Bastard Coated Bastards: Size of the Dog in the Fight
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog. Hands down one of the most stupid sayings ever. It doesn’t matter how angry a Pomeranian gets, an XL Bully can and will eat it without breaking a sweat.
I know it’s meant to refer to fighting spirit, passion, being strong-willed etc allowing people to overcome the odds. But those are things that are difficult to measure objectively, and for that reason I’m out.
Most of the cynical things I do in Football Manager aren’t about appealing to that warrior spirit, but instead are really about marginal gains through the abuse of the rules. I’m not kicking people just because it makes me feel good. Actually it does make me feel good but more importantly players that are hurt and scared perform objectively worse than those that are not. Their star striker can’t score if he’s got no legs.
Why am I wittering on about this? Because in our second season with Huddersfield Town whilst it’s nice to call on and allude to the angry violent spirit of the mighty Yorkshire rat Terrier what I’ll actually be doing is selectively abusing players and data to gain an actual edge. For me, the size of the fight is either going to be how much actual violence we inflict, or how much we improve our odds of winning through means fair or foul.
How are we doing that? Well we are:
- Using direct and long ball approaches as part of the ‘right of the weak’ to make the most of our chances
- Spoiling other tactics and plans with our violence
- Hurting players so they just can’t play. Either as intended, as well as usual or at all if they get hurt
- Doing the above via targetted violence against good opposition players (OI’s)
- Employing psychological warfare by singling out any cowards and beating them into submission (more OI’s)
What else can we do? Well…
Leveraging Traits
I’ve mentioned in previous posts about signing dirty players to increase the rule breaking and instrumental violence to gain an edge. It’s hard to do, as you can’t search for dirtiness. You have to use proxies for it like personality, media descriptors or elements of coach/scout reports like having a competitive streak.
There are some traits that seem to align with this as well, and I’ve been neglecting them in my recruitment and training. Our pitiful budget from last year means we can’t bring in lots of fantastic players. So with the players we do get to bolster the team, we need to maximize their impact. Which means I’m going to be looking for:
- Argues with officials
- Winds up opponents
- Gets the crowd going
- Dives into tackles
They all exist in the game because they do something (even the much maligned and soon to be gone weight can have a use), and usually in football manager it’s not as simple as being all positive or all negative. All of the above could lead to more cards, but let’s be honest here, I’ve already committed to getting cards. I’ve accepted that as the cost of doing such violent business.
Argues
Now, I’m not for harassing ref’s in real life. But when they are just pixels then sure, have at it.
I have no idea what impact arguing with the ref has within the game other than the risk of getting carded for dissent. But I can make assumptions. All staff and human roles in the game have some sort of profile, with some attributes. Pressure, as you can see in the shot from the editor below, being an interesting and potentially relevant one.
You can see the ranking tables of Refs in terms of cards and fouls awarding, which gives you an idea of how lenient they are. I’m hoping, with this in mind, that harassing a weaker or more lenient Ref will actually make them less likely to give the big decisions and in effect bottle it. Which would be perfect for a team of violent offenders like mine.
Obviously this might not do anything other than get me cards. But I’m fine with that. I like cards, and it’s basically just adding to the immersion that my team is the Crazy Gang 2.0.
Winds Up
This I’m pretty sure does have an effect. I believe it should make opposition players of a more sensitive disposition more likely to snap, retaliate and generally make mistakes. I’m happy to work toward a team full of wind up merchants to push opposing teams over the edge.
Get Crowd Going
Again, pretty sure this has the potential to give a little in-match morale boost. I’m all for having a team of players responding to every mundane action or decision like it’s a final minute corner in the FA Cup final. I want to see ear cupping and arms windmilling to get the John Smith’s Stadium faithful going.
Dives into tackles
I can’t find a gif of the Dyche tackle so this will do. I don’t know if I really need to explain why I want this.
Our 2nd Season
Transfers and Terminations
We went digging in the bargain bin. Well, mainly dumpster diving for free’s and a few loans.
We felt like we had a good core in defense but added a range of cover and future prospects.
