That should be 6 season rotation (SBY, APP ages I to IV then retire to BRB and start again) extended to 7 season (where the V/7 is CP'd so can earn CP and retire as age VI).

And ignore the bit about 2 seasons I don't have youth GKs because it turns out to be nonsense.

But the question still remains about doing without sweepers.
 

As usual Mr. Kevin Martin will have an opinion on this and perhaps Mr. Stretch as well as I think he's had more of a non-Sw team in MSWL United recently.

Anyway...I don't recall a team ever winning the 1st Division with this approach.  That doesn't mean you can't win the 2nd division, 3rd division, or cups with this approach (or even the first division).  However, and I think we'll see this as the dust settles and teams differentiate, there will be some strong 1st Division teams and occasionally you can get away without a Sw but not on a regular basis.

I think the reasons have been that many teams go for the superpower Fw roster and while their approach often becomes one-dimensional (great Gk- good Sw- horrible Df-horrible Mf- INCREDIBLE  Fw) it can be tough to counter so much firepower.  Yes, the OST approach CAN work with that type of team if you have a really good Df.

But it just seems difficult to pull off EVERY game EVERY session.   It can/does work when you need to do it perhaps once a session when the Sw needs to sit.   

Personally I found it rough going in the first division when I didn't play my Sw much.

So again, this is just an opinion with a lot of rambling, and I think you can make it work outside the 1st division, but perhaps not in the 1st division as there will be too many good teams and with many attacks becoming shots on target in a non-Sw situation, its tough to excel.

well I am heading for the second division...

I know I know...  :-)

But not for long right?

A good alternative to not 'building a Sw' is to just wait around for a good one to show up in an auction...because it is a little ugly to have to bring up an SBY Sw unless you are in the 2nd/3rd divisions...

Hopefully not, Al.

Thinking about what you said about big defence - if it was a level 17 Df rather than Sw and I played OST then 13 attacks for me (4 or 5 shots) and 4 attacks/shots for Kendal...

The main reason I asked is that if I want to keep playing a Sw then I need a SBY next season.

Playing OST without a Sw works well enough to put me top of the second division. You can manage without one, but you need a beefy Gk and some good Mf.

Steve,

Whatever rotation you want to work out at Gk or Sw that works for you should be fine.  I would suggest avoiding having a fully CP'd age I player at the position at the same time as a fully CP'd age III though.  That's 102 CP in just one spot where they can't play in the same game (unless you regularly play the 2nd Sw OOP at Df - which is a possibility of just taking the -2 SL penalty).  Fully coaching up an age III Gk is a good idea though.  You invested so heavily in getting him to top SL, so getting another season of max performance out of him is worth it.  Age IV+ sees diminishing returns though, so do that at your own risk.  Space the Gks apart so you won't have an age I at the same time as a maxed age III.

Using OST works on occasion.  The main reason I have seen it be unsustainable is that it becomes predictable.  If you have no Sw and always use OST, then the other managers figure it out in a hurry.  On the road against a quality side, you suddenly find yourself facing 5- and 6-man midfields.  Your use of OST then gives them a 1:1 scoring chance.  They add on 9 home bonus to the Mf as well, and maybe some hardness there, and you end up giving them an extra 10-20 midfield chances.  Without having 3-4 top Fws (since you spent the CP on Mf/Df), you're stuck in a tactic that can be readily countered by competent managers.

The other downside is that without a sweeper you need to play the extra player either at Mf to build up enough SL there to play OST, or at Df in order to stop shots.  Those positions give far fewer scoring chances in return (2:1 for Mf, 5:1 for Df w/o a Sw).  So for all the SL you're putting out, you're getting a lot less scoring chances in return.

One idea I've had to try out and haven't pulled the trigger on yet is building up another quality Df instead of a Sw.  Then you play him at Sw when desired (at the -2 penalty, of course), or at Df when wanted at full strength, or -2 at Mf for a stacked Mf to play OST in a different formation (4-4-2, 3-5-2, 2-6-2, 4-3-3 if playing a Mf wimp, etc.).  While you're often losing out on a few SL by doing that, it would make you very unpredictable as a manager and hard to plan against.

