Friendlies have no effect on TS or confidence.

Sam - yes you should definitely upgrade your stadium if you are easily winning your series and constantly selling out your home games. Based on a fanclub size of 554 and growing, do what BigA suggests and expand it to 15,000. Make sure you have the correct %'s for each seating type. Off the top of my head it goes something like 63%, 20%, 12% and 5% but make sure you double check it. 15,000 is a good size for a small division team. Often lower division teams build a stadium that is too big and never regularly fill it. My stadium upgrades went from memory : 7000 -> 12000 -> 25,000 all in my Div IV days. When I promoted to Div III I increased to 55,000, and since winning my seriers I have upgraded to 80,000. Hattrick is all about continuous small improvements. Don't over-reach, as you often end up in debt and going backwards.

Looks like the season is over for me. My #1 striker is out for five weeks While my #3 striker is still injured... and has two weeks out of a six week injury remaining. And one of my wingbacks is still injured, but training.

Judging by Cheshire's response I see he isn't much of a cricket fan if he is unaware that it is our turn to play the English away ....

Legion - I like the way you think. If I wasn't married I'd probably want to have your babies A good read on a 'true' innovator of the Silicon Age can be found is this book : The New New Thing : A Silicon Valley Story, by Michael Lewis. Amazon link This is the story of Michael Clarke, the guy that developed Silicon Graphics, Netscape and much of the audio/visual compression technology that we use today. He was the first person to have three one-billion-dollar companies. He's also a bit of a looney. Michael conceptualised the internet and modern-multi-media broadband before Bill Gates had ever coded a graphical user interface. There are some interesting sections on the Internet Explorer vs Netscape battle as well. Of course, one could argue that Clarke just ripped off the mozilla team anyway.... but that's a topic for another book.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. McGrath hasn't played a test in ages. Brett Lee is a shadow of his former self. Jason Gillespie is a fantastic bowler, but is extremely injury-prone. Your quicks look like a fantastic combination. While we still have some fantastic batsman, our bowling may let us down. I think you can beat us this series. Perhaps it will all be up to Warney to save Australia's bacon?!? ... assuming he doesn't eat it first

Sam : How big is your stadium? How big is your fan club? Are you winning games regularly? How much cash do you have in the bank?

Sam - yeah training your wingers as wingbacks is fine, as BigA said. Regarding staff, note that I began in Division IV.36, so the amount of funds I had available to me is probably different to you. You are in Division V, yes? I think the most important thing for a young team is to train... train... and train. With that in mind, the most important staff membes are assistant coaches and physios. Sirfire has good advice regarding transfers. I would add to that : - sell your player as late as possible (ie HT-time 18:00 - 0:00) to make sure all the Europeans are at home and can buy him. The exception to this is (for Australia) to put the player on the market on a Thursday evening, which is about Wednesday lunchtime. This means the player will sell on Sunday lunchtime, just before the majority of the European leagues kick-off. This is when the most number of people are on-line. These days, I'm so specific for the kind of player I am looking for that it takes me weeks to find a suitable one (at a time that I have internet access), so Sirfire's rules about early/late in the week are irrelevant to me. I wish I had net access at home... sure would make things easier in the HT market

Regarding staff : 10 assistant coaches is a must. If you are training outfield, you can have 9 assistant coaches and 1 keeping coach. That way you can train at 98% intensity and still train at full speed but with a lesser chance of injuries. Training at 100% will cause too many injuries. Physios are very important, but expensive. As a lower-level team, you should try for roughly 3-5 physios. The more physios you have the : 1) Less chance of your players becoming injured. 2) Once they are injured, it is more likely to be a 'low-level' injury (ie 1-2 weeks.. or maybe just a bruising). Spokespeople are very important at the start of the season. A good trick whilst in the lower divisions is to buy heaps, and then once you are knocked out of the cup to start selling them off. E.g. start with 7 spokespeople, and while you are winning cup games your fan-club will skyrocket. Then once you are knocked out of the cup, start selling them off one a week. Physchologists - are very handy to help you recover from a 6-0 thrashing. Buy perhaps 2-3, but anymore is a luxury. If you are easily winning your series, you can do without them. They only effect confidence, not team spirit. Confidence is a factor which determines what percentage of your goal-scoring chances are converted. Economists - not needed unless you are in debt up to your eyeballs, or sitting on a million-dollar cash surplus. Doctors - doctors are only usefull once a player BECOMES injured. They have no effect otherwise. So a good strategy for a lower division team is to have no, or very few doctors. Then, if a critical player becomes injured, buy a few doctors to help reduce his healing time, and then fire them once he is healed.

Again? First time in six matches actually. For someone born in Blackburn, a Lancastrian and an Englishman, you are are a disgrace to your country. Jim. Stop being a goose.

I disagree. England was hot and cold in the last world cup. Brilliant against Denmark and Argentina, ordinary against Sweden and Brazil. The 2nd half against Brazil they just rolled over and gave up... as if they didn't actually have the belief that they could beat Brazil. Last night England never gave up. Yes their tactics may not have been brilliant, but with a midfield of Beckham/Lampard/Neville/Hargreaves you don't have many options. But I think you were playing as well as in WC'02, and when you factor in the performances of Cole/Lampard/Rooney/Gerrard and perhaps King.. all youngish players...I think you are looking marginally better than two years ago. All you need is a keeper for the next generation, and someone to play on the left-side of midfield and you'll be challenging in '06.

Hattrick is free, but for a minimal cost (ie about $30US a year) you get 'supporter', which means you get little tid-bits such as : Club-Logo Home/Away strip Press Announcements Real-life supporter club Extra statistics and so on...

