Martyn Drabik's Blog - Jan to Mar 16 (1 follower)

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Introduction

Codster asked about another month, so I'm writing it now. September has been and gone, so let's see how the teams line up.

End of September 2015

September had a few interesting games, but the league was interrupted by international fixtures and cup games. My favourite league game is this one between Leicester and Swansea, where the only notable stats were from various version of Jamie Vardy:



The league itself is still throwing surprises. The top 4 consist of Aston Villa (18 points), Stoke, Newcastle (both 16 points) and Leicester (13 points).

West Ham continue their awful ways by losing all 7 opening games of the season, conceding 22 goals in the process. They are joined in the bottom 3 by Sunderland, the only other team without a win, and Swansea.



Alexis Sanchez tops the scoring charts with 5, with six players on 4 (including two Joleon Lescotts and two Christian Eriksens). The same Alexis Sanchez is top of the assists table with 5 also, with Jamie Vardy, Ryan Shawcross and Moussa Sissoko behind with 4 assists.

Being top of the goals and assists charts has meant that Alexis Sanchez is also top of the player of the match charts with 3 awards, joint with Christian Eriksen, Moussa Sissoko and Leighton Baines.

For the average rating, Christian Eriksen is top with 8.03, ahead of Sergio Aguero (7.98), Sergio Aguero (7.92) and Juan Mata (7.92).

Two rounds of the Capital One Cup passed in September. I was expecting really high scoring games, as this would be the first time that these teams faced opposition that were able to field players in every position. Sadly, that was not the case.

In the second round, there were no Premier League casualties.



However, the same cannot be said about the third round, with Liverpool, Stoke, Sunderland, West Brom, Man City, Bournemouth and Watford all losing out. Only two of those were against teams from lower leagues.



The fourth round will only have teams from the top two divisions.



In case you're wondering how the changes affected the England National Team, here was their line up in their qualifier against Estonia. Ibe, Ravel Morrison, Stuart Downing, Jake Livermore, Thorne, Chalobah, Jenkinson... many of which could only hope of getting a cap. Six versions of Leighton Baines make the squad, with 4 Berahinos. England still qualified.



What about Hartlepool?

Hartlepool had another tough month, losing 3 of 5 league games. They did however win the other two, AND progressed to the next round of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy



Questions?

My questions for next month:
- Will West Ham ever win a game?
- Who will be the first manager to lose their job?
- Will a Championship team win the Capital One Cup?
- Are Aston Villa going to get a blood rush from being so far up the table?

TUNE IN TOMORROW (OR SOON AFTER)

I'm loving the strangeness in this so far.

Cheers,

drabik

Introduction

Woot! Thanks for your predictions yesterday. It will be interesting to see if anyone gets their predictions correct come the end of the season.

End of August 2015

Prior to starting the league season, I chose to watch the Community Shield in person to see how manager's might utilise their teams. The match was last year's league winners, Chelsea, versus the FA cup winners, Arsenal. Here are their line-ups.



With three goals in the opening 17 minutes, I thought this was going to be a ridiculously high scoring game, but it ended just 3-2 to Arsenal, but it was an entertaining game. One thing I noticed is that players were rotated throughout, so that the four versions of Hazard playing in defence were not playing there the whole game. They would be swapped with versions of Hazard in the attacking positions, limiting the reduced player rating.

Another thing that I noticed was that some players had hidden 'nicknames' or 'shirt names'. I eliminated some before starting the game, but apparently some slipped through the net; see Gabriel Paulista in Arsenal's team in the following image.



Either way, we have a fantastic season ahead of us!

Before the first week of fixtures, I had a look at the winning odds within the game. They are not too dissimilar to real life odds - perhaps the game hadn't amended odds statistics yet.



The first round of league fixtures was great. I chose not to attend any games, but this screenshot shows all the madness you could expect. I'm not sure which match is my favourite...

The one where two versions of Vardy score, before Vardy was sent off, and then Vardy scored again to make it 3-0 ... or maybe where two versions of Mulumbu were sent off in the same game ... or a 3-4 game where three versions of Aguero and three versions of Sanchez all played well. It's difficult to pick.



Wait, no. I've got it. Aston Villa vs Swansea, where a version of Joleon Lescott scored a hattrick. Remember that he is a defender. I have not changed his attacking attributes one bit.

