Last time out Pripyat narrowly avoided relegation after a playoff victory against promotion chasers Cherkaschyna. We go into Season 7 of the save again on the back foot, the media are predicting another long season for Chepiga.
Due to the Relegation playoff we only had three weeks before the new season started. Ideally I like to have all my recruitment done before a ball is kicked, this would not be possible in this case.
I thought I would write a little bit about how I go about recruitment in this save. The first issue I have is I can only afford two scouts, so mass scouting of players in the short time frame required here is not possible. Funds are extremely limited so I only can afford the cheapest scouting package for a couple of months per season. My final issue is I am using attribute masking so the players I do uncover, I can not see all their attributes and other important information like player traits.
With all this going on, how do I make any informed decisions? My answer is TRIALS. Trials are your friend in this situation. It seems to take around 2 weeks on trial for you to see almost all the players attributes. I have seen seasons where I offered 40-50 trials during a pre-season. There is virtually no downside to this and I have even taken players on trial during the season just to get a better handle on a their attributes.
I first identify the position, or positions, I want to strengthen, second I use the filters to select 4-5 attributes that I think are key to how I want the position to play. I don't limit the search by position this way I get more options returned and I can make a judgment myself if the player can fulfil the role how I want.
A typical player search return for me.
Evolution
Even though last season was poor I still do not like to make wholesale changes, I much prefer my teams to evolve over time. I aim to improve three maybe four positions per offseason if I can. The season just past I really struggled to find a centre back partner for player of the season Alexiy Fedorchuk, himself only a loan signing from Olimpik Donetsk. I made the early decision to try and renew his loan and this was successful. I was therefore hopeful if I could find him a steady partner we would have a strong base upon which to build. I also needed some depth so if I could get two decent centre backs that would be great. With this in mind I invited three players in on a two week trial.
Centre-Backs
The first player brought in was Vyacheslov Ponomarenko, a young centre back previously with Karpathy. All I could really tell from his initial masked attributes was that he had good jumping reach and tackling, a good starting point for a centre back. Everything else was a bit up in the air and would depend if his real attributes came out on the top end of the possible spread, or the lower end. I was hopeful that if the majority came out on the higher end, we would have a decent centre back on our hands.
After two weeks you can see that we know a good bit more about young Vyacheslov. It is worth noting at this point that anything over 10/11 is above average for the Persha Liha. Unfortunately for Ponomarenko he falls below this level on a number of key attributes such as, Marking, Heading, Bravery, and Positioning. Still only 19 I don't rule him out completely as he has room to grow.
Second up we have 18 year old, Dmytro Martynenko formerly of Dynamo Kiev. As you can see even before we take him on trial, many of his attributes will exceed the 10/11 threshold no matter what. He is aggressive, brave, and has great determination. His jumping reach is fantastic, little wonder given he is six foot eight. Other attributes such as positioning, marking, and strength could all still be very good, we will just have to wait and see. At this point I already know I really want him, but I am expecting him to ask us for too much money meaning we will need to move onto one of our other targets.
After his trial we can see that positioning, strength, and marking all came out fine. I identified him as a definite one of our two targeted centre backs. One potential issue might be my maximum wage, which is around £200/week, so I am unsure if we have the financial clout to land him. I would need to keep looking for alternatives, just in case.
Third up, we brought in Yegor Tsykalo, a bit later in the window. As you can see he isn't listed as a centre back, but he scored highly on the attributes I searched for, Jumping, Acceleration, Tackling, and Marking. I also liked the look of his first touch and vision and considered if I could use him as a ball playing defender, or a deep lying playmaker.
After his trial I have to admit his scores for Anticipation, Bravery, Composure, and Concentration did give me food for thought. Could he be trusted over a whole season. He also had pretty low determination and positioning.
So I am certain that Martynenko is my top target, the other two I can take them or leave them and will wait and see how much they are demanding in wages.
I was delighted that Martynenko agreed to sign a two year deal on £130 with a £150,000 release clause. Ponomarenko wanted £180 per week along with assurances around strengthening the squad in areas I did not plan to. Tsykalo however, only wanted £100, and was happy to be a fringe player so in he came as back up to Fedorchuk and Martynenko.
Goalkeepers
My next port of call was my goalkeeper. I always struggle to adequately assess 'keepers, but something unsettles me about my current incumbent, Dymtro Globa. I think it may be his high tendency to punch attribute (16) coupled with his low composure and command of the area. We struggle to deal with balls into the box at times and I think Globa may be part of the issue.
He has been with us since season one in the amateur leagues, and I am sure we have outgrown him. The problem is any time I identify a potential replacement I end up thinking they aren't that much of an upgrade. I have once again identified three potential signings who I brought to Pripyat for a trial to learn more about them.
