Almost ready to go shopping!

But not quite ready. What you should have learned so far is:

• What kind of players you are looking for. And why!
• How you can separate players with identical skills
• Find players that are close to pop and skip the ones that arent

What remains then? Lets go bidding for players already!

Unfortunately there are some things you need to know before you do. Mainly stars, stamina and form.

Stars

For every match any one player plays 90 full minutes, a star will represent how well that player performed. This is based on his skills and what position he played. The same player will (probably) not perform the same as a forward as a midfielder, because his skills are more suitable for one or another position. The more stars he recieves the better he played. beware that the star system in hattrick does not take notice of the opponent. One player will play as well against a crappy team as against a world class team. Also goals or assists have no influence to the number of stars. I have had players scoring 5 goals in a match, and still “only” recieve two stars.  It represent the contribution the player gave in a game. As with TSI, stars can be used to compare players, if they have similar skills. Note however that a inner midfielder who plays defensively can perform better than of the player played offensively.

Why are some stars grey and some yellow?

Haha, you noticed that did you? Well the total number of stars represent how well he really did. The yellow stars represent how well he contributed at the end, depending on the stamina. So the gray more or less show you the performance loss during the match due to lack of stamina skill. This is one of the reasons I have told you to search for players with passible or solid stamina.

What to use stars for?

• Comparing identical players in one position
• Comparing one player playing in different positions (you do this all the time in the youth team!)
• Looking at how good a player can be if he is playing at his maximal potential
• Give you a glimse of how well the player is performing at the moment

What not to use stars for?

• Compare the teams total stars against another teams total stars
• Comparing players who have played in different positions
• Directly figure out how good a player is (he might be better in another position, or with better form/stamina)

Alltid Hattrick

Alltid is integrating with hattrick, and can show you the history of the player. Every match the player has played is shown with the number of stars the player recieved. Compare this to his form and look out for players with many stars and high TSI, but low form. These can be hidden jewels for you.

Form

Hattrick isnt very random. Actually the lack of random may also be one of their strengths. But form, thats a bit random. And the good thing is, form is very important. It waries from wretched to excellent. Form will affect a couple of things:

1. The TSI will drop/increase significantly with changes to form
2. The matchreating and player contribution in a match is heavily dependent on form

In order to make solid chaiced on the transfermarket, you need to know about what form does. A lot of hattrick managers have a natural understanding about form actually. The player price will often be alligned with the players potential, not his current form. But if you are in need of player that will contribute right away, players with weaker form than passable are a waste of time.  it takes a long time for form to increase. When you are buying a player lower than solid (and I check for solid and excellent form players as well), you need to check his playing history (Alltid link) to see if the players form in dropping or increasing. You will try to sell your traineed/players after a maximum of 4 weeks if all else fails. If his form has dropped 2-3 levels, you wont get as much revenue. Maybe he wont even be playable, because of his low TSI. Players with similar skills and higher form will have higher TSI, and therefore be more attractive, as they can contribute more immediately.  And also because people arent as smart as you will be. Most people use the transfer compare tool and look at TSI vs salesprice. Most disregard the the fact that there is a reason why form is listed there at all. Its just for that reason; it indicates how good a player is at the moment, and what his actual potential will be.

Low form; an oportunity!

You dont need players to contribute now. You need to earn cash. Players with weak, inadequate or even passable form, and have just increased from lower form can give you a TSI boost quite fast with him popping as well. So you can use this to your advantage. Bear in mind that player form increase or decrease is random.

Background form

Skills have subskills, form has background form. The background form is the potential of a playerform at the moment, and a players form will move towards this backgroundform either you want it to or not. So if you have a player with solid form and wretched background form, his form will slowly decrease to wretched. its a sad thing really. Form never changes directly, its always floating towards that background form. And when the background form changes, thats random.

Form summary

The thing I have been trying to explain here is this. if you purchace a player which form has changed lately, there is a fair chance he will contine to flow in that direction. If he is decreasing you have no idea if he is on his way from solid to wretched or solid to passable. So dont test your luck. Buy players with a steady form for a long time, or players that have recently increased his form rating. Chances are it will increase even more, and thatws your bonus. If he doesnt, well you lost nothing. but it is always a gamble no matter who you buy, the background form might randomly change drasticly to the better or worse. No one knows.

NB! Players who play regularly will increase faster and loose form more slowly than players that do not play.

Stamina

In the same way that form affects the number of stars and TSI, stamina does the same. But its not as random. And can be increased more easily with training. You you keep your stamina at 14-15% players under the age of 24 will have passible to excellent stamina throughout the season. (This is a good page about stamina levels: http://www.hattricknews.org/stamina-study-what-percentage-is-needed-to-retain-stamina/) But a low stamina does affect the TSI alot. So if a youngster has a low TSI because of low stamina (weak or inadequate), he will probably increase within a couple of 3 weeks anyway and you will recieve that TSI bonus to your advantage when trying to sell him. If he doesnt increase, well you at least didnt loose anything.

If he decreases; well then you are not following my advice :)