A couple weekends later I found that there might be some hiccups to the experiment. I should probably have duplicated more than just 20 of each player. Due to injuries and suspensions, some teams were forced to field 'fake' players. These players are automatically generated by the game to fill in team lists. They are not signed by teams (and cannot be due to restrictions), but teams will use them anyway.



Okay, now on to the League table. Each team has played 4 games so far, and the only team with a 100% record is ... wait, what. Aston Villa?!? In fact, the only other team that has not lost a game is Newcastle. WHAT IS GOING ON?!

Down at the bottom, West Ham are the only team without any points, losing all four of their games, whilst Sunderland are the only other team not to win yet.



The player stats tells an interesting story of its own. As mentioned in the last blog, ignore the player faces. I just copied all data (stats and attributes) to existing players.

Aston Villa have two versions of Joleon Lescott with 4 goals, tied with a version of Moussa Sissoko. They are ahead of a host of players with 3 goals, including Jamie Vardy, Eden Hazard, Sadio Mane, Ryan Shawcross and Roberto Firmino.

Two players have 4 assists; a version of Moussa Sissoko and Alexis Sanchez, whilst four players have 2 Player of the Match awards; Eden Hazard, Christian Eriksen, Leighton Baines and Roberto Firmino. The top three players in terms of rating are versions of Christian Eriksen, Juan Mata and ... Juan Mata.



Another thing that I noticed, and maybe I should have expected it is that some players will be surplus to requirements. For example, Manchester United have transfer listed at least 8 versions of Juan Mata, whilst another 3 are unregistered. Other teams have similar issues. We will see how this plays out through the season.



Before the final questions, I introduce you to a new section in this season's blog...

What about Hartlepool?

Especially for one particular reader, I will follow Hartlepool through the season. Their stats have been unchanged.

It's not been the best start to the season, with just one win and one draw in their opening five league games. They've also been knocked out of the League Cup in the first round. Fantastic!



Questions?

Based on what has (surprisingly) happened this month, I ask...
- Does this change your predictions?
- Can Aston Villa and Newcastle challenge for the title?
- Will a version of Joleon Lescott win the golden boot?
- Are Manchester United and West Ham going to fight against relegation?

TUNE IN TOMORROW (OR SOON AFTER)

This is already lots of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing how the season plays out!

Cheers,

drabik

Introduction

Hello all.

Welcome to Season 2 of my Football Manager 2016 experiments. If you didn't see Season 1, see my last blog for an overview and links to each 'episode'.

For Season 2, I gave people the option to vote (also in that last blog). The winning option was 'Duplication, duplication, duplication'. For this experiment, each team in the English Premier League will have their best goalkeeper duplicated once, and their best outfield player duplication nineteen times. I'll go through the rest of the details below.

Changes made

- The existing English Premier League Teams remain as they are.
- The best goalkeeper and best outfield player were chosen based on their 'Current rating'.
- The goalkeeper was duplicated once (total of 2).
- The outfield player was duplicated nineteen times (total of 20).
- All of other other players were removed from the team.
- Non-playing staff have not been touched.
- All teams have been given a large bank bonus to account for possible wages increase, etc.
- All teams have been given a 5 year transfer ban.
- The league no longer has any rules regarding home-grown, or a limit of registrations.
- I have removed all loans to/from English Premier League clubs.
- All bans and injuries at the start of the game have been removed from English Premier League clubs.

I have elected not to remove the sponsors or directors for each club. Note that players/managers are in the league based on the start of the premier league season (hence Mourinho starts as manager of Chelsea).

Technically, I wasn't able to duplicate players. Instead, I copied and pasted data from the best players to other players in the team. As such, the faces of the players are unchanged, due to ID's. If you know a way to remove this, please let me know...

Data copied:
Details, Club Contract, Attributes, Languages, Days at club/In nation, General (Player Data), Positions, Mental Attributes, Physical Attributes, Technical Attributes, Goalkeeper Attributes, Preferred Moves, Injuries,

Not copied:
Loan (irrelevant), Future Transfer (none), Retirements (none), Career plans (none), Bans (none), MLS Player Details (none), all Relationships data (irrelevant), Playing History, Non-Playing History, Achievements (no easy way to copy - mostly irrelevant)

What do the teams look like?

