Buckling up for the inflation rollercoaster

One of the few advantages of not being able to log in much at the
moment is that it gives me more time for cool reflection on strategy
and future direction. I've got a few ideas for further developments in
the game which I may well post on here next week. But in the meantime
I've been pondering team strategy.

Those who have followed this blog from the start will recall my
original strategy was not to have much of a strategy for the first few
years, to see where I came out in the wash and then to implement a
longer-term plan. But that idea has been blown out of the water by
what has happened. Firstly the team has done much better than I dared
expect, and secondly when I investigated the GW finances I found that
lots of cash will be flowing in to the GW over the next few years
without many new ways to spend it. To me this must equal inflation,
and we're starting to see it already in Voller, with prices of player
transfers rising. Yes there was the infamous £3.25m deal, but there
have been lots of other transfers too. As other managers see prices
rising they demand more. A manager who wanted 500k on Saturday for a
striker I was chasing was demanding 750k by yesterday. And as other
managers see their finances graph looking like a healthy green take-
off path they become more willing to pay these raised prices

I think this trend will continue for 3 seasons now, as each year prize
money rises and teams have more cash to spend. It may be worst in
season 2 because wage demand rises will also start to kick in during
the following seasons, but I think it will continue as those wage
rises may well not be as big as the prize money increases. The problem
is likely to be particularly acute at the top end of the market as the
prize money increases will be greatest there.

This trend will only stop after Season 4 or 5 when prize money stops
rising year on year and the seriously big wages kick in. At that point
I think we might even see some temporary deflation - particularly at
the top end of the market where the biggest wage rises will come -
until things calm down and the economy settles in to a long term trend
of low inflation.

I plan to collect data on this in the coming months and see if my
projections prove correct. More of that in a later post...

In the meantime, what does this mean for team strategy? Well, it means
now is the time to buy! With inflation on the way, provided you don't
go crazy now your investment is likely to be worth it as player values
and prize money rise. I paid the 750k for that striker and don't
regret it - he's 24 so just coming in to his prime and already 15+ in
half a dozen key atts, and 12+ in pretty much everything else that
matters. And he's on less than 8k wages with 2 seasons left on his
contract. I predict he'll be worth £1m+ in a season's time. I hope to
add a couple more players soon too - a DM and a LB are top of the list.

The key then will be to pick the right moment to stop buying and start
saving. You don't want to do this too soon, or you'll see other teams
improving faster than you on and off the field. But you really don't
want to do it too late, or you'll find you're still in debt with wage
demands rising and a need to sell players - only your players are now
worth less than they were a few weeks before. The smartest managers
will have actually started saving a while before that point, and have
built up a warchest that will allow them to pick off some of these
cheap buys and take their team on even further.

So I think my conclusion is the following:
- Season 2: Buy buy buy, pushing the overdraft to the limit.
- Season 3: Clear the debt from S2 and start the investment process,
getting cash in to the stadium to yield rewards later.
- Season 4: finish stadium investments and start building the warchest.
- Season 5: keep building the warchest until the market turns and then
cash in.

Sounds simple doesn't it. Of course it won't be. But from the evidence
I think it's the logical approach to take. Jakswan is in the same GW
as me and as an inflation sceptic plans to take a more conservative
approach, so it will be interesting to compare which works best.

Virgin Media ruined my season!

Ok so that's not strictly true, but since when has the truth got in
the way of any self-respecting FML manager explaining their reasons
for losing ;)

My Internet has been down for 3 days so I hadn't been able to log in
until I made it to Starbucks this afternoon and managed to spin out a
large Americano for 90 mins or so whilst I caught up! When I logged
on, I found that all the top sides in the division had finished their
seasons and that we were sitting 6th, 12 points behind the leaders
with 4 games to go. With our GD 4 wins would probably have made us
champions, but two horrific defending mistakes against the 3rd place
side later and it was all over. Two tame draws followed and now with 1
game to go we're guaranteed a 4th place finish.

If you'd offered me 4th at the start of the season I'd have bitten
your hand off - higher qualifiers for the second season, a rep boost
and just shy of £2m in the bank is fantastic news! But given that I
topped the division for a time at the weekend and was still in with a
shout of the title today I ended up feeling quite disappointed. I
guess the best analogy is perhaps Liverpool fans in the 2008-09
season: a good finish (certainly compared to this season ;) but a
feeling it could have been so much more.

Setting aside Virgin Media, it's clear that my main problem has really
been spells of bad form at crucial times. 6 games without a win last
week knocked us right backwards just when we looked like mounting a
serious assault on the top spot, and bottling it today stopping us
breaking in to the top 3. Jakswan wrote a very interesting post on
form last week (not sure how to post a link as I'm on my iPhone but
there should be one on the bar to your right) in which he essentially
argued form is cyclical because as the team wins more and more games
they become more and more confident in a virtuos cycle until they get
over-confident and lose a few, then they start to panic and lose some
more in a vicious cycle until they grind out a win and start the
virtuous cycle again.

So perhaps the key is to focus on grinding out a win - any kind of win
- when things are going badly. In this scenario defensive tactics and
low creative freedom to cut out silly mistakes would be the order of
the day. And then as things start to improve gradually allow your team
to express themselves more and play more attacking football. I don't
know if that will work, but it's a theory I intend to try out if I run
into bad form again next season.

In the meantime, i'm going to stick to blaming my ISP... I don't think
even Sir Alex Ferguson has come up with that one before ;)

Countering the 4-1-2-3

Much trauma on the official forums yesterday about the "overpowering"
effect of the narrow 4-1-2-3 formation, with teams playing through the
middle running rampant on some servers. There are the usual demands
that this is terrible and the ME needs to be corrected immediately etc
etc.

I think this is an over-reaction. Yes 4-1-2-3 is possibly slightly
favoured by the current ME, but there are two big buts:

Firstly, we are currently all playing in teams with not very good
technical and mental players. Physical stats (which these teams are
built around) are therefore dominating. As we get better teams with
smarter players coming through I think they'll adapt better and the
formation will lose it's impact.

Secondly, it is possible to counter this formation, and I suspect many
aren't getting it quite right. Like any tactic the counter is not
perfect, but I've had some success with it. And since I've benefitted
from community help in countering previously "overpowered" tactics I
thought it only fair to share my thoughts this time...

(I usually play a wide 4-2-3-1 (so with AMR/AMC/AML) but I'm fairly
sure this can work with any "wide" formation ie two players on the
left and two on the right.)

As always when trying to counter something you need to look at it's
strengths and it's weaknesses.

The main strength of this tactics are:
(a) Three central midfielders (1xDM, 2xMCs) means they can dominate
the centre of the park. You can play a wide 4-3-3 to counter this
whilst retaining your own width but I don't think it's strictly
necessary. What is important if you don't though is that you tone down
your midfielders' closing down (at the very least do not use the
Hassle Opponents shout) as a good trio will be able to just pass and
move round your two. The one exception to this might be if you see the
opposition has one player who is weaker on the ball (first touch in
particular) in which case you might want to use a specific OI to see
if you can nab it off them sometimes. Otherwise your aim here is not
to stop them but to hold them up and crucially cut off their passing
lanes. Remember they are going to be looking to pass through the
centre 90%+ of times so if your MCs sit back they can cut out these
passing lanes and leave your opponents stuck going nowhere in the
middle of the park.
(b) Three forwards can overrun your two DCs. Counter this using a
specific marking system. Set your RB to specifically mark their FCL
(tight yes), your LB to specifically mark their FCR (tight yes) and
one of your CBs to specifically mark their FCC (tight yes). Then set
your other DC - preferably the one with better pace and positioning -
to zonal marking, tight no. Although you don't play him in the
position or the role he effectively acts as a sweeper, mopping up when
one of the forwards breaks away from their man marker.

This should tie up the middle nicely but the chances are the
opposition will still look to find at least a little width. In my
experience this will probably come from their full-backs. If so,
counter this by giving your wingers specific marking instructions
against their full backs. However you should set tight marking to no,
when your side gets the ball you don't want your wingers right next to
their full-backs as this will stifle your own attack. Some on the
forums have said they've seen the width provided by the two MC's
breaking out. I've not come across this but logically the best
response would be to set your MC's to man marking so that they'll go
with them.

So that's their strengths hopefully contained for the most part. What
about their weaknesses? Well clearly their big weakness is in the wide
areas, but in my experience just using the 'play wider' shout doesn't
really cut it. Two other methods I've found work better.

One is using a counter strategy and the 'Exploit the flanks' shout.
Basically this works on the idea that if their full-backs join the
attack they have no defensive cover down the wings at all, so your
wingers can get in to these gaps. Using the 'run with ball' shout or
just setting your wingers to run with the ball more will help exploit
this fully.

However if you're not playing a counter strategy I've found 'exploit
the flanks' less useful. I think this is because your attack is longer
in the buildup their full-backs have had time to re-position
themselves before your wingers get on the ball. So if you're not
playing counter using the 'look for overlap' shout is a better bet
here, because by bringing your own full backs in to play you are
doubling up against their full backs, giving you maximum chance of
securing a good cross in. Of course you then need a good headerer to
get on the end of it so a tall FC with good jumping is a big boost here.

