Career Update on my Fulham Save 2020/2021

[snlurp]

Hello, I have progressed 2 more years into my Fulham save from my last post and ALOT has happened.

This was our starting lineup, 2 seasons ago, in the 2018/2019 season.

Here it is now, 2020/2021 Season.

A lot of new faces, but lets go into what happened in the 2 seasons that have passed.

18/19

Our first season back in the premier league was an amazing one, finishing 6th and reaching the finals of the FA Cup, succumbing to Chelsea in the end. This meant European qualification for the 2019/2020 season.

This was a glorious season for Fulham and showed that they were a team to be feared in the premier league despite their young age.

19/20

At the start of the 2019/2020 season, Fulham was seen as a top contender for champions league spot and they showed it in their first 6 games, winning out. They were first in the premier league and spirits were high but certain individual players tried to take advantage of the Fulham hype and decided to hand in transfer requests to leave for 'bigger' clubs. 

Oliver Burke our star right winger, Alban Lafont our Goalkeeper, Kuki our main striker and lastly Marcelo Vasconcelos Ferreira our wonderkid superstar and key player. 

Very disappointing.

But the team waged on, as Fulham managed to win the Carabao cup against Manchester City in an incredible match and get their first bit of silverware for the season.

Past the fanfare of their cup win, the internal problems continued... Disharmony in the locker room and tactical formation failure ensured a collapse in the premier league as Fulham struggled to get points. 

Knowing Fulham's hopes of reaching a champions league spot were gone, our only way of qualifying was through the Europa League, a competition Fulham has had quite a history with.

In the 2009/2010 season, in the knockout stages beat Juventus, Wolfsburg and Hamburg SV to reach the Europa League final, which they then lost to Atletico Madrid 1-2.

But 10 years later... Fulham, in the round of 16 beat Zorya, then went on to the Quarter Finals to beat Napoli, then in the Semi-Finals won comfortably against Liverpool. 

Fulham would then meet Tottenham in the Europa League final, who beat Bayern in the other semi-final.

WE WON. (2-2) (5-3 in Penalties)

We accomplished what we couldn't 10 years ago, one of the youngest teams ever to lift a Europa league trophy and qualify for the champions league.

20/21 Present Time

Fulham coming off that European trophy win was beaming with excitement for what the next season could possibly bring, the Fulham board in trust with the manager gave a whopping 70 million budget for the 2020/2021 season.

But the manager knew what he must do, sell every disloyal player on the team.

Transfers Out

Some market deals that I did, always try to go through transfer listed players and scout them in January. Find players that are worth something, and if your scout says you can buy them for cheap (500k - 3m) go ahead and pursue the transfer. Loan them out for the remainder of the season and sell them on the next year, for example bought Yan for 250k then sold him 6.25m, bought Marc Gual for 1.5m then sold him for 10.5m the following season.

Alban Lafont's transfer request really hurt the team's performance, as he was such a key part of the Fulham defense, just look at the difference between goals conceded between 2018/2019 and 2019/2020. His reason was that "He wanted to join a bigger club" well now you're at Rennes... Are you happy now aha.

I was actually quite happy to sell Kuki, for 32.5m as he was pretty inconsistent at times despite the goal numbers shown. Didn't feel confident as him being the focal point of our attack.

We bought Oliver Burke from a relegated West From side, and we flourished in our attack focused team, but then annoyingly he handed a transfer request in the middle of the season. Great player, managed to double our money that we spent on him.

The big one. He was so goddamn good for us in the 2019/2020 it hurt seeing him leave, but I don't fault him for going to PSG and getting 450k a week. We managed to pocket 130m from the transfer but I'm still a bit heartbroken haha. My biggest regret is using him in my previous 4-2-3-1 formation and not the shadow striker one I'm using now where he would absolutely get 10s every game if he did. He's currently the 11th best player in world according to the scouting agency, plus he's still 20 years old so he could even grow further and become the best player in the world.

Fun fact, he was originally Brazilian but the Spanish national gave him a cap, so now he's Spanish. (Taking the Diego Costa route Brazil -----> Spain.)

Transfers In

LOTS of transfers, we still have 117 million in the bank and don't really know what to do with it aha. Most of these players are young as none of the good older players are interested in joining the club which is quite annoying as I want to perform well in this year's champions league as well as the premier league.

Our Marcelo Vasconcelos Ferreira replacement, bought him for 33.5m and he's already progressing greatly. In 4 premier league games he's already scored 2 goals and tallied 1 assist, just look at his average rating, I think he will be amazing.

Decided we needed another centre back to add to McCrorie, Rober and Oxford, so decided to purchase de Ligt. In real life he's bossing it for Ajax and the Netherlands national team and now in my save he's going to be our new young defensive anchor for Fulham, only 35m.

Kuki replacement, performing incredibly in our new 4-4-1-1 formation, scoring 5 in his premier league debut against poor stoke, already performing better than Kuki ever did and at only 25m is a bargain.