The database has been edited and the game is ready to start. The next blog will walk through August, but to give you an idea of the teams. We will see whether the best team is one that has the most versatile player, the one that score the most goals, or the one with the tightest defence.

Arsenal
GK - Petr Cech
AM (RLC), ST (C) - Alexis Sanchez

Aston Villa
GK - Brad Guzan
D (LC) - Joleon Lescott

Bournemouth
GK - Artur Boruc
M/AM (RL) - Max Gradel

Chelsea
GK - Thibaut Courtois
M/AM (RLC) - Eden Hazard

Crystal Palace
GK - Alex McCarthy
DM, M (C) - Yohan Cabaye

Everton
GK - Tim Howard
D/WB (L) - Leighton Baines

Leicester
GK - Kasper Schmeichel
AM (R), ST (C) - Jamie Vardy

Liverpool
GK - Simon Mignolet
M/AM (RLC) - Roberto Firmino

Man City
GK - Joe Hart
AM (C), ST (C) - Sergio Aguero

Man Utd
GK - David De Gea
AM (RLC) - Juan Mata

Newcastle
GK - Tim Krul
M/AM (RC) - Moussa Sissoko

Norwich
GK - John Ruddy
DM, M (C) - Youssuf Mulumbu

Southampton
GK - Fraser Forster
M (R), AM (RLC), ST (C) - Sadio Mane

Stoke
GK - Jack Butland
D (C) - Ryan Shawcross

Sunderland
GK - Costel Pantilimon
AM (RL) - Jeremain Lens

Swansea
GK - Lukasz Fabianski
M/AM (C) - Gylfi Sigurdsson

Tottenham
GK - Hugo Lloris
M/AM (LC) - Christian Eriksen

Watford
GK - Heurelho Gomes
D (C), DM, M (C) - Etienne Capoue

West Brom
GK - Ben Foster
M (R), AM (RC), ST (C) - Saido Berahino

West Ham
GK - Adrian
AM (RLC) - Dimitri Payet

How will this work?

As before, I will start the game as a free agent manager. I will blog each month separately to update everyone on the happenings within the game. A new blog will be posted every one or two days, or more depending on internet access and how busy I am.

I will complete at least one season in this way to see which team wins the English Premier League under these conditions, and which teams are promoted. I will also check up on Hartlepool, especially for CJ.

Predictions?

What are your preliminary predictions based on the above?

Do you go for a team with a wealth of attacking talent, or one that has a player with the most versatility?

How will this affect the National Teams?

Which teams will win the FA Cup and League Cup?

Who will get top goalscorer, top assists?

Which manager will be sacked first?

Which teams will be relegated?

TUNE IN TOMORROW (OR SOON AFTER)

Tomorrow the game will be created and I run through until the start of September. I will analyse how August panned out, show the league, the current stats, a few key games and the monthly awards.

Cheers,

Drabik

Introduction

The first Season of my Football Manager Experiments came to an end recently with Team S prevailing and being crowned champions of the Alphabetti Premier League, with the likes of Alexis Sanchez, Wojciech Szczesny and Bacary Sagna leading them ahead of Team D and Team V.

Interestingly, nobody predicted Team S would win pre-season. The worst prediction was probably by TrueAchievements, whom predicted that Team V would be relegated. Not quite!

We also found out that if teams were grouped by player surnames, Team E would most definitely be relegated, winning just 6 of 38 league games.

If you wish to read any of the Alphabetti blogs, which were posted month by month, please see below.

drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E1: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E2: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E3: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E4: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E5: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E6: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E7: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E8: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E9: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E10: Alphabetti Premier League
drabik's blog post - Football Manager 2016: S1E11: Alphabetti Premier League

Season 2

At the end of the last blog, I asked whether I should do another season of the Alphabetti Premier League, or do something different. TrueAchievements requested another season, whilst TrueAchievements and TrueAchievements requested new experiments.

For this next experiment, I will provide readers with 4 options, with the most popular option being the one that I carry out.
a) World National League - Top 20 ranked nations.
b) Name Game - Teams grouped by popular first names; Tom, Jamie, Chris, etc.
c) City Madness - Teams from major cities merge
d) Duplication, duplication, duplication - Teams consist of ONLY their keeper Goalkeeper (x2) and their Best Outfield player (x20).