And so there you have it. As I say it's not perfect, and I have still
lost to a 4-1-2-3 narrow playing this way. But with this setup I think
you have no more to fear from the 4-1-2-3 than from any other formation.

Hope it proves useful. Let me know in the comments how you get on.

Hate to say I told you so...

Sorry for the lack of updates this past week. Whisper it but as I have been busy in real life, I haven't had much time to log in. This is clearly a horrendous crime for which I must be punished, and if SI's previous policies of docking money and relegating teams for having their AI play for them didn't work it can only be because they aren't tough enough. Perhaps a knock on my door in the dead of night from Marc Duffy and Ov Collyer carrying a plank of 2x4 would do the trick better...

Even when I have managed to log on though, things have not been going well. It appears my prediction in my last post that things were bound to take a turn for the worse was at least half right. It happened, but not because of a run of injuries as I expected, just a horrific run of form. We couldn't find the net consistently for ages and ages and then when we broke out and scored 3 in one game, our previously best in the division defence went and conceded 4. We're now winless in 6 league games.

Now with 11 games to go in the league season we're sitting in an uneasy 9th, and although we have games in hand most of our remaining matches are (a) away from home, and (b) against top sides so it's not going to be easy. I think maybe it's time to roll the dice and bring in a new player. I haven't found the right one yet, but I'm on the hunt...

Still really enjoying the season though. The truth is, as Jordan Cooper said on the new gameworld one podcast that FA matches now feel like they matter. When I win I'm delighted, when I lose I get cross. I'm now re-considering my strategy with 11 games to go in the season - do I hold back or take a risk with my budget? This is how the game ought to be. Long may it continue. Just please let my poor run of form stop soon!

So far so good...

Hope I'm not tempting fate by posting this but things are looking pretty good right now. In the TFA Qualifying League D (which was called Qualifying League 4 until it was changed the other day for no apparent reason!) we have now P21, W11, D5, L5. Lots of the matches have been pretty tight and a couple of those wins were rather lucky, but then a couple of the defeats were pretty unlucky too. Latterly though we've broken out and have won a couple of games by three goal margins. We're in 7th place in the league but have games in hand on all the sides above us, and on projected points (not necessarily a reliable guide!) we're joint top!

After last week's discussion about the amount of prize money on offer in Season 1 I did think about spending big to try to claim a top 5 finish, but I'm holding off for now because it looks like we might just get there anyway. There is a little cash in the bank though if things start to head south.

So all in all feeling pretty good. Surely it can't be long before something goes wrong?! I'm just waiting for that 25 match injury...

Number Crunching the RevSaint's prophecy

By far the most interesting thread on the official forums over the Easter weekend has been this one started by RevSaint.

In essence the "deal" of the new income system (with a greater focus on official competition performance) is as follows: the top teams *can* earn a lot more than the bottom sides, BUT
1 - they will have higher wages to go with this, so will have to live on the edge financially
2 - there will be fairly steep drops in prize money at the top end, so a bad season will see your team earn a lot less the next year, and given point 1 this may lead to you having to sell players and dropping back down the rankings
3 - gameworlds will be low inflation environments so the teams who do well early will not see their assets increase in value so fast that 1 & 2 are irrelevant.

Some of RevSaint's critics seem to think he doesn't like this "deal" but my impression from his posts are that he does, but he thinks the way the start of a gameworld is now structured is not going to allow the deal to function properly. In particular, the teams who do well in the first season will get so much more prize money than the others that they'll quickly be out of sight. Let's look at some numbers on each of these three points to see if he's right...

1 - Higher Wages
It's hard to say whether this will be true, because some of the best players are yet to be unlocked, and we haven't had the first round of contract renewals yet. From looking at the wage auctions from the players who have been unlocked in Voller so far, it seems the average wage paid out is around twice their base wage demand. But I really don't want to stress too much on this because it's simply too soon to say - the other two points will be much better indicators...

2 - A danger of falling backwards quickly
This really isn't going to happen much in the qualifying seasons. Winning a season 1 qualifying league = £2.2m. Even if you come last in the season 2 qualifying league I believe you're in for about £1.8m. So 90%+ of the top teams will receive more in prize money during season 3 (from their season 2 performance) than they do during season 2 (from their season 1 performance). And given that any newly unlocked player signing in season 2 is likely to have fixed (one-off) costs of 400k (AQ fee plus signing on fee), this means that provided that your projection with the new signing's wages included looks fine in season 2 it will also be fine in season 3, regardless of how badly your team does. So you can afford to push the boat out in season 2 with no risk at all. And if you do push the boat out you'll be able to price the weaker teams out of the wage auctions.

