Don_Simon

Wolves need experienced new boss says chief Jez Moxey

Wolves want a manager with plenty of experience to succeed Mick McCarthy, according to chief executive Jez Moxey.

McCarthy was sacked from his role on Monday, the day after a 5-1 home defeat by Black Country rivals West Brom.

"It is not a job for a novice," Moxey told BBC Radio 5 live.

"We have to work quickly, we have to get the right manager in, but we are open-minded about what shape and form that takes, whether it is short term or long term."

Don't waste any more £££ on newbies boys and girls!

Davies signing new contract apparently, MON turning his attention to Heskey!

Oh my days. Please tell me there is at least 1% of fact in this? And your sarcasm is not getting the better of me!

I'm looking for a network game, anyone got one I can join or anyone else up for one?

Would love to have a VT game. If we can get 4/5 together, could be fun.

Great - anyone else up for it? Would be good if there is someone who knows how to set one up as not played a network game before.

I wouldn't mind doing one if that's cool. I do know how to set one up. If you are interested, just let me know.

How do network games work? Do you all have to be online at the same time to make it work? Always wanted to play one but never got round to doing it.

I was given "Spiral" as a DVD boxset for Crimbo from me Aunty. We were both big fans of The Killing, and she said Spiral is a similar type of show, also on BBC3. Set in France, someone murdered, solve the murder, you get the drift. Its set in France I think.

Now, before I dedicate my attention, and quite possibly life, to this show, like I did with The Killing (series 1), has anyone seen this show? Worth my time? Or as stinky as some French cheese.

Prologue: I've just spent the last 3 hours typing this, and on reading it back I fully realise it's a big ****' wall of text, but trust me it's essential reading.

Actually, for anyone starting out with a lower league team/tight budget, the youth academy is definitely the way to go (and not just for the obvious reasons)...

Start a new game as whoever. First, generate some quick cash by selling the deadwood and replacing with equivalent/better players from the free agents list (should be plenty o' candidates if you start as a really low-rated team). Once done, you should also give your transfer budget an additional boost by diverting all bar £10k in wages using the budget allocation slider. Bear with me here, because though it sounds crazy you're not actually going to be needing any more than £10k in wages for what we’re going to do, and at this point the more money you can spend on scouts the better (though make sure to hold back at least £800k to be able to afford to set up the scouting networks once your staff are in place and pay the miniscule sign-on fees for youth prospects).

That said, you don’t have to spunk away cash on the most expensive scouts with the highest star ratings. An even spread of good scouts is far better than one double 5-star scout (and costs considerably less). When hiring a scout, “experience” is the attribute to attach value to. The more “experience” stars, the greater number of players the scout finds and puts on their monthly reports. It makes sense then to have this attribute as high as you can feasibly afford (though 4 stars is generally more than enough to get you a decent spread of youth players to work with, especially if you can afford more than one scout at this point); the more prospects, the greater chance one of ‘em will be top quality.

In my experience, the “judgement” attribute counts for pretty much sweet **** all from 3 stars up. I’m not even sure what exactly this governs; if it merely determines which players the scout recommends from their monthly report then it’s a next to useless attribute as it’s far more effective to use your own judgement (more on this later). If it determines the likelihood of getting better youth players in the monthly report, then it doesn’t do a very good job of it as in the numerous career modes I’ve been running, I’ve had as many quality prospects come through 3-star “judgement” scouts as I have through 5-star ones.

To summarise, you really want to be buying a 4-star “experience”/3-star “judgement” scout. Two of them if you can, they generally cost around £3-4m. If no such scouts are available, simply play through your next week/game of career mode and then come back as the list of scouts for hire changes on a regular basis. Doesn’t matter what country they’re from, that’s just cosmetic. When you’ve got your scout/scouts hired, send ‘em off to work. Where you send them is down to personal preference (I personally like to have my first scout working domestically), some countries are marginally more expensive to send scouts and some are cheaper. Despite the various reviews I’ve read that state that South America is where all the best youth prospects are, again I’ve had as much success scouting Scotland as I have Brazil; it doesn’t seem to matter. Once you’ve settled on a destination, send your scouts on their merry way for a 9 month period (you’ll save yourself a bit of money and you want them out as long as possible anyway) looking for all types of players (I’ve always found that with the sheer amount of players returned each month by a 4-star “experience” scout there is no need to limit them to looking for a specific player type). Now sit back, play on and await the end of the month…

