where I need to tweak the squad to get ready for the tough games in a few months.

First of all, I have began to play a secondary formation/tactic with my team. After doing quite a bit of reading I decided to try something similar to what Vitaliy Mokosiy uses on his Boston United series, which can be found on his blog, True Football Manager. If I haven't mentioned this blog before, I recommend it, it's fun and very informative. The guy has been playing FM for a long time and I feel like he's one of the better players out there. He's at least very good at writing a fun FM blog.

So my team is now switching between my original 4-3-2-1 which has been fairly successful and my new 4-3-3 (although I am tempted to also call it 4-3-2-1). This new formation if quite different from my original one, where I now have 3 midfielders playing in the middle with no one on the ML and MR positions. Then I have an AML and a AMR playing as inside forwards, who are supporting a Poacher at the FC position. I actually had a lot of players to make this formation work with my current squad, and I'm starting to feel that this new formation might be a better choice in the long term. The 4-3-2-1 was a bit limiting as my 2 AMCs were often covering the same ground, and my two wingers would have to move much more than in my new strategy. I also feel that my 4-3-2-1 would work better if I had amazing wingers, which I didn't, I was using some relatively young players in that position.

Anyway, I will talk more about my new formation once I'm more comfortable with it. The bottom line is, I have been getting rid of a couple strikers, such as Milivoje Novakovic who was sold to AC Milan for 3M (not bad for a player that I barely got to play) and now I am discussing the sale of Mikael Forssell for 3.3M to A.C. Milan as well. I have had some trouble with Forssell in the past, as he was quite unhappy about playing so little first team football. With these two sales I intend to bring a new striker to the squad, and right now I'm seriously considering Lukas Podolski, who is currently a free agent (I couldn't believe that when his agent contacted me). Here is his profile right now:

 

The only downside to picking him up is his high salary, but 80+k is probably fair for a player of his caliber. It should really add some quality to our front, I'm just hoping Luis Garcia doesn't mind new competition.

Aside from that I have also received a substantial offer for Juan, our main DL who was valued 7.75M. Arsenal and Liverpool began a bidding war on him, even though I did not have Juan on transfer list, in the end I received a 14.25M offer, and despite not wanting to sell him originally, I can't see myself saying no to such a large sum of money. Anyway, I sold him, but I'll have Juan until the end of the season, with so many good young talents in the team, I don't think it should be hard to substitute him with someone a bit weaker and still survive for a while. I do wonder whether the next tier will be as easy as this one, something tells me it won't.

Finally, I have been considering a new central midfielder for our squad. Playing 3 MCs does make my selection look a bit small at the moment. I want to eventually build up a really solid midfield, and I'm going to start by picking a good defensive one for my MCc position (ball winning mid). Currently I have 2 free agents who I'm looking at, here they are:

They are similar players, and I wish I had some help deciding. Right now I'm kinda pending towards Ernst. I feel like his size advantage as well as slightly better speed would be more suitable for ball winning midfielder / anchorman.

WSL - huge transfer deal

One of my big priorities once this game started was to find a solid team of scouts and start a major search for young talent. I managed to grab quite a few gems, including the English striker Mike Walker (16). Well, turns out this kid was highly sought after by the big clubs and despite his estimated value of 1.6M I have received offers varying from 1.6 to over 4 million dollars. Well this week I finally gave Walker up to Real Madrid for a whooping 4.7M.

This certainly gives us a nice little boost to our financial situation which is actually quite good already. I've been trying to keep my budget way below what I'm allowed, here is a sample of how we're doing prior to this transfer.

Finally, here is a list of our fixtures since the beginning of the season. I'm very impressed with how we've been performing, and aside from a spell of ties in September, I think almost all results so far have been adequate to our level.

WSL - a few months in

So far the club has been performing well, I have filled out the squad a bit more and I added a particularly good striker, who I believe will be useful in the next few months. His name is Ricardo Fuller, who came in as a free transfer, and I believe he will be a nice addition to our 4-3-2-1 formation.

As I mentioned I'm currently playing a 4-3-2-1 formation (Christmas tree formation) which is a formation I use to very much enjoy in my FML days. After doing some research online about what other managers use, I have to say this isn't a particularly popular choice. I think I might stick with it for a while but slowly pick a secondary formation. My tactics right now look like this:

I'm playing with a balanced philosophy, standard strategy and pretty much all the default settings for the rest (if you use the tactic creator). I made a few tweeks to individual players, but in general that's how I'm playing a lot of my games. I do switch to a 4-1-2-2-1 with a counter strategy when I want to take a more defensive approach.