In any case, if you are not playing a Sw in any match, then you'd better have a dang good Gk (at least SL 15+2 Fit).  A top Gk (SL 16+2 Fit + 5 GPP or hardness = 23) has a save rate around 92%.  You can afford to gamble with no Sw under with a guy like that in net.  If your save rate drops below 80%ish (17 SL+Fit), you'll probably have to outscore the opponent, which OST is not built for with all the SL at Mf and Df instead of at Fw.

I'll agree with Al and Kevin, but without the essay :)

I did try the no SW approach in MSWL-U 1 some time ago. For a while it worked well but in the end it was a failure. As Kevin says, it becomes predictable, and when the other manager knows 100% you're playing OST it's very easily countered. All it takes is the manager with the 6-8 FWs to play a few at MF and you have a disaster on your hands.

You'll also find yourself not generating the shots to beat teams if a lot of your SL is at MF, so even if playing OST stops the other team scoring, the final score might only be 0-0.

Well if Ian "winner of three trphies in season 1" says so then it must be a bad idea.

ï»HAving recently lost to Ian in a Cup final (well done Ian by the way great result!!!) Had a I played OST with an extra df instead of my sweeper i reckon ic ould of stood a better chance. A few years ago i used alot of OST against teams that play a strong fw line. but remember u ahve to be confident of a very strong gk to use this tactic. It would work for a season but not long term.

Only my opinion but i wouldnt do it!!

I seem to remember that we moved to "5:1 for Df w/o a Sw" when it used to be a better ratio than that.  If the general feeling is that OST is not a valid tactic to use all the time, do we need to look at that ratio?

I don't think any tactic should be used "all of the time"... everything gets predictable if done too often. In the AP Cup final, I knew that John was going to expect a loaded FW from me. I predicted he would try to maximize his DF as that was his biggest strength and go OST. I countered by outgunning his MF with several FWs playing OOP and playing OST myself.

The strongest tactic for myself would have been to overload the FW and just try to outshoot RUS, but I knew that would be predictable. 

In the end, you need to have options available to you. I will always have a SW on my team somewhere around SL 10-12. A while back, in MU1, Kevin had done some research, analyzing a SW's effectiveness. It did seem to me that there was a line of diminishing returns around SL 12 where you started spending a lot of CP and not getting a lot of extra shot stopping % in return. Having a SW that you have no invested a ton of CP in on your roster gives you that flexibility to play either SW or OST at any given time. 

In short, you cannot survive very long at the top division without an effective SW.  The SW doesn't have to be maxed out (e.g. II/13-16), but he should be close.

OST is an effective tactic, but as noted by Kevin and Ian (at the least), it does not yield overly productive results for the long term.

It seems prudent to have a well balanced team in these UNITED leagues as it certainly provides more options when game planning.  That being said, Alon Atie (Tranmere) has gone against that notion in MSWL-U almost exclusively playing a 1-1-2-2-5.  Tranmere has been in D1 since season three and won six straight league championships!

So just remember for all the planning and analyses (two things I truly enjoy), there are always exceptions to the rules and alternative methods that can work.  It also helps there is pro-Alon code built into the system.... ;)

Interesting debate: I wrote the original rules with the idea that no decision should be automatic, so hopefully teams will see an advantage in not playing a Sw at least some of the time. I guess in an ideal world it would be a 50-50 call: in 'original original' United Sw's were so overpowerful that they were essential- maybe there's further to go in the other direction.

The point about diminishing returns may be true, but there is an important point for top teams about reducing risk, which people often miss. When you know you can vastly outshoot and outscore your opponents, the important thing stops being maximising the expected ratio of goals in your favour, and becomes instead minimising the expected number of opponent goals, ie cutting out the freak results. A strong Sw and Gk are the only real way to do that.

But then again, with my results last season what do I know :-)