You’ve got mail! When the scouting report/s land on your desk, it’s time to do some scrutinizin’. Prospects that are highlighted in yellow on the report are the scout’s “recommended” players. As I’ve said above, that’s bollocks. In order of importance, this is the criteria you want to be looking for:

• 1. Any player whose current rating range tops out at 60+ (the higher, the better)
  2. Any player who fits the above criteria and whose potential rating range tops out at 85+
  3. Any player who doesn’t fit the criteria in point 1, but still has a potential rating range that tops out at 90+

Any prospect that fulfills the above should be signed to your youth academy. Each prospect signed costs £25k in signing fees and £250 in wages. Leave any prospects you don’t sign to be scouted further, as both rating ranges are fluid and will change as time progresses; you might find that a player that doesn’t match the above criteria after the initial month of scouting will fall into that bracket once scouted further, and then you can sign them up. For that reason, I never ask the scout to dismiss a player from the list unless it’s patently obvious they will amount to nothing (e.g. you’ve scouted them for 6 months and their maximum potential has sunk into the 60’s). The fluidity of the rating ranges is the same for players you’ve signed to the academy; they will go up or down as time progresses and more of their attributes are revealed. Don’t be dismayed if a prospect doesn’t turn out the way you’d hoped, as they can still be a very valuable, lucrative asset (more on that in a bit).

You want to keep prospects in the youth academy for as long as possible. You can’t actually promote them to the first team if they’re under 16 anyway, but even when they do reach that age make sure to keep them in the academy as they will develop faster than they would sat in the first team’s reserves or out on loan.

Eventually, you will get a message stating that the player either wants to be promoted or released as they believe they are ready for first team action. At this stage, you have to offer the player a contract or you will lose them to another club. When it comes to contract offers, you generally don’t have to deviate from the default wage on the contract offer screen (be aware though, if you’ve got a player that’s due to be the next Messi - e.g. current rating as high as the 70’s, maximum potential in the 90’s - then you might want to offer about £3-£5k more than the default wage to seal the deal). Personally, I always go for a 5 year contract and tack on the maximum 20% bonus clause as a) this locks your player in and in the last 4 iterations of FIFA, even when a player fulfills their % bonus clause the money never actually comes out of your budget. Weird, eh? It’s basically a free tool to help convince players to sign (this goes for all other contract negotiations too, seriously; give it a try for yourself!).

“But wait, Gareth, you rassclart-bumbaclart-dickwad,” I hear you say, “you told me to divert nearly all of my wage bill to sign up the scouts; how in the name of almighty Ra can I afford these players’ wages?!”. Fear not, blud. This is where the magic happens! As it transpires, when you promote a youth player to the senior team, their default wage amount isn’t deducted from your wage budget, it’s automatically added to it! For example:

Joey Nunes Bloggsinho wants to be promoted to the first team. My available wage bill is currently £2k, but on the contract offer page for Bloggsinho his default wage request is £4k. I glance up to the right hand corner of the screen to see how this would affect my wage bill, expecting to see -£2k and a note to say I can’t afford him… and yet I see no such thing. My wage bill remains at £2k. Only if I decide to offer him more than his default request does my wage bill drop (say I upped my offer to £5k, my available wage bill drops to £1k), but as I’ve stated above I’ve no reason to do so (unless I knew Bloggsinho was gonna be über-mega-super-duper).

So I offer him the contract (it’s worth noting that on the contract offer page you can also see the player’s projected market value; handy for determining just how good he’s going to be and whether or not you want to cash in on him) and he signs up. I go and check my wage budget in the squad/transfer page, and his £4k in wages has automatically been added to my wage bill (and, as such, has boosted it by £4k). So, say I wanted to take full advantage of this windfall; I simply sell Bloggsinho in the next window and not only do I pocket the money from his sale but I retain the £4k surplus in wages he brought to the wage bill… FREE MONEY!

This is why you keep hold of all your youth prospects, as even the ones that don’t turn out can simply be put through the above process and flogged in order to continually increase your wage bill; an utterly invaluable trick for developing smaller clubs with tight budgets.

