Career ?PinaColada - A Double 1KC Attempt

[Ashez]

They're improving but the end goal feels so far away! I'm keeping the faith for now though mate, it's a Scratch career so we all know the unthinkable is possible! 

[mcandrew003]

Mate, another absoloutley brilliant update. From the first paragraph I was pulled straight into the career. A decent season for the lads, Colidio's 42 is a massive step forward, but Pinamonti is becoming an issue. However, if anybody can solve it, Scratch99 can!

I found myself nodding my head and smiling as I saw a second CL win, gotta say well done mate, I struggle with a full quality United side, let alone Celtic!

[Taff]

5 minutes ago, Ashez said:

They're improving but the end goal feels so far away! I'm keeping the faith for now though mate, it's a Scratch career so we all know the unthinkable is possible! 

You mean it's a Scratch career and he's not happy unless we're all on the edge of our seats and chewing our nails

[BatiGoal]

Great job retraining Ajer to cover the entire spine. That is an invaluable asset to have in your team. Looks cool too.

But agree with the others, time to pick it up mate, don't throw us in another of your emotional rollercoasters.

 

[Scratch]

9 hours ago, Mr.Manager said:

Great work again! Amazing work retaining the Champions Cup.

Pinamonti needs to step up. His stats are good, but maybe it's his lack of real pace that's holding him back...

 

Thanks! I really wasn't expecting to retain it and we really limped to it in the end, so it was pretty nice to win it. Though right now, I'd probably swap it for an extra 15 goals for Pinamonti!

I was wondering if his pace was the problem too. It was up to 14 before it dropped to 12 for no reason near the end of the season. I'm hoping that's just temporary! He does have moments when he looks quite decent, but then he goes off the boil for long periods. I'm *trying* not to get too worried, as he's still pretty young and will probably be a lot better in a year or two, but ... you're right, he needs to step up!

[Scratch]

9 hours ago, Ashez said:

They're improving but the end goal feels so far away! I'm keeping the faith for now though mate, it's a Scratch career so we all know the unthinkable is possible! 

Thanks mate, wish I had your faith!  

I'm feeling pretty positive about Colidio making it, just need to see if Pinamonti has it in him...

[Scratch]

9 hours ago, mcandrew003 said:

Mate, another absoloutley brilliant update. From the first paragraph I was pulled straight into the career. A decent season for the lads, Colidio's 42 is a massive step forward, but Pinamonti is becoming an issue. However, if anybody can solve it, Scratch99 can!

I found myself nodding my head and smiling as I saw a second CL win, gotta say well done mate, I struggle with a full quality United side, let alone Celtic!

Thanks mate! Colidio is doing pretty much what I expected (or is that desperately hoped) they'd both do, so that's pretty encouraging.

But Pinamonti... I think he has it in him and still think it's possible, but I am worried. I don't have any miracle solutions though, just continue to surround them with the best players I can, fiddle with the tactics, and hope he improves his consistency with age. A wish and a prayer so to speak!

[Scratch]

9 hours ago, Taff said:

You mean it's a Scratch career and he's not happy unless we're all on the edge of our seats and chewing our nails

Damn, I've been sprung! You've worked out that I've asked Pinamonti to hold back because we need a bit of tension for the punters!

[Scratch]

8 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Great job retraining Ajer to cover the entire spine. That is an invaluable asset to have in your team. Looks cool too.

But agree with the others, time to pick it up mate, don't throw us in another of your emotional rollercoasters.

 

Thanks BG! It is so much easier to retrain players now, that I'm wondering if they made it too easy! It sure helps with working out how to cover all bases on the bench. 

I'll have a word with Pinamonti and tell him he stressing people out. I'll tell him to get out there and start scoring for Vibe!!!

[Mr.Manager]

9 hours ago, scratch99 said:

It is so much easier to retrain players now

Have they made it easier to retrain? Since when? This could be useful to know!

[Scratch]

43 minutes ago, Mr.Manager said:

Have they made it easier to retrain? Since when? This could be useful to know!

When FMM 2017 came out you couldn't retrain anyone, except maybe one or two very young players. Lots of people on here were complaining about it. Then SI Games fixed it in one of the updates (not sure which). Now I seem to be able to retrain almost everyone (but not in every position), and they can get full green, which I don't think they could in older versions of FMM.

