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Mar 24, 2014 17:55
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quote:Jesus Christ how does anyone besides the top 6 get anything done when the spread between top and bottom is a full order of magnitude 
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Mar 24, 2014 19:34
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DerLeo posted:Jesus Christ how does anyone besides the top 6 get anything done when the spread between top and bottom is a full order of magnitude Welcome to top-flight European football! Did you ever wonder why you pretty much always see the same four teams leading the tables at those leagues? That's pretty much why. It's not as bad in smaller leagues/South America, but the same thing still happens. Money rules and you'd better have a really nice sponsor or a lot of TV money. Otherwise, enjoy mid-table or lower.
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Mar 24, 2014 19:38
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Dias posted:Welcome to top-flight European football! Did you ever wonder why you pretty much always see the same four teams leading the tables at those leagues? That's pretty much why. It's not as bad in smaller leagues/South America, but the same thing still happens. Money rules and you'd better have a really nice sponsor or a lot of TV money. Otherwise, enjoy mid-table or lower. Yeah that's basically it. Even in Germany where, if you aren't solvent to a degree, you don't get a license and thus get relegated out of the professional leagues (so you end up potentially in the fourth league depending on how severe you hosed up your financials) you still have Bayern far and away leading everyone in money related terms with no one coming really close. It's mostly the good work done by Hoeneß during the era marketing started (for all the poo poo he gets for his private tax evasion, where the punishment is rightly deserved, he is still probably the best financial manager a sports team has ever seen) till now but that doesn't help keeping the competetion alive. And with foreign players being much more expensive due to rich owners (mostly in the past as fees are starting to catch up even for german players/german teams) you had all teams look to buy from other inner league teams usually newly promoted or direct contenders (whether you want to say to weaken them or to find direct improvements at a reasonable price is open for discussion).
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Mar 24, 2014 20:08
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Decent start to the league, you won the only truly crucial games of the lot 9the relegation 6-pointer) and the league cup match. Long may it continue!
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Mar 24, 2014 20:10
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At least on the premier they're 5-6 teams that compete. In Spain the last time a team other than Barca or Madrid won the league was ten years ago.
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Mar 24, 2014 20:13
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benzine posted:At least on the premier they're 5-6 teams that compete. In Spain the last time a team other than Barca or Madrid won the league was ten years ago. You think that's bad? In Scotland, the last time a team other than the Old Firm won was 1984-5! That's almost thirty years!
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Mar 24, 2014 20:27
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DerLeo posted:Jesus Christ how does anyone besides the top 6 get anything done when the spread between top and bottom is a full order of magnitude Yeah, the gap in money is huge. And that's just wages, it's not even considering how much more those top 6 clubs can afford to pay in transfer fees. Which means that even if a team like Swansea builds a top 4 finisher (and gets the attendant flood of Champion's League cash that comes with it), the top 6 will just buy their players from them. And the players will go, because why risk not getting to play in the Champion's League in your prime, especially when the team buying you will double your wages while they're at it. And England isn't even the worst on the stratification front, they at least have six megabastards, and you can usually count on a midtable team making an impressive effort each year and hanging with them for most of the season. Compare Spain or France:   Even in the leagues like Germany and Italy where there isn't such a sharp "Megabastard/Normal Club" divide, the top clubs are still spending more than twice as much as the midtable:   And it's not just the biggest leagues that see it, in some ways the divide is even greater in smaller countries where you have a giant or two that just completely outspend everyone else. Porto and Benficia outspend the fourth to sixteenth clubs in their league COMBINED:  It's pretty remarkable.