Goode and Barnes were to be good cover for the first team, as was former loanee Edwards (a crowd rouser) with the others acting as youth team fodder. Kacurri from the Arsenal youth team looked like he had a lot of potential. I also managed to bring in Devine from Scotland who had the potential to hover between the senior and youth teams.
In midfield, we finally got our man. Jack Cork came in on a free after refusing to join us the year before. Williams also came in on a free to provide potential cover and rotation. He was one of the wind up merchants. McKinnion came as a similar borderline prospect like Devine, and then later in the season we hooked Dele Ali. Few months at the job centre dropped his wage request significantly, and he was to be Rudoni’s understudy. How the mighty had fallen.
Up-front we brought in Cullen to provide competition (and argue with the ref), and then later we were able to bring in, the one and only, Alexis Sanchez on a free. Why? I’m not sure. To shift some shirts? To mentor? I don’t know but we got him. Joe Taylor came in on a short loan (to also argue with officials). He didn’t last long as his manager got the hump that he wasn’t playing in a particular role. So he was replaced Soonsup-Bell on his extended loan.
Deadwood was cut.
And by that I mean players I just really didn’t like. Sorba and Koroma never really did it for me so I managed to shift them. I was best pleased about that.
Even after all the wheeling, dealing and breaking our wage budget by about £20k per week, we were still in the bottom three for salary expenditure. We remained a small dog in the fight financially at least.
Start of the Season
Like shit off a shovel.
We sped into the lead and topped the table. Bar a blip with fellow promotion contenders Forest we were obliterating teams. Same tactic, largely the same personnel, but we were so clinical. And yes, goals were being leaked. As much as we outperformed the xG at one end we were giving goals up above that of our xG against, but that was fine. Kevin Keegan could feel a tingling sensation and a deep inner peace on our match days and didn’t realise why. The Entertainers were back.
Our blistering early form was marred by the bad news that Yannick Bolaise was going to hang up his boots. Just as soon as he could move again. His ligaments went with what I can only assume was an audible twang, and the talisman and wing trickster was off.
Back to the league and at this stage only Forest and Leicester turned us over. We dropped a few points in draws here and there but overall we were much better than most teams. Bojan managed to get his 10 goal bonus before August was over, and his 20 in mid-October. I was honestly glad I hadn’t given him anymore.
By January it was looking pretty comfortable at the top of the table.
Our form continued, the goals kept coming. At both ends of the pitch.
Rivals Leicester again took points from us, and we stumbled unexpectedly against fellow spiritual shit housers Millwall. It wasn’t long until we bagged a playoff spot.
Meaning that for two seasons in a row we would at least have a chance of promotion. We were aiming for more though. Despite the good start the few losses and draws started to take their toll and we actually dropped to 2nd.
There wasn’t much in it but Leicester were on the up with an easy run in, and we were starting to tire. It takes a lot of energy to kick so many shins. It went down to the last day. We needed Leicester to lose or draw, and for us to win (or draw if they lost for a GD win). We played already relegated Derby and…
Bugger.
Our final dip in form cost us the title despite us being in the top spot for well over half the season. More against Sunderland or Blackburn would have done it for us.
We still had automatic promotion just without the silverware. Ultimately a success considering we were expected to struggle at the start of the season but it came with the bitter taste of missing out.
FA Cup
It wasn’t just the league where we over performed.
We took two Premier League scalps in West Ham and local rivals Leeds, and made it all the way to the Semi-Finals against Newcastle. We did briefly think about the final, but they beat us fairly comprehensively in the Semi’s.
It was nice to know that we had a chance of going toe to toe with some top flight teams and getting something. I know the cup is a little different, but it meant the foundations were there.
Next Season at the Big Boy Table
I would show you the violent metrics from this season but we hit all the high and agressive notes of the previous season. Fouls, cards, tackles. All that really differed was how many goals we scored (vastly out performing out xG), and how many extra goals we leaked (vastly underperforming our xG against). The only other thing of note, or person I guess, was Big Bad Bojan.
Goal machine. Lets be honest. His attributes aren’t great but he acted as a battering ram and it worked. 40 goals in 52 appearances. Again promising for next season as we aimed to survive.
We had a fairly generous transfer kitty considering how bad this seasons had been. I finished the season feeling mildly confident.