I didn't say that!

Had a few mails saying that the match engine results were pre determined etc. That’s not what I wrote.

I don’t think any results are pre determined for the most part it plays great and is totally ‘pure’ there are no pre determined results. I’AM GUESSING HERE and could be totally off track.

There are two types of form player form and team form, player form is fairly easy to spot and after a few bad results morale of the players drops so they start performing badly. Team form is hidden I’m sure I’ve read SI state that there is a match nerves variable and I suspect that this is governed by team form.

If you have bad team form then your team enters the match engine with high match nerves then you have the strikers missing easy chances, silly mistakes at the back etc. I would guess this is fairly dynamic throughout a match and changes with goals / time of game / sendings off / subs etc.

All I was saying in my last post is that general team form could float and be governed by where you should be in the rankings compared to where you are in the rankings. It seems to me that where you should be in the rankings is governed by the reputation of the players.

When I sold three world famous players the team played and got results exactly as I expected for a time, eventually though a bad run started and it lasted until my rank was corrected. Conversely if you sign a few world famous players this may start an extended period of good form which will last long enough so that your position is corrected.

This is my experience of the game so far, once you’re where you should be the form returns to neutral and this is when you can really make the difference for a while.

This is why a team of technically gifted kids will drive you slowly insane and if you’re a tactical genius you’ll be left completely bemused by the erratic performances of your team. Your superior tactics will result in your team over achieving but eventually you’ll be encouraged into the position you should be.

I suspect if you signed high rep youth, ala Ronaldo / Pato / Javi Martinez then you’d be dandy but if you signed unknowns (albeit just as technically gifted) ala Tetteh / Sene / Gomez then you’d struggle to do much for a long time. Eventually though their rep would stabilise and things would improve.

This theory also explains why 35 year olds are actually pretty great whilst their stats drop away their contribution to rep remains so you’ll continue to get those lucky moments.

So is this a sell out by SI then? Well not really I guess you could argue that actually high rep = high quality. Whilst it kills the Wenger mode to complete glory you can certainly still tactically influence games which will result in your team overachieving on average.

Meanwhile servers are much better although there have once again been a fresh batch of bugs but it feels like we’re getting there.