[Scratch]

Update - Season 4

 

Things started moving along nicely in season 3, except for Pinamonti, who fell behind the schedule. He's still young, but there'll be no glory for him if he proves to be a late bloomer. Time to step it up Andrea!

 

 

Season Targets

 

Players: Last year the target was 40 goals and Colidio scored 42 and Pinamonti scored 31. This year I'm asking them for 50 goals. 

 

Team: We've won the Champions League two years in a row now. We'll get better yet, but screw it, from here on in our target is to win it all!! In the League, we need to be getting at least 100 points (probably this year) and 120 goals (probably not this year). 

 

Board: The board just want us to mount a serious challenge for the title. Seems a little unambitious to me, as does the £18.75M they are giving me. Oh well, we'll follow our own plans.

 

 

Staff

 

Our coaching and scouting staff are set, but we continue to have problems with our Physios. We *still* can't get a Rehab Physio with a level any higher than Bronze. Lucky we have 2 Gold Level Preventative Physios to stop people getting injured, right? Right?

 

 

Correction, we have 1 Gold Level Preventative Physio to stop people getting injured... And we can't get another Gold one, the best we can get is Silver... Shoot, if there are any great physios reading this, get in touch - I'll divert £1M of my transfer budget to hire you and get you the best training in the world. 

 

 

Transfers

 

Transfers were a little different this year.

 

We only picked up 2 promising youngsters (Basso and Bagy) and we actually splashed some of that carefully saved cash, bringing in Verratti (in August), Malcolm and Rudiger (both in January). We also picked up some free agents to sell (including Balotelli), with only Geis having an outside chance of making the team.

 

Spoiler

 

The Out column was significantly larger than than the In column for a change, as we tried to trim back our large squad. We sold the 3 free agents for £43.5M (even Geis who didn't quite cut it). We also got rid of some other good players on the edge of the team (Gamboa and Brady were hard to say goodbye to). A bunch of youngsters were set free. And then there was Dudu... 

 

Spoiler

 

Dudu... Where do I start? He's great player:

 

He did a fantastic job for us:

 

I didn't want to sell him... And yet, I did.

 

I sold him when I was eyeing Coman, who I lust after (because an older Coman was an assist machine for Armstrong). I'd already spent a chunk of money on Verratti and needed to raise more to afford Coman. Roma came sniffing after Dudu and I took their money, but it turned out Coman was still out of my range: 

 

Devastating... I tried for Coman again in January and they accepted my bid, but he wasn't interested. That's when I turned my attention elsewhere and brought Malcolm to the club. But Dudu... I miss you...

 

In related news: Duda (not Dudu) joined us in season 2, so at least we still have some Du at the club. And I almost bought Dodoo from Rangers (my back room team had to talk me out of it).

Spoiler

 

Before we move on, a little more on my policy of buying loads of the best youngsters I can find: Many of them are just now maturing into very good players. If I buy truly top class players, like Verratti or Malcolm, they'll go straight into to the team, but I can't buy anyone a rung or two down the ladder anymore. The youngsters are better than them now.  

For example, Joaquim has forced his way into contention now and he's done really well:

Spoiler

 

Others are still developing, but looking not too far off. For example, Mere looks like this now and still has Potential to improve a lot in future ( @veerus my staff rate his PA better than 2.5 stars now!):

Spoiler

 

 

But of course it doesn't always work out. I bought Ignashevich for £1.7M, but now he's only worth £550K. He hasn't come on after a couple of years and it looks like he's got no more development in him (and will be sold off shortly):

Spoiler

 

 

 

If I could have bought world class players from day one, I would have, but that's not possible at many teams (including Celtic). If that's your situation, look to promising young players. It's a gamble and it takes longer, but you can get to the same place eventually...

 

 

Injuries

 

No injuries for the two lads for the second season in a row. I can feel some payback brewing somewhere... 

 

 

Development

 

Pinamonti developed nicely, with Shooting, Movement and Dribbling all up one, the Physical attributes all being up 2 or 3 and Decisions up 2. I'm not sure if there's much development left in him (our coach say PA and CA are both 5 stars), but this is probably enough to work with. 

 

Colidio on the other hand, didn't improve at all, the same as 2 years ago. Our coaches have him down as 4 stars CA and 4.5 stars PA, so hopefully there is some development to come. 

 

Both of them really struggled with tiredness this year (more on that below). 

