Calm like a bomb

I lost a game this morning. There was no rage. Order has been restored. So I sold my entire first team save a few players so now when I lose games it is because my team is poor and this does not anger me.

I decided to clear my FA ai before the auctions ended which would give me 48 hours before any auto resolves to construct a new team. After spanking most teams I was starting to think I might have been a bit hasty. Then I got round to an away game against a deactivated team which soon made me realise I had not made a mistake by auctioning my team. So i've had 7 clear cut chances and he's scored with a penalty which has been his only 'attack' of the game. Fun times commenence until I finally equalise in 90+6 with a corner goal.

Anyway i'm still annoyed by various things at the moment. First off is how low half of my players sold which I attribute to two things. 1) people are idiots and wont bid on anyone over the age of 12 and 2)No one has any money from not investing in stadium, paying 100m to sign some 16 year old then paying them 50k a week.

Naldo sold for 200k. He is 33 and on £24,000 wages. His Natural Fitness is 19 and he has had almost zero attribute degredation over his career and infact has some yellows and greens still. So to own a player who is almost guaranteed a goal every other game as well one of the best defenders in the game would cost £670k in wages for the season. How many games would those goals win ? How many cups, leagues and competitions would he win you ? Seriously, why would you rather pay 30k wages on some 16 year old ? You will have pay him 4m+ in wages before he's likely to be first team ready. Even with zero resale value this is still a mega bargain. Do the maths people.......

In other annoying news I found a regen who had my name and spent the best part of 3 seasons trying to wrestle him away from idiots who didn't play him. The first one gave up on the game the day he signed him yet set a daft auto renew amount on the day and the other one seemed to value him at about £1m despite the fact he's rubbish. So today i'm greeted with this:

Lee Jones has disappointed supporters of your club by publicly announcing that he is considering leaving at the end of his contract. Jones is believed to feel unsettled at the number of players competing for the same place in the team as him and it is believed this is the reason why he is considering bringing his time at Strawberryfield to a close.

Are you shitting me ? I've got 1 senior midfielder who is retiring!

So what am I doing now ? Well i'm trying to construct a team that wont get hammered to get me through until end of season and then spend some cash in the wage auctions. My aim is to retain a top 10 ranking until the end of the season. New tactics have been prepared and new, cheap, signings should be arriving shortly.

Nice little screenshot before I drop down. Rank 1-5 all joined the GW as friends from outside the FML world and for the first time we occupy the top 5 spots :)

Franco :(

Your long-serving Italian midfield playmaker has announced he will retire on Monday 3rd August at 18:25.

He told you that after carefully considering the matter he has decided that the best option is to retire now at his peak rather than play on and risk serious injury in the future.

1966 apps / 946 goals /663 assists / 318 MOTM From MC. Signed for £233k in season 1.

Legend.

It's all woe this week :(

Rage Quit

After another series of ridiculous away results in the league I have decided to call it a day.

I've even lost the will to be angry any longer. Playing bottom of the league who has won about 2 games all season and not being able to create any chances, just because I was away from home, was the final straw. After about 20 tactical changes I managed to get the team to actually do something rather than sit around like retards and the opposition GK got MOTM... again. The two games before this to poor teams the same thing happens just because it is an away game. Play them at home and you put about 5 goals past them.

This has been building for about 7 seasons now.... having consistently been one of the best teams and repeatedly done over by fucking shit at the bottom of the league. Put all my team in auction to see if I could raise any cash for next season but none of the morons on the GW will bid on them because anyone over the age of 23 is apparently too old.

This game is one big joke and the joke is on those who keep playing in the hope of creating something when at the end of the day any away league game just comes down to a random result. It's just a shame it's taken me 49 days signed in to realise this..

Match day

As kick off approaches, T-Bag Town enter the match against Useless United as clear favourites today. Everyone in the footballing world is expecting Useless United to be relegated this season having won just a couple of games all season and holding the worst defensive record in the league. In contrast T-Bag Town have been on good form of late with only 2 defeats in the last 20 games which came against top of the league.

It's 3:05pm so let's head over to our reporter for a match update, how's it going Jimmy ?

Jimmy: Kick off has been delayed by 10 minutes i'm afraid. Someone has parked a transit van in the entrance to the car park so their 10 fans can't get in on time for kick off! Useless United are using the local pub's facilities because they don't have a ground. There's been an announcement on the club's PA system (the karaoke machine) to try and locate the driver so hopefully we can get under way soon.

The vidi printer is still showing it's 0-0 after 20 minutes, what's happening Jimmy ?

Jimmy: Incredible scenes here Bob. Useless United have unveiled a surprise today, they have a new signing out on the pitch. I'm not sure who it is Bob ? He's playing in goal and he's wearing a red mask. I think it might be... Spiderman

Spiderman eh Bob ? That doesn't sound very likely to me, what makes you think that ?

