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22 attendance o;). Anyway a first win would be nice!!

I'd settle from a goal from open play! 1 goal in 3 games and that from a penalty. In fairness, I am being cautious - I want to build up the fitness and have the team gel a bit (due to the number of new players I'm bringing in), but I might need to be try a 10 minute spells of being more aggressive a bit earlier in the match.

Glasgow University up next - wonder how many stewed ants will turn up? ;)
 
Is there a limit to how low of a club you can manage? I mean is there any club that has one or two lonely souls who turn up for the game? I would love to start from the most deepest in financial troubles and etc to bring up a club to the first league and europe. I like games that will keep me entertained for at least 10-15 seasons
 
Lol, looking forward to it mate.
 
Is there a limit to how low of a club you can manage? I mean is there any club that has one or two lonely souls who turn up for the game? I would love to start from the most deepest in financial troubles and etc to bring up a club to the first league and europe. I like games that will keep me entertained for at least 10-15 seasons

It is possible to go even lower than the BSS level if you're willing to use the editor to activate even lower leagues. Worst attendances I've seen was 18 people for a friendly, away from home and between two clubs with terrible reputations. I don't think it gets much lower than that to be honest.

If you want a good challenge, just go for a terrible club in a badly ranked league (Welsh and Northern Irish can be good). The reputation/rankings of national leagues still don't change over time (afaik anyways) so creating a European dynasty at a club in one of the poorer ones can be very, very tough.
 
yeh it is. i had an attendance of 1 once!!!! it was in my own database in the game between Girvan and Burntisland Shipyard Reserves
 
Oh, against the big teams then... :p
 
Gah!!!! Pressed back on this page and it deleted my darned post!!!

So here's trying again...

Glasgow University and the lowest attendance so far for Aberystwyth Town. But also our first win - despite the students being favoured to win... (I mean - honestly? Even the first team? Bath Uni I could understand as they've had good runs in the FA cup... Glasgow though?!)

As the team still has a long way to go before gelling (plus the number of triallists I was playing), I kept it tight for 30 boring minutes. Then I went attacking and got two good goals from open play before half-time. Toned things down to control possession in the second half and caught them on the break. And late on, as they tired, I caught them again and got the penalty. Nice way to get a first win :) They did hit the crossbar (despite creating nothing) direct from a crossbar but it was one way traffic in this match.

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The post match report summed it up well:

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Next up was Bath (not the uni team either) at home. Oddly I was favourites for this, probably because of home advantage, but comparing the two teams it was pretty obvious that they were definitely a threat in a number of areas (my backroom advice was universally 'this team are better than you').

Bath also chose to play a 4-4-1-1 formation. Which is a bit of a problem for my 4-3-2-1 because the gap between my lone MC and my defensive line is quite big and gives any attacking AMC a lot of space. So to deal with that I turned to two ideas. First idea was to use the shout 'push up' all match. This reduces the amount of space between midfield and defence so the opposition AMC has much less room. The second was to neutralise the lone striker and allow my second DC to remain free to deal with the AMC if he ran with the ball. So I put their lone striker on Tight Mark, Easy Tackling (to stop him getting easy free kicks) and 'weaker foot' (so that if he does beat his marker, he's still got a lot to do to get in on goal). I also specifically man-marked him with my slower DC.

The first part of the match was a fairly dull affair, so I went from standard to control to put a bit of pressure on. Won a corner, and a lovely ball to the far post had my big, lumbering DC licking his lips. He hit the target. 1-0 up. Sorted. So I dialled things down a bit because no pace at the back means you're at risk of getting caught on the break.

Bath did manage to create one decent chance in the second half - a long ball forward which went over my defence, but their striker had to take a snapshot, so I'm not sure why it classed as a CCC. Although Bath dominated possession, it was mainly on the half-way line and so they were reduced to shooting from 30-40 yards. No real problem for my keeper at that range.

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Post-match report didn't do justice to a very efficient performance:

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The Welsh Trial matches have resulted in a few young strikers being spotted. So I'm hoping one or two of them might come on trial with me and I'll pick up a bargain or two. One of the names I recognise as being a former Premier League trainee...