3 - A low inflation environment
Ok this is where we get really mathematical. Inflation of player prices will occur if more money flows in to the GW (through prize money, stadium income etc) than flows out of it (through wages, stadium investment, academy investment, AQ fee signings on free agents etc).

Incoming: In the first season the 1000 teams in a GW each receive 400k in prize money, so there is total of about £400m flowing in. However, each of the season 1 qualifying leagues has a total of £2.75m prize money per 20 teams. So 50 of these leagues for 1000 teams means that prize money flowing in next season will be £1.375bn (£1375m), an increase of £975m over season 1. In addition there will be small rises in stadium and general income to go with the rises in team rep, although I estimate these will be fairly small increases from looking at the miniscule increase in stadium income that comes from being a Level 5 rep team as opposed to Level 1. For the sake of round numbers let's say this increase will be £25m, bringing us to a total of £1bn (£1000m) extra flowing in to the season 2 economy. So unless an equivalent amount then flows out of the economy we're going to see inflation.

Outgoing: A big source of outgoing money will be the players who are unlocked in Season 2 - AF's, signing fees and wages will all flow out of the GW economy. So I took a look at the players due to be unlocked in Voller during Season 2. Their combined acquisition fees come to £96.7m (leaving transfer neg skills to one side for a minute since I don't know how many people hold them). If every player goes for their contract wage demand this will be a further £122.8m flowing out of the economy in signing on fees and wages. This brings us to a total of just £219.5m. In a more realistic scenario where these unlocked players go for twice their wage demand, we're still only looking at around £350m flowing out. So where does the other £650m outgoing come from? Increased wages? Yes, a little, but given that teams have such low reps in season 1 player rep isn't going to rise that fast so I'm guessing wage rise demands will be modest. Stadium expenditure? Yes, a little, but given that with Rep 5 you only need a few hundred more seats than with Rep 1 I can't see many teams spending big here. Youth Academies? Yes, a little, but there are already *loads* of YA's in Voller so many will not see it as a good investment, and in any case many teams don't have the ability to build more than one. Unless wage increases are much bigger than I have anticipated, I just can't see where we're going to get to the £1bn of outflows from.

And if we don't, particularly if we miss by a long way - the scourge of inflation will haunt the new gameworlds in the way it did the old. I have no issue with the teams that do well in season 1 being in pole position to sign the top newly unlocked players in season 2 (heck I hope to be one of those sides myself!), but if those players' values immediately skyrocket those teams' assets are going to increase by far more than the £1.2m differential in season 1 prize money between the best and worst sides. Hopefully this won't be forever; when the full tiers begin and the top rep teams start to see massive wages, they should be pulled back a little. But by then they top teams will be well ahead, and probably sitting on good size cash reserves. So I think we're talking about at least five seasons down the road. Will other managers stick around that long to wait? History suggests they won't.

He may be called RevSaint, but his prophecy of doom may yet be spot on...

New Injury System: Right but too soon

Progress in the last few days has been encouraging - through to the
3rd round of the TFA cup and 7 points out of a possible 9 in the
league. But now we have hit our first injury crisis, with 3 of the
regular back 4 and one of our wingers all out, so the next few games
will be tough.

In general I'm trying not to complain because I believe the new injury
system is on the whole a good thing. Before there were too few
injuries and as they were time based when you got them the best
strategy was just to log out and wait for them to go away. Now that
injuries are match based this is no longer an option - you are forced
to suck it and see what happens with your reserves for a while.

The new system adds several additional areas of strategy to the game
(always welcome in my view). Will you build a good-sized squad of
solid players or risk a few superstars but not much depth? Will you
use up one of your two skill specialisations on physio to minimise
injuries and recovery times? These are good strategic questions but...

In the first season the strategy of squad size is not really an
option. You simply don't have enough money to build a big squad so you
have - at least to an extent - to go small and risk it. And since
every team is roughly the same standard, having to bring in your 17y/o
youth who's never played senior games before can be the difference
between a win and a loss. So my concern is that whilst the system is
good in the longer run, for a manager's first season or two there is
too much luck and too little strategy involved. Yes if you carried
over bonus skill points there is still some strategy in terms of
whether to spend them on physio or not but this only tackles half the
problem, and in any case new managers joining in future won't have
this luxury.

So whilst I think the new injury system is good I think we need its
provisions to be phased in for new teams. Something like one-third the
normal chance of picking up an injury in a manager's first season in a
GW, and two-thirds the normal chance in their second season might help
managers bed in more smoothly and make it less the luck of the draw.

Otherwise full marks for the new system - despite the effect it's
having on my team!