WSL - pre 10/11 season, not a bad start

We had quite a nice start with our pre-season, which is a good sign. The only problem is that this db does cause the 1st season to be a bit hit and miss, so a lot of the top squads are still looking to fill up their teams, meaning they are not as tough as they should be. Nonetheless I'm happy to see the team gelling and getting results right away.

WSL - Trying a new db on fm11

After losing my save for the Zoah FM11 series which I started earlier this year, I decided to try something different. I went ahead and downloaded an interesting custom database made by Kgok at "The Dugout", and it is the World Super League database (with free transfers), based on the original World Super League by Nick. The general idea of this db is to have a very large selection of teams into 6 tiers, with all the best clubs in the world. Kgok's version however, goes a step further and releases everyone from their teams, leaving you and other managers to build up a squad from scratch. This just sounded like a ton of fun, so I went for it.

For my team I decided to join Tottenham Hotspurs, the reason for that being that I like the club, they were placed on the 3rd tier of the tree (World League 1) and they have a decent sized stadium and funds. I figured this would allow me to at least have a chance of getting to the top, despite my still amateurish skills on FM.

So let me introduce my first cohort of players

 

A few of these I hope to keep for a while in my squad and to start I really have high hopes for the following players: Luis Garcia (ST), Sergey Ryzhikov (GK), Drago Gabric (MR) and Kyle Naughton (DR, use to be a Spurs in RL)

Going back to Cyrodiil

I just started to play Oblivion the anniversary edition this week on my PS3. I hadn't played TES in a while and despite being 5 year old game, I still think it kicks ass. There really aren't too many games that are this open, while being manageable and fun. I wanted to see how the ps3 version compared to the PC version. Overall it's not too bad, I probably still prefer playing it on a PC because I think a mouse does the job better in this UI. I also wanted to level my character carefully this time to optimize it as much as I can. So far I've learned a few things. Firstly that apparently you can't cure vampirism in Oblivion GotY edition (PS3), and since this version is basically the GotY game I had to restart my first game which is annoying.

I also started my first game by picking major skills choosing one from each attribute since I read people recommending that for balanced builds. I also tried to pick mostly things I didn't use much so I had better control of my leveling. Well it didn't work very well because I was still using some of those skills even if it wasn't a lot. I ended up picking a fairly different class the second time around. This is what I chose:

Armorer, hand to hand, alteration, illusion, acrobatics, light armor, speech

The alchemy was a good choice for me since this skill is fairly easy to raise and very controllable. Acrobatics was also a clever pick I think since I just have to avoid jumping all the time and when I do want those point I just have to hop around for a few minutes. Armorer is also easy to control but can be a bit slow to go up at times.

For those that don't know how efficient leveling works, all it is is that you try to get a +5 to 3 attributes every time you level. This ensures you build a strong character. In a perfect world that's done by raising 10 skill points in 3 attribute related skills being 10 in major skills and 20 in minors. However, it's almost impossible to do this and have fun, so try to do this as closely as you can without loosing your hair. The most important things to remember is to not ding before you get all the minor skills you need for the level. Don't level too many minor skills that you won't upgrade attribute, there should be enough skills anyway in the game but it is still a finite number. Lastly, stamina goes up by a %age every level so if you get the most HP early you will end with more stamina in the end, hence +5 endurance early is a good thing.

My hints: Getting +5 luck to begin with is not a bad gig... Luck can only go up 1 at a time when you level so getting +5 is equivalent to 5 dings. You don't need to max out Luck because you can always use potions and other consumables. Also, since I mentioned luck, remember to use luck boosters before entering dungeons for the first time. That's when the game rolls the loot and having more luck can be useful in those cases.

More hints: I like to do the mages guild initiation fairly early in my games, I just really like having the benefits of enchants and so forth which can be very handy.

