Martyn Drabik's Blog (1 follower)

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