The players you want on your team
You willing to read through some newbie's crackpot ideas on how to find the best players based on what I have observed in my two season long career and on what i read in this forum? Willing to give me some feedback and gently nudge me back in the right direction? Just thought I would warn you before you started reading this boring post. :)
The players you want on your team are the ones who play the best. No kidding, right? But this is not as straightforward as it sounds. The players who play the best get the highest forms. Quality/stars is everyone's favorite player attribute, but it is only a good indicator of form when comparing two players with a large difference in stars. Generally it can be expected that a six star player will get a higher form than a two star player. However when the star gap is smaller, stars/quality are not an indicator of which player will have better form. At these levels form seems to be independent of quality, so that a two or three star player that is high form can play a game with all four and five star players and still get a form of 8. This is the high form player you want on your team and the only way to tell if you have one is to look at their past forms. Unfortunately most of the players on the transfer market are new and have no form history to check out. Who would sell a high form player? So the way I have been looking for players is by trial and error. Hire, do they play well in a couple games, no? sell and try again. Unfortunately this eats up tokens.
It is unfortunate for us that the primary characteristic that we desire in our players is not indicated by any attribute visible in the transfer market. Or is it? There are some who claim that there are characteristics that indicate a higher probability of getting a high form player. I have read on this board that either being listed under preferred foot is one of these higher probability characteristics. I have not seen enough players to make any claim on whether this is true. Do you have any opinion on whether it is true? Or do you have any other characteristics that lead you to high form players?
Despite being in the dark about which transfer list players are high form, there are characteristics that tell us whether we will be able to keep the player for a long period of time should we happen to stumble across a keeper. These are speed of training, age, and quality/stars. Assuming you advance a level every season, your players lose a star. Once your players become 2 stars and then 1 star (are there 0 star players? lower than 0?), the star gap between the high form player and your league becomes large enough that a high form player gets lower forms. Is this true? I would think it would have to be. Low age, high training speed, and high quality/stars all delay the arrival of this overwhelming star gap by helping you in the star race.
First if a player can train fast enough to keep pace in the star race (a star per season) or even faster, they are able to maintain an adequate star level for as long as they can maintain this training speed. It seems to be generally accepted that transfer market value or price is an indicator of training speed. I have not found this to be true, but maybe I do not have enough data or the claim is only about a higher probability.
Age is an indicator of whether a player is at their career max training speed and how long they will be able to maintain their current training speed. Every couple of years a player's training speed takes a significant decline, so that old players train much more slowly than they did in their youth. This means that targeting young players is beneficial because if you happen to find a high form player who is also a fast trainer, being younger means that they will be able to maintain the training speed longer, and therefore race the star gap for a longer time, and therefore stay on your team a couple more seasons.
Finally a high quality, while not indicating high form, does give your player a head start on the star race and can keep you player on your team for a couple more seasons.
So in conclusion you look for players in the transfer market who are young and high quality because if they happen to be high form players and maybe even a fast trainer they will be able to stay on your team longer than if you get an older, lower quality high form player.
This whole post sounds pretty dumb because the conclusion (who wouldn't want young, high quality players?) seems obvious , but please give me some feedback on my reasoning. I would like to learn more on the subject.
Thanks for replies.
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Let the better team on the day WIN!
There are league leading teams with just old players. Obviously this is not the rule.
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I will find older player teams like this leading the table more often than a team with a average age of 20/21 leading their tables. They are not 7/8 stars old guys, but purchased off the transfer list, I believe with a proven track history.
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I something keep a track of sold players, maybe I miss them or just to see if I made a BIG mistake letting them go. I add my sold player onto the Negotiations list, or look them up in my game history. You will be surprised what you learn from your sold players. It will change whom you let go of and which ones stay.
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A Norman Ali, was average still is average to me, I sold him because of his AGE, but someone else appreciates him more I'm glad, I trained up a useful player to someone.
Well the whole point of my reply was to say, I think your post was great, not too long winded for me, (I can just see the rest of the posting board laughing, because I'm Mr long winded!).
The purpose of us posting here are many, sharing, get help and helping. The list goes on... NOT JUST VENTING!
I'm just amazed at the different ways people use to get themselves shiny trophies with handles! No magical formula at all, OLD team, young team, solid counter formations, make no sense formations,,, blah blah blah.
I say "JUST PLAY!" let the better team on the day WIN!
Good post, peace.
