Season at 15 matches, leading the league and coming from 8 games without defeat. Notable match was against Manchester United, that would probably win if they didn't get a red card in first half when winning 1-0.
Other than that, I got some good news from the board and they will give me 40 mi euros more to spend on transfers. Time to splash some cash!
Anyway, some people have asked me how I do my subs during matches. In short, I always use all subs, and my priorities are the following: - Very tired or injured players (at any time). - Players with yellow card (at half time). - Players with injured reserve, which means I need to use him again next match (at half time or 60+ min. - Players with grade under 6.4 (at half time).
If none of those conditions are met, I put some player with low match fitness or someone without much match time. If I don't have any better option, I can also sub someone with poor body language, like when they say "about to get booked", "nervous" or something like that.
I always save at least one sub until 60-70+ minutes (depending on score), in case someone gets injured.
New season started and I hired exactly one player for each position, for a total of eleven new players. Since I exploded the budget and would still need to renew some contracts during the season, I have decided to sell/loan eleven players (obviously the worst ones) to keep a squad of 22 again. My main team is playing league matches, while second team is playing all cups (Carabao, FA Cup and Euro).
Right now, my team has the second lowest budget of the league and I'm predicted last again (but closer 19th than before). Season is going pretty well, challenging for the title on the league and qualifying to next stage of Euro League. I was kicked out of Carabao on the first match, but that's life. On a positive note, new players are doing very well and I think this squad might be able to at least get a spot on Champions League. Some positions can still be improved, but I'm not changing any player for someone with the same quality and higher cost, so I'll keep scouting for next transfer window.
For notable matches, I would pick my victory 5-1 against Manchester City. They got completely dominated and gave me three important points. I also had a good match against Liverpool away, but they stole my victory in the last minute (90+4). On the bad side, I lost points home against Leicester and West Ham, matches that I should have won.
Last but not least, Ben McNamee (my AMR) is not described as a wonderkid anymore. It's a shame, but I suppose he must have PA at least above 150 to have been described that way at some point.
By the way, I also noticed it's better to do additional training for endurance instead of quickness on defensive midfielders and wingbacks, since stamina and work rate are more important to those positions.
pixar said: Very nice ZaZ. Can you share your scouting filters? of course if there is Expand
I just set it manually, because sometimes I need to tweak to reveal more or less players. I believe someone made a filter for FM in that thread for player attributes.
G1102 said: Great first season.6th is unthinkable in first season. With Dulwich I managed 13th and with Blyth even worse 14th. Seeing you playing I kinda want to start all over again and I might since I never used zaz 4.0. Your scouting method is great. I used the opz elite skin , which show current ability number and that helped a lot since you keep increasing that number over the leagues as if in Vanarama National N/S a 65 current ability is considered great , then in the Vanarama National is not so much ,so you look for 75/80 current ability, obviously players with pace and accelaration, in regards to outfield players and reflexes and agility in regards to GK. The way you do it is harder but way more fair . Looking forward to updates in regard to the new season. Good luck. Expand
Thanks! I hope you have fun in a new run.
Anyway, I have 50 mi euros for transfers and 50 mi for wage budget (currently using 18 mi), so I might as well hire a full new team and play with a 33 man squad, since there will be one more competition this season. I'll see if I can manage it within the budget while increasing the quality of my team.
Harrison said: Interesting that the AF didn't increase the amount of goals scored. Not sure if this means that F9 is better than AF on this match engine or IFs really benefit a lot from having a F9 paired with them. Expand
Look at the two tactics on the top of the table. They are the same, just changing the role of wingers and strikers. As you can see, results are very close, because W-Su + AF-At has similar performance to F9-Su + IF-At. Maybe they wouldn't work as well without the SS-At or the RPM-Su behind them, or even the IWB-At. In short, there are some roles that make other roles play better.
Now hiring players for next season. I'll try to describe the method I use, which might not be the best but at least it works for me.
First step is to identify what position(s) you want to improve. Jacob Shepherd (AML) is one of the weakest players in the group, and Dennis Cirkin (AML) has stopped improving, which means he is very close to the top of his potential. Therefore, I'll start searching a player to that position.
I'll start with the most conventional approach, going to player search in scouting. There, I'll search for all AML with good attributes, looking at the table of important attributes in the first post of Blue. My approach is simple: 14+ for attributes marked 100, 13+ for 75 and 12+ for 50 and so on. I also search for players up to 27 years old, but I usually start with 23 years old, then increase if I don't find too many good players.
That gives me a list of potential candidates with interest to join. Next step is to check if they are economically worth, so I ask their agents for their availability estimate the price. Those that are within my budget I will scout for one week to reveal their attributes. If they are sub-23 or listed to transfer, I might even ask for a trial instead.