Finally, any prospects who you want to keep and have promoted to the senior team should either be put on the subs bench (they’ll generally be good enough for this if you’ve stuck to the selection criteria I outlined above) or loaned out for game-time. If you plan on cashing in on some of the gems you’ve unearthed (again, a good strategy for teams with small budgets), transfer list them as soon as they are in the first team; generally, the younger you sell them the more they go for.

Here endeth the lesson. 8)

As it transpires, whatever EA did in their last patch "fixed" the little wage trick (the paragraphs highlighted in red above) so you will have to keep some spare change in the wage budget. Annoying! :x

Thats brilliant cheers matey!! Will invest in more experienced scouts as a matter of urgency. Top notch stuff Mr RDR.

Last night was a glorious night in the history of AVFC, the Premier League title was won (on professional level no less!), during a nail biting last day of the season ding-dong with Wigan Athletic at the JJB. I won 1-0. At the same time, Citeh lost away at Black Armband FC (Liverpool), and the streets of Birmingham were awash with Claret and Blue.

However, whats pissing me off is I never get offered other player manager jobs, the transfer "warchest" the board have given me is more akin to my three year olds toy cupboard, and its all getting very repetitive.

Have brought in Reus from Borussia Moenchengladbach (please check spelling @GarethRDR), and im now skint. Have a few players in my youth squad though, do they ever come good? Roll on the weekend and my assualt on the Champions League! Schalke dumped me out this season, I demand revenge!

*Whispers

I'm an idiot!

See I thought for a minute at the time about he almost missed but it's a proper finish, low and hard, almost a case he knows he is so close to cech that he will get something on it but te finish is so assured that it won't matter

and IMO Liverpool won't go for him, not because of the money or because he's not good enough but because of what it says to andy Carroll, it effectively writes him off which I don't think they'll do

There's also another reason why they probably won't go for Bent. I'll let you figure it out... :winkold:

Please tell!

Having never seen Villa win the league, being 13 when we last won a trophy and witnessing the robbing of a century at Wembley two years ago (**** YOU DOWD!), I havent had many highs in football. (5-1 at home to Blues is up there with the birth of my child).

But, the last game of last season, in the pub from 1100 with a load of Wolves fans and Blues fans was probably the most enthralling football viewing experience ive ever had. The highs and the lows of the people around me was mesmerising, and if the relagtion battle this year is anything like that, (and doesnt involve Villa), it will be epic!

For what its worth, Bolton, Swansea and Norwich to go down.

so you dont think FM has overrated him then?

I don't know how FM have rated him (don't/can't play it myself) but if they've made him the virtual equivalent of Manuel Neuer mk 2 than that's pretty accurate. The Germans are churning out a factory line of good young 'keepers at the moment; Trapp, Baumann, Zieler and Leno all look the real deal.

Not a fan of either, the mighty TUS Koblenz are my team as the Mrs hails from Koblenz. Im looking forward to checking out the atmosphere in the stadium, and the stadium itself looks mmighty impressive! (Not a patch on the pantheon that TUS play in of course!).

Poor sods are having a torrid time at the moment, think they've only won once all season. Lovely town though.

Lovely town indeed matey. Will be spending Christmas there this year with the inlaws, (theres a lovely little brewery, make a delicious lager, "Konigsbacher"!).

But yeah, the team are truly dire. Highlight of their existence I think is the marquee signing of the "Kuqi Diver", (Stefan Kuqi), last year. He didnt last long. They also had Zoltan Steiber from Villa if memory serves?!

So, this Thursday I will be flying off to Munchen for a bit of R&R, (beers and boobies), and will also be going to the Allianz on Friday night to see Bayern v Koln.

Not a fan of either, the mighty TUS Koblenz are my team as the Mrs hails from Koblenz. Im looking forward to checking out the atmosphere in the stadium, and the stadium itself looks mmighty impressive! (Not a patch on the pantheon that TUS play in of course!).

Will give a report on my findings upon my return...

Mental health issues aren't easy to spot, even for someone as close as a family member.

Oh absolutely. A very close family member of mine committed suicide a number of years ago, and although I knew she was unhappy, I would never have conceived suicide an option.

For those who were close to him, I would think that it is pretty clear already, but it appears that not too many were close to him.

Does it? not the impression I've got over the last couple of days.