Lafont replacement, I originally wanted an experienced goalkeeper with great ability (such as Bernd Leno or Rui Patricio) but none of them wanted to come to the club unfortunately. But Früchtl is still a good goalkeeper, just not the very best quite currently. He came for 28.5m so lets hope his stats improve quite nicely and rack up alot clean sheets this season.

Dembele replacement, Moussa Dembele is still at the club and contributed greatly in the last 2 seasons but unfortunately he's retiring at the end of this season. So I decided to get Samuel Bastien to replace him, both Belgian, both look amazing stat-wise. Was quite cheap at only 25m, will produce goals and assists for many seasons, it's gonna be like Moussa never left.

Wonderkid time, first it was Marcelo Vasconcelos Ferreira, now it's Adama Kone. I believe it's Yaya Toure's regen and at 16 years old he looks amazing! Only bought him for 450k as well aha! Question for everyone, should I give him general or attacking training? Personally for me, I believe Attacking training is more beneficial and is so much faster than general training. Tagged as a Global Superstar let's hope he reaches his potential.

Current Players

Matt O'Riley from 1/3/2019 to 16/9/2020, has made amazing progress stat wise but has kept that same great consistency he's always had.

He's attributes might not show it but's O'Riley has always been very important for our team, Fulham struggles when he's not starting.

Ryan Sessegnon from 25/6/2019 to 16/9/2020, he is amazing every game in the left midfielder/wing position and was put in the world team of the year unsurprisingly (as the left back.)

 

Look at those stats... He caught on fire on that 2019/2020 season with amazing goals and a boatload of assists. Gareth Southgate with his pea brain still hasn't capped him yet... While players like Jesse Lingard and Nathan Redmond are in the England squad... I REPEAT NATHAN REDMOND IS GETTING PLAYED OVER SOMEONE WHO'S SCORED 15 AND ASSISTED 36 IN 52 GAMES.

THE END

Hope you liked it, this has been a product of procrastination for my English assessment that's due in two days.

Edited April 2, 2018 by snlurp

[Seth Anacondas]

Messi to Fulham is amazing, even if it's a bit too easy in FMM. (And De Ligt, Henrichs, Havertz and Bailey, of course)

Congratulations on the Europa League win. With the talent on the books, the Premier League should be next. Meanwhile, Kevin McDonald will still be anchoring the midfield in 2020 (IRL), despite SI unfortunately overlooking him this update. 

[snlurp]

48 minutes ago, Seth Anacondas said:

Messi to Fulham is amazing, even if it's a bit too easy in FMM. (And De Ligt, Henrichs, Havertz and Bailey, of course)

Congratulations on the Europa League win. With the talent on the books, the Premier League should be next. Meanwhile, Kevin McDonald will still be anchoring the midfield in 2020 (IRL), despite SI unfortunately overlooking him this update. 

Yeah, I might have been a bit too overboard on the wonderkids but they're the only real quality players I can buy, due to the reputation of the club and our low maximum wage. Was hoping to get a player like Nainggolan to anchor the midfield with o'riley but I can't do that even with all the money in the club.

Talked about Messi in this other post, SI really need to change how older players work as Ronaldo and Messi shouldn't decline so quickly the way they are now. Lionel Messi is my assistant coach right now, so it's very weird seeing his name pop up in my message feed, so I might change that haha.

Hah Kevin McDonald, wasn't really a factor in the first season in the championship so I sold him to Bradford city, this season I loaned the other Sessegnon brother and my wonderkid bust centre back (went from 5 star potential to 2.5 stars) and they're currently 1st now in league 1. I guess he'll have some nice company there.

Just a question, I have 105 million + wages in the finances department, what do you think I should I do with it? Maybe convert more of my first team into English players?

[Seth Anacondas]

2 hours ago, snlurp said:

Yeah, I might have been a bit too overboard on the wonderkids but they're the only real quality players I can buy, due to the reputation of the club and our low maximum wage. Was hoping to get a player like Nainggolan to anchor the midfield with o'riley but I can't do that even with all the money in the club.

Talked about Messi in this other post, SI really need to change how older players work as Ronaldo and Messi shouldn't decline so quickly the way they are now. Lionel Messi is my assistant coach right now, so it's very weird seeing his name pop up in my message feed, so I might change that haha.

Hah Kevin McDonald, wasn't really a factor in the first season in the championship so I sold him to Bradford city, this season I loaned the other Sessegnon brother and my wonderkid bust centre back (went from 5 star potential to 2.5 stars) and they're currently 1st now in league 1. I guess he'll have some nice company there.

Just a question, I have 105 million + wages in the finances department, what do you think I should I do with it? Maybe convert more of my first team into English players?

Always have a goal in mind when embarking on long-term saves - going all English sounds great. Just do what makes you happy.