After knowing the attributes, it's just a matter of choosing the one you like the most.
The second method requires a bit of extra work. First, I will visit the squad of teams and filter for AML, in both main team and youth teams. I'll start with Burnley since they were relegated this season. Then I will look at attributes with a view that shows the most important attributes, then do the same as previous step, asking agent for availability and scouting the ones I like the most. I usually do that for teams one division below and the same division as me (but only youth teams, since they are usually stronger than me and players in main team don't want to join).
I'll have to hire some new scouts first since I have only three at the moment, but I guess you got an idea of how I hire players. I accept suggestions if anyone knows of a better method (consider that I don't use FM Scout or similar).
Season is over. Concord finished the league in 6th, which gives me a spot on Euro League. However, we lost the FA Cup finals 3-2 to Newcastle, and a red card at first half didn't help much. As a bonus, I discovered one of my players is a wonderkid (not sure if media description changed or if I just didn't pay attention before).
For next season, my goal is to win Premier League and qualify to Champions League. Meanwhile, I will keep building my squad in the hope of winning Champions League in the season after that. I'll also show my process of scouting players and how I decide which players to hire.
G1102 said: Hy @ZaZ . If you remember my dulwich hamlet career . I started another with Blyth spartans after the 22.3 patch. Results were pretty much the same as with dulwich hamlet . Promoted every year . 1st season in the Pl ,survived relegation and 2nd season finishing second in the PL. Problems always came after the second season, because although investement in the team was huge the team somehow reverted to relegation candidates. Missing a lot of chances , playing well below their expectations. My theory is that happend both times because of squad building based on youth. As your reputation increases you start to find great youth players that want to play for you, but they also don't have top flight experience who seems to make them play bang avarege. I remember that i replaced stephy mavidid then age 30 with a 20 year old striker , better in all aspects . It was a disaster , granted that it played next to a 21 year old striker(scored 21 goals 1st season, next to Elanga(age 26 and mavididi age 29 at the time), better than the 20 year old striker . Really looking forward to how you do. Unfortunetly something came up and i didn't want the game to interfere with my personal life so i deleted the saves and the game because it tends to make an addict out of me. Good luck. Expand
I believe it's more because as you grow in reputation, opponents stop being complacent against you, which makes things naturally harder. First season they look at you like "no way we can lose to those guys, we can play at ease", but after two or three seasons they look at you like "those guys are strong, we need focus to win".
About you deleting your game, I completely understand that. It's exactly the same reason why I limit myself to playing only 5 or 10 matches a day, so I know I won't use more time than I should in the game.
By the way, I played a couple more of matches today. Now at 35 matches and the season is going well. I wasn't expecting anything from FA Cup, but now I'm on the finals. That's especially impressive considering I played all matches with second team (stronger teams probably got complacent since I came from lower division). Anyway, one good match against Newcastle and I might win the cup in my first season coming from below.
About the league, I got a bad form with three matches without winning against weaker teams, but I'm still in 7th in the league. Lucky for me, Liverpool won Carabao Cup and increased the Euro League zone. I had a couple of injuries and suspensions in the past matches, but the team is now back to top shape.
Anyway, one more tip that I already gave before and would like to say again is to always rest players individually after matches. Just sort them by condition, select all tired players and give one or two days of rest, and leave other players to train normally. That's not only useful to improve condition for next match and avoid fatigue, but it also avoids lots of injuries (tired players are more susceptible to get injured in training).
This time, I picked a match against Newcastle to talk about. I started the match conceding one goal and my DL got a red card, which is always a bad sign. I then removed one striker to balance the team and shouted encouragement like crazy. We got a goal and the match ended in a very even tie. The other option I was considering was to remove my AMR (which was having a bad match) to keep two strikers, but I opted for going the other way.
Now, there are four more matches in the season, three in the league against weaker teams and the cup finals against Newcastle. With a bit of luck I can get more than just a spot on Euro League, but things could also go bad and I end the season without anything. I'll finish the season tonight and see how it goes.
nijak05 said: Am i the only one where the ss is getting really inconsitent ratings around 6.7 unless he scores? Is it just the match engine where the AMC gets so so ratings? Expand
One or other role can get some bad rate, but it's fine as long as the tactic is performing well as a whole. Last year it was DM who never got over 7.0.
A couple matches forward and I got some very good results against the top teams. Unfortunately, that didn't bring me up on the table, so I'm still in 7th and now out of the Euro League zone.
In case anyone wants to know to keep morale always high, my biggest tip is to compliment training every single week, when you get the training report. You can see the difference in the pictures below (before and after), where I praised all players circled in red (8.05+) and team morale went from good to almost perfect.
I also decided to pick one match to talk about every 5 or 10 matches. This time, I pick the victory against Manchester City. Before the match, I thought it was impossible to win. On first half, I won 3-0 because they were having one of those days that they miss all shots and keep giving possession away all time. Second half, on the other hand, they came flying and almost won the game. I suppose I have to blame myself for telling my team to not get complacent, instead of telling them to play without pressure.
P.S.: I like to use that progress bar, which you can see in the last squad view, to identify when a player is reaching his top potential. If he stops growing for a couple of months, I then evaluate if he is good enough to stay in the team or if it's better to replace with a young player of similar level that still has chance to grow. For example, Rosannah, Olayinka, Hunt and Cirkin seem to have peaked, so they are positions that I might check for replacement in the future, if they don't improve until next transfer window.
Got a bit of free time and decided to get back to my career at Concord Rangers. I'm now at 25 matches in my first year at Premier League and lost three of the past four matches. Somehow, I'm still at 7th and inside the Euro League, which is my goal for this season.
During the last transfer window, I brought a couple of new faces. I had to replace a defender and a defensive midfielder, because they wanted to leave the club and their morale wouldn't get green again. I also replaced a goalkeeper, a striker and another defender for cheaper players with similar ability, since they were in the last year of contract.
Other than that, I'm just playing and praising players to keep morale high. My team quality is steadily improving with both training and transfers, and I expect to have a better second half of season, to stay around 6th or 7th place. Unfortunately, UCL is not a reasonable goal for this season.
chanho said: thank you! I know it hasn't been tested on version 4.0. And I also think that the role of a wide midfielder is an important change in tactics. Expand
I have seen some tactics not being picked for testing exactly because they had just one role as the only change. Some roles have been tested time and time again and have very similar performance, like BPD and CD, or IWB and FB, DM and RPM and so on. However, maybe they will test, it's hard to know exactly.
3 strikers playing all the time in my defensive area is very dangerous dont you think??? when he crosses they have 3 strikers and the miedfield centers!!
The ZAZ BLUE 4.0 with a line of 4 (2 central defenders) you think can handle against 3 strikers???
Thanks Expand
That might be true, but when their wingback goes to the byline to cross, you have a whole flank to exploit in counter attacks. That's the biggest disadvantage of having only one player in each flank, and gegenpressing is a good way to take advantage from that, since you can intercept the ball closer to the opponent's goal and face his defense exposed.
Pip said: Thanks @ZaZ will try the cautious mentality and a few more shouts. Squad rotation and subs is essential, especially with the amount of bookings! Expand
You can also change players to "Ease Off Tackle" if they get a yellow card, or change the tactic to Light Blue if you have the match under control (if you are using Blue).
Pip said: @ZaZ I am undertaking a similar journey, I have got Oxford City in to the prem. One thing I am really struggling with is holding on to leads, any advice? Expand
If you are using Blue, then try changing to Cautious when you have a good lead. Keep shouting to your players all time (praise or no pressure) and make sure to use all subs every match. Other than that, rotation also helps the players stay fresher for longer, and better players will obviously also help.
Other than that, I got some good news from the board and they will give me 40 mi euros more to spend on transfers. Time to splash some cash!
Anyway, some people have asked me how I do my subs during matches. In short, I always use all subs, and my priorities are the following:
- Very tired or injured players (at any time).
- Players with yellow card (at half time).
- Players with injured reserve, which means I need to use him again next match (at half time or 60+ min.
- Players with grade under 6.4 (at half time).
If none of those conditions are met, I put some player with low match fitness or someone without much match time. If I don't have any better option, I can also sub someone with poor body language, like when they say "about to get booked", "nervous" or something like that.
I always save at least one sub until 60-70+ minutes (depending on score), in case someone gets injured.
Right now, my team has the second lowest budget of the league and I'm predicted last again (but closer 19th than before). Season is going pretty well, challenging for the title on the league and qualifying to next stage of Euro League. I was kicked out of Carabao on the first match, but that's life. On a positive note, new players are doing very well and I think this squad might be able to at least get a spot on Champions League. Some positions can still be improved, but I'm not changing any player for someone with the same quality and higher cost, so I'll keep scouting for next transfer window.
For notable matches, I would pick my victory 5-1 against Manchester City. They got completely dominated and gave me three important points. I also had a good match against Liverpool away, but they stole my victory in the last minute (90+4). On the bad side, I lost points home against Leicester and West Ham, matches that I should have won.
