So your squad is marooned in the lower half of the table, your forwards are incapable of hitting the proverbial graminivorous quadruped’s posterior with any sort of stringed instrument and your midfield players could not pass water. Your defence is sound, but what is the good of having three great full backs when you are falling far behind in goals and assists? What can you do to get back in the title race? PlayTheGame offers you two options. You can back your judgment of hidden talent by dipping into the pool of players who are not in your competitors’ squads. Or you can test your powers of wheeling and dealing by offering a rival manager a transfer deal.

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Best of all, there are no limits to the number of transactions of either type that you can make during the season. Nor are there any transfer or signing-on fees – over or under the counter – or any transfer windows or transfer deadlines.

If you have strength in depth in one area of your team but a weakness elsewhere, your best option is to offer a player who is surplus to your requirements to another manager in exchange for a player you need. A deal is more likely to be struck if you do a little research and find out which teams are in need of the type of player you are willing to offer in exchange. Rather than simply sending a proposal, it is worth opening negotiations by inquiring whether a manager would be interested in improving his team with the player you have to offer.

If your first offer does not do the trick, you can add extra players to the deal. This season, you can do two-for-one or even three-for-one deals, provided the manager getting the extra players agrees to release an equivalent number of players.

If you cannot make a deal with a rival, consider out-of-contract players. Any player not allocated to a team is available to be signed, subject to a brief period “on notice” immediately after the initial player allocation or after he has been released by another team. Because your squad cannot be more than 20 strong, you must nominate a player to release before you can sign an out-of-contract player. But with no money changing hands, you won’t be getting a visit from an undercover Panorama television reporter.

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