[Archived] Hattrick

[samtheozzy]

People i have really stuffed up. I listed one of my playmakers for sale and then accidentally bid on him (i thought that the listing hadn't gone through...obviously i was hungover). Could someone please bid over me? I absolutely cannot afford the hit i'll take on the agents fees and i'm worried that if someone sees the owner bidding on a player that'll put them off. He's only listed at AU$190K which is damn cheap for a solid PM/passable passing (market price is ~AU$350K).

Stuart Haugthton (35567830)

19 years, inadequate form, healthy

A pleasant guy who is temperamental and dishonest.

Has disastrous experience and wretched leadership abilities.

Nationality: England

Total Skill Index (TSI): 470

Wage: 1 680 AU$/week including 20% Bonus

Owner: Supine Rovers

Warnings: 0

Stamina: wretched Goaltending: disastrous

Playmaking: solid Passing: passable

Winger: wretched Defending: wretched

Scoring: poor Set Pieces: inadequate

[Oklahoma]

I would gladly buy him for you if I had any money.

It's 97000€... too much for me. Sorry!

[pg]

After three straight losses I managed a win yesterday.

At least I have secured division III football for another season.

[samtheozzy]

Nice work PG. How much cash do you tend to have on reserve when playing at that level? Are you perpetually in debt or do you have to have some money in the bank in order to survive?

[pg]

Depends on what point in the training cycle you are.

At the moment, I'm almost to the end of my 1st winger training cycle. I sold a World Class winger in week five, and my two titanic wingers will both be sold during the next season. That will give me heaps of cash to boost the rest of my team.

At this level, your gate receipts are effective 'top-up' money. They help you upgrade players (e.g sell a brilliant playmaker for a world-class one)... but you can't exist on the gate money alone.

I usually have about 1-2 million in the bank, unless I've just bought a new player in which case I am often in debt.

I avoid long-term debt at all costs.

[Oklahoma]

PG, i wish i had done that from the very beggining.

Now i need to expand my stadium and i'm full of debts.

Want to give me a little help?

I doubt there's any player of my squad that you need.

[AlanSheppard]

Depends on what point in the training cycle you are.

At the moment, I'm almost to the end of my 1st winger training cycle. I sold a World Class winger in week five, and my two titanic wingers will both be sold during the next season. That will give me heaps of cash to boost the rest of my team.

At this level, your gate receipts are effective 'top-up' money. They help you upgrade players (e.g sell a brilliant playmaker for a world-class one)... but you can't exist on the gate money alone.

I usually have about 1-2 million in the bank, unless I've just bought a new player in which case I am often in debt.

I avoid long-term debt at all costs.

Interesting you say that pg. I train keepers (yeah stop laughing at the back ) and I have one long term trainee who's an U20 and my other trainee I train from exc-brill/mag in one and a bit seasons and then sell.

I don't know how long you've been in III, I'm just coming to the end of my second season and have been relatively succesful but I find I make a profit over the season without training. My wage bill is around £100K ($US 150K) and I make an £80K ($120K) loss before matches. Match revenue exceeds £150K even on a bad day. I'll then make a steady £2M+ from training up the reserve keeper.

This along with selling a player that I want to replace should give me at least £4M to spend at the end of the season.

[American]

Lost to the number 4. I'm thinking of switching divisions next season, as the top 4 of us (3 will be left) all get over 25 stars per match nowadays. My defense played well, but I need a better striker for my 5-4-1. Am thinking about training strikers during the offseason for a few weeks, then back to defenders when the new season begins.

[samtheozzy]

American the best move i ever made was switching from defence training to striker training. hattrick doesn't reward a good defence. I played a game against a guy who had 5 defenders (5-4-1), all of whom had at least 4 stars and I still beat him 1-0 because he had to sacrifice so much attack. Even against a great defence like that you will still get enough opportunities to score from provided you have a half decent midfield and attack.

In that graph i posted earlier you can see the moment where i got fed up with training defence (down in 4th place) and the immediate effect that switching to scoring had. The team AFC Resolution is the one with the awesome defence but no attack. Even a great striker isn't going to make enough of a difference American.

[Oklahoma]

I'm training midfileders cause I play in 3-5-2.

I trained them all season and i'll treined them next season as well.

So if you need some midfielders, just tell me

[American]

What about training defenders but playing 4-4-2 for league matches?

Sam, what formation do you play? I don't want to have to pull my wingers more to the inside, as they are the strength of my squad.

Also, I think I bought 2 really good strikers this morning, but Hattrick says nothing about it on my team pages, or on the transfer pages. When you go to the players' pages, it does say I was the winning bidder. Hopefully all will be sorted out by tonight. The only reason I bid on the second was that it wasn't showing me as the winning bidder on the first on my bid page. Twas quite annoyed.

[AlanSheppard]

14/09/2004 Bought Apichai Jaimun from Real_Perfect FC 108 333 £ 1 790

14/09/2004 Bought Nopphadon Chumsai from Holy Spirit 50 000 £ 1 190

Are these the two? They've been brought, sometimes it takes a while for transfers to come through at busy times.

What about PM American? Buy three 17yo passables with decent secondaries at the start of next season (maybe not week 1 as there'll be silly prices) get solids who are 18 or 19 for the first team. Stick with this for the next four seasons or so and you'll have a kick ass midfield. You can also improve your winger's PM on the side.

Training is as much about making money as it is improving that area, so if results don't come straight away just be patient and hang in there.

[American]

I'm happy with my defenders, have one 1790 TSI 17yo I will be selling who is Excellent defensively, and another who is Excellent with a TSI of about 810. Definitely getting saleable resources, but I'm looking to at least compete for a couple seasons. Right now I've been relying on my youth squad for my "good buys" throwing in a couple of other players I can find on the cheap when I'm bored. I'd say my average age is about 20 or 21. Have one player who is 29, but the rest are all 23 or under. Am happy with the training, but I think my 5-4-1 might be killing me tacticly, as Sam was saying. I even had a midfielder who I stuck at defense for a friendly, just to have a warm body there, and his defending moved up to passable.

Next week should be a good test of my progress. I plan to play my best players in a 4-4-2 against the top of the table and see how well I do.

[samtheozzy]

American: I play 3-4-3 with 3 inner mids and one winger. This means that you sacrifice one central defender as the extra inner mid and one winger as the extra forward. I also play 4-3-3 counterattacking every second friendly just so i have decent experience in the formation should i need to use it. This uses 2 inner mids and an offensive winger.

I have never used 4-3-3 for an actual league match as i reckon counter attacking is a suckers bet (at least in my div). With a half decent defence and a nice attack you can always beat a CA team.

EDIT

Phew...someone made a bid, actually the same guy bid twice on him proving that there are other people as prone to mistakes as me .

Stuart Haugthton (35567830)

19 years, inadequate form, healthy

A pleasant guy who is temperamental and dishonest.

Has disastrous experience and wretched leadership abilities.

Nationality: England

Total Skill Index (TSI): 470

Wage: 1 680 AU$/week including 20% Bonus

Owner: Supine Rovers

Warnings: 0

Stamina: wretched Goaltending: disastrous

Playmaking: solid Passing: passable

Winger: wretched Defending: wretched

Scoring: poor Set Pieces: inadequate

I would be keen on advice as to whether to PIC my next match. It's against the bottom team (bot) whose last ratings were:

Inter Lezzos 4-4-2

Midfield: disastrous (very high)

Right Side Defence: weak (very high)

Central Defence: weak (very high)

Left Side Defence: poor (very high)

Right Side Attack: wretched (very low)

Central Attack: wretched (very high)

Left Side Attack: wretched (very low)

while my ratings were:

Supine Rovers 3-4-3

Midfield: wretched (low)

Right Side Defence: inadequate (low)

Central Defence: weak (very high)

Left Side Defence: weak (high)

Right Side Attack: poor (low)

Central Attack: inadequate (very low)

Left Side Attack: inadequate (very low)

My TS is irritated but i have played with that for the whole season. I *absolutely* cannot afford to lose or draw or I *will* forfeit top spot on the ladder as the second place team is one point behind and has a forfeit this week. My gut says just play normal but i would value your advice. If I PIC it means that I should be able to MotS the playoff game which would be a bonus.