Last but not least, Ben McNamee (my AMR) is not described as a wonderkid anymore. It's a shame, but I suppose he must have PA at least above 150 to have been described that way at some point.
By the way, I also noticed it's better to do additional training for endurance instead of quickness on defensive midfielders and wingbacks, since stamina and work rate are more important to those positions.
Can you share your scouting filters? of course if there is
I just set it manually, because sometimes I need to tweak to reveal more or less players. I believe someone made a filter for FM in that thread for player attributes.
With Dulwich I managed 13th and with Blyth even worse 14th.
Seeing you playing I kinda want to start all over again
Your scouting method is great. I used the opz elite skin , which show current ability number and that helped a lot since you keep increasing that number over the leagues as if in Vanarama National N/S a 65 current ability is considered great , then in the Vanarama National is not so much ,so you look for 75/80 current ability, obviously players with pace and accelaration, in regards to outfield players and reflexes and agility in regards to GK. The way you do it is harder but way more fair .
Looking forward to updates in regard to the new season.
Good luck.
Thanks! I hope you have fun in a new run.
Anyway, I have 50 mi euros for transfers and 50 mi for wage budget (currently using 18 mi), so I might as well hire a full new team and play with a 33 man squad, since there will be one more competition this season. I'll see if I can manage it within the budget while increasing the quality of my team.
Look at the two tactics on the top of the table. They are the same, just changing the role of wingers and strikers. As you can see, results are very close, because W-Su + AF-At has similar performance to F9-Su + IF-At. Maybe they wouldn't work as well without the SS-At or the RPM-Su behind them, or even the IWB-At. In short, there are some roles that make other roles play better.
First step is to identify what position(s) you want to improve. Jacob Shepherd (AML) is one of the weakest players in the group, and Dennis Cirkin (AML) has stopped improving, which means he is very close to the top of his potential. Therefore, I'll start searching a player to that position.
I'll start with the most conventional approach, going to player search in scouting. There, I'll search for all AML with good attributes, looking at the table of important attributes in the first post of Blue. My approach is simple: 14+ for attributes marked 100, 13+ for 75 and 12+ for 50 and so on. I also search for players up to 27 years old, but I usually start with 23 years old, then increase if I don't find too many good players.
That gives me a list of potential candidates with interest to join. Next step is to check if they are economically worth, so I ask their agents for their availability estimate the price. Those that are within my budget I will scout for one week to reveal their attributes. If they are sub-23 or listed to transfer, I might even ask for a trial instead.
After knowing the attributes, it's just a matter of choosing the one you like the most.
The second method requires a bit of extra work. First, I will visit the squad of teams and filter for AML, in both main team and youth teams. I'll start with Burnley since they were relegated this season. Then I will look at attributes with a view that shows the most important attributes, then do the same as previous step, asking agent for availability and scouting the ones I like the most. I usually do that for teams one division below and the same division as me (but only youth teams, since they are usually stronger than me and players in main team don't want to join).
I'll have to hire some new scouts first since I have only three at the moment, but I guess you got an idea of how I hire players. I accept suggestions if anyone knows of a better method (consider that I don't use FM Scout or similar).
For next season, my goal is to win Premier League and qualify to Champions League. Meanwhile, I will keep building my squad in the hope of winning Champions League in the season after that. I'll also show my process of scouting players and how I decide which players to hire.
I started another with Blyth spartans after the 22.3 patch. Results were pretty much the same as with dulwich hamlet .
Promoted every year . 1st season in the Pl ,survived relegation and 2nd season finishing second in the PL.
Problems always came after the second season, because although investement in the team was huge the team somehow reverted to relegation candidates. Missing a lot of chances , playing well below their expectations.
My theory is that happend both times because of squad building based on youth.
As your reputation increases you start to find great youth players that want to play for you, but they also don't have top flight experience who seems to make them play bang avarege.
I remember that i replaced stephy mavidid then age 30 with a 20 year old striker , better in all aspects . It was a disaster , granted that it played next to a 21 year old striker(scored 21 goals 1st season, next to Elanga(age 26 and mavididi age 29 at the time), better than the 20 year old striker .
Really looking forward to how you do.
Unfortunetly something came up and i didn't want the game to interfere with my personal life so i deleted the saves and the game because it tends to make an addict out of me.
Good luck.
I believe it's more because as you grow in reputation, opponents stop being complacent against you, which makes things naturally harder. First season they look at you like "no way we can lose to those guys, we can play at ease", but after two or three seasons they look at you like "those guys are strong, we need focus to win".