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Mar 24, 2014 20:32
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What have you done? How did 
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Mar 24, 2014 20:54
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The difference in the lower leagues is the sweet champions league money. Poor Ponferradina  Edit: Just as a comparison: - Winning the Europe league €5,000,000 - Champions base fee €8,600,000 benzine fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Mar 24, 2014 |
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Mar 24, 2014 20:57
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DerLeo posted:Jesus Christ how does anyone besides the top 6 get anything done when the spread between top and bottom is a full order of magnitude  Premier League winning season  (Lucked into an excellent tactic for my team and I always use youth, so)
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Mar 25, 2014 00:04
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I'm a little further behind the thread titans. My Gateshead team has only just made into league one in season 5. So now once again I'm handed a pittance of a transfer budget and barely enough wages to support a league two team and asked to stay up. Oh, well won't be the first time... Just wish my board wern't massive cheapskates who won't update the training facilities/scouting range/youth coaching. For some reason the people of Tyneside would rather go and watch Newcastle play in the champions league than go on a wet Tuesday to see Gateshead play Cambridge so my attendances are anaemic as well. Ferrosol fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 00:24
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Ferrosol posted:I'm a little further behind the thread titans. My Gateshead team has only just made into league one in season 5. So now once again I'm handed a pittance of a transfer budget and barely enough wages to support a league two team and asked to stay up. Oh, well won't be the first time... Just wish my board wern't massive cheapskates who won't update the training facilities/scouting range/youth coaching. As Wimbledon I get the same: my board has been promising upgrades for the last two seasons only to 'sensationally cancel' them at the end of every drat season the very day they're due to start. Then they refuse to talk about the issue until we're halfway into next season and they say 'sure, at the end of the season'. This is a lie, and now I'm a Premiership team with the facilities of a League 2 relegation candidate.
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Mar 25, 2014 00:32
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Revenant Threshold posted:
Woah, did some tycoon buy Leicester?
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Mar 25, 2014 00:39
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habeasdorkus posted:Woah, did some tycoon buy Leicester?  And promptly started trying to poach players from teams who weren't paying them what they were worth, i.e. me, the bastards.
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Mar 25, 2014 00:48
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6 points from 5 matches is a pretty dang good way to start the season, even if we are just beating up the low hanging fruit. I think the team will gel this season, and next season we'll start becoming the giant killers we were born to be.
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Mar 25, 2014 00:59
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PotatoManJack posted:6 points from 5 matches is a pretty dang good way to start the season, even if we are just beating up the low hanging fruit. its only 3 points though and we advanced another round in the Capital One Cup. Still within expectations although we could have beaten Everton on opening day.
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Mar 25, 2014 01:23
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habeasdorkus posted:And it's not just the biggest leagues that see it, in some ways the divide is even greater in smaller countries where you have a giant or two that just completely outspend everyone else. Porto and Benficia outspend the fourth to sixteenth clubs in their league COMBINED: It's a similar situation in Scotland, in 2011 (back when Rangers were still in the SPL), the combined salary total of all SPL teams that were not Celtic or Rangers was just under £38M, while Celtic's bill alone was £32M and Rangers' £28M. Nobody even plays to win the Premiership any more, with Rangers gone for now everybody other than Celtic is just playing for second place.
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Mar 25, 2014 01:43
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Curse you Habeasdorkus! I had managed to stay away from this game for 5 years until this LP. Oh well, took inspiration from you and started at the lower levels. First Season with Eastleigh, struggled a bit at the start but in 1st now. No thanks to my board who refuses to upgrade anything at all. Took me a week to catch up on the thread but I'm glad I did. Let's hope the next match against a big prem club isn't a repeat of the Man U game. 
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Mar 25, 2014 03:02
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That game against United. I have never gotten so many shots on goal, or getting shot at before even when playing my way up from the lower leagues. 41 shots, 13 on target. Highest I gotten was high-20s, battering some lower league team in the cup. I am surprised your keeper's rating was not higher, even after conceding 3 goals.
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Mar 25, 2014 03:21
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This is the best LP, Habeas. I'm hoping to god that it'll never stop. Though I'm really tempted to get this game for myself and see how hard I'll fail with what I've 'learned' from here.
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Mar 25, 2014 10:21
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So how much is playing a teenager too much?
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Mar 25, 2014 15:03
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If they are 18-19, go nuts if they have the stats. 17 or lower, I will limit their gametime drastically, 15 or lower and I straight up won't play them if I have the choice, unless I am VERY low level and even then...
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Mar 25, 2014 15:47
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Lynneth posted:This is the best LP, Habeas. I'm hoping to god that it'll never stop. It only stops once Wrexham have retained the Champions League, right HD? 3-2 down in injury time Get a free kick from the halfway line Justin Bailey with an Exocet Fires the ball straight back through Real's net La-la-la la-la-la-la Wrexham FC will go far La-la-la la-la-la-la Racecourse Ground's never goin' down (shamelessly stolen from Helen Love)
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Mar 26, 2014 03:11
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By that time we may be playing in Brown Stadium. And yes, that's possible- a club may name a new stadium after a revered person, including the player if he's made himself beloved enough. Mr. Scott Brown has almost certainly gotten to that point.