What I was thinking!? surely other way around.

I hope the reasons come out anyway, It's just so tragic and well out of nowhere, It makes me really want to know why.

Catch 22 isnt it? Hundreds of people have come out eulogising (sp?!) about how amazing he was and what a consumate person he was, yet none close enough to know he was poorly in such a serious way.

Also, if all these people, or even some of them had told him how much they cared about him (which they may well have done, im just playing devils advocate), perhaps he wouldnt have taken the route in life and death he has gone down.

Having seen on Twitter that 1.5 million more Olympics tickets were released, ive just bought some tickets to the mens football quarterfinal in Cardiff on August 4th.

No idea who will be playing, (hoping for a Nicaragua v Burma, or something similar!), just going for a few beerios and a day out.

Anyone else going to see any Olympic footy? Seemed to cause quite a reaction amongst my chums. Some massively up for something a bit different, and some surprisingly passionate that football shouldnt be an Olympic sport.

Won £20 on a drunken £1.50 bet on Getafe to beat Barca. WoopWoop!

The Killing series two continues tonight. I was obsessed by the first series, (obsessed doesnt really do it justice, went WAAAY further than that!) Also have a weird love-in for Sara Lund. I love her and her mardy ways.

Does anyone else always have a really good 5 games to start with, but then just slowly get worse and worse the more you play it in a session?

I'm still doing relatively well on the game, my ranking has stayed pretty intact, but I seem to lose patience in the build up play after a few games and just become really predictable with 1-2 passing.

Wondering if everyone is like that or just me?

Also anyone want to start a VT league. We did one for Fifa11 but it didnt really work out due to the teams being a bit unfair to some players (think someone had Birmingham lol).

If we did a league where everyone picks a 4 star team, but no duplicates (or Villa), i think it could work quite well!

This brother will reserve Napoli! Be well up for this, (im on ps3)

Started a player manager career at Villa. Playing at the professional level and currently second in the league! A remarkable away game @ Citeh saw the mighty claret and blue warriors take a commanding 3-0 lead at HT, only for the Aguero show to pull it back to 3-2 after 50 minutes. However, I held on, and second place was maintained.

Not sure how the youth network works, or the scouting system as im new to this Fifa malarky. Also wish I was better at the skills, cant do anything fancy at the moment and i hate it! Any advice massively appreciated on that front chaps.

Ethan. Motherfucking. Moore.

God damn that was such a brilliant day. Everyone was so optimistic back then, will never forget the five goals. Pure and utter exhiliration.

A far cry from now.

Anyway, England 1 - 1 Sweden. Due to the fact that neither team really cares.

Am absolutely, utterly, totally and completely engrossed by the first series of (the danish) "The Killing". Its compelling to a whole new level.

About half way through, and I still have no idea whodunnit, how they did it and why they did it.

But, I have a feeling the young ginger brother is involved. Never trust gingers.

Why are you watching a danish show?

Because the original Danish version of the killing is **** brilliant!

Its up their with The Wire but wont last as long.

Its why AMC decided to re-make it...badly.

**** brilliant it absolutely is! Told one of my students about it today, he very nearly ruined the whole thing for me. Immediate fail was almost heading his way!

Am absolutely, utterly, totally and completely engrossed by the first series of (the danish) "The Killing". Its compelling to a whole new level.

About half way through, and I still have no idea whodunnit, how they did it and why they did it.

But, I have a feeling the young ginger brother is involved. Never trust gingers.

Just bought The Killing (Danish version) on DVD. Heard many good things about it, some from this thread, so looking forward to tucking into that on Friday night. I think the second series is starting on the Beeb at the end of the month, so hopefully have timed it right!

100% due to the comments in this thread, ive recently borrowed the first Batman (Arkham Asylym), for my newly purchased PS3. And ive gotta say, im loving it!

Not normally a fan of these types of games, give me a bash on Fifa or F1 2011 any day of the week, but im really enjoying. Just had my first glimpse of my battered BatCar, (im gonna hammer Harley the cheerleader villain for ruining it!)

You bastard. I'm so jealous. :shock:

Hehe, you should be!

I hugely concur with Gareth. You lucky bastard!!

Dortmund v Schalke is an absolute "must see" on my list of footie games to watch.

Always next year GazzaRDR!