NHL11: BRB vs PIT

Series 2 of our 2010/2011 playoff season

Pittsburgh Penguins


OFFENSE
James Neal (83) / M. Koivu (87) / E. Artyukhin (81)
N. Hagman (82) / J. Pavelski (83) / G. Parros (81)
S. Regier (75) / M. Comrie (82) / P. Kaleta (79)
Z. Konopka (78) / M. Reasoner (78) / E. Lisin (78)

DEFENSE
R. Klesla (82) / B. Coburn (83)
K. Yandle (80) / A. Stralman (80)
V. Koistinen (77) / J. Ericsson (79)

GOALIE
H. Lundqvist (89)

Barrie Beavers

OFFENSE
S. Gagne (84) / H. Sedin (91) / D. Briere (85)
T. Hall (75) / R. Kesler (87) / M. Grabner (76)
M. Boedker (77) / M. Malhotra (81) / T. Bertuzzi (81)
J. Tlusty (77) / T. Seguin (74) / T. Lewis (74)

DEFENSE
Hall Gill (83) / D. Boyle (86)
A. Edler (81) / M. Greene (83)
A. Salmela (76) / A. Johnson (77)

GOALIE
Tim Thomas (85)
A. Salak (75)

Review: NHL11

After playing a lot of NHL09, I definitely got into EA's hockey series. The latest release is NHL11 which I was able to get used at a decent price recently. The game is fairly similar to NHL09 however they did change the engine enough that I had to relearn a few things. Dekes are a bit easier to do but overall playing I found to be a bit more difficult. The new faceoff is great, and in my opinion a vast improvement upon the old system. Everything else about the game was very similar to the 09 version, with a few small changes that didn't affect me that much. I'm not sure how much competition EA has for hockey video games, but they still managed to deliver a solid and fun game. I would give it a B, since the game is very good, but I still wish a few of the mechanics were a bit more clear, such as the trading system and scouting which to me marginally make sense.
Oh, also the players look nothing like their RL counterparts, even less so than on NHL09, so that's also a negative on the series. Oh and the uniform/helm customization seemed a bit slimmer too, not great for those who like to put together a custom team.

Review: FIFA11

I had not played any of the FIFA games on console for a little while, most of the games I was playing were for PC. So when I finally picked up FIFA11 I was pleasantly surprised, the engine was completely new, and I really liked the updates to the physics. The game seems much more physical than previous releases, and it felt a lot more difficult to move about and dribble the opposition without acquiring some skills first. I've heard FIFA12 will be even more realistic like that. Aside from that the career mode is still great fun and overall I don't have many complaints about the game. Perhaps one thing that wasn't clear to me right away was the fact that I don't need to worry about renewing contracts of my players before the end of it. The game does this somewhat automatically at a better salary that I probably would get doing it myself. The trading system works relatively well and I think it's more fun than some other games like the NHL series which I always find I can't propose deals that are fair, I always have to lose to get a deal through. Multiplayer is fun as well, except people playing there are really good, so I lose a lot. The biggest complaint I have, and this is not specific to FIFA but all EA, is that their customer service is pure shit. I have had trouble linking my ps3 account with my EA account since I got the game. EA's support is a waste of my time and every time I put the time into trying to resolve the issue, I have to wait for hours to get to someone and that person just wastes my time without ever really fixing my problem. EA may produce decent games, but sometimes I am hesitant in buying them because I absolutely hate their customer service. They might as well just not have it, since it would save people hours of trying at least. I give it a B+ for keeping the series so good.

NHL11: 10/11 playoffs - series #1

The first series of our playoff campaign is now over and the Beavers defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning by 4-1

Tampa Bay 1 x 3 @Barrie
Tampa Bay 1 x 0 @Barrie
Barrie 2 x 0 @Tampa Bay
Barrie 3 x 0 @Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay 2 x 5 @Barrie


Our best players were:


Team Leaders
H. Sedin - 2 Goals
H. Gill - 3 Assists
J. Tlusty - 4 pts
J. Tlusty - 4 +/-

Playoff Leaders

T. Vanek - 5 goals
B. Wheeler - 3 goals
A. Frolov - 3 goals
M. Hossa - 3 goals
B. Gionta - 3 goals
K. Versteeg - 3 goals

T. Vanek - 7 pts
M. Hossa - 7 pts
S. Stamkos - 7 pts
W. Wolski - 6pts
A. Markov - 6 pts
J. Staal - 6 pts

A. Markov - 7 +/-
K. Letang - 7 +/-

T. Thomas - 94.6% SV
J. Quick - 94.6% SV
A. Niitymaki - 94.5% SV
S. Mason - 92.7% SV
N. Khabibulin - 92.7% SV

Have you looked in the cave, Seth....? No... it's very dark!

