KAAAAAALLLLLLLSSSSSTTTTRRRROOOOOMMMMMM

Late one night I could see posts being made by desperate managers who'd started £1 auctions in a dead transfer market their players were going for WAY below market value. I decided to have a little nose, Kallstrom an AMC who was strong and could tackle Aq Fee £850k Market Value £4.2m. With five hours to go he was at £300k, bosh £2.1 slapped down on the table and we'd see if that could bag his signature. As you can see it took less than that:-

You will also note the quite breathtaking form! I'm sure he can't sustain this but it's nice to watch whilst it lasts. The acquisition of such players works on many levels I'd suspect. Their tendency to have special moments, the increase to the clubs reputation and one more very important thing....

Some months back at the height of Matalan Utd's power I loaned Montero out to them, his improvement was immediate, the players there must have played a part in his improvement. I'm hoping world class players will help the kids come on even more. Don't know if Si have coded this in or not but it's logical.

Crazy Times

A mass influx of new managers and a mass culling of old ones has been interesting to watch. I've seen my mates actually build up fairly competitive squads very quickly. I've also realised that I don't really want to gorge myself on quality and prefer being an underdog to an extent. Although there are some tempting targets :)

Season 4 is now officially over. Highlights we finished 3rd in the NFA Premier League actually had I not sold the big three when I did I may well have taken it! Still 3rd was impressive I felt. Youth, won U21 title, U21 Cup, U17 title, missed out on U19 and won the UFFA Pyshco Cup.

Big games, UFFA Pyscho Cup final was against Inter Retirement who have almost become our sister club. Two nil up from the first leg (away) only for us to go down 3-1 in the 2nd leg, no away goals so extra time, Sene has many talents but his work rate is second to none and eventually an exhausted Inter were broken twice in Extra time.

Didn't really feel that jubilant, one because it was against Inter and two because it should have been away goals and they would have won it if that was the case.

U21 League
FK Hald had won this last season (I forgot to enter) and had run us close. I had found them early on to be annoying to play against, with their odd 4-1-2-3 formation. This wasn't helped by their manager quipping 'I love beating you' on his way to second successive win, grrrr. Eventually I found their weak spot and things turned.

In fairness their team isn't just about tactics though and they have some very accomplished youth players. So with just a few games to go and just a one point lead at the top we faced off against each other. We exploded to a 3-0 lead only to see us lose our grip totally with five minutes left it was 3-3. A Meretta free kick with minutes left caused groans to turn to celebrations.

It was then a nice to finish the season with two senior wins against them as well.

One of the highlights that will go down in Jakswans history is the win against the best team in the land Northern Utd in the Champions League of course. I was also pleased with doing the double over Trumptonville. Catherine's Wanstead Hammers sadly did the double over me and I think cost me lots of points in all the youth leagues.

The crash in player prices is nothing short of sensational with players with a supposed market value of millions going for hundreds. Now is the time to buy!

I'm glad I held some money back:)

I think I may have to loan out a few though. Basically the new teams want the players but can't afford them and the old teams don't need the players. A sharp new manager though can quickly build up an impressive line up.

Gluttony

I was just about to go big for Ashley Cole when I noticed an absolute mountain of quality players in wage auction.

I'm earning in excess of £20k a day in interest and you do get used to that so I might just kick back and watch this season pass.

In saying that I did need a goalie and some high rep player. I also didn't want an oldie and pay a fortune and someone way over wage demand. Buffon popped up wage demand £40k on £45 for £4.5m. At 33 he's a good few years left in him as a goalie. This was a spot purchase and I had completely forgotten about another Goalie I had bid on Janut (servers down).

Then I took a fancy to Brooksides U21 goalie so think I may have him as well.

I pushed Ashley Cole upto £4m but AFCA had a higher bid so let him go, 30 is too old for that position / money. So I then started to have a look through Brooksides other talent. Brookside had declared their intention to restart. He had some really decent kids and some had already started to emerge (Aq Fee's rising) so I thought I'd attempt to bag some of these.