 

 

Tactics

 

This year we settled into using two main formations:

 

Our primary formation is the 2 5 1 2 we came up with last year (swapping between Direct, Short, Mixed and Centre, Flanks, Mixed, depending on the opposition): 

 

A lot of people say 2 striker formations don't work, but this seems to generate a good amount of shot for the lads, without a third striker starting to take shots away from them. When they are a little more dominant I might try the 2 5 3 again, but this works for now. I swapped Pinamonti between AF and P and it didn't make a huge difference.

 

Our secondary formation is the Armstrong 4 3 2 1 formation, which we got to use quite a bit this year due to all the tiredness (they normally weren't tired at the same time).

 

About halfway through the season I switched Pinamonti over to penalties and free kicks and he's doing alright.

 

 

Results

 

We continued to improve in the League. We went 33-3-2 to break 100 points and we scored 102 goals and only conceded 19, which isn't bad. We still need more goals going forward.

 

We lost the Euro Super Cup 2-0 to Chelsea.

 

We won the Club World Championship 3-0 over Chivas (one each to the lads).

 

We won the Betfred Cup 3-0 over Aberdeen (we've won it 4 years in a row now and 3 of those have been over Aberdeen).

 

In the Scottish Cup Final, we beat Kilmarnock 2-0 (one apiece to the lads).

 

In the Champions League, we topped the group stage, but lost 2 games this time around (we won all 6 last year):

 

In the First Knockout Round, we beat Sevilla 4-1 away, then had a tense home tie to go through 6-4 on aggregate. 

 

The Quarter Final against Athletico Madrid was even tighter. The scores were level at full time in the return leg, so we headed into extra time. We couldn't find a way past their defense, but in the 116th minute, I noticed that Athletico had no wide midfielders and were playing through the middle, blocking us up. I changed our tactics to play direct down the flanks and three minutes later we had the winner, from a cross. A very nice reminder to keep an eye on the opposition's tactics and to adjust to them.

 

That took us to the Semi Final, where we played Arsenal. The first leg was a classic, with 3 goals apiece, the lead changing back and forth, goals in the dying moments and Jack Wilshere getting injured (of course!).

 

In the return leg, we went ahead early, but then they equalised. At this point we are ahead on away goals, so we batten down the hatches as Arsenal throw everything against us. Then with a minute to go, they score, and our Champions League campaign is over. 

 

For 2 years in a row, I thought we couldn't win it and we did. Then just when I think we can win it, we lose! Never mind, it's still a decent performance and we'll be back next year.

 

 

Awards

 

We didn't win everything this time around:

• Pinamonti and Colidio swapped this year, with Pinamonti Player of the Year and Colidio stepping back to the runner's up position.
• We didn't win Young Player of the Year or runner up, which is surprising given the number of talented youngsters still in our team.
• I won Manager of the Year again.

 

 

Team

 

Here is our best team for this year:

Spoiler

 

 

Goals

 

Here is Pinamonti's season. The first half has way too many gaps, but he has a hot spell just before Christmas and that carries on into the new year. He missed 8 games due to being Slightly Tired or Jaded. For many of those he was 100%, but I decided to rest him, as tired strikers rarely score well.

 

Here's Colidio's season. The first half looks pretty good, albeit with a pattern of a couple of games scoring, followed by a couple of games off. He missed a total of 14 games to tiredness, which is a huge amount. Hopefully, this will disappear as he matures. 

 

Our biggest win of the season was a 9-1 victory over Kilmarnock and it marked the first time that Pinamonti and Colidio each scored a hat-trick in the same match! I'm hoping we'll see that much more in the coming years...

 

Colidio also scored hat-tricks against Rangers (should have been 4) and Falkirk:

Spoiler

 

 

Pinamonti got 42 goals from 54 games, a significant improvement over last season, but behind the 50 goal target. He now has a total of 106 goals, well short of the target of 150 (at this stage).

 

Colidio got 40 goals from 48 games, at about the same rate as last year (I was hoping for more). That gives him a total of 136 goals - behind, but within touching difference.

 

The chart shows them both under the target line, but Pinamonti is worryingly adrift. 

 

 

 

Looking Ahead

 

The team continues to improve, we're scoring more goals than ever before, Pinamonti has stepped up, but.... well, he hasn't stepped up enough and to top it off Colidio appears to have stalled... And they need to step up further to 60 goals each next year. Is it time to panic yet?