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Mar 26, 2014 04:29
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Sentinel Red posted:It only stops once Wrexham have retained the Champions League, right HD? No. To truly say Wrexham is the very best, habeasdorkus needs to get a quintuple. That means they have to win these five competitions: 1. FIFA Club World Cup (requires a Champions League win from the previous season) 2. Football League Cup 3. Premier League 4. UEFA Champions League 5. FA Cup As far as I know, that's all the trophies (that matter, the Super Cup and Community Shield don't count IMO) a top tier club can get in a single season of English football. Manchester United was on track to get the quintuple in the 2008-09 season, but were thwarted in the FA Cup by Everton, and in the Champions League by Barcelona.
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Mar 26, 2014 06:53
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Lynneth posted:This is the best LP, Habeas. I'm hoping to god that it'll never stop. It ends when we're the greatest team in Europe. Gonna need more than one Champion's League title to claim that honor. I'm hoping to pull off a triple at some point (FA Cup, League Title, Champion's League). I've only ever done the double before. A quintuple would be amazing.
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Mar 26, 2014 07:08
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Wait, no World Cup for the USA under amazing head coach Scott Brown? It is clearly sextuple or bust  Can you still coach a national team while leading one of the first league teams?
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Mar 26, 2014 08:42
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Chapter the Third: If we live, we live to tread on kings. September 16, 2019-October 28, 2019 I think it's only fitting that I quote the original Hotspur, or at least Shakespeare's rendition of him, when we're going to face them in little over a month. They're the toughest team we'll face in that span, with games against fellow relegation bait Watford and Derby we should look to pick up six points over the course of the next five games.  I've become a legend. I guess that's what happens when you lead a club to the promised land for the first time. Stewart Lewis has made it onto the favored player list, while Justin Bailey remains an icon of the club. What's interesting are the players who aren't there. I'd have expected Harrison, Mujkic, Coulson, and Simpson to all have become favored players given their tenures and success with the club.  Ah, good. Now I can actually have the players focus on specific areas of the game prior to each match rather than spending the whole time focusing solely on tactical familiarity.  Dan Troelsen goes down with a back strain. It's not as bad as the headline indicates, Petts can fill in at defensive midfielder along with Mair and Simpson, and our youth squad is stocked with emergency options.  My scouts report that there's one excellent player who's come up with County Cork, but he'd be expensive to sign and we've already got plenty of future strikers at the moment.  I wish there were something like the Cascadia Cup between us, Cardiff, and Swansea. For those who don't follow MLS at all, the Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders, and Vancouver Whitecaps compete for the Cascadia Cup. They happen to be three of the teams with the best supporters in MLS, Seattle draws 40,000 per game while the Timbers and Whitecaps both sell out their 20,000 seat stadiums. The games are played during the MLS season, and the team with the best record in matches against the other two wins the cup. It's a fun regional rivalry between some of the more passionate supporters in the US. I'm going to keep track of our version to see who gets bragging rights as the Best Team in Wales, and I want suggestions from you on what we should call the competition. The John Charles Shield? The Glyndŵr Cup? The Boudicca Trophy? vs. Newcastle United, September 21, 2019 Premier League  Our Capital One Cup match against Norwich is in just three days, so I want to keep several of our best players fresh for that match in order to maximize our chances of moving on in that competition. Newcastle has stumbled out of the gate, losing three and drawing one, but they're a competent team and I suspect that they're hungry for a win. Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter. Starting 11: Higgs, Hurst, Lewis, Todd, Durand, Djurovic, Mair, Petts, Thompson, Shirra, Harrison (c). Subs: Love, Youssouf, Johansen, Simpson, Bailey, Walley, Bastable. The first half is dead even, if any team has an edge it goes to us. The second half is much the same, and it looks as if we're headed for a nil-nil draw as the match draws near its end. But there will be a victor this day, when we go ahead in 80th minute on a goal by Thompson when Newcastle can't clear the ball from the penalty area after a corner. They have a chance to equalize on a breakaway with five minutes remaining in regulation, but the effort goes microns to the left of the post. We take the three points, and Newcastle remains mired in a rut. Man of the Match: Lewis Thompson   Wrexham 1-0 Newcastle  Credit to our advance scout Boulding for sussing out their weakness. I had us prep Attacking Set Pieces on his advice, and our goal came from the aftermath of one.  