Career Failed! One Season Only: Mitrovic Shooting For 80 Goals

[Scratch]

Intro

 

I'll be attempting to get Alexander Mitrovic to score 80 goals for Newcastle, in the first season of the game. 

 

 

 

What's a One Season Only 'challenge'?

 

I just spent 3 months playing a 1KC challenge. I'm sure I'll do that again, but for now I need something shorter! Enter the One Season Only 'challenge'. It's one season long and you either succeed or fail and it's over and onto the next one. For those of you who know cricket, think of it like a 20-20 match.

 

It's not an official challenge, just a career, but maybe there is value in the concept. If so, I may turn this into a proper challenge later on. I'll be following all of the normal rules of a challenge: No unlockables, no editing, etc.

 

 

Why Newcastle?

 

I'm a Newcastle fan! I started a Newcastle save when FMM 2017 first came out, but abandoned it once my Armstrong 1KC career got going. Now, having already made Celtic the best club in the world, there is limited appeal to a straight club building career. I'm pretty sure I could do the same with Newcastle, so I need something more challenging. But using Newcastle in a 'challenge' is very appealing! Also, they happen to have a striker that fits my needs...

 

 

Why Mitrovic?

 

Mitrovic has done well in my Newcastle careers and been a decent goal scorer. That said, Marcus Gayle has been better for me and would probably be a better choice - but I wanted a striker who is strong in the air and Mitrovic fulfils that. 

 

The 4 3 2 1 Attacking Direct Centre tactic I used in my 1KC career gave Armstrong a lot of goals, but he also missed a lot of headers. I've always wondered what would happen with a taller striker. Enter Mitrovic. He's a decent striker in his own right, but he's good in the air too. I'm hoping that will translate into extra goals...

 

 

Why 80 Goals?

 

Firstly, I think my chances of success are probably only 20%. This will be tough! I think 60 goals is achievable, but no one's going to bother following this unless there's more challenge to it than that! I did briefly think about making it 100 goals, but that is just too much for this striker and situation etc. So 80 it is.

 

 

The Case For Success

 

• I have a ready made tactic from my 1KC career, along with lots of learnings about how to get goals out of a player. I'm primed for this!
• Hopefully, the fact that he's strong in the air will make the tactic work even better for Mitrovic than it did for Armstrong.
• Mitrovic is 21 already. Although he's some way from his peak, he should be able to avoid the slow start that youngsters often have.
• Newcastle have some budget (£17M) which allows me to shape the squad better for a goal scoring challenge. 
• With Newcastle in the Championship, they will have many games against weaker opposition (though the gap will not be as wide as it was with Celtic).

 

 

The Case For Failure

 

• I only ever got Armstrong to score 80 goals once and that was with a team far stronger than Newcastle will be this season.
• One season only (and in the Championship) gives me limited time to shape the team into one that can support a player to score mucho goals.
• I should be able to find decent coaches, but my training facilities are only Impressive. This will limit Mitrovic's development and there is not much time to improve them.
• Just one injury could kill the challenge. Even a 2 week injury will make it very unlikely. 
• There will be no European matches and it will be harder to go all the way in the cups, meaning less matches.

 

I'm sure I had more negatives, but I've erased them from my mind and am focusing 110% on the goal at hand. I'll be back in the next day or two with a run down of what happens in pre-season. After that, I'll be giving monthly updates as Mitrovic hunts his dream.

 

Anyway, what do you think? Am I crazy? Is there value in One Season Only concept? Let me know what you think!

[AndersJ]

Great fun! Best of luck!

whats your main criterias for getting one guy to score that many goals :)?

[Scratch]

@AndersJ Thanks! Off the top of my head, to score that many:

• The team needs to be winning and scoring lots of goals.
• The tactic needs to make the majority of the chances come from the chosen player.
• The chosen player's teammates (especially up forward) should ideally have high creativity and teamwork values (to create chances instead of taking them). 
• The player needs to stay injury free (in a 1KC, they get injured, but you have time to make it, but not second chance in one season).

There's a bunch of other stuff (like improving the facities, etc), but they are the main points in my opinion.

Edited March 6, 2017 by scratch99

[AndersJ]

Cool - thank you very much .

im thinking wingers also that can feed the big guy ?

[Scratch]

16 minutes ago, AndersJ said:

Cool - thank you very much .

im thinking wingers also that can feed the big guy ?

Yep, definitely! I'll lay the full tactic out in a future update, but there are attacking wingers.