I suspect the reason i am on top is because the 2nd placed team, which was leading last week, PIC'd against the 2nd bottom team and lost. I would hate for the same thing to happen to me.

Edited September 15, 2004 by samtheozzy

[neekoy]

Just joined, see how it pans out when I get confirmation

[pg]

You could play 4-3-3 PIC and Counter-attack.

What counter-attack ratings do you get?

Although I think you may be able to get away with a 3-4-3 PIC. His attack is very poor... and even if your midfield rating went down to disasterous.... you would still have roughly 45% possession.

An old rule of thumb is that a 3-4-3 side only needs 44% possession to win against a 3-5-2 team..

[samtheozzy]

PG. What do reckon about this. His two wingbacks (defensive) are his best players getting three stars a piece. I could play 3 IMs and My winger towards middle. THis way I won't give away too much in the midfield by PICing and my attacks will be all on his crappy central defence. Do you reckon it will work and if so do you reckon it will work better if i attack in the middle as well?

I can't really CA as only one of my defenders has inadequate passing. The rest are poor or lower.

[samtheozzy]

Well it's a moot point now. I had two of my starting midfielders drop in form (Solid->Passable for my crap midfielder and Passable->Inadequate for my good midfielder). Even with a raise in TS to composed i simply don't have enough juice in the midfield to PIC. I'll try to pick up a 2.5-3 star midfielder in the next couple of days. I'll try to get a Solid PM/Passable passing (this time with decent stamina and in decent form) or a Solid PM/Inad Passing or a Passable PM/Passable passing. It's all go at Supine Rovers.

[brfcshabba]

Can you go bankrupt? If so what is the least amount of money you can have before you do

[American]

Sam, how about a home and home during the offseason. I'd be interested to see how our 2 senior squads match up.

[AlanSheppard]

Cookiemonster: If you go below £-133K you get a transfer imbargo, dropping below £-333K means you get 5 logins the next week to rectify the situation or you'll be locked out.

Sam: Your coach's leadership is at poor which means that the effects of PIC will be limited however it's probably still worth it as you're below the mid-point. Your attack and defence is much better than his and so you should win even if you PIC. As his wing attack isn't up to much I'd suggest playing AIM if you play with the winger as a towards middle midfielder.

Also consider whether you feel you could win your league next season and so it would not be a disaster if you lost a playoff or whether you feel teams like Pink Snitch are stronger. If you think you're unlikely to win next season take the risk and PIC (although I think you'd be fine anyway).

If you did get promoted could you survive in V? Oceania expanded to VI not that long ago didn't it? In which case you could probably survive as there'll still be some bots in V, I'm not the best person to comment though.

Staying down deliberatly is kind of a taboo subject in some areas and I don't like the idea myself but at your stage it may be worth considering.

[brfcshabba]

Ive got 33k to play with before a transfer embargo

Any ideas on how to raise money?

[American]

Sell players. If nothing else, it gets them off the wage bill even if they go for under value. Right now I'm changing my strategy, so am selling a bunch of wingers. Hopefully you invested in your youth squad, you can get players to sell there.

[samtheozzy]

Finally bought a decent 3rd midfielder so i will PIC the next match as i should still end up with a wretched (high) midfield.

American: Sure. But i may have a qualifier in the first week.

EDIT: Actually the hell with that...I just remembered that TS resets at the end of the season so I should be able to MoTS the play-off (if i make it) quite safely. And BigA i should be good enough for div V. I get ~30 stars a game and with my TS up and a new midfielder my team is pretty sweet.

Edited September 18, 2004 by samtheozzy

[AlanSheppard]

Ive got 33k to play with before a transfer embargo

Any ideas on how to raise money?

Have you got a training scheme set up, training young players? If so the best thing is probably to sell one next time they go up a level (an older one with high skills prefrebly). Debt should be avoided at all cost in HT as a new team.