We were a little lucky to win, rather than draw, but not that lucky. Eyre's just feeling the heat after having now gotten one point out of his team's first five matches.  I'm cautiously optimistic as well. As I've said, I'd like to make deep cup runs this season. vs. Norwich City, September 21, 2019 Capital One Cup, Third Round  I've been waiting for you, Norwich City. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master. Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter Starting 11: Higgs, Youssouf, Lewis, Todd, Mejasic, Matko, Simpson (c), Djurovic, Mujkic, Shirra, Bastable. Subs: Love, Vaillant, Johansen, Mair, Petts, Thompson, Harrison. Norwich presses us from the opening whistle, but after a fruitless half hour where they can't create any good opportunities they begin to slacken their pace. Bastable has a great chance then to put us ahead, but his attempt is limp and directly at the keeper. When he gets another chance a few minutes later, though, he converts. The lead is short lived, just two minutes later the Norwich striker loses Lewis and rounds Higgs for an easy tap in. That doesn't mean it stays level for long, however, as it seems to be a day where our players atone for their mistakes in short order. Stewart Lewis plants himself in front of the keeper on a corner kick and flicks the ball into the net, restoring our lead. The second half starts out with more strong play from our squad, but as it continues Norwich catch their second wind. Nothing comes of it, though, and at the end of the game we reassert control, capping our victory with another set piece goal, this time from an indirect free kick. That goal should have been called off, Todd was offsides, but it makes no difference as moments later the final whistle blows and we're through to the fourth round. Man of the Match: Stewart Lewis   Wrexham 3-1 Norwich  That's ashtray money, bruv.  We were among the last half dozen teams drawn. The other five included Liverpool, Chelsea, and Man United. We are lucky to get Everton, a team we might have a chance of beating even if we're playing in Liverpool. At least the trip won't be long, it's less than an hour drive from the Racecourse Grounds to Goodison Park.  Fair enough, he is the odd one out in our midfield. I'll see what I can do for him. vs. Swansea, September 29, 2019 Premier League  It's time to go face one of our southern rivals for the throne of Welsh football. As I said, I'll be keeping track of the matches between the three Welsh teams in the Premier League and giving our little intra-national competition a name once someone can come up with a title befitting it. That means that I'm going to care about winning these matches a lot more than I do beating, say, Reading. Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter Starting 11: Higgs, Hurst, Lewis, Todd, Durand, Thompson, Mair, Petts, Mujkic (c), Shirra, Bastable. Subs: Love, Youssouf, Johansen, Simpson, Bailey, Matko, Harrison. We threaten early, Shirra cracks the woodwork with a shot before everyone has yet taken their seats. Shortly thereafter Bastable sidles away from his marker, allowing Shirra to feed him, and he fires a shot that eats up the keeper, bounces up, and arcs into the back of the net. We keep at Swansea hammer and tongs, with Mujkic being the next player to thunder off the woodwork. We'll regret those missed chances. After 20 minutes the Swans tire of our fun, equalizing on an excellent long range shot. We keep it even though the half, but the wheels come off after the restart. Swansea goes ahead at 52 minutes, then scores twice more at 70 and 81 minutes. It's a disappointing result considering our performance in the first half, and will make it tough for us in the Welsh regional hullabaloo/hoedown.   Swansea 4-1 Wrexham  Mair's off to a good start with the club, he's exactly what I wanted in a defensive midfielder even if he picks up more than the occasional yellow. I'm very glad that we brought him back into the fold. He's not the best of our signings, however. Rocky Bastable has been fantastic, with four goals in five games. If he can be a top striker in the Premier League our probability of staying up is very high.  Meanwhile Wayne Hurst has been downright bad, with the most recent game being his worst. He's only 19, and he's put in good work on the training field, so he's going to get every opportunity to show that he belongs at this level, but the early returns are unimpressive. vs. Derby, October 5, 2019 Premier League  This is another relegation six pointer, we're at home against a team that's expected to have trouble staying up this year. Derby spent most of their windfall from selling Shahed Parr to Manchester United on three players, bringing in a 22 year old Turkish fullback for 6.5m, a very quick striker from Blackburn for 4m, and a versatile right winger/wingback from Basel, Switzerland for 7m. It makes them a better team in the short run, but none of the new players are as good as the departed one, nor do they have his potential for growth. Thus far it's paid off, they're sitting in 12th place, and could move into the top half of the table if they beat us. Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack Starting 11: Higgs, Youssouf, Johansen, Lewis, Mejasic, Mair, Shirra, Bailey, Thompson, Mujkic (c), Bastable. Subs: Love, Durand, Todd, Simpson, Djurovic, Petts, Harrison. It's only six minutes into the game when Thompson finds the back of the net. It's called off, and replays show that he was clearly offsides. Derby plays a hard tackling game, and in the 31st minute Derby's left back tackles Thompson from behind, sending him down to the turf. He doesn't get up, and needs to be stretchered off. I have to bring on William Harrison to play his spot, we have no other player who looks even competent at right wing. Bastable makes Derby pay just minutes after the assault on Thompson, which didn't even draw a card from the blind referee, and puts a Harrison pass into the back of the net for the lead. We can't hold it, Lewis gets skinned by a Derby player for the equalizer and then Derby claims victory when Johansen positions himself poorly and allows a cross to find it's target right in front of the goal.   Wrexham 1-2 Derby  We're boned. Thompson was one of our most versatile players, and was one of the three players we could rely upon to handle a winger position. Losing him eaves us with just Mujkic and Matko on the flanks. We're going to be relying on guys playing out of position if either of them has to miss a game.  You're not supposed to come away from the Karate Kid thinking that the Cobra Kai are role models, jerks!  At least we're a surprisingly popular pick for televised games thus far, our home fixture with Tottenham will let the UK observe how we stack up against a team with a payroll that's literally an order of magnitude greater than our own.  Maybe England just likes watching us get crushed, I'm not looking forward to that trip to Anfield.  We might do worse than that if we're in a relegation fight as the spring approaches and the weather is awful.  He's getting playing time, which is the important thing.  Woah. Arsenal is one of the very richest clubs in the world, valued at £1.22 billion. The only teams worth more are Real Madrid and Manchester United. Who could possibly afford to purchase the team? Oh, by the by, we're now 99th on the list of most valuable European teams at £40m.  Wales and England both qualify from their group. Elsewhere, Scotland is forced into the playoff after losing 3-1 to France in their final match. vs. Tottenham Hotspur, October 19, 2019 Premier League  The Spurs are quite famously always the bridesmaids and never the brides of English football, the one year they finished fourth in the Premier League and were finally in a position to make the Champion's League, sixth place Chelsea went and won the Champion's League and earned the fourth spot from England despite their poor league season- knocking Tottenham back into the Europa League. They're still an incredibly rich club, with a worldwide following. Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter Starting 11: Higgs, Hurst, Lewis, Todd, Durand, Matko, Mair, Petts, Mujkic (c), Shirra, Bastable. Subs: Love, Youssouf, Johansen, Troelsen, Djurovic, Mejasic, Harrison. Tottenham “Spurs it up” in the 12th minute, allowing us to take the lead when Mujkic sends a smooth as butter cross to an unmarked Shirra. We play just as well as they do for the next hour, but Tottenham equalizes at the 70th minute with a nice shot from Tottenham's late arriving defensive midfielder. Then Mair picks up a card after an obvious flop by a Tottenham player, and less than two minutes later Tottenham gets away with a foul that should have given us a penalty kick. The team jaws at the ref, including Mair. The ref responds by giving him a second yellow card. We're screwed. We have outplayed Tottenham to this point, but now we have to hang on despite being a man down for the next 20 minutes to salvage a draw. Our ability to play with ten men has not diminished this season, however, and we have a brilliant piece of counter-attacking play in the 79th minute when Hurst launches a perfectly weighted ball and Bastable springs the offsides trap, leaving him one on one with a keeper. He doesn't miss, and we retake the lead on a shorthanded goal! The Spurs get one final chance in stoppage time, but Higgs sees it over with the help of the crossbar. We've beaten Tottenham. Man of the Match: Mateo Mujkic   Wrexham 2-1 Tottenham  He's got a bad habit of picking up yellows, but he doesn't deserve more than a warning for his actions. The foul that earned him a yellow card was minor, he barely clipped the Tottenham player who took several steps more before flopping to the ground like a fish out of water, and while we probably didn't deserve a penalty kick the ref was a thin-skinned ninny for giving him a second yellow.  Oh come on! With Matko down we don't have any starting quality right wing players for our next match.  