About you deleting your game, I completely understand that. It's exactly the same reason why I limit myself to playing only 5 or 10 matches a day, so I know I won't use more time than I should in the game.
Thanks!
By the way, I played a couple more of matches today. Now at 35 matches and the season is going well. I wasn't expecting anything from FA Cup, but now I'm on the finals. That's especially impressive considering I played all matches with second team (stronger teams probably got complacent since I came from lower division). Anyway, one good match against Newcastle and I might win the cup in my first season coming from below.
About the league, I got a bad form with three matches without winning against weaker teams, but I'm still in 7th in the league. Lucky for me, Liverpool won Carabao Cup and increased the Euro League zone. I had a couple of injuries and suspensions in the past matches, but the team is now back to top shape.
Anyway, one more tip that I already gave before and would like to say again is to always rest players individually after matches. Just sort them by condition, select all tired players and give one or two days of rest, and leave other players to train normally. That's not only useful to improve condition for next match and avoid fatigue, but it also avoids lots of injuries (tired players are more susceptible to get injured in training).
This time, I picked a match against Newcastle to talk about. I started the match conceding one goal and my DL got a red card, which is always a bad sign. I then removed one striker to balance the team and shouted encouragement like crazy. We got a goal and the match ended in a very even tie. The other option I was considering was to remove my AMR (which was having a bad match) to keep two strikers, but I opted for going the other way.
Now, there are four more matches in the season, three in the league against weaker teams and the cup finals against Newcastle. With a bit of luck I can get more than just a spot on Euro League, but things could also go bad and I end the season without anything. I'll finish the season tonight and see how it goes.
One or other role can get some bad rate, but it's fine as long as the tactic is performing well as a whole. Last year it was DM who never got over 7.0.
In case anyone wants to know to keep morale always high, my biggest tip is to compliment training every single week, when you get the training report. You can see the difference in the pictures below (before and after), where I praised all players circled in red (8.05+) and team morale went from good to almost perfect.
I also decided to pick one match to talk about every 5 or 10 matches. This time, I pick the victory against Manchester City. Before the match, I thought it was impossible to win. On first half, I won 3-0 because they were having one of those days that they miss all shots and keep giving possession away all time. Second half, on the other hand, they came flying and almost won the game. I suppose I have to blame myself for telling my team to not get complacent, instead of telling them to play without pressure.
P.S.: I like to use that progress bar, which you can see in the last squad view, to identify when a player is reaching his top potential. If he stops growing for a couple of months, I then evaluate if he is good enough to stay in the team or if it's better to replace with a young player of similar level that still has chance to grow. For example, Rosannah, Olayinka, Hunt and Cirkin seem to have peaked, so they are positions that I might check for replacement in the future, if they don't improve until next transfer window.
During the last transfer window, I brought a couple of new faces. I had to replace a defender and a defensive midfielder, because they wanted to leave the club and their morale wouldn't get green again. I also replaced a goalkeeper, a striker and another defender for cheaper players with similar ability, since they were in the last year of contract.
Other than that, I'm just playing and praising players to keep morale high. My team quality is steadily improving with both training and transfers, and I expect to have a better second half of season, to stay around 6th or 7th place. Unfortunately, UCL is not a reasonable goal for this season.
I have seen some tactics not being picked for testing exactly because they had just one role as the only change. Some roles have been tested time and time again and have very similar performance, like BPD and CD, or IWB and FB, DM and RPM and so on. However, maybe they will test, it's hard to know exactly.
P.S.: Nevermind, just remembered Blue DW wasn't tested in this patch.
3 strikers playing all the time in my defensive area is very dangerous dont you think??? when he crosses they have 3 strikers and the miedfield centers!!
The ZAZ BLUE 4.0 with a line of 4 (2 central defenders) you think can handle against 3 strikers???
Thanks
That might be true, but when their wingback goes to the byline to cross, you have a whole flank to exploit in counter attacks. That's the biggest disadvantage of having only one player in each flank, and gegenpressing is a good way to take advantage from that, since you can intercept the ball closer to the opponent's goal and face his defense exposed.
tenho um jogo online importante contra um adversário com esta tatica e não posso perder. Uso 3 centrais ou arrisco com a ZAZ blue 4,0????
obrigado
To be honest, I would just keep Blue. He is probably wondering how to win against you more than you are.
You can also change players to "Ease Off Tackle" if they get a yellow card, or change the tactic to Light Blue if you have the match under control (if you are using Blue).
If you are using Blue, then try changing to Cautious when you have a good lead. Keep shouting to your players all time (praise or no pressure) and make sure to use all subs every match. Other than that, rotation also helps the players stay fresher for longer, and better players will obviously also help.