Following a quick analysis of matches 12 and 13 whcih I posted as a journal what do you think to my idea of about adjusting passive play to be more attractive. No idea how easy it is to implement but as an idea ....

Abridged version;

In matches 12 and 13 of the 1056 starting players the following percentages can be found;
13.45% playing aggressive or dirty, 84.38% playing normal, and only 2.18% playing passive.

To break it down a bit further in match 12 the percentages were 12.69%, 84.28, and 3.03.
In Match 13 the stats were 14.2, 84.47 and 1.33%

The total number of passive players was only 23.

So this suggests to me that playing passive is very unattractive that the rewards of playing passive are too little compared to the penalty. I would suggest one (or perhaps both) of the following suggestions;

1. Decease SL loss when playing passive to 10% from 25% or
2. Reduce EL loss to 4 over the course of a game offering the tantalising prospect of only needing a squad of say 13-14 (or less) players with everyone playing all the games and offering a completely new strategy option.

You would probably need to move the SL total to 80% to make 2 a feasible option.

I rarely use passive but the possibility of building a side of 11 30ish SL players who play every game at SL 24 (random injuries permitting) is an interesting and different stategy and would add complexity and challenge to the team building process.

flippin tinkerers.

mutter mutter mutter.......



Though seriously - I think that passive is intended as a relief position, not as anything which could be used constructively for anything other than helping to rebuild a tired squad.

In that role it serves its purpose well at the moment.

GMcD.

I fully agree. Playing passive currently serves us well without making any changes to it.

Raith make an interesting debate point about building 11 SL30 type players, but under current EL use you can more of less do this with passive play, but no one seems to have ever done so.

I would NOT vote to change the passive % effectiveness or else majority of teams would use it.

However, it would really interesting to see a team try play passive for a season and see if they were more consistant with results with Top 11 in almost every match.

If you can build 11 SL 30 players then why hasn't anyone?

I guess it's do-able - if you can get 3 0/8 from the auctions.

30 TP takes them to 0/20

Next season you buy three more and use another 30 TP (60 total) on the 1/20 -> 1/29

3rd season you use 60 TP (three more 0/8) and 18 CP on the 2/26 -> 2/30 (the other 17 CP you use to trade in 20 TP and/or take these above SL 30 or save some CP)

4th season 60 TP, 18 CP on the age 2 and 21 CP on 3/26 -> 3/30

5th season you have three 4/25 which you trade for TP and CP.

At this point you have a cycle of 3 each of 0/20, 1/29, 2/30, 3/30 + 5 bosmans (now age 1 to 5) + any other stuff you've been able to get in trades/auctions

Each season you buy three 0/8 (2000k?), 40 CP (2000k), get 40 TP and need to bring in 20 TP. If you're a good side then around -500k for the over training, but a good 1st division side will get 4000k in gate money and I hope to clear 500k in press money.

So who wants to give it a go

I would if it was 80%!

(and in Div 1 with that sort of gate money!!)

At 75% even with 11x30SL you would really struggle against really good other teams T11 = ave 23 (SL=75%), many teams T11 up near 27 at the moment. This would put you 40th in the current listings.

Admittedly your T17 would also effectively be 23 which would be joint 14. Probably you would be in a relegation scrap each year.

At 85% it would be ave = 26 16th T11, and 1st T17.

Still not easy seeing as the amount of resources you will need. And in leagues I have played at 85% no one has ever tried it either. (now maybe I should....?)

I think the best way may be to have 5 or 6 30+ players playing passive with 10 others of average SL (say 20) playing aggressive?

If a team try play passive for a season,
managers may think team is NMR !!

If you played passive all the time, you'd only need 14 players, but you'd have a slight problem with your keepers.
Your main one would only need replaced 1 game in 5. This would mean that your backup keeper would have to play as a SW for 2 or 3 games to make their contribution to the team rotation.
So, not only do you have the 75% discount to his effectiveness from playing passive, but he's also OOP at a further 50% again.
Even a 30SL keeper would only play as a 12SL SW! (Your second keeper is unlikely to be that highly skilled)
Not exactly ideal.
One good thing about the recent rule change is that your keepers would still save shots at their normal SL, which is nice.