I've been getting very good reports from our training staff about most of our new signings. That's good, our ability to avoid relegation this year will largely depend on them performing up to expectations. At Watford, October 26, 2019 Premier League  Our opponents today are among the teams projected to be in the relegation battle. We're playing at their place, so any points we can earn will be vital in helping us stave off that fate ourselves. Winning against Tottenham was huge, especially after losing to Derby, but this won't be an easy match. That's especially true given that our injuries and the fact that we face Everton in three days in the Capital One Cup are forcing me to change our style of play up. Starting Formation: 4-5-1 Attack Starting 11: Higgs, Youssouf, Johansen, Todd, Mejasic, Troelsen, Djurovic, Harrison (c), Mujkic, Bastable. Subs: Love, Durand, Vaillant, Lewis, Simpson, Bailey, Shirra. Watford is first out of the gate in the seventh minute. We're not getting anywhere on the attack after 25 minutes, so I change our playing mentality to counter attack but keep us in the 4-5-1 formation. Harrison hits a long shot off the post just afterwards, and it's first sign of life for the team. When we reach the half after a solid fifteen minutes of play I focus on building the players up by telling them that they've been unlucky, they played well after the change in mentality from Attack to Counter, and that I have faith in them. We still can't get anything happening after an hour, though, and I'm forced to get eccentric with the team. I move Harrison from the right wing into the striker role, pulling an ineffective Bastable, while moving Youssouf up to the winger position and bringing on Vaillant to play right back. I also bring on Lewis for Todd, who has also had a poor game. None of these changes work, and Watford seals the game in the 89th minute with a goal from a corner. No points for us, three points for our relegation competition.   Watford 2-0 Wrexham  Youssouf would make a not awful right midfielder, so I'm going to see if he can get comfortable at that position given that we have two other players who can handle right back and very few who can play right mid or right wing.  Soon I'll be able to reduce the amount of match preparation we're doing and focus on regular training.  We're doing about as expected, even if we've reached that success in an unpredicted manner. The Tottenham win is definitely the most impressive victory we've ever had, and it's amazing that we were able to beat one of the big teams despite going a man down. Our lack of depth at winger remains a concern, and I may approach the board hat in hand for funds to fix that problem come the January window. We certainly have the money for it, we've currently got a bank balance of over seven million pounds. Thus far we're clear of relegation, though we'll see how long that lasts when we play Liverpool and Manchester City back to back to start November. 
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Mar 26, 2014 11:04
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Torrannor posted:Wait, no World Cup for the USA under amazing head coach Scott Brown? It is clearly sextuple or bust I'll be aiming for that job the minute they finally fire AU-Klinsmann. If he were as good a coach and recruiter as the real life Klinsy that would be fine, the US would have a team that could reliably reach for the quarterfinals rather than just the second round, but that dude has been there for a decade now, and the US is if anything worse than they were under Bradley. You can be both Int'l head coach and Club head coach at the same time, so I don't have to choose either/or. It's looking likely that I won't get to do so until at least the 2026 World Cup cycle, though. CoarsestGrate posted:No. To truly say Wrexham is the very best, habeasdorkus needs to get a quintuple. That means they have to win these five competitions: That would be nuts. I've done the Club World Cup, the FA Cup, and the League Cup all in one year, falling in the Champion's League semis to Bayern and finishing second behind a Man City team that was just stacked beyond all belief. And I've doubled plenty of times, including an FA Cup/Europa League in my second year in the Premier League (having won the Capital One cup my first year in the prem to earn entry to the Europa League). A Tartan Tory posted:If they are 18-19, go nuts if they have the stats. I generally agree with A Tartan Tory, though I try not to make 18 year olds full time players and cap them at about 25 appearances. 17 year olds, if they have the stats, will get 15-20 appearances. At 16 and under I try to give them no more than ten games with the first team, and a lot of those are as substitutes. They're still playing in U18 and U21 games, as well as their national youth programs, so it's not like they're lacking gametime. None of this is scientifically worked out, so I doubt this is the perfect way to encourage player improvement. The main thing I'm concerned about is their ability to perform against high quality opposition. If they can hold their own then they're going to get a lot out of the first team appearances, and grow from the exposure. If they're totally out of their depth, though, it will stunt their growth and they won't learn anything useful from the experience. A good example of developing your young players working out right is Scott Shirra. He joined us as a 16 year old, and turned 17 in the autumn of our League One season two years back. That year he only got into 11 league or cup games. He started just four of those games. He wasn't very good, he had a 6.56 rating in the league games he played. Last year, though, he got some more time with the first team. He was better than he had been the previous year, through January he had a 6.7 average rating in a dozen games despite playing against a higher level of opposition. And that time with the first team paid off, he finished the season with a 6.97 rating in 22 league games and was one of our most important players as we bore down on promotion. This year he's just turned 19, and while his average rating has dropped to a 6.75 he's deservingly the fulcrum of our attack, playing the hell out of the trequartista role in our 4-4-1-1. He'll get into ~30 games this year, and because he can hold his own with our opponents will see his attributes shoot up as time goes on. Chris Todd is similar, he got into 8 games as a 16 year old, 23 as a 17 year old, 30 as an 18 year old and 35 last year as a 19 year old. Now that he's 20 he's one of my two primary centerbacks. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Mar 26, 2014 |