First we have Dmytro Nesterov, I love my goalkeepers tall so Nesterov came out on top at six foot eight, with an aerial reach of 17. You can see I already had knowledge of some of the goalkeepers due to a season long scouting mission. I'm torn once again as I am not convinced he is that much of an upgrade on Globa.
Second up Mykyta Filatov who had just been released from Real Pharma for some reason. I really like Filatov, he is pretty well rounded and reasonably strong mentally.
My final option was 18 year old, Alexandr Larionov formerly of Shakhtar Donetsk. Good command of the area, communication, handling, and reflexes were all pluses, but he was much weaker mentally than Filatov. I pondered long and hard over who to go for. I was happy Filatov was the stronger goalkeeper overall, but he was also eight years older, and wanted £375 per week. In the end Larionov signed for £140 and was content to be a back up, so I was in no hurry to integrate him into the first team right away.
I actually tried to loan Larionov out in the thinking that a season of first team football would see him return much stronger, as it was he refused to go.
I followed a similar process to sign an inverted winger and a right back however none of these deals got over the line as my targets all wanted too much money or as in one case refused to even come on trial!
So how did the new boys get on, was it another season fighting relegation for Chepiga and the boys?
Summer / Autumn 2025
Over the first fifteen games I couldn't have been happier with how we did. Even though we only had one win over the first six games, I saw enough to tell me we were on the right track. Our three summer signings were not available until the Bukovyna match at the end of July. From that match on we had one of the best runs of form I have experienced this edition. We lost just one match in twelve games. It was clear that Martynenko and Larionov played a huge part in our defensive improvement. All of which left us sitting 4th at the halfway point in the season.
Autumn 2025
After a very busy schedule, especially in August, the season becomes annoyingly fragmented and very stop and start from now on. We only had six games between October and December, before a four month winter break.
This stop start nature coincided with a drop in consistency for us, still as it was, we went into the winter break still in fourth place, but 10 points behind Metalurg Zp. At this point I expected us to fall away after the break but I was fairly confident we would not get drawn into any silly business at the bottom of the league.
Spring 2026
After the winter break there was only nine games to play across four months of game time.
Much to my surprise we came back from the winter break playing some wonderful stuff, going seven games unbeaten, a run that included five clean sheets. During our great run of form third placed Metalurg Zp started to really struggle, I think to think our 2-0 win at the end of March started their issues.
We had actually given ourselves a chance of making the playoffs with three games left to play. Somehow we were only one point off Metalurg Zp.
Unfortunately, four points over these three games wasn't enough to nick a playoff place, our 3-1 defeat to Girnyk-Sport confirmed 4th place, and to be honest I am not too disappointed. I plan to carry on the evolution of the side in the hope that three or four new faces this season could see us maintain a challenge for the playoff places as we enter Season Eight.
New Signings review.
Why not start with the star man! Dmytro Martynenko has been superb. 27 Appearances, 4 player of the match awards at an average rating of 7.06, fans player of the year, fans young player of the year, and signing of the season. Watching him defend I never felt we were in trouble, long balls forward were intercepted or headed away with ease.
Key Tackles - 8 - 3rd in Persha Liha.
Headers won - 361 - 2nd in Persha Liha
Key Headers - 90 - 4th in Persha Liha
Interceptions - 224 - 1st in Persha Liha
Larionov in the end his season was punctuated with silly injuries and he only made 12 appearances, so a little under half the season, but he did have seven clean sheets so if he keeps that ratio up I will be very pleased. I am happy with his development and he is still very young for a Goalkeeper. I am concerned that I haven't been able to change his personality as yet but still content to give him more time to develop.
Tsykalo was signed as a back up and after he joined we only then discovered that he has the player trait of "gets forward whenever possible" this was not revealed to me at the time I signed him. My plan was to use him as a backup centre-back, or a defensive midfielder. But I never fully trusted him due to this trait, and his lack of bravery and concentration. In the end he only made four starts playing 356 minutes. He remains a cheap and decent back up so I may well hold onto him.
So ends another season in Pripyat. I am really happy that we managed to push on this season. I intend to keeping playing this save right up until the new game comes out (if it does). I hope to maybe play four more seasons, and in that time I'd be hopeful we can make it to the Premier Liha and establish Pripyat as one of the top sides in Ukraine.
If you have made it this far thanks very much for reading. If you haven’t a clue what is going on you can read earlier posts here.
You can find me on twitter here and I will also be providing sporadic updates about the save and various other things on my slack channel #fmeadster.
Over and out
FMEadster!