Tuesday, 26 August 2008

End of season chaos

At the end of the first season, and every season after that, there occurs a week of chaos. But it doesn't have to be chaos if you are prepared.

The end of the season coincides with the end of players' contracts. Normal contracts are signed with players for either one or two seasons. So every season you are going to have a fair number of players who's contracts will expire.

To protect yourself against this you have two routes of defense. The first is you are allowed to protect the contract of five of your players. When players are protected you automatically renew their contracts at the same wage. You also have extra locks for your youth players, but these end when the players reach maturity. You can protect a youth player for different amounts depending on what age you signed them:

16 - protect to 24
17 - protect to 23
18 - protect to 22
19 - protect to 21

So basically anyone outside your 5 senior locks and your youth locks goes to a wage auction 24 hours before the end of their contract. This means the highest bidder wins the player, and as compensation you receive their Acquisition Fee (AF) - which is considerably below the market rate you could get for the player by selling him.

Of the five players you can protect - if you choose to change the player you want to protect, you have to wait until the current contract of the protect player runs out. Sounds complicated but you will get it as soon as you see it.

Here are some observations about how best to handle this end of season chaos.

1. Forewarned is forearmed. At least 10 days before the end of your season, look through your squad and work out who's contract expires this season. To do this use the contract view and sort your team by contract expiry date. Protect your best players. Ensure your youth players are protected - you need to set their contract renew to auto renew.
2. Be honest about your squad. If it goes to wage auction, who is going to attract a bid from another manager? Who are you willing to increase their wage? The best option is to sell anyone who you think will attract bids from other managers and you are happy to lose. The earlier you do this, the less it would smell of desparation.
3. What is happening to you is happening to everyone else. This is a great time to improve your squad. From 7 days out from the end of the season, start setting up All Player search queries. You are going to compile a shortlist of 100-200 players who are potentially going for wage auctions in 7 days. The filter you need to apply is contracts > contract expires in 7 days. List everyone and anyone you think you want.
4. In filling your shortlist you should set up some queries to sort the good from the average:
a) average rating >7, senior appearances >30; sort by motm awards
b) 15+ in key attributes for the position
c) high acquisition fee players
Run these queries every day for the next 5 days
5. After 5 days you are getting into the money end of wheeling and dealing. You now need to create a query that isolates players in the last 24 hours of their contract, sorted by contract expiry.
6. When a shortlisted player hits the 24 hours to go mark, the wage auction begins and you get a mail telling you. My advice is to isolate your best prospects and bid big for them. 20 small bids will probably mean you will lose 20 auctions. Look at your squad and determine what your priority positions are. Make a short list of 3-5 high priority targets. What players would you like you have - these are your secondary concerns. In reviewing hundreds of players, which players you like the look of are not being bid on - these are your tertiary targets.
7. Remember point 2? Well if you like the look of somebody elses player, you should be making offers on their players. The chances are they will accept a low bid to avoid losing the player to the wage auction and only receiving the AF. As a rule of thumb I'd offer 2x AF.
8. Generally if 20+ managers are already bidding on a player there is little chance you will win the auction. I avoid those auctions like the plague.
9 Don't spread your money over too many auctions. The bank calculates your credit based on the assumption that you will win every auction. So bet late in the auction, and win or lose, you get your money back very quickly. Tying up your money in auctions you can't win is a complete waste of your time.
9. This happens every season; over time you will get better at it. See it as an opportunity. And sometimes it's better to sit on your money than to spend the next season regretting you signed Danny Mills on £75,000 a day because you got carried away.
10. Find some mates and compare notes. Agree not to compete with each other and maximise your combined scouting knowledge.

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