Promotion, and my strategy

I promoted this season. My league was quite weak and I managed to win all my matches without a problem. So now im moving up and will face better teams, better players, and more importantly more active managers. I will continue to play 3-5-2. So what is my strategy?

Initial thoughts

I know that to have a fair chance of a good table position I need to do three things:

1. Reach a new playmaking level
2. Be more efficient, and score as often as I can in the chances I produce
3. Be able to stop as many opponent chances as possible

A new playmaking level

This point is fairly easy. I need better players, with higher playmaking skills. So I have to replace most of my midfield. With my 3-5-2 formation strategy I will need 1 extremely good midfielder. Probably an older chap (25+). I will preferably get one with high experience (solid or better). I will try to keep 2 “semi trainees” which will improve fairly quick over the course of the season, 19-23 year olds. I will also try to get a winger with fairly high winger skill and semi high playmaking skill aged 19-22, and play him towards middle to help win the midfield. He will also improve during the course of the season, however not as rapidly. One winger will however be a very good wing skill to support the attack with high experience.

This would give me a fair chance of having a good central midfield, and with it be forced to play “Attack in the Middle” if I succeed.

Becomming more efficient

Last season I had a 71% efficiency on my attacks, and now I will face even better defenders. I also had 12 set pieces chances last season, with an efficiency of 75%. The set pieces chances are very important I think so one of my players must be extremely good. My attackers also needs to be replaces as most chances end up at their feet.

However, in order to make it easier to score for any player in front of goal, I need the level of passing improved drastically. This is why I need good passing skills for most of the midfielders I bring in. Maximum one or two levels lower than the main skill. I will therefore not choose midfielders with high defending skills, in order to appont more force into my attacking game.

Stopping chances

I will need 2 new defenders as well. I have only 3 (in a 3-5-2 formation), and these must be able to play both as central defenders or wingbacks each match, depending on the strengths of my opponents attackers. They have to be even better now that I focus less on the defence skill of my midfielders. To even this up I will get a great goalkeeper. This way I keep some defensive balance, but hope to be more efficient than most of my opponents, and thus win some matches.

Captain

I need a new captain with high experience. I will combine this role with the set pieces taker and the last missing winger. He will be fairly old, a fallen star with high wingerskills only.

Lets see how it all works out.

Play friendlies, get the maximum out of trainings

Training in hattrick work like this:

1. You pick a skill you want to train
2. Players that have played in that position last week (between last training update and this one) will increase in skill
3. Some positions are fully compatible with one skillset, some are moderate compatible, some are not compatible
4. Different skills are harder to increase than others

This means in short tems, if you do not play friendlies, half of your potential training session goes to waste. So play friendlies every week. I know I repeat my previous posts, but this is important.

Training type analysis

Playmaking increases:Playmaking

Position	Effect	Minimum time
Inner midfielders	100%	8 weeks
Wingers	50%	16 weeks

Short passing increases:Passing

Position	Effect	Minimum time
Inner midfielders	100%	5,5 weeks
Wingers	100%	5,5 weeks
Forwards	100%	5,5 weeks

Through passes increases:Passing

Position	Effect	Minimum time
Defenders	100%	6,5 weeks
Inner midfielders	100%	6,5 weeks
Wingers	100%	6,5 weeks

I only mention these for now, as these are the ones important for the long time strategy of building midfielders.

Minimum time

I will get back to your staff shortly, but this indicates the least amount of time from one player increases in skill, till that same players increases again (which is called a pop in hattrick terms). But beware, all skills does not raise the value of the player in the same way. A player popping in playmaking will get you better revenue, than one popping in passing. Hence the difference in time, for balance.

It also assumes that your main coach has a solid training skill, that he has 9 assistants, and that the player is 17 years old. For each year older the player gets, the total time to pop increases by 8%. And the less good your trainer is, the slower they learn. So getting a solid coach will increase your revenue, but will be too costly the first season.

Skill level also matters when discussin pop’ing time. The general rule is this; the lower the current skill, the faster the player will improve. A study of this can be found at: http://www.home.no/frag2/trainingsystem.xls. If it doesn not make sense now, don’t worry. We will come back to training times and details in more detail later. (- Thanks to ErewashValley for imput.)

Summary

I have gone through how training works, who gets training, and at what effect. Now you know enough to look at getting some players which will take the least amount of time to pop. Cause thats where the money is.