To keep 10 outfield players available, you need 13 players (1.25*10=12.5), so you'd be obliged to use the secondary keeper.
IF you decided not to use your second keeper as he's rubbish in defence, you'd then need a squad of 15 players.
Close enough to the 17 we normally use that it's not worth the effort, especially given that they're all playing at 75% SL.

At MSA and ESA your squad would lose fewer SL in total, as there's less players being affected.

You wouldn't lose as many players to yellow cards over the course of the season because they would commit far fewer fouls.
Also, if we had free kicks in the game, you'd concede far fewer of them too.

I think the GK problem and the 75% effectiveness mean it's not feasable.
If the effectiveness was increased, then it might be a viable tactic, but not as is.

Superb post above by David (HAM)

Backup GK would be sitting out 4 out 5 of matches if all players played as passive, or if he could make a contribution as SW.

It appears (I have no evidence) that more teams play a few dirty and aggressive players - especially in important matches - and if those players were up against the full 11 passive team, then the dirty/aggressive players would win the day virtually every time I'd think.

So as David says, the GK problem and the 75% effectiveness mean it's not feasable.

I would think that this tactic of all passive is dubious in viability, but I disagree with some of HAM's points.

I do not think that you would lose less Sl to ageing, I think you would lose the same amount most likely even though you have 3 or 2 fewer players. Because you would be concentrating your coaching more centrally on a smaller group of players, and would need a higher base Sl of these players to overcome the 0.75 effectiveness penalty for aggression.

I would think though that your second GK would play his 1 game on normal rather than passive. Or when he stepped in as 6th defender he would likely play on normal.

I would think to make this viable, you would be playing your main players on passive to keep them on the pitch longer, but their squad rotation players on normal as they will likely not see a lot of game time.

I think the GK is the least of your worries. The shot stopping power is the same as aggressive or normal. For every 6th game you can pick up a cheap reserve or qualify a very saleable GK apprentice in the spare games. (maybe we should intorudce the multipos GS?!? )

If you look around the league then you will find quite a few managers playing with passive keepers this season and having a duff reserve. I do it myself (you could argue it is not working but there isn't as much wrong with my defensive record compared to the offensive.)

Playing your main players as passive with the others in rotation is something I have considered and tried slightly. But it will probably fail as the main players you would consider applying it to are likely to be FWs, MAs or WG. At the start of the season my intention (amongst other doomed strategies) was to play my main FW and GK passively throughout the season. But at a 75% drop, the FW shot chances dropped and despite shooting at the same Sl, wasn't getting a sniff of a goal. In the first game after I went back to normal he got a hat trick. I abandoned the approach from there on in although the GK remains at passive most of the time.

The 75% is just too big a barrier and the proof is that no one even considers it. While it is perfectly conceivable to have players playing aggressive most of the time with a slightly larger squad than normal the opposite is unfrotunatley not possible. I think it would add another level of decision making complexity, as I said earlier in leagues where it is 85% the strategy is still not adopted, (although I do understand it was in the early days of SESL)

Brian, I should have made clear that I meant you would lose less SL because you had fewer players and the assumption was that they were at the same SL as the T17 teams.
I suppose it's obvious that if all your players were higher SL bracket players then they would individually lose more SL, but I didn't bother to mention it.
Certainly for a given SL, you lose less SL with 14 players vs. 17.

I agree you could play your 2nd keeper at normal, but that goes against the whole point of the experiment :-)
Suggesting you could play some players aggressive and then some players passive kind of defeats the purpose too.

James, in The Manager, Guff played with one keeper all season and tried the all passive tactic 5 or 6 seasons ago.
Confused the heck out of Mr Roseblade who couldn't work out why he was winning games with only 1 keeper.

He didn't win the league and I don't believe he repeated the experiment.

I think the biggest problem to rotating aggression is the lack of fractional EL in matches.

52 minutes aggressive is 4 EL lost, if you had a conditional set to switch to N if a couple of goals up, he would then play 48 minutes on N, and lose 3 EL.

So playing aggressive till 60 and then switching to N would also give the 7 Sl drop that you would get if you just played the whole game aggressive.

The same problem occurs for switching between n and a to pump up a team, or betwee n/a and p to ease a team back when cruising on the scoreboard.

Of course only 10 player changes makes it all difficult as opposed to the good old days of 3 a player.