TUNE IN TOMORROW (OR SOON AFTER)

Hopefully you like the above options. Selection a) was suggested by TrueAchievements, whilst I have been thinking about the others for a while. Note that I have not set any of these up yet, so once a popular selection is chosen, it may take a few days before Season 2 actually starts.

Cheers,

drabik

Introduction

This is it. This is the last blog of the season for the Alphabetti Premier League. Before you read further. Important question...

What should I do now?

a) Do one more season, same as before - 1 month per blog.
b) Do one more season - 2 months per blog.
c) Do one more season - entire season in 1 blog.
d) Finish here. Start new FM experiment.

How it ended last time...

At the end of last month, the following was true:
- Team S were confirmed as winners of the league with 3 games to spare.
- Team D (confirmed), Team V and Team C (unconfirmed) currently sit in Champions League positions.
- Team E had been relegated.
- Team PQ and Team TU had three games (one more than those above them) to save their season.
- Team S will play Team L in the FA Cup Final.

End of May 2016

On the 8th of May, after two poor results, Team TU were relegated.



And on the following weekend, Team PQ joined them.



Team TU's then decided to sack their second manager of the season.



Not too long after, Arsene Wenger, who was sacked by Team WXYZ, and then joined Team HI, has resigned from Team HI due to an "impending arrival of a new manager". I don't know who that is, but hopefully Team HI have seen the errors of their ways.



Then of course, there was the FA Cup final between Team S and Team L.



Yes, Team L won on penalties, with Moussa Sissoko missing the decisive spot kick. I'll just quote Chewie here...

TrueAchievements - Team L have no chance. Does the game change how they play if they "know this is their last chance"?



Therefore, Team L qualify for Europe! Both cups were won by teams that did not finish in the top 5 positions. Here is the final table:



As you can see, Team TU lost their last 3 games, whilst Team PQ picked up just 1 point. Team S eventually won the league by an impressive 7 points, with Team D, Team V and Team C joining them in the Champions League. Team M join the two cup winners in the Europa League. Sorry Chewie.

On to the final player stats.



Diego Costa (Team D) scored 3 goals in his final 2 games to take his total to 29 goals, 8 ahead of Harry Kane (Team K) and a further 1 ahead of Ayoze Perez (Team A).

Kevin De Bruyne (Team D) provided one more assist (19) to be far ahead of Leighton Baines (15) and Coutinho (14) in 2nd and 3rd.

However, it was Coutinho (Team C) that won the most Player of the Match awards, finishing on 12 awards, 3 ahead of Sergio Aguero (Team A), Leighton Baines (Team B) and Kevin De Bruyne (Team D).

Juan Mata (Team M) finished as the player with the best rating (7.80), with Kevin De Bruyne (7.79), John Stones (7.77) and Coutinho (7.76) following close behind.

What's strange about the above is that only one player from the Champions appear; John Stones as the player with the third best rating. We've already seen from the table that they have conceded the least. That is ultimately one of the reasons they won.

In fact, the Golden Glove award (most clean sheets) was awarded to their keeper, Wojciech Szczesny (Team S), with Victor Valdes (Team V) and Tim Krul (Team K) in 2nd and 3rd. Who would have predicted that pre-season? Nobody, that's who.



Their defence was so solid that 3 of the back 5 in the Player's Team of the Year was from Team S, with Bacary Sagna joining Stones and Szczesny. The rest of the team heavily feature in the above stats breakdowns, apart from Mertesacker (Team M), whom fills in the last defensive position.



The manager for Champions (Dean Saunders) won Manager of the Year, perhaps not surprisingly.



Whilst Alexis Sanchez (Team S) won Player's Player.



Footballer of the Year went to the player that provided all those assists to Diego Costa... Kevin De Bruyne (Team D).



In case you are wondering who will replace the relegated teams...



Yes, Hull, QPR and Reading will join the Alphabetti League next season.

Questions?

I will again repeat the questions from the beginning of this blog, as I am interested in knowing what I should do next...

a) Do one more season, same as before - 1 month per blog.
b) Do one more season - 2 months per blog.
c) Do one more season - entire season in 1 blog.
d) Finish here. Start new FM experiment.

TUNE IN TOMORROW (OR SOON AFTER)

Hoping to get at least one vote..

Cheers,

drabik