I've been meaning to pick up a copy of Red Dead Redemption for a while now, and I finally did it this week. I had read and heard good things about it, and I knew it was a sort of western version of GTA. After playing it for a couple of days, I think this description pretty much nails it down. It has a very similar feel to GTA and a lot of the good things about that series are conserved here. The western theme works very well, and the story line so far has been fun and engaging. The game is unique enough that I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys GTA or even just likes a game with a fun story line. So far I've done a lot of the main missions, and I've quite enjoyed it. There may be a few too many slow missions like herding cattle but they aren't slow to the point I get bored. The mini games have been a bit worst than what I'm used to in GTA, I also haven't played some of the card games since I don't know the rules, but in general I just find them a bit too slow. The other complain I have is that there is no way to know what kind of horse you are riding, aside from recognizing it's look. There are a few minor annoyances like that but overall the game is solid. The graphics seem improved from other Rockstar games and the gameplay is great like most of their games. So I would give this game a B, for being a unique twist to a familiar engine. There is nothing that makes this game stand out necessarily, but it is a load of fun.

NHL11: BRB vs TB

So here are the lineups for this first exciting series between the Barrie Beavers and the Tampa Bay Lightning

- Tampa Bay -
OFFESE
M. Lucic (83) / P. Marleau (89) / J. Langenbrunner (85)
C. Kunitz (82) / M. Richards (88) / J. Voracek (82)
D. Hordichuk (80) / J. Arnott (83) / T. Kopecky (79)
J. Smithson (79) / J. Bailey (80) / N. D'Agostini (77)

DEFENSE
B. Salvador (81) / D. Morris (83)
K. Timonen (83) / S. Hannan (82)
M. Eaton (79) / D. Quint (81)

GOALIE
K. Lehtonen (85)

- Barrie Beavers -

OFFESE
S. Gagne (84) / H. Sedin (91) / D. Briere (85)
J. Tlusty (77) / R. Kesler (87) / M. Grabner (76)
M. Boedker (77) / M. Malhotra (81) / T. Hall (75)
T. Spencer (74) / T. Seguin (74) / T. Lewis (74)

DEFENSE
Hall Gill (83) / D. Boyle (86)
M. Greene (83) / A. Edler (81)
A. Johnson (77) / A. Salmela (76)


GOALIE
Tim Thomas (85)
A. Salak (75)

NHL11: 10/11 playoffs

This is what the playoff tree looks like for my first NHL11 fantasy season. The Barrie Beavers will start with Tampa Bay Lightning.

This season we faced them 6 times, winning 4 and only losing 2 games.
Away vs Home
BRB 0 x 3 TB
TB 1 x 5 BRB
BRB 5 x 1 TB
TB 2 x 4 BRB
TB 1 x 4 BRB
BRB 3 x 4 TB

Opponent Leaders
P. Marleau - 29 Goals
P. Marleau  - 50 Assists
J. Langenbrunner - +/- 15
M. Lucic - +/- 14

NHL11: end of season 10/11

Point leaders
S. Crosby (CGY) - 100
K. Okposo (PHX) - 96
D. Penner (PHX) - 94
E. Malkin (PHX) - 92
R. Malone (BOS) - 89
P. Kessel (SJ) - 62

Goals
M. Gaborik (OTT) - 46
K. Okposo (PHX) - 43
S. Crosby (CGY) - 41
M. Samuelsson (CGY) - 40
J. Iginla (NJ) - 38
M. Raymond (BUF) - 38

+/-
H. Sedin (BRB) - 43
S. Gagne (BRB) - 42
D. Briere (BRB) - 40
P. Elias (DET) - 35
K. Quincey (WAS) - 33
R. Malone (BOS) - 32

Shutouts
Tim Thomas (BRB) - 12
Cam Ward (FLA) - 8
Semyon Varlamov (NSH) - 7
M. Kiprusoff (CAR) - 7
R. Luongo (BOS) - 6

Save%
B. Bishop (PIT) - 93.3%
Ilya Bryzgalov (NYI) - 92.2%
R. Luongo (BOS) - 91.9%
M. Kiprusoff (CAR) - 91.8%
C. Ward (FLA) - 91.6%
R. Miller (PHI) - 91.6%
J. Halak (DET) - 91.4%

GAA
T. Thomas (BRB) - 1.89
I. Bryzgalov (NYI) - 2.37
S. Mason (MIN) - 2.41
R. Luongo (BOS) - 2.47