 

Nope... I feel strangely positive. If they'd got more games under their belt this year, they would have got closer to the yearly target and I know the tiredness will appear less often as they mature. Pinamonti has just turned 21 and will really step up over the next couple of years, even if his attributes hold steady. Likewise Colidio has just turned 20 and he'll step up as well. 

 

Also, my schedule is based on them playing 20 seasons. I got Armstrong to 22 seasons and I'm confident I can do the same for these two, so I've got a couple of seasons up my sleeves if it goes down to the wire!  

 

[veerus]

So I guess gold level scouts suck at telling PA just like lower level ones... Apparently you just gotta look at base stats and the difference between CA and PA to gauge the level of future growth. Mere looks to be a great pickup.  

[mcandrew003]

How do you manage to make each update equally fantastic? Another, ANOTHER great read, great to see the lads ( of pinamonti anyway) stepping up this year. Unlucky in the CL, I'm sure you will win many more in the future. This is gonna be tight, I see why they call you the master of suspense now!

[kts365]

Loving this mate. You love a stressful playthrough dont you haha.

added 0 minutes later

43 minutes ago, mcandrew003 said:

How do you manage to make each update equally fantastic? Another, ANOTHER great read, great to see the lads ( of pinamonti anyway) stepping up this year. Unlucky in the CL, I'm sure you will win many more in the future. This is gonna be tight, I see why they call you the master of suspense now!

Its because he is a toon fan. We're used to drama.

[mcandrew003]

 

16 minutes ago, kts365 said:

Loving this mate. You love a stressful playthrough dont you haha.

added 0 minutes later

Its because he is a toon fan. We're used to drama.

 Why was that so funny to me?

[BatiGoal]

Very enjoyable read indeed. The stress is definitely making its appearance more frequently as we get deeper into this madness but makes it (potentially) even sweeter when we see you and your striking buddies cross that big fat line. 

[Scratch]

21 hours ago, veerus said:

So I guess gold level scouts suck at telling PA just like lower level ones... Apparently you just gotta look at base stats and the difference between CA and PA to gauge the level of future growth. Mere looks to be a great pickup.  

Yeah, you'd think that Gold Level scouts should be better. They probably shouldn't be perfect, but they should be way better than they have been in my experience.

I generally look at the base stats, then whether there is a couple of stars difference between CA and PA OR whether they have Potential to improve a lot in the future. Sometimes they have potential to improve a lot but only have 1 star or half a star difference, in which case I trust the potential to improve message more.

And then of course I check out other messages like thrives in important matches, consistent player, etc and the absence of negative messages. Cost comes into it too. If I can buy of those 5 guys for £5M, then there is often a better chance of getting a great player than just buying 1 player for £5M. Doesn't always work out though, you really are just gambling...

[Scratch]

15 hours ago, mcandrew003 said:

How do you manage to make each update equally fantastic? Another, ANOTHER great read, great to see the lads ( of pinamonti anyway) stepping up this year. Unlucky in the CL, I'm sure you will win many more in the future. This is gonna be tight, I see why they call you the master of suspense now!

Thanks mate! Unlucky in the CL this year, but 2 years of luck before it, so I'll take it! We'll see how tight it gets, I'm still hoping they will get really good shortly and we'll make it with ease.

[Scratch]

14 hours ago, kts365 said:

Loving this mate. You love a stressful playthrough dont you haha.

added 0 minutes later

Its because he is a toon fan. We're used to drama.

LOL, but actually my Celtic is pretty boring compared to the real life Toon!! Surely I'd have been sacked by now for buying too many players or something... Though Ashley would like my buy young players and build a large surplus approach (though perhaps not spending the surplus)...

[Scratch]

7 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Very enjoyable read indeed. The stress is definitely making its appearance more frequently as we get deeper into this madness but makes it (potentially) even sweeter when we see you and your striking buddies cross that big fat line. 

Thanks mate... The next couple of seasons will be telling. If we keep slipping behind, we're in trouble - but at this point I'm still confident we can keep in touch and make it to the finish line.

[kts365]

52 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

LOL, but actually my Celtic is pretty boring compared to the real life Toon!! Surely I'd have been sacked by now for buying too many players or something... Though Ashley would like my buy young players and build a large surplus approach (though perhaps not spending the surplus)...

Aye he'd have you lynched for spending it

[Ashez]

I'm not panicking yet as I feel the progress is clear to see. Andrea is falling behind but only being one season behind his target isn't the end of the world. At the very least you've put a big dent in the DT challenge so far