Season one, in EFL League One, as Bletchley Town, came to a climax, with a first season finish in 16th place.
Relegation was looking highly likely until the final 10 matches of the season, where results picked up and we went 9 matches without a defeat to slowly climb up the table, and away from danger.
The goals conceded column (77) is shocking, we leaked like a Tetleys condom, and tinkering around with various play styles and tactics was needed in order to find a system that suited our lowly bunch of default-style players.
One standout player during a largely dross season, was CF Stanley Long, who weighed in with some invaluable goals and assists, rated only 68 OVR but is one of those players who seems to play beyond his stats. Transfers are going to be key to bring in better players and give the squad some depth if we are going to improve for next season.
Pre-season came, and a semi-final defeat in the invitational trophy tournament earned us a very welcome £600k, along with the board investment, our transfer budget now stood at a ‘hefty’ £2million, barely enough funds for once decent player.
Some Harry Redknapp style wheelin’ n’ dealin’ in the transfer market was needed, and so we looked at free transfer options, scouted throughout the season, by identifying players who were out of contract.
We desperately needed a left back, and another striker.
We managed to secure the signings of four players, three of them free agents, and Kayden Jackson, a very fast CF from Ipswich Town for £1.3mil, who impressed against us when we played them, also not pictured was Ekrain, a CF who can also play AMF who was signed on a free, and has slotted into the CAM role.
I’m now 90% settled on the game play sliders, but as time goes on and the squad improves they may need tweaking in order to maintain a challenge, before moving back up to World Class level, which is just pure high pressure CPU tactics for 90 mins.
The increase in first touch error, along with pass and shoot error and acceleration, really do open up and improve the game massively.
If anybody is interested, I will post the slider settings in the comments, well worth trying out across a range of friendlies to see for yourself how these tweaks make the game much more realistic and unpredictable.
Here are a few goals scored during the last run of matches in season one, next week, and in the comments section throughout the week I will provide an update on how season two is progressing, may also post some full match unedited footage.
FIFAFX.com 
One and a half million for Kayden Jackson?? That is a great piece of business for Ipswich. He is indeed very fast though, look forward to seeing how he gets on for the mighty Bletchley Town. Glad to hear the game is settling down for you now Paul after those slider adjustments, the goals vid looked good, although you’ll need to let the games in hand play out before celebrating the heights of 16th place….
Just back from first foreign trip in two years, Dubrovnik, excellent holiday, still warm enough to swim in the sea
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Abbeyhill – Any transfer I tried was at least £1mil upwards in league one, any player worth having anyway, so I definitely think i was too prudent by choosing an initial £1mil transfer budget
Jackson is fast, I’ve got him set to playing as ‘get in behind’ in the player roles, so he hangs off the shoulder of the last defender, doing ok so far, has chipped in with a few goals.
Ahh lovely, will be devastated if my holiday this June is one again cancelled, has been 3 times so far. Need some proper sunshine.
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I’ve chucked the cash around on wages trying to get a half competitive squad. That free striker signed, along with a centre half, full back, midfielder and loanee from the premier league (youth of course).
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Turf – these early days are all about just trying to get a couple of players in that are better than the dross we start with, pure classic ML feel to this career.
If you’re not already, I’d strongly advise to use the latest OS slider settings, but with acceleration jumped up to 65 for both Player and CPU.
This will bring out the player ID, and individual feel of each player, so much more, and lead to more midfield battles and random passages of play.
The default EA sliders cripple this game, they hide, what is essentially a superb game, behind a brick wall of online-centric ping pong arcade-ness.
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Just swapped them over, although it’s a leap of faith as I really don’t understand a lot of the OS conversation and they keep flipping from big numbers in one version to very different ones in another – player runs 1? How does that work??
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Don’t forget guys….25 hour days for the next six months, enjoy that slower movement round the sun
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Indeed Turf, that extra hour in the mornings is proving invaluable! Like you I’ve never been a big fan of fiddling with sliders, although I guess the semi-official nature of the Operation Sports ones make them more trustworthy and it sounds as though they have transformed Paul’s experience. I always worry about unintended consequences of starting to change them.
Exeter City promoted as champions season 1 on FIFA21, enjoyable experience with loads of goals and action. I’m starting to see why most of you were lukewarm on the game though – the AI is always so attacking there is an absurd amount of space to hit through balls into on the counter, very arcadey.
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Turf/Abbeyhill – The OS sliders tighten up the game by increasing the marking, improving the shape of the defensive line height and width, and FB positioning is reduces so your wingbacks dont constantly bomb forward and leave massive gaps everywhere.
In combo with the increased acceleration, the ball is more free which leads to more midfield battles, more fouls, more turnovers, so the arcadey feel drops out.
Turf – on the subject of Player runs = 1, you gotta remember that the slider values (1-100) are just modifier values for each individual players stats, not absolute relative values.
So, for example, player runs = 1 does not mean players just won’t make runs, it means that the players built in stats which drive awareness, positioning, run frequency etc, coupled with his ability to play in whichever formation and tactic that is selected, is set to default, he will play true to his stats, as the player values are modified by 1 (which could be 1%).
if the player runs slider was set to 100, then his stats would theoretically be multiplied by 100 (which could be 10%, 50%, 100% – we don’t know exactly what multiplier system EA use) but it will definitely be increased.
So player runs at 1 means each player will make runs as he sees fit, determined by his underlying stats, according to the system and formation being played, and wont be forced by default sliders (which are geared up for online arcade style play) to constantly make runs and be caught out of position as much.
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