It's gamble investing now to secure the long term future of the club, everyone keeps saying the beta is almost over but honestly still can't see it. (Major crash tonight). Besides it's nice to have players at youth level that entertain.

With all this wheeling and dealing next years seniors team was pretty much fixed in my head now these plans have gone out the window. Everything has been on hold for the last few days anyway as the SI gods decided to mawl Montero (6days) and Mungy Bungy (3weeks, yes THREE) and also gave Adu a slap (5days) and Bruno had a short term injury as well. So that's pretty much my entire proposed midfield out of action.

Bruno is an oddity whenever I play him we are much harder to beat and win games, his potential is nothing special and his stats are not breathtaking but he always looks dangerous. Arda continues to cause much shouting, wonderful Arda, skips past four players then a superb one two to an open goal and puts it over the bar. Ask him to shoot outside the box though and he'll curl one in no worries, sigh.

So I'm pretty much convinced that Bruno will start as MC next season but Arda I'm not so sure. So does Mungy Bungy or Montero go there or even Wellington (nice little £5k a day capture). Then is Arda that much better than Kim Hueng Song if he isn't do I sell Arda. Not the time to be selling as I suspected a crash in player prices. A few days back I approached Reading Town about Tevez (Market Value £7m ish) and got told that would be fine!

Thankfully the bank vetoed (Wages) and quickly caused me to rethink.

Beta Invites

Yeah SI have said we're going to be able to invite five friends to the gameworld. Most of my mates are geeky gaming types.

However their twitch gamers (Quake / Team Fortress 2 etc) only two are into football. So I have three free invites.

I turned comment moderation off so leave a comment as to why you think you'll be great at FM Live and I'll invite based on comments.

We are at 'one' with FM Live.

Well with us out of the running for the title (or so I thought) and the UFFA Champions League I thought I’d do a mini restart like I did last season.

First thing though I think I have become at ‘one’ with FM Live. This last season we played a part in knocking out the fine Northern Utd from the champions league. They have better players and to be fair we didn’t really deserve the win. We drew Bethnel in the UFFA Youth Champions Cup and 0-0 away was looking good but could only draw 1-1 at home, we deserved the win but then that’s football.

In fact the wins when they come against the run of play are sweet and the loss’s bitter. You must have lows to have highs. I think it’s important to keep it in perspective, who the heck is going to care in five years time if you won the Champions League in Season X in Gameworld Y a year down the line.

So now I sit back and kind of enjoy the show. Form wise if you’re getting the chances then you have to say the team / tactics are right and eventually it’ll come. If that isn’t right it’s back to the drawing board.

Which is what I did, I thought lets do a clear out and put Lucho, Arda, Macualey, Pablo, Basa in £1 auction. An hour later and there were no bids for Arda or Macaulay! Maybe Macaulay I could understand he’s £23k over his wage demand but at 20 has a 7 rating and goal every other game you cannot buy that for £1.

Arda was very odd he was 20 at Gameworld launch and already has some stunning stats his aq fee is going up fast and now at 24 with a wage demand of £20k surely a banker?

I’ll leave him do it on the pitch. So just Lucho, Pablo and Basa gone and I know have a very healthy bank balance.

The key now is not to rush in I shall play the current team and find weakness and strengthen that area. With the senior team in uproar over Lucho going I was expecting a train wreck at first and a slow return to mediocrity.

Tarik was moved up front, Kim Hueng to right wing, Arda to the middle as an AMC and Bruno / Montero as the other MC, Sene on left wing. At the back Meretta was given his chance.

So the first batch of games I thought ok lets just relax and watch the 4-0 defeats come in. You never know do you! The team started playing this high tempo racey attacking stuff. A bit scary at times, 4-3 isn’t good for the nerves but something was definitely off when 1-0 down to FK Hald at half time and Arda belts two glorious goals in.

So now I’m waiting for the bubble to burst. I sold Lucho to Weoley Castle sods law we’d be facing them in the league away from home. 1-1 is finished and this is with Arda and Tarik out injured! It wasn’t a scrappy 1-1 either if we grabbed the 3 points they really could not complain.