I used that for Armstrong too in my 1KC, but he's a shortie, so lots of missed headers. Still lots of goals for him. The main reason I used wingers for him was that IFs took too many goals away from him. I did used a wide AP at times, but wingers seemed to work best. 

Of course I'll probably have to tweak it for Mitrovic, so we'll have to see how it goes.

[BatiGoal]

Is this an unofficial prep for the Latin Europe challenge? the number you need there is 80 so..

I can totally understand the desire for a shorter challenge. This would also be a great side challenge for a main one like the 1KC. 80 is a perfect benchmark which I have yet to achive in FMM17. And I think Mitrovic is a great all-round striker in the game, almost a complete one by the time he reaches his peak.

Goodluck!

[Scratch]

6 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Is this an unofficial prep for the Latin Europe challenge? the number you need there is 80 so..

I can totally understand the desire for a shorter challenge. This would also be a great side challenge for a main one like the 1KC. 80 is a perfect benchmark which I have yet to achive in FMM17. And I think Mitrovic is a great all-round striker in the game, almost a complete one by the time he reaches his peak.

Goodluck!

Hehe, I'll have to read up on that challenge! Don't know about that one yet.

This really came out a desire to see how the tactic went with a taller striker, combined with not wanting to spend 3 months finding out!

I didn't post it above, but I totally reserve the right to turn this into a 1KC (even though he's a bit old) later on if I feel like it, but I don't think I will... I have another double 1KC in mind, but not before a few other things...

[veerus]

I've thought of something similar but for lower leagues. Like 65 goals for a Vanarama National player (can't be a loanee) where it's easier to herd cats than get consistent performances. But no time to try. 

[Ashez]

Good luck, seems possible but will be difficult  

[samhardy]

Very poor choice of club and player. With that said, you'll need a lot of luck!

[Scratch]

11 hours ago, veerus said:

I've thought of something similar but for lower leagues. Like 65 goals for a Vanarama National player (can't be a loanee) where it's easier to herd cats than get consistent performances. But no time to try. 

That's interesting. I'm thinking of going the other way and playing one of the top clubs and going for 100 goals in a season. Would be difficult, but might attempt it. But the lower leagues idea is intriguing...

added 0 minutes later

6 hours ago, Ashez said:

Good luck, seems possible but will be difficult  

Yep, expecting this to be real difficult. But it needs to be ambitious to keep us all interested! (including me!).

[Scratch]

4 hours ago, samhardy said:

Very poor choice of club and player. With that said, you'll need a lot of luck!

You're always welcome to try with Defoe and Sunderland! Actually, I wouldn't mind trying a challenge of some sort with Defoe, I like him a lot. Same can't be said for that poor excuse for a team though...

[Scratch]

Pre-season Update

 

Expectations

 

The board want us to mount a serious challenge for the title and they've given us £17.5M to do so.

 

I'm expecting us to challenge for the title too. Mitrovic won't score as many goals if we're mired in the mid-table. We need to be winning and winning well... As for the budget, well it's decent at this level (and a lot more than the £2.3M the Celtic board gave me in my 1KC career), but I want to overhaul the team and that will only get me so far.

 

 

Development

 

Mitrovic is already a decent player, but I'm hoping he develops into an even better player. He has a little bit of improvement to come according to our coaching staff, but I'm hoping there's more than that! The long distance inaccuracy is a bit of a worry though...

 

With only one season, there is limited time for improvement, but we'll get as much out of him as we can. Our Training Facilities are (only) Impressive, which may limit how fast he improves, and the board won't consider any changes at this point of the game. That leaves two things I can control: 1) His training schedule; and 2) The coaches training him.

 

I'm not following the Intensive Training regime, but I've asked him to stop the Defensive training and to spend more time on Fitness training instead.

 

As for the coaches, well some changes were needed. I have room for 3 coaches, 2 scouts and 2 physios. We had a full house, but I wanted to get everyone onto a gold badge, either by passing the test straight up or by replacing them. I also wanted to tweak some of the roles we had. 

 

With the coaches, this was pretty straightforward. Mikel Antia failed his Gold badge test and I don't like General coaches...

 

So I replaced him with a gold badge Youth coach. A youth coach presumably specialises in players younger than Mitrovic (21), but I only had limited choices for gold badged coaches, and he will help some of Mitrovic's teammates come through.

 

I started with a gold badged Prevention physio and a silver badged Rehabilitation physio. Because we need to keep Mitrovic fit at all costs, I replaced the Rehabilitation physio with another gold badged Preventative physio. I'm not sure if that helps, but if he does actually get injured, I can always back to a Rehabilitation physio.