Odds for the season have been announced, and the bookies agree with the board about us being a respectable mid-league side:

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---------- Post added at 05:10 AM ---------- Previous post was yesterday at 11:19 PM ----------

Last two friendlies and then a short break before the season starts...

So first up were Buckley away. Predicted to cane them, and I did. Just standard and then control when I was up worked a treat. The young striker who nicked a goal also signed for me, so here's hoping he'll prove to be of some use throughout the season. Not a lot to say really, although I am noticing that penalties are given fairly frequently in my favour at the end of matches - could just be a sign of last ditch tackling as my AMCs really tear defences up and have the defence all over the shop until someone gets played in for a goal-scoring chance.

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Note the possession stats for when I told my team to sit back a bit more. Possession means not a lot if you do nothing with it.

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Of course, the post-match report was glowing ;)

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The last friendly of the post-season was against Slough. Again, I was predicted to hammer them, but they were a tough nut to crack. And I wasn't able to do it. I was very conscious of not wanting to start the season on the back of a loss, so I did play it carefully - but having a penalty missed was really, really dispiriting as that would have forced them to come out and play at least a little bit. Just didn't break them down, and my cautious nature meant I didn't try as hard as I should have done in all honesty.

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The post-match report was flattering - it said I had 'chances' plural. In honesty, bar the penalty, I created not a lot.

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First match of the season is against The New Saints (aka TNS). Fierce rivals, away from home and who outgun us in almost every department!
 
First time iv seen a story like this and i like the look of it so il be following (y)
 
So the mighty TNS, arch rivals, tipped for the title and away from home. Fun. To add to the spice, I accidentally selected them as my tip for the title in the pre-match press conference. Didn't go down well with the players...

It was the sort of match which drives you crazy if it's your team which has lost...

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I played mainly on the break, and my goals both came from quick counter-attacks. TNS dominated totally in the air, their goal and the vast majority of their chances coming from corners. That's a concern really, so I might be looking to find a couple more big guys to help out with defending them - altering the default corner set-up might also be useful, as currently I leave three men up the pitch which means the penalty box isn't as crowded as it should be.

Still, dug in deep and pulled the win out in the end - an excellent result.

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Sadly the match was followed a couple of days later by a very, very flat performance in the Loosemore Cup against a Rhyl team I was predicted to flatten.

This cup competition starts as a mini-league before moving to the knock-out stages, so it wasn't a disaster not to win. But Rhyl had the better of the match and I couldn't break them down. They persistently fouled and harassed my central midfield and AMCs, and they were very lucky not to have anyone sent off. I probably went a little mad with creative freedom in this match - too much can be a bad thing as your players start thinking they're a lot better than they actually are and start trying to bend the ball into the net from 40 yards. Lesson learnt again about that.

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The guy doing the post-match summary must have been smoking something... Rhyl created nothing, did nothing and never looked likely to score.

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Next was Caersws in the league, another match I was predicted to win with ease.

Once again standard and control did the job. Although the team did take their foot off the gas at 2-0 up and conceded a truly dumb goal from a mistake by the right back (and yet another goal conceded in the air). Fortunately we hit the resurgent Caersws on the break to finish off the match with their centreback hauling down my player in the box to deny a clear goal scoring opportunity. Generally a decent performance although a couple of players didn't have good games.

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The post-match report praised our superior finishing, but in honesty this was a match we dominated and deserved to win by more than just two goals.

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This is a top story, top thread and good start to the season. Does i not get a bit tedious writing all that out though??
 
This is a top story, top thread and good start to the season. Does i not get a bit tedious writing all that out though??

Nah. But the problem is that I always seem to run into a game breaking bug or two. I've been struggling with the crash bug, and I forgot to save for two weeks during a session last weekend. Should have put on auto-save, should have remembered so in some ways just my own dumb fault.

So I went to replay the games from my last save, and then ran into a glitch with player contracts - essentially I've got several triallists who won't vanish and two who are signed but aren't available to my team to play. At this level of the game £500 a week of your wage bill is a fortune, I don't have the squad depth to just play other players, and they're both on three year contracts.

Kind of dispiriting, but I'm going to end this here and just not bother until patch 3 now. Might play a few seasons with Liverpool in the meantime and tinker with tactics.
 
i had that happen to. Sent players out on loan and they never came back lol
 
Sigh.

Check the dates please.
 
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