Leeds 3rd Season, EPL season about to start. Advice appreciated.

[kane3]

Hi all,

This is the first time I took a lower league club and worked their way up to the EPL. I've set my club expectation to "Avoid Relegation" just to be conservative for the first season.

Just wondering if I can get any advice from gurus out there can give me advice on my team.

My signings from first season were mostly potentially good players since I felt that Leeds had an original squad that would pretty much bully every other team in League one.

I play using GoalGalore 10.6 tactic (4-4-2 diamond) and a 4-1-2-2-1 (I prefer to call it 4-5-1 <) ).

My first team right now consists of:

GK Jussi Jääskeläinen
DR Antonio Raggi
DC A very good regen DC
DC Kisnobo (Still here......)
DL Bouma (Free transfer just now)
DM Renan
ML Adriano (From Sevilla)
MR Howson
AMC Verrati
FC Yattabare
FC Michael Owen (Free Transfer just now)

My subs are
GK Kaussen (Not really sure who he is.... snapped him up free after scout said he's decent for most prem teams while I was in Championship as Marco Bonassi didn't develop fast enough to be Main Keeper. I still had Higgs at that point as #1 keeper :'( )
GK Marco Bonassi (On loan can be recalled)
DR Balletti (Free transfer as backup)
DR Crowe (Reserve as 2nd backup because I can't get anybody to buy him)
DL Aidan White (Didn't delevop as well as I wanted him to, on loan, can be recalled)
DL Sheehan (Quite decent IMO, don't know why my *** man keeps recommending White over him)
DC Daniel Situ (Great potential, decent atm)
DC Leigh Bromby (Selling him)
DM Tagliani (My versatile DC/DM man)
DM/MRC Kilkenny (Trying to sell him for a decent price, served great as versatile man in Champ/L1 though, Trained him to be DM and getting to ML role)
WING Snodgrass
MRC/DM/AMR/DR Emmanuel Sarki (Trained and mainly employed as Right Wing but has served me well as DM or DR when I had injuries in those areas)
MR Max Noble (Didn't develop as well as I wanted him to, Reserve/Backup)
AMC Daniel Pacheco
ST Beckford
ST ***** Topp
ST Becchio (Trying to sell him for 2 seasons)

So just a few questions:

1) How does Beckford and ***** Topp perform in EPL? I noticed that although Yattabare was really good (banging in 2 goals per game) at the start of the Champ season, I think the AI Managers adapted to him and he got slowed down on the goals around mid season despite the team that I was playing and then Topp and Beckford started banging goals like crazy when I put them back in as main starters for the 2nd half of the season. So I would like to rotate STs alot just to keep the AI guessing. Since I don't really trust Owen's glass legs to last long, I would like to know if these two can stand up to the spotlight or should I shell out for another ST with the 8mil pounds I have left?

2) Should I go for change to a totally defensive tactic in the EPL? I've been playing attacking football (GoalGalore) and semi-conservative football in tough fixtures (4-5-1) in L1 and Champ but after a huge 5-0 smackdown by Chelsea in the FA cup with pretty much the same team I have now (Minus Owen, Adriano, Balletti, Bouma, Regen DC, Jääskeläinen), I'm really worried that my goals for won't be able to cover my concededs now that I'm in the top tier level.

3) From experience, how many seasons would you think it would take for my team to challenge the top 4? I got 19mil to spend on my first season in the EPL (although I cut that down a bit to cover the wages of the famous bosman signings) and I would think I would be getting around 10mil mark each season from here on.

I have about 8mil pounds left so I can bring in one more quality player if needed although with my 6 new signings already, I'm worried about them gelling together at this point. I'm really interested in signing Adler but I really didn't want to spend most of my 19mil at the start of the season for a GK.

 

[radoica]

I am in my third Leeds season,also first season in EPL.Here are my advices for you:
1)Beckford isn`t good enough for Premiership,he plays for me as a backup for Cristaldo(great player,you should try to sign him).Also you can buy these players,they are good in my team:Amr Zaki,Marko Arnautovic and Mike Hanke(free at the begining of 3rd season)
2)I made 2 tactics, Home and Away.Home is 4-1-2-1-2(narrow diamond),with control and press more instructions.Away is with counter and direct passing instructions.I am currently 7th in Premiership,and here is my team:
GK Fulop
DR Diogo(Bandalovski)
DL Parker(Dodo)
DC M.Addison(Kryvtsov)
DC Verkhovtsev(Jorgensen)
DM Aguillar(Gosling)
MC Shelvey(Nainngolan)
MC Biglia(Howson,Fathi)
AMC Adu(Fleck,Randall)
ST Zaki(Hanke,Arnautovic)
ST Cristaldo(Beckford)