Jimmy: Well T-Bag Town are dominating the match today, the stats are showing 75% possession and I count around 5 clear cut chances already. Spiderman is averaging an 8.5 and certainly looks to be 'playing with confidence'. I'll update you at half time !

It's nearly half time in the match with T-Bag Town vs Useless United and it's still 0-0 ?

Jimmy: Yes that's right Bob, it's still 0-0 here. I've never seen anything like it, T-Bag Town have had around 9 clear cut chances now. Just before you joined me, Obinna picked up the ball from around 30 yards out, beat his man, rounded the keeper and passed the ball into the net. As he was running off the celebrate, Spiderman webbed onto the goalpost, swung in and saved the shot!

Wait a minute, here's a chance! Brienza has picked up up the ball on the half way line, he's beaten 3 men but his shot has hit the cross bar. Rossi Steps up on the rebound and slots it home with a stunning volley!! GOAL for T-Bag Town!! I'm not sure what happened to Spiderman here he seemed to be playing with his wrists, one of the locals thinks his web got jammed. I think the floodgates might open in the second half it should be about 7-0 by now.

The second half is well under way now, is it still only 1-0 ?

Jimmy: To say that T-Bag Town are playing with Useless United is the understatement of the season, poor old Useless don't know what day it is. It's Still 1-0.

Just 10 minutes to go, T-Bag Town looking comfortable I take it ?

Jimmy: That's right, everyone in the side is turning it on it's almost cruel, the other team are just not on the park. Wait a minute what's going on here... T-Bag Town's GK is looking very complacent indeed. He's been waving to the crowd for a good 30 minutes now, but he's just taken off his gloves and walked to the sidelines to sign some autographs for the fans. T-Bag Town's manager is furious and shouting at him to get back in goal but he's not concentrating. Naldo is under pressure just inside his own half, he's going to have to pass it back... GOAAAAL for Useless United !!!!! The GK was nowhere to be seen, beaten by a slow moving backpass, this is incredible!! It was the first attempt on goal all game!

T-Bag Town certainly seem to be involved their fare share of these type of games this season, I think we must be in stoppage time now, Jimmy?

Jimmy: That's right, we have played 5 of the 6 added minutes now. Spiderman has been awarded MOTM. He webbed the champagne right from box into his goal and is sipping it right now. I've been down to the bench to try and see what T-Bag Town's manager is up to. Seems he noticed Useless's DR only has 8 pace and he has set Obinna on him with 19 pace/acceleration but it's not really doing anything. Commentators curse right there Bob! He's just beat his man and won a corner. Bosko Jankovic steps up and whips it into the 6 yard box, Naldo rises above everyone else and scores his 44th goal in 94 games ! The referee blows his whistle, It's all over, it's 2-1!!

Well Bob, I think the morale of this story is not even Spiderman can save a corner.

T-Bag Town's manager is still looking stressed.

An expensive mistake

Ok this one is my fault but it still annoyed me!

During my previous week of anger at the way things were going I decided to address the problem with a new signing. As per my FM strategy down the years, if something is not working, buy more attacking players. I figured I needed to beef up my midfield with an older and experienced player so off I went to see what the ageists had ignored on the free list.

A 32 year old chap by the name Gastón Fernández looked like he would do the trick. Good pace, acceleration, dribbling, passing and decent finishing. His wage was £26k, so combined with his Aquistion Fee I paid a total of £660k.

Ready for his debut i'm deciding where best to place him then I realise he can't actually play in MC ! He can only play in AMC. I try him in MC anyway and he averages a 5.9 meaning I have nowhere to fit him in my team and he is completely useless to me.

Having spent £5m on players this week and racking up a wage bill of £283k in the process it was time to cut my losses and move him on.

He sold for £2ok. So including paying his wages for 3 days I made a net loss of £718k from this particular deal.

Would anyone else like me to buy a player for them..

I hate the league

That is all.

Is it any wonder ?

Another game, another GK MOTM and another 1-shot-wonder (1sw)...

How many times will this happen throughout the season ? Well I will tell you ! I have been recording data on this to support my annoyance. At the last count, 48% of FA based games I had either drawn or lost, the opposition GK got MOTM!!!! It would also be around 70% if I disregarded results against the only 2 good teams I've played. Also that's not including games I have won where the opposition keeper has got MOTM either! I don't even want to look at the number of 1sws but the stats are skewed as they normally get another shot in near end or something.

In-between typing this I have won two games, the opposition GK got MOTM in both... I scored 3 goals in one of those games.

So it's my tactics not creating the right chances ? The one where my striker scores 1 in 1 in friendly games ? The one which lead my team to 90 games unbeaten ? Yes I think this is clearly the reason. Various tweaks have done nothing to help. When your creating 5+ CCCS a game what more can you do ?