Team Leaders
H. Sedin - 28 Goals
M. Greene - 34 Assists
H. Sedin - 43 +/-

Points
H. Sedin - 58
S. Gagne - 53
D. Briere - 51

Faceoff %
M. Malhotra - 86.4% (484/560)
H. Sedin - 69.6% (469/674)
R. Kesler - 65.6% (278/424)
T. Seguin - 52.1% (113/217)

Minutes played
M. Greene - 2168
D. Boyle - 1937
H. Gill - 1867
A. Edler - 1634
H. Sedin - 1493
D. Briere - 1446
A. Salmela - 1348
R. Kesler - 1303

NHL11: end of season 10/11 (east)

Eastern Conference

Barrie 114

Philadelphia 93

Boston 92

Florida 101

Pittsburgh 91

Montreal 89

NY Rangers 89

Tampa Bay 89

Buffalo 89

New Jersey 88

NY Islanders 88

Ottawa 85

Toronto 85

Washington 83

Carolina 78

NHL11: end of season 10/11 (west)

Western Conference

 

Minnesota 101

Columbus 96

Dallas 93

Calgary 92

Phoenix 88

Anaheim 87

Edmonton 87

Colorado 86

San Jose 85

St. Louis 85

Vancouver 85

Detroit 83

Nashville 81

Chicago 79

Los Angeles 79

NHL11: Penguins - team profile (April 2011)

43-33-5
OFF 86 / DEF 85 / GOA 92

OFFENSE
James Neal (83) / M. Koivu (87) / E. Artyukhin (81)
N. Hagman (82) / J. Pavelski (83) / G. Parros (81)
S. Regier (75) / M. Comrie (81) / P. Kaleta (79)
Z. Konopka (78) / M. Reasoner (78) / E. Lisin (78)

DEFENSE
R. Klesla (82) / B. Coburn (83)
K. Yandle (80) / A. Stralman (80)
V. Koistinen (77) / J. Ericsson (79)

GOALIE
H. Lundqvist (89)

Leaders
Goals - J. Neal - 25
Assists - J. Neal - 55
+/- - J. Neal - 15

NHL11: Salo trade for Matt Greene

On an offer from Washington I decided to trade out Sami Salo (80) for Matt Greene (83). This wasn't an easy decision since I do like Sami Salo quite a bit, he was a great offensive oriented D-man.

However, I felt adding another solid defensive player to the team would be more beneficial to keep the team well rounded. So here are the stats for Matt Greene at this point:

NHL11: Winger trade with Minesota Wild

In order to keep the team under the salary cap I was feeling I needed to let go of one of our bigger salaries. For that I picked B. Gionta since he had only 24 points this season 10G/11A and was earning over 4 mil. I ended up trading him for Jiri Tlusty. This was obviously a downgrade for us but the 22 year old may offer some energy and potential for development. 

NHL11: Be a GM , January update

The Barrie Beavers have done fairly well in this first half. Here are some stats and standings:

	Western		Eastern
MIN	67	OTT	70
ANA	62	BRB	68
CBJ	57	PHI	67
DAL	61	MTL	64
COL	61	FLA	64
CGY	58	NYR	62
VAN	54	NJ	61
SJ	53	WSH	59
CHI	53	BOS	58
NSH	53	PIT	53
PHX	53	TOR	52
EDM	52	TB	51
LA	52	BUF	51
STL	51	NYI	48
DET	44	CAR	44

Point leaders

S. Crosby (CGY) - 69
D. Penner (PHX) - 68
K. Okposo (PHX) - 68
P. Kessel (SJ) - 62
E. Malkin (PHX) - 62

Wins
R. Miller (PHX) - 30
T. Tomas (BRB) - 28
P. Rinne (ANA) - 28
C. Anderson (NJ) - 27
C. Price (WSH) - 26

Team Leaders
D. Briere - 16 Goals
S. Salo - 22 Assists
S. Salo - +/- 23

Points
H. Sedin - 35
S. Gagne - 30
S. Salo - 30

Faceoff %
M. Malhotra - 84.8% (307/362)
H. Sedin - 67.6% (292/432)
R. Kesler - 56.7% (164/289)
T. Seguin - 42.9% (54/126)

New NHL11 "BaGM" game

I know NHL has nothing to do with FM simulations but I figured I would avoid having to open another blog just for my hockey "be a GM" games. I just started a career game with my custom team the Barrie Beavers. I didn't know about this, but NHL11 has a fantasy draft option for career games, which will work out great for this. It basically sets up a draft right at the beginning of the game where all players are free agents, so teams build their teams from scratch. PSN has been bad for a while now and I can't update my roster so I figured playing fantasy draft would make it so it doesn't matter. I also think a fantasy draft game makes for more interesting blogging.