3)I think that,if you spend your money wisely,you could break in top 4 next season
I hope I helped you

 

[cluffy84]

Hi guys,

I'm also Leeds and easily won League 1, struggled in my first season in the CCC just avoiding relegation. Now in my 3rd season and struggling mid-table. My home formation is 4-4-2 and away is 4-1-3-2. It's just annoying as I keep conceding in the first 5 mins. I'm losing games 2-1 or 1-0. I have £5.35m to spend and a wage budget of £27.05k still available to spend. If there are any transfer tips I'm all ears!!

Snodin (my asst) left and went to Birmingham at the end of my League 1 season, so I brought in Archie Knox. I think he made the players feel uneasy so I sacked him at the end of my second season and brought in Tomas Turesson. He handles everything 100% better.

My team:
GK Asmir Begovic (Craig Halloway - cheap cover)
DR Peter Ramage (Jan Kromkamp)
DL George Elokobi (Danny Grainger/Ben Parker)
DC Patrick Kisnorbo (Leigh Bromby)
DC Danny Shittu
DMC Nadjim Abdou (Neil Kilkenny/Lee ***)
MC Bradley Johnson (Freddie Ljungberg)
MC Jonathan Howson (Mika Vayrynen)
MC Mark Randall (Robert Snodgrass)
ST Javier Chevanton (Luciano Becchio)
ST Jermaine Beckford (Marlon Harewood)

When I play 442 I have Snods on the left and Freddie on the right. We should be class at crosses but my asst feedback is forever telling me our crosses are off target. Banging my head against a brick wall and can't get a decent run going. Ruddy annoying.

 

[kane3]

Thanks for the advice.

I'm currently 7 games in the prem, having a decent string of results.

2-0 vs West Brom
1-5 vs Chelsea (ouch)
2-1 vs Birmingham
2-0 vs Man City
0-0 vs Hull
1-3 vs Liverpool
1-1 vs Arsenal

I still use the goal galore and created a defensive 4-2-1-2-1 (modified from my 4-1-2-2-1). I might look into Cristaldo as it seems Owen hasn't been living up to my hopes. He's good as smashing the smaller teams I that got from League cup but seem to fail against prem teams. Jussi Jääskeläinen has been awesome despite the conceeds. Could have lost by more without him. I have pretty much gone backwards by fielding my strongest team against the weaker teams to make sure I can grab as many points and fielding a weaker team against the top teams. Verratti and Daniel Pacheco do quite well rotating with each other. I feel that I need a natural winger on the right. Max Noble is not cutting it even when fairly developed. Sarki is inconsistant and not a natural winger. Howson does well there but is not good enough being highly regarded by my Leeds staff.

I think I'll be making some signings of decent established players while my future prospects develop.

Update:
2-2 Sunderland
1-1 West Ham

9 games, 3 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses. Not to bad for relegation battlers.
---------- Post added at 09:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:01 AM ----------

Cluffy, try getting Andrea Raggi. I got him for 190k. His technical and mental stats are similar to Ramage but has better physical. I paid 190k and half a season later he's worth 4.7mil.
Darnel Situ if you want to invest in some young potentially good players. He's more of a stopper type that's relatively slow (11 pace 10 accel) but his other stats are decent for defending and can get better. Cost 1.5mil.

Renan - Sao Paolo. Cost 180k. More than Decent DM. Can mark, pass and is physically strong. Can be a good CM or a deeplying playmaker DMC if you lack creativity in mid players.

You are 3 seasons in, so I would imagine Verratti being a bit steeper in price but go for him too his price haven't become bank breaking yet.

Kilkenny (although I had him as a DMC for most of the L1), won't cut it as a DMC in CCC and Prem. His marking is relatively low an his speed is kinda slow. He's much better as a CM at this point.

Massimiliano Tagliano cost me 325k and is a good centerback. Strong and decent speed. Good heading and Marking and decent tackling. Can play DM and DC quite well but bad at passing so if you play him as dm, try to train him for simple pass and set passing to short. Bad at dribbling. He more of an anchorman in mid.

I think your crosses are off target only because there hasn't been a big man in front to connect to them. Consider playing Becchio as a starting ST just for his heading and set to target man. Rotate Beckford and Chevanton and Beckford. what striker setting combinations are you using?

 

[Jamees]

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