Wow!... what a game ! England once again get knocked out through penalties from a major tournament, but look on the bright side. 1) You actually qualify for major tournaments. 2) Most of the time you make it through the group phases into the knock-out stages. Points 1) and 2) put you ahead of most footballing nations in the world anyway.. 3) When you do lose, its done with grit, passion for the game and shirt and a never-say-die attitude.... unlike the numpty hair-bear-bunch from Italy who start screaming about FIFA conspiracies and match-rigging etc. Commiserations to all the England fans. Costa's goal was an absolute cracker (not Figo, cheers Oklahoma)... but for Lampard to equalise was magic. When Beckham missed the first penalty I thought 'here we go again' ... but once it was 4-4 I thought that maybe... just maybe... you could finally get the monkey off your back. Sadly.. not tonight. Once again, I thought the back four played very well (especially Cole who didn't put up with any of fancy-dan Ronaldo's rubbish)... except when for god-knows-whatever-reason Terry decided not to jump.. and just stood his ground and watched the ball land on Postiga's forehead giving him a free-header ?!? Midfield of Beckham, Lampard and Gerrard did well, although IMO once again Scholes was rubbish. I normally don't rate Hargraves, but thought he did well on the left.. he even managed a cross or two with his left foot !! Owen's opening goal was hilarious.. at first I thought he hit it with his arse A great poacher's goal and nice to see him back in form. Whether or not it actually WAS a free-kick, the fact is that Terry jumped into the goalkeeper with both of his arms raised above his head. When you jump around and tangle arms with the keeper, the majority of the time the ref will give a free-kick, and IMO he did the right thing. PS : How does it feel Jim? This is just for you.. and not for any other of the nice England fans on this board and throughout the world : EDIT : I was going to taunt you... but then I felt a bit guilty.. guess I'm too nice for my own good

Regarding the Youth Squad. In my first full season I pulled a 17 year old passable playmaker/passable passer, and an 18 year old passable defender/inadequate winger. These players went on to play 94 and 96 games for my club respectively. They both benefitted from long-term training and became strong 4 and 4.5 star players... and were part of the backbone of my team for many seasons. Also, it takes a LONG time to get your youth squad to excellent (about 1.5 seasons)... so I think you are best to start early. Scrimping funds from the Youth Squad is the last resort.. IMO.

1) Crowd size is dependent on the size of your fan club. Depending on whether you are winning your home games and getting thrashed, it will fluctuate between 15-25 times your fanclub size. Based on your current fanclub size, how many games you expect to win this season and whether or not you are currently selling out your stadium, you make the decision as to whether you should shell out $$$'s to expand the stadium. Make sure you set it to the correct percentages. And be mindful that the object of Hattrick is to win games, not to make money. Winning has its own reward... but many lower division teams get mired in debt.. and never get out of it. There are no Jack Walkers in Hattrick!! 2) ALWAYS PULL A YOUTH PLAYER. It is (mostly) random and even if your youth squad is relatively poor (i.e. inadequate) you may be able to pull out a decent passable/solid player. Additionally, you should be investing $40,000 a week into your youth squad every week. No ifs, no buts... no maybe. All it takes is for you to pull one 17 yo solid and you're already ahead for the year. Not to mention all the half-decent young passable players that you will sell and train along the way. Plus, there is always the chance of hitting the jackpot with some superstar player that you can either train to become the backbone of your team, or sell for $$$$'s.

Although international games cost more (due to the airfare), you always get a bigger crowd to compensate for it. Sam - what tactics does he play? Bear in mind he will be playing his B-team and PIC'ing. Check out his previous 4-or-so games... see what formation he uses... check his friendlies as well (because that is the line-up you are likely to play against). Get back to me if you require any tips

I have won my series. But will have to face a play-off for promotion in Division II .... a game I doubt I will win.

Not giving Lampard a new deal!?!?

Yep... he's a real 'caring and sharing' kind of guy...

Well you are correct in that Fowler has done nothing since getting pushed out of Liverpool. But the converse of that arguement is.. if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Fowler and Owen were working well together and the team had won three trophies that season. It was a big risk to change things up front, and Liverpool have never been the same since. Anyway, that's what my scouser mate says... and I tend to agree with him.

I rang my scouser-supporting mate in Sydney when I got into work today : PG : "Been on the internet today?" Scouser : "No." PG "He's gone. Houllier's been sacked." Scouser : "Thank god!! You've made my day!' Houllier WAS a good manager. Things started to go wrong when he got rid of Fowler and replaced him with Heskey (bought for 11 million pounds). Purely because he felt that you couldn't play with two small strikers up front. Plus he never seemed the same when he returned from surgery. As Revidge has posted, his early signings were quite good. But then the wheels started to fall off... As for thenodrog - shame on you for taking Jim's bait!!!

Go to "Current matches". This should bring up a list of past, present and future fixtures. Click on the "Orders" link.. which should bring up a 4-4-2 layout with pull down menus for each position. Simple trick - midfield is of vital important for lower divisions. I suggest you play a 3-5-2, and put an extra midfielder in the centre-back position, and then select him to play as an 'extra inner midfielder' in the pull down menu.

For those who are interested, I'm currently pushing for promotion into the Oceanian Second Division. I'm currently a game clear on top in my Third Division Series (III.8)

I too feel the need to post here and apologise to Tugay4England. Since leaving Emerton in the bench, Rovers have won three straight games, scored six goals and conceded three. T4E - you were right. It was all Emerton's fault!!!

But philipl - when Souness played Stead and Gallagher away at Middlesborough and we won 1-0 we all hailed his courage for taking such a gamble and it paying off. You can't have it both ways I think the way he has handled the young strikers is an example of one of the things he has done well this season.