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Will the bonus sponsorship for next season, combined with lower agent fees and lower bank interest, be enough to boost the transfer market av put value back into player training? Will multi-skilled players ever have a real impact on the game? Join Weeble as he presents his thoughts on these and related subjects.

I think the HT developers have finally taken on board the fact that the transfer market is in a terrible state. It has reached the point where you have to train and improve a player just to regain some of their falling value in monetary terms. I tend to buy players who have a fair bit of training in the skill I’m currently training and as a consequence they pop fairly quickly. However, even with this careful buying strategy most of the players I bought at the end of last season/beginning of this season are now worth less than what I paid for them - even with the benefit of the pop they experienced. I would have been better off buying no specific trainee players and leaving the cash in the bank to increase in relative terms. Any loss in gates from fielding a poorer team would have been more than compensated for by lower wages and the opportunity to use that training for my established crop of players.

This brings me to the bonus sponsorship for next season, lower agents fees, and lower interest. Will it be enough to boost the transfer market ? I think not. Confidence in the transfer market has reached pitiful levels (any time a market reaches a state of affairs where doing nothing is more lucrative than doing anything will result in pitiful confidence) and something more than a couple of minor variable tweaks is definitely needed.

Will more sponsorship money help? Probably not. It will be nice to receive and more money will lead to greater spending for struggling teams but a large number of teams already have huge pots of surplus cash in the bank so it will have little affect on them.

The same could be said for lower agents fees. In regard to the lower interst payments this probably wont affect the urge to spend what you have. Lower interest gains will mean less money but interest payments are mainly a nice bonus. As I pointed out teams are currently earning more money, in relative terms, from the constant fall in prices on the transfer market. The gains to be made by ‘doing nothing’ far outweight any minor loss in interest returns.

Confidence is now so low that minor tweaks will have little affect. Simply returning the formula to what they used to be in the hope that the market will return to what it used to be isn’t going to work. Even if it does work it will only signal a return of the problems the changes to the market where introduced to address.

The only way to improve things is to address the problem with radical changes - something HT seems averse to. In essence what needs to change is the determination of what makes a good player. The creation of a new tier of ‘good players’ is the only way that things will change. Managers have had long enough to source multi skilled players and I think its time that the impact this type of player has in a team was finally boosted.

Boosting the impact of multi skilled players, which would require changes to the game engine, would consolidate a new tier of sought after players. This would affect the price of all players, stimulate the need for established teams to radically alter their line up and spend, correct inconsistencies in the game engine regarding out of balance teams (those strong in midfield and poor in defence etc), increase training times and impart lower wages for what is regarded as a good player (which will lower the number of single skill ‘divines’) and many more positive improvements.

I would suggest giving each player three skill requirements for each position. This is already in place for most positions but what needs to change is the impact secondary skills have and the changing of skill requirements for some positions. My recommendations is for:

Central Defender - Primary = defending / Secondary 1 = midfield / Secondary 2 = passing
Wing Defender - Primary = defending / Secondary 1 = winger / Secondary 2 = passing
Attacker - Primary = scoring / Secondary 1 = passing / Secondary 2 = winger
Midfield - Primary = midfield / Secondary 1 = defence / Secondary 2 = passing
Winger - Primary = winger / Secondary 1 = passing / Secondary 2 = midfield

The balance of impact would be 100% for the primary skill, 60% for the 1st secondary and 40% for the 3rd secondary. Instead of comparmentalising the team performance into rows this attribution would operate throughout the team. Midfield would be determined by central defenders midfield, midfielders and wingers etc. This type of impact is already in the game engine, so what I’m mainly suggesting is a balance of dependent skills for each position and a more significant increase in the impact of secondary skills. This would level training demands across all positions and provide a greater degree of diversity amongst players.

In relation to keepers I would also suggest

Keeper - Primary = keeper / Secondary 1 = passing / Secondary 2 = set pieces

This would give keepers a similar 3 skill dependancy. It seems logical that passing should be important because one of their main tasks is distribution. And naturally the saving of set piece chances should be associated with the set piece skill.

The only way to stimulate interest and confidence in the transfer market is to give managers a REASON to spend and giving them more cash via a few tweaks wont accomplish this - neither will it address the problems that changes to the market where introduced to fix in the first place. Granted some managers might not be overjoyed at such a radical change but considering the alternative it should be welcomed. The alternative being a series of ill conceived minor tweaks that have resulted in a negative impact on the game (such as those experienced in recent seasons) followed by a removal of those changes and a return to the old ways (which we appear to be entering now) - again over the course of a few seasons. Followed by another round of the same - repeat till fade.

In my humble opinion it’s much better to grab the bull by the horns and do what needs to be done in one big move.

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