So here is the team I picked out:


S. Gagne (Tampa Bay)  -  H. Sedin  (Vancouver)  -  D. Briere (Philadelphia)
M. Boedker  (Phoenix) -  R. Kesler  (Vancouver)  -  B. Gionta  (Montreal)
T. Hall  (Edmonton) - M. Malhotra  (Vancouver)  -  T. Bertuzzi  (Detroit)
J. Cheechoo  (Worcester)  - T. Seguin  (Boston)  -  M. Grabner  (New York)

H. Gill  (Montreal)  -  D. Boyle  (San Jose)
S. Salo  (Vancouver)  -  A. Edler  (Vancouver)
A. Salmela  (New Jersey)  -  A. Johnson  (Milwaukee)

T. Thomas  (Boston)
A. Salak  (Chicago)

AC Zoah 1x1 Barrow

The game started with an early injury of Dennis Young, making our job a little bit more difficult. I was forced to play Creeper Johnson on an odd position. At 30 minutes Barrow scored a goal with Josh Langley. I tried to play our team more defensively after the goal, but the team really wasn't able to create much during this game. At 90 minutes we were still losing by a goal which produced an overtime situation. I subbed out Billy McKay and Levi Reid due to they condition at that stage and brough in Bowerman at the front and Adam Wright to take over the right midfield.

At 119 Bowerman was able to create an opportunity that started with Patrick Ada Stealing the ball from Jarvis, The passing the ball to Robinson and Slokhon, who sent a through ball aimed towards Bowerman. A trully great opportunity for AC Zoah to take the lead and try to hold it.

at 120 the whistle was blown and we had moved into the final. Great result for our side.

And all this was from Barrow's lack of trying, we just managed to play well under their pressure.

12.5.2013, game 2 vs Barrow

For game two I decided to go with my regular formation and tactics, playing a 4-4-2 using a rigid philosophy. This is what the team instructions look like:

The starting team will have Griffiths and Ada on center back, Lomax and Young on the right and left full back positions respectively. In the middle Reid and Walsh will take the wings while Solkhom will play a defensive mid fielder role. J. Robinson will be the supportive midfield for Billy McKay and Wellecome at the frong. On the bench I left Creeper Johnson, Darren Wrack, David McLaughlin, Adam Wright and George Bowerman.

Well executed plan.

This game went fairly well for us. Seem like our tactics were right for the job. The team didn't play good looking football, but we were very effective at making them take poor chances and capitalizing from the few shots we actually managed to get. This is how it all went down ->

Fist playoff game (Barrow)

So now we've reached a point where mistakes can't happen. Our first game will be against Barrow, which is a team we had a fairly good record with, winning 2 time and tying once in 4 games.

This is the squad I plan to bring in for this game:

The strategy will be to play a defensive game focusing on lose marking so that we may not lead in possession but they will also lack good chances. I'm starting with Bowerman since he may be a good quick player to benefit from turnovers.

Consistent somewhat

Here is how the team did over the season, and as you can see there was just that one little oops halfway in the season. Let's just see how we do in playoffs. I do have some hopes of promotion.



Here are some of the biggest performers of this season. Among my personal favorites were the center back Patrick Ada with a 7.1 average rating, 89% tackling success, 83% heading success in 44 games. He also managed to have 5 goals, 1 assist and 4 MoM. He was definitely one of my best hires so far.

Billy McKay was also another pleasant surprise this season with 45 games played, an average of 7.19, 21 goals, 9 assistsm, 11 MotM. He also had a solid 83% pass success, a 2.04 dribbles per game which is the best in the team. On the downside he seems to lack discipline at times, which earned him 9 yellow cards and 1 red card.

End of regular 12/13 season - good run so far

So we've come to the end of the 2012/2013 regular season and I am very pleased with our team this season. We finally seen some real improvement in performance. We ended in third place and we're now off to playoffs.