 

We have two gold badged Bargain Hunter scouts. I'd prefer First Team Scouts, but I couldn't find any with a gold badge, so I stuck with the current scouts.

 

 

Tactics

 

As mentioned before, I'm using the same tactics I used on my 1KC career with Adam Armstrong at Celtic:

 

 

The idea is to create lots of space around the striker (no other strikers or central AMs) and then get it into him quickly (Direct). I generally play through the Centre, but sometime go with Mixed. I've had some seasons (in the 1KC) where a winger provided the most assists, but normally they come from one of the central midfielders.

 

Worked well for Armstrong, but we'll see if it works for Mitrovic or not.

 

Team Overhaul

 

Newcastle already have a good squad, but I want to make some changes. Note: I'll cover the changes right up until the transfer deadline, but I'll leave the August matches until next update.

 

Out:

 

Out went some pretty decent players, but I needed to sell in order to buy. Perez and de Jong wouldn't see much game time with Mitrovic being our starting forward, so it was a no brainer to sell them. Tiote is a BWM and while he's decent, he doesn't really fit my style of play. Anita seems strangely underpowered in this save. Gouffran just wasn't good enough for one of the wing spots and I had better options at fullback than Gamez. Darlow went in part exchange to get Pavon. 

 

I wanted to sell more, but no one is interested in Dummett, Colback, etc.

 

In:

I tried so hard to get great players, but it was difficult, what with budget limitations and no European football to offer them. The bunch I bought should help us out this year, but they weren't as good as I'd have liked.

 

More on the new recruits:

 

Spoiler

 

Pavon is probably the pick. He's decent right now, but he will develop into a great player soon. How soon, that's the question! We need it to be ASAP!

 

On the other wing, we picked up Lamah. He's not really any better than our current lot (Atsu, Thauvin, Aarons), but he's decent and he was free, so we'll put him in the mix and see if he can claim a spot.

 

I wasn't happy with our full back/ wing backs, as I want players who will attack. Layun, Fabra and Mattioni are decent options and will likely take over from our current choices.

 

 

 

In central midfield, I want players with good passing and creativity. After failing to get some other targets, I settled for Montillo, who is decent right now, but who at 32 might not last long. I'd have never bought him on a long term career, but all I need is for him to stay a decent option for this season.

 

Cabral might be a better option, so I got him as well.

 

I was trying to get better players, but they are a decent bunch who should support the system we play. I still have £30M in the bank, so January will probably be active.

 

Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. I've played August and will post it sometime soon, but that's enough info to set things up for now... 

 

[BatiGoal]

Great preparation, mate. I'd probably keep the General Gold over the youth one but dunno if that'll make a significant difference in one season.

Looking promising. Hope he delivers to prove @samhardy wrong. Again.

 

[Scratch]

25 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Great preparation, mate. I'd probably keep the General Gold over the youth one but dunno if that'll make a significant difference in one season.

Looking promising. Hope he delivers to prove @samhardy wrong. Again.

 

Thanks mate! If he'd been gold, I probably would have kept him, but he was silver and he failed his test. I'd normally be more patient, but screw that, we've only got a year!!!

But yeah, it probably doesn't make a great difference and we don't really understand the coach role enough...

Edited March 7, 2017 by scratch99

[danovic78]

Selling Perez might have been a mistake, he is actually a very good AP that could help create those goals...

You might need him as back up as the Championship is brutal on squads I have found.

[Scratch]

45 minutes ago, danovic78 said:

Selling Perez might have been a mistake, he is actually a very good AP that could help create those goals...

You might need him as back up as the Championship is brutal on squads I have found.

Yeah, I normally like Perez, but he's green as a striker (that's Mitrovic), green as a central attacking midfielder (I don't use one) and only yellow on the wings (the only place I'd use him). I know some people don't worry about a player only being yellow for a position, but I don't normally play people in positions they are yellow for. I could get decent money for him, so he had to go...

I might regret not having him as a backup striker, but at the time I needed the money!

[Ashez]

Not sure on Pavon, in this type of save I'd always almost ignore youth and go for someone experienced and in their prime. You have one season so you want someone who can deliever now. 

[Scratch]

11 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Not sure on Pavon, in this type of save I'd always almost ignore youth and go for someone experienced and in their prime. You have one season so you want someone who can deliever now. 

I'm going to have go ahead and post the August update then! Let's just say Pavon gets a mention... 