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Mar 26, 2014 11:40
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quote:Tottenham “Spurs it up” in the 12th minute, allowing us to take the lead when Mujkic sends a smooth as butter cross to an unmarked Shirra. We play just as well as they do for the next hour, but Tottenham equalizes at the 70th minute with a nice shot from Tottenham's late arriving defensive midfielder. Then Mair picks up a card after an obvious flop by a Tottenham player, and less than two minutes later Tottenham gets away with a foul that should have given us a penalty kick. The team jaws at the ref, including Mair. The ref responds by giving him a second yellow card. We're screwed. We have outplayed Tottenham to this point, but now we have to hang on despite being a man down for the next 20 minutes to salvage a draw.
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Mar 26, 2014 11:48
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Quintuple? Bah, win the Community Shield and make it a Sextuple!
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Mar 26, 2014 12:28
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Fun Fact About Wales: There are NO decent roads connecting North-South Wales, a combination of difficult terrain in mid Wales and Governments not giving a gently caress. To get from Wrexham to Cardiff you have three options. 1) Drive through Mid Wales. This involves traversing narrow roads that go on cliff edges, wind through forests and go up mountains, and following confusing road signs that haven't been updated in decades. If you break down in the Brecon Beacons (Like what happened to me once), you're kind of hosed, as no one gets phone signal there and signs of civilisation are sparsely scattered. 2) Drive west then go along the coast, all the way across North Wales, then follow the coast all the way down via West Wales to the south, the head all the way east. Takes loving ages, but you get good roads all the way and you get to pass some beautiful scenery at least. 3) Swallow your pride and go via England. Enjoy their fancy motorways and civilisation and regular petrol stations, and universal phone signal and Wi Fi. Realise the trip takes no time at all...until you go back into Wales for the home stretch, and the traffic inevitably bogs down to a crawl again. Generally a much faster and more enjoyable trip, but no real Welshman would ever do this. Also I vote Cwpan Llywelyn.
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Mar 26, 2014 12:34
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Just call it 'The Cwp'
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Mar 26, 2014 12:37
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Might no be particularly creative but I'd suggest The St David's Cup.
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Mar 26, 2014 14:10
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I vote for The Consonant Cup. Also, please just say 'offside' and not 'offsides' or we will all be secretly laughing at you. Good result against Spurs, not that it's *that* impressive because even FM takes into account Spurs usual fuckups in matches they should win.
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Mar 26, 2014 14:25
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AJ_Impy posted:
Welcome to last season for me...
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Mar 26, 2014 14:48
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The Tasteless Joke About Sheep Cup Sponsored by the Farmers of Wales.
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Mar 26, 2014 15:06
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A Tartan Tory posted:Good result against Spurs, not that it's *that* impressive because even FM takes into account Spurs usual fuckups in matches they should win. This and their continued inability to win anything does prove that FM has Spurs simmed to near perfection. Im wondering if Ill have a similar reaction to the games against Reading, given that they also can screw up just as badly in games they should be winning (see last nights 3-1 home loss to bottom of the table Barnsley for an perfect example of that), but at least theyre doing well so far.
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Mar 26, 2014 15:10
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| # ? May 14, 2024 19:04 |
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I dunno, I just got promoted to League 1, and I'm finding myself having better luck with teams near the top than ones near the bottom. Maybe it's a complacency thing?
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Mar 26, 2014 15:54
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