All this was possible due to great performances by some of our players, especially our forwards. Below is the leagues top goalscorers and overall the best scorers were:

George Bowerman (24 goals), Billy McKay (21), Robert Heywood (6), Levi Reid (6)



The team also had players shine in other areas as well

Just as things were looking good

Just as things were looking good this season I had a few bad games. As you can see from the graph below I was keeping AC Zoah up in the top 7 of the league, and for a while I was in the top 5. Well just as the year was ending I lost two games in a row, one against Eastwood and one against Corby. Overall the season has been very good so far, and aside from this final stretch, I have to say we look like promotion contenders. I'm a bit scared about how I would do in the next tier but, I probably just need to get some new players if that actually happens.

Part of the reason for this good run so far are a few players including our new Billy McKay who has been great, scoring 14 goals so far and making 4 assists in total, as well as a lot of great collaborations to other goals. We also have a new goalie who has been incredible too, his name is Callum Barratt, and after 21 appearances his average rating is 6.78.

let's see what I have to work with...

GK	Quality (0-100%)	Age	Aq. Fee (K)	Season Wage (K)
Danny Simon	44.6	19	0	4.5
Tom Harrison	40.8	21	0	8.1
J Wood	40.6	17	4	2.16
DC	Fast DC (0-100%)	Tall DC (0-100%)	Age	Aq. Fee (K)
Patrick Ada	49.2	49.6	19.0	6
Creeper J	46.9	45.2	18.0	8
C McAughtrie	48.2	47.7	31.0	6
Sam Griffiths	50.4	46.3	19.0	40
Rob Pyle	49.5	45.3	18.0	28
Rob Terrace	41.2	38.4	17.0	8
FB	FB-d (0-100%)	FB-a (0-100%)	Age	Aq. Fee (K)
Alex Forde	38.5	35.4	21.0	0
J Lomax	47.8	43.4	18.0	70
Jon Patrick	45.8	40.4	21.0	8
D Young	43.7	36.8	18.0	12
A Francis	35.7	36.3	27.0	0
A Bentley	41.2	34.7	16.0	4.5
MC	MC-d (0-100%)	MC-a (0-100%)	Age	Aq. Fee (K)
Adam Johnson	42.4	42.0	19.0	22
D Wrack	46.8	47.3	36.0	1
R Davidson	43.4	42.8	22.0	8
P Bolland	53.6	45.9	32.0	3.5
Brett Solkhon	52.1	44.0	29.0	3.5
J Robinson	47.1	43.8	20.0	75
Simon Lewis	31.9	29.6	17.0	4.5
MR/ML	Winger (0-100%)	MC-a (0-100%)	Age	Aq. Fee (K)
Matthew Hull	37.9	36.7	18.0	0
F Kasiama	40.8	40.7	21.0	9
Levi Reid	40.3	39.7	28.0	10
Markus Person	43.3	35.6	19.0	9
Simon Colbeck	41.4	36.2	16.0	7
AMC	AMCC (0-100%)	R & L (0-100%)	Age	Aq. Fee (K)
A Wright	40.3	40.3	18.0	14
T Clarke	37.6	36.8	20.0	1.5
FC	FC fast (0-100%)	Target Man	Age	Aq. Fee (K)
Ben Mills	37.9	40.5	23.0	9
R Heywood	36.9	37.7	19.0	4
N Wellecomme	40.2	44.8	28.0	14
G Bowerman	44.8	43.6	20.0	60
H Curr	36.9	33.6	18.0	24
B Pollock	32.9	30.8	15.0	6
Danny Green	37.3	41.3	18.0	0

2012/2013 LLM - Perhaps this will be our year

A new season begins and I have spoken to the board regarding our expectations, I really would like to aim for a top 5 finish and maybe even a promotion this season. So the board has agreed to increase the salary cap to 31,581 and 1,300 for youth players which should allow us some new players in our squad. I really would like to revamp our squad this year and get them ready for a possible promotion. The team is still struggling financially but I really think increasing our performance as well as the reputation of players coming in will help us in that front as well.

-> apparently according to Sky Bet our odds this season are 40-1, and they say we are contenders for relegation (we'll show them), and Southport and Gainsborough are the favorites for promotion this season.

I was also made aware that our team is now one of the older teams in the league, as well as slowest, however we have an edge when it comes to strength as well as passing ability. In terms of our new youth players, ones to keep an eye on are Terry Naismith (CM), left midfielder Simon Colbeck and Striker Ben Pollock.

Best of season 2

Here are the best players of season two, my personal favorites were Kasiama (ML), Wellecomme (ST), Lomax (DR) and Patrick (DL). Dennis Young and Bowerman also had important roles, but just were not as consistent over the course of the year.