You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes, well you just might find
You get what you need.

Happy valentines day people, anyone want to own up to sending the card ?

A year ago today I was off work and it was in some way related to FML, I presumed it must have been for the launch of my GW but after initially posting this blog I realised the dates were completely off. But for the pretence of this story, lets pretend this was actually the reason I was off work because I actually was, twice, for two different GW launches.

After GW3 crashed we ended up in another beta GW a short time before the game was due to go retail. I spent this time well, I didn't actually play the game. I went through all of the teams that had done well at the start and made a note of all the best players you could sign cheap in your initial squad. I made a big list of how much they cost, their average rating, goals, assists and various other useful stats. I ordered the list in a way that I had my first to last choice in order for each position.

GW Lineker opens, and i'm in. Copy and paste, Copy and paste, Copy and paste, Copy and paste repeat x16, confirm squad. Five minutes later I have my team and i'm in the top 10 for the first season and I win my qualifying league in spectacular fashion. Meanwhile Dennis Daylate is stuck down the bottom of the league, for the next 3 months. (Interestingly I signed almost the exact same team again when returning stars first came into Miller, and won the league again )

Anyway, this is obviously bloody stupid. My suggestion to fix this was to give you 16 locked players and that was it, but rather generously the pool system has given us 50 whole players to choose from! Having seen this in place, it's shocking this wasn't in place from the very start of FML.

But but but... I want an all Mongolian team, I want an all youth team, I want to sign all of the best players I can at the start before anyone else has the chance! Tough luck, you have been given a football team, now go MANAGE it and do whatever it is you actually want to do !

There's not enough players to go round to ensure everyone can get exactly what they want in their pool, not everyone can have a team of all Polish players or 25 year olds. It just wont work like that.

So for the last couple of weeks while the pools have been tested on the other beta GW there has been very conflicting views on what the actual quality of the players are like. Some people seem to think they are fine while other people are spazzing out that none of the players are good enough for a team of any level.

Last night we got the chance to test the new pools for ourselves so I have now seen what they actually look like for myself. They are absolutely fine ! Obviously someone is going to get unlucky while others get lucky but it's not going to be the difference between success and failure and certainly it wont create the same gap that day #1 did over day #7 on the old system.

I had some pretty reasonable players in my pool who could certainly do a good job for a small club and i'd even consider a couple of them as bench warmers as a top team. But you wont get exactly what you want. For example, there was no decent wingers in my squad that came close to meeting what I would expect. Solution ? Play without wingers ! I also didn't appear to have a decent DM, so I just played an AMC there instead because there's not enough difference in attributes at this level for it to make a massive difference.

I logged in this morning to encounter a small error, I was a mod!? This appears to have been fixed now however. I was looking forward to trying the "disconnect from server" button when I was losing too ;) Anyway I had a browse over the players in the teams at the top of the rankings and the players at the bottom of the rankings and couldn't see a massive difference in quality.

I'm fairly certain the people complaining are simply expecting too much and are used to getting in early and having 50,000 players to choose 16 from. Out of that 50,000 there's obviously many low CA players who have awesome key attributes, mentals, hidden attributes for their position which makes them massively more valuable than other players. But when your entire team is made up of a random blend of players of the same kind of CA then most of them are going to be, kinda shit.

I'd say you are essentially looking at a starting squad equivalent to what you would see in a top 6 League 1 team on FM10. Out of all my players I would have been happy with about 9 of them for first team duties in the first season. I only had to compromise in a few areas, as mentioned above I had no DM. I also had to pick a DR who had 10 tackling but he had good pace and acceleration which is pretty much all a fullback needs at that level.

In conclusion, pools are great and a few months down the line no one will even think twice about them. I think many of the complaints probably come from those who like to use silly filters like +10 in all attributes.

Back on Miller, the ME decided to end my massive losing streak in another random flip of form an sent me on 10 game unbeaten streak or something so I finished mid table after being stuck rock bottom for days. Meanwhile, i've decided to to change the the latest 'cheat formation' and it's gone a bit wrong and i've managed to buy 6 strikers including the likes of a 34 year old Pato. I'm sure i'll work it out... hmm.