[Scratch]

August Update

 

Well, I'm not sure about you, but we've been dying for the season to start! Everything is lined up and we're raring to go!! Time to get out on the pitch and start putting things right at this great club. And Mitrovic has an extra twinkle in his eye after I set him that target of 80 goals this season. He believes he can do it!

 

 

Development

 

Mitrovic started the season looking like this:

 

He's come along quite nicely in a short period of time - by the end of August he looks like this:

 

Shooting & Movement both +1. Pace, Stamina, Strength, Dribbling all plus +3. Decisions dropped a bit, but a very nice improvement overall.

 

 

Injuries

 

We lost both Montillo and Diame for a month and Pavon and Gayle for 3 weeks, but no injuries for the big lad.

 

 

Goals

 

A good start to the season, with Newcastle winning every game in August and Mitrovic scoring freely.

 

The highlight was this hat trick against Huddersfield (may he have many more of these!):

 

So, it's a great start, with 8 goals in 6 games.

 

If he can keep that up, he'll be close to making 80 goals. Probably just short, but close nonetheless. Of course, maintaining that sort of form consistently, over the course of a whole season, is not easy to do.

 

 

Teammates

 

So who's helping Mitrovic score the goals?

 

Well, Pavon has been the star, with 6 assists in 4 matches. It's probably no coincidence that Mitrovic scored 7 goals in 4 games while Pavon was playing and only 1 goal in 2 games after he was injured. Money well spent... His attributes were shooting up, but of course crashed back down with the injury (so no screenshot yet). 

 

Other than that, Saviet's been good in the AP central midfielder role and Layun has done well to chip in with a couple of assists from wingback. Grant Hanley has been done well down the back and is a great leader for our team.

 

Interestingly our second highest 'scorer' (according to that screen anyway) has been none other than Adam Armstrong - although he's actually out on loan at Barnsley. Strange, but a nice cameo nonetheless.

 

 

The Future

 

For now, there's not much to do, but to keep on pushing! Mitrovic at the very least needs to maintain this rate. Roll on September and we'll see if he can!

 

BTW, is there anything else you'd like to see in these updates? 

Edited March 7, 2017 by scratch99

[Ashez]

Well that's shut me up for now haha, must have a high enough CA to dominate at Championship level as is etc. Nice start  

[Scratch]

21 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Well that's shut me up for now haha, must have a high enough CA to dominate at Championship level as is etc. Nice start  

Haha, that *was* pretty poor timing!

Actually, out of all my signings, Pavon is the only one I have a lot of confidence in. I used him in the Newcastle save that I abandoned when the Armstrong 1KC took over, and he was class.

Most good young South Americans seem to work well in the championship (or in Scotland for that matter), at least in my experience. If you have decent facilities and coaches they develop really quickly and the opposition is low enough that their class is enough to get by without the seasoning required for a higher level. I should have bought a few more! 

[Mr.Manager]

Great start! And great to see you have a pop at another challenge. Good luck

[Taff]

Sorry dude just caught up

Great start to the season and hopefully he can be consistent as this will be the key to him achieving his target (that and staying injury free)

Oh and a second congrats for shooting down @Ashez always fun to see LOL

[Ashez]

4 hours ago, Taff said:

Sorry dude just caught up

Great start to the season and hopefully he can be consistent as this will be the key to him achieving his target (that and staying injury free)

Oh and a second congrats for shooting down @Ashez always fun to see LOL

The beauty of FMM is there are unlimited ways to play the game  

[Taff]

Not for me at the moment what ever I try just is not taking off

Bloody game is testing me and I SUCK at test

[Ashez]

2 minutes ago, Taff said:

Not for me at the moment what ever I try just is not taking off

Bloody game is testing me and I SUCK at test

I never said all those ways were the right way  haha. I've been there mate, it does truely suck!

[Taff]

I'm sure I'll get there but hell it's really getting on my nerves right now

[Scratch]

@Ashez @Taff Umm, well the game has decided to test me as well. September has been nowhere near as good as August.   

Now I remember this is what it's been like each time I start a career in FMM 2017. Seems to take me a couple of seasons to improve the team before I get any sort of consistency. Still not out of it, but way behind where I need to be to complete this. 

I guess that's what comes of shooting Ashez down - a whole lot of bad karma!  

added 0 minutes later

15 hours ago, Mr.Manager said:

Great start! And great to see you have a pop at another challenge. Good luck

Thanks mate! I'm going to need it after the last month...

[lm10]

KIU u can even reach 100 goals at this rate