Fleeting Moment & a Slightly Broken Match Engine

Ohh well we're out of the Champions league after two lacklustre performances against Newgen team still we had our moment.

The new gripe I have now is exploits, cough, I mean tactics. When does a tactic stop being a tactic and become an exploit.

Some would argue never but this is supposed to be football so if something would not work in real life but works with the match engine then in my view it's an exploit.

The first big exploit was narrow, 4-1-2-1-2 everything through the middle, SI kind of fixed this by getting wingers in to cover and actually you can counter it with your full backs moving up and changing MR to AMR.

Maybe a touch of a high line or if not counter attack. It seems to have gone out fashion now.
The new fashion is loads up front, 4-1-3-2 or 4-0-1-3-2 one spreads the front midfields out to the wing the next all through the middle. I'm not really sure what works againts this as I have a case of BF so it looks as if something is working but of course with BF your kind of in passenger mode.

In reality playing with a high line should leave the heavy forward line wide open to a counter but it doesn't quite work out like that. It almost does but not quite, it's an exploit that generally works more than it should.

Another fashionable formation is 4-3-1-2 again little width offered. Is wing play broken in FM Live I wonder? You don't see long accurate diagonla balls out to wingers too often and when you do the winger runs to by line and cross when there is ample opportunity to run on goal have a shot.

In the last ten opponents I think I saw one conventional formation, so either the professional football managers are wrong or the match engine isn't quite perfect :)

It's still a good match engine but these narrow heavy attacking formations do my head in after a while.

Champions League Glory Moment

It's odd isn't it how things turn out. There we are stumbling through a season and Richard from Northern Utd challenges me to a game in the Champions League Group stages. We'd already drew 0-0 at home. Now this is a top 10 team all over I mean Rooney and Gerrard are the sort of names that are fairly common in his line up.

He's a mod so has been playing the game for a while so it's no surprise he's up there. The pedigree of the team is not in doubt. Last season we were in the same group and actually got a 5-2 win against Northern and knocked them out the tournament. Frankly though it was an AI result so I don't take credit for it.

To the game I must admit to doing a touch of homework before the fixture and noticed Utd were a little open to narrow formations. I don't like exploits so I wasn't going to play narrow but it did give me a clue to a weakness.

In the first half things were not going well although they were not really creating great chances the pressure was on heavily. Late in the first half our keeper saved a shot but in attempting to get the rebound pushed it over the line.

I decided to be brave at half time. I pushed the line up and brought Mungy Bungy on for Malonga, so an AMC for a striker. I stopped the full backs making attacking runs. My thinking was that Mungy would pressure their midfield / back line and stop them making a telling pass over the top, with the entire defensive line not making any forward runs are attacks would become more focused down the middle. The strikers were not even seeing the ball so were redundant anyway.

The 2nd half passed with two decent chances going to either team both didn't convert. It stayed at 1-0 until a long range free kick in the 75th minute. Meretta took a punt the keeper could only parry and Mungy reacted quickest to make it 1-1.

With the game looking as if it was going end in a draw I got even braver. Hefferman was brought on. Hefferman, who at the start of the season looked very average but had, after the first 20 games been simply sensational at youth level, so much so that he has been making the subs bench in senior games. This was Champions league against a team filled with stars and if you wanted a Roy of the Rovers story a 90th minute goal from a 18 year old that had been written off was just what the game should be about.

In the 91st minute Mungy took control of the ball in the middle and pulled one of Utd's players out of position. Lucho saw the gap and attacked the space, Mungy pushed a perfect through ball for him you can imagine the moment. Joy fell as Utd's goalie Reina parried the shot but.....

What's this with an open goal........ HEEEFFFFFEEEERRRRRMAN Ohh yes T Shirt over the head and doing a funky dance. Utd's players were screaming for offside but replays showed Lucho had timed his run to perfection.

We've little hope of Champions league glory but after a disappointing NFA campaign this was a moment to savor.