In another related annoyance of the day my GWC opponent got AI rights over me despite me chucking a few challenges in. Having checked the game it appears I lost. It appears I was 1sw'ed, it appears I was 1sw'ed in the 94th minute...... Good times.

Two legged cups

Seems this has also got me in trouble this week.

Anyone with eyes or not suffering from some kind of mental issues should be aware that, any cup tie in any competition, is horribly broken. The majority of the time the team who wins the first leg goes on to lose the second leg. The reason is simple. The players of the side which take the lead into the tie see the match score as the score from the first leg. So if you won the first leg 3-0, as soon as the match kicks off your players think "hey we are 3-0 up, lets just kick back and relax" and half the team are 'complacent' within 15 minutes. They score a couple of goals, your players have made mistakes, they have a low average rating and so confidence drops more!

If the opposition team is very weak or you only won the first leg say 1-0 then this tends not to happen so much. Even if you don't lose the tie overall your players will play like chumps and you will lose the match.

So I was thinking I need to not win the first leg so well to stop this happening. So I spent a season playing my youths team in the first leg and main team in second leg. This worked quite well and I won a few cups with this tactic. Trouble was as my youth team got better they started beating teams, drawing or only losing by the odd goal. So I decided to see what would happen if I used the abandon match button to lose the first leg 3-0. This didn't go down well and got me reported to Sega. Incidentally it didn't work, none of his players went complacent in the second leg and I drew 2-2.

I've now been told i'm not allowed to do anything which I THINK may be an exploit??

Any abandonment of official matches (or fielding deliberately weakened teams with the intention of losing) will be treated as breaking the above rules and could result in disciplinary action taken against your club or suspension/removal from the Football Assciation concerned!

Now whether there is an issue with 2-legged cup ties or not (I personally do not think there is from my 2 year's playing experience and I always play to win both legs - but I'm happy to be proved wrong) if YOU believe there is an exploit there then you should not try and exploit it. This includes both abandonning matches and making substitutions in order to conceed goals or deliberately lose matches. - RT

Does this mean i'm not allowed to wear my lucky T-shirt any more ? I'm pretty sure this helps me win most games but seen as I BELIEVE it is an exploit i'm not allowed to do it?? what??? Are corner goals not exploiting the ME ?

I get that there are no ME changes at the moment and we are waiting on the FM10 engine but why can't someone acknowledge this problem ? Why have 2-legged cup ties not been suspended from official competitions ?

Anyway i'm still totally confused about what kind of team I am allowed to play in 2-legged cups this season.... Will giving my youths a go in the GC get me in trouble ? Maybe if I just play defensive instead?

FML is pointless

I have had an eventful week or so on FML where I have come extremely close to quitting and even more angry.

I posted this on the forum at the weekend, didn't go down too well with some and got me an infraction in the process:

FML is pointless:

Reason being is that official league form is utterly random and has no relation to anything and is not based on anything whatsoever. It doesn't matter how good your team is, how long you have spent on tactics, how long you spent analysing the opposition team's weakness.... come league day and every game is just run through the RANDOM-O-LEAGUE-RESULTS-GENERATOR-MATIC @SI TM to produce some stupid result. Even the games you win are a complete utter nonsense of last minute comebacks, no possession, not creating chances and lucky wins. Why do you have to lose every game unfairly ? Why can't you just be the better team and win a game fairly ? Why can't you be the poorer team and lose?

Every season I have ever season on FML since the beta has been exactly the same. As soon as you play any away game it's time to draw or lose to some utterly dire team just to 'spice things up' or something. You play them in any kind of non FA competition and hammer them into the ground, then it's FA day and suddenly you can't even get a shot on goal.

Even in the new Super FAs with the neutral ground you STILL get these farcical games and results, opposition GK on MOTM and you getting 1 shot wondered every bloody game. Play them outside the FA and you get a result which has some basis in reality, like, you play them off the field and win. I'd prefer to play the game without taking part in any FA but I understand this is not allowed and I would get assigned to a casual FA ? Why ? I just want to play the game and have results which have some fucking bearing on something.

I've decided to moan on here rather than spend time selling my whole team and giving this game up in the hope that I feel different in the morning. If not that's it, my whole team is going in auction.

I want someone to explain to me what the hell is happening with league form. Why is it so different to normal games ? Why do crap teams become godlike ? Why do you draw so many games away from home ?

And they wonder why people are more concerned with friendly competitions rather than official league games.... it's perfectly understandable IMO. League games are just random bollocks that appear to have no basis in reality at all. I have little interest in my league these days as I can pretty much predict exactly what is going to happen before it even kicks off.

Don't even get my started on cups... I specifically requested NOT to be assigned to any FA cup this season which involved 2-legs, but apparantly i'm not allowed to do that either??? I've spent the last few seasons purposely losing the first leg by playing defenders in goal etc and won several cups doing so. I hoped to avoid having to do this ridiculous tactic this season by not playing in them, but apparently nooo