I have been using this tactic myself without thinking it needed to be posted. Guess I probably should have.
I discovered early that the game will defer all points to SA, then positiion, and finally to skills. It can be a good thing in cases like this where you don't want the player to reach his next *
It can also be a pain when you want to decide how much to put into training SA/Pos vs skills. My GK has basically not advanced at all this season because he is still working on 1on1 stopping for example.
July, how on earth did you manage 15 cup wins. That is better than 1/3. Technically I am at 50% now but I won the first two seasons by drastically improving my squad after the draw. If I did that every season I would have to tear my team apart and rebuild too much for my taste.
I want to keep the core of my team together for 10 seasons or so but also compete in the cup. So far that is not working too well. I figure I can maybe win a 3rd next season by training the starters all from 6* at the start to 8-9* as fast as I can and hope I hang on the first round or two until I get them there........But you can't do that every season and it isn't a guarantee either.........I am holding that card to try for my 1st triple crown. I should have had that in season 2 but I got a really rough league draw and then trolled in the CL final making the cup my only silverware that season.
1st season I came in after it started and was very lucky to get a team that didn't get knocked out the first round. Then lucky again to escape the next two rounds while I figured the game out. After that I had made the side good enough to cruise the rest of the way. Season 2 I built the core of my team from Nordgen fast trainers mostly on day 1. I have added a couple more pieces since then and my star ST was actually signed at the end of season 1 on a random day reset where the game decided to dump a fast trainer ST on the market.
20/22 of my players are either Nordgen fast trainers or academy products. Only my FB's don't fit the mold. For some damn reason I can't get any of them to stick. The ones who play well are less valuable players I picked up randomly. I have a RB who I thought was one and had a great 1st season but fell apart this season. He lost his job and the replacement is worth about half as much but has got 8/8/7/8 ratings since taking over.
Here are my stats this season: