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Career Scratch Tries: Andrea Pinamonti 1.5KC [Complete]


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2 hours ago, Foxy said:

Now Pinamonti is cooking๐Ÿ˜€ Great season mate and dare I suggest he will get 100 next season๐Ÿ˜‰

Tottaly agree. There should be a long range, close range and then wide right and left options so you can tailor it to what you want to do.

He just needs the right manager thats all๐Ÿ˜›

Thanks mate! Not sure about 100. Although.... maybe something happened in the off-season that could help...ย italy-icon.png

As for Amiri, yeah, I guess I'm just not the guy to get the best out of him. Not sure what you are doing to get him to perform like that for you, but I'm not doing it...ย 

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Phantom injuries. That feeling of relief when you exit a game and see the icon showing only one news story and you know itโ€™s just the match report!

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1 hour ago, Rob2017 said:

Phantom injuries. That feeling of relief when you exit a game and see the icon showing only one news story and you know itโ€™s just the match report!

LOL, they are the best! The full rollercoaster experience right there... ๐Ÿ˜„

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OMG, Breaking News! Attention @samhardy!!

In my last update, I reported that Sunderland was sitting mid-table in the Championship, which is where they were when I'd last checked on them. Imagine my amazement when I noticed this:

pinamonti-season06a-01.jpg.3f16689ebf827608dfbf24abb2516d52.jpg

Umm... what?

I went back to a end of season save (I generally keep one for stuff like this) and this is what I found. Sunderland must have gone on a late run and sneaked into the last playoff position:

pinamonti-season06a-02.jpg.3ae6e038a15bcf5666828b63e27910d1.jpg

Then they beat Middlesbrough on penalties in the semi final:

pinamonti-season06a-03.jpg.afd0e9ee88b7918e3aae1facacca3564.jpg

Then they beat Nottingham Forest 1-0 in the playoff final.

pinamonti-season06a-04.jpg.b44483dc27d9838f41d87e5cd2466caf.jpg

Back to the big time! Congrats Sunderland. I'm really looking forward to playing you this season. :D

ย 

Edited by scratch99
formatting
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23 minutes ago, Cockers2505 said:

Mate looking good, I'm thinking of attempting a 1K challenge, need to get one out of the way to see if i can achieve it for my own insanity

You should definitely give it a go. Only part way through, but it feels to me like 2018 is slightly easier than 2017 - I've got the striker scoring slightly higher, slightly quicker - although that could be down to other factors. A lot of it is down to having the right striker. Armstrong was a total slog, Colidio much easier and I'm sure that was down to the class factor. Anyway, hope you do it, I'll be cheering you on! :)

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Update - Season 7

Last season saw mixed success, which gives us pretty obvious targets for this year:

  • Pinamonti had a breakout season last year with 90 goals. We want him to repeat that.

  • We failed to win the Champions League (again) last year. We want to win it for the second time.

Hmm... We'll see how it turns out...

ย 

First Though...

There's going to be something different from here on in. You see, this happened in the off-season:

pinamonti-season07-01.jpg.2f4e04cb631e1c284b7bd962a7c9e9c1.jpg

Ancelotti retired or moved on or whatever. But would Italy appoint an Australian to the top position?

pinamonti-season07-02.jpg.bebe7017fc5bbf175b0ef138072ad7d6.jpg

Yes. Yes, they would. It seems I'm the dog's bollocks...

pinamonti-season07-03.jpg.0950a03e8042926e219dfa65c0832989.jpg

I didn't really want the ITN job (it's going to slow down this career a lot), but it's the only way to balance Pinamonti's game time and keep him reasonably fresh.

ย 

Transfers

I think I'm in trouble. I have too many toys and keep buying more. I loaned out a bunch of young superstars because I had to do something with them, but a reckoning is coming. In the next season or two some big names are going to have to leave.

Spoiler

pinamonti-season07-54.jpg.86c40dd69222303806c221ab9d6ce0ab.jpg

pinamonti-season07-55.jpg.217de56d5f1fabfb4c8193b454ad3abc.jpg

pinamonti-season07-56.jpg.77acbe59f73ca04f9d5bc360a22b6800.jpg

Leaving us were:

  • Tom Davies, who came in with push to get more Englishmen. Good, but just not quite good enough.

  • Timmy Abraham, who I wanted to keep (top notch in this save), but who managed to outcast himself.

While coming in were:

  • Malcom, who I didn't really need, but well, he was free, right?

  • Rod Shackell, the Ashley Cole regen, who came through our academy.

ย 

Tactics

I'm still using 4 3 2 1, but I keep changing the instructions. Sometimes changing the instructions has clear positive effects, sometimes it seems to have no effect. Here's my current thinking:

  • If the opposition defenders are slow or have bad position, then Early Crosses seems to create goals for Pinamonti. However, if we are up against better opposition then that's a futile approach, so I turn it off.

  • I generally keep Through Balls turned on, as I have a lot of players with high Creativity and Passing who like to play killer balls. Hopefully that will create more chances for Pinamonti. I'm worried the Run at Defence option will lead some of my superstar midfielders to dribble through the opposition and take a shot.

  • Sometimes using Work into Box and Short seems to create more chances (if they are hard to break down I guess). Sometimes turning that off and going Direct works better. I basically just flip these around as the game progresses to see which gets more chances.

  • With Team Mentality, I often go with Attacking or Overload, although I occasionally use Control or Counter if the other team is attacking (they generally don't).

  • I've been using Expressive all the way through, on the basis that it's likely to lead to more goals. However, I've started to wonder if Balanced or Disciplined might actually better. Would a midfielder who likes to take a shot be more likely to shoot on Expressive and more likely to follow the Try Through Balls instruction on Disciplined? I'll experiment next season.

But's all just guess work. If you have good insights on any of this (or there is an article written somewhere), please give me a shout!

ย 

Competitions

Here's how we did in the various competitions this seasons:

  • Won the Community Shield, beating Man City 3-2 (no penalties needed this year), with 2 goals from Pinamonti.

  • Won the League Cup, beating Chelsea 1-0 in the final, with the goal coming from Pinamonti.

  • Won the FA Cup, beating Charlton 2-0 in the final, with 1 goal from Pinamonti.

  • Won the Premier League again. We got back to our usual habit of wrapping it up with 6 games to spare. I won't dwell on it publicly (privately: oh what a party!) but our next-door neighbours sadly went down.

  • Lost the Champions League Final AGAIN, this time 2-1 to Man City. We were terrible (match report below).

Spoiler

ย 

pinamonti-season07-04.jpg.edf857ff4646fecc8989f5f5da8ecd6d.jpg

pinamonti-season07-37.jpg.69377ea1dd4484f804a4d4a916c43a52.jpg

pinamonti-season07-50.jpg.5b8f9bff2a2c2bbc9a430cb03f179d71.jpg

pinamonti-season07-53.jpg.aa0de51aef6b89458a4206e54aae4a67.jpg

pinamonti-season07-51.jpg.aa8048508d3982c1459c774751506376.jpg

pinamonti-season07-52.jpg.3a951d128b416bb1b0fe0597e8ef1d00.jpg

ย 

Quite frankly, this is not good enough:

pinamonti-season07-65.jpg.e1d11ca6be696a5dd6e5d54dec3c9310.jpg

With this team, we would have won it 5 times by now in FMM 2017. What's going on here? It IS harder in FMM 2018 right? Or am I just crap?

ย 

Injuries

All clear this year. First season in a long time that his rarely injured skill actually seemed to work!

ย 

Development

This is what Pinamonti looks like now:

pinamonti-season07-57.jpg.58a9473b705d351a19967f79b5596fd9.jpg

A fine specimen.

ย 

Goals - Highlights

At the club level, Pinamonti scored 5 goals once and 4 goals once, both against West Ham. You could say he 'hammered' them... cheesy grin.

pinamonti-season07-08.jpg.6ec450760aa01d3ea71fd8bfe7732ee6.jpg

pinamonti-season07-31.jpg.896f12e7700d25012d2efdd310a03d20.jpg

He also put 4 past Wales and 4 past Switzerland for Italy:

pinamonti-season07-63a.jpg.832d87ff0a1ec4fcdc53e3ac0da440d3.jpg

pinamonti-season07-73a.jpg.bceb05cb7fa7d871e6af46b7771ade20.jpg

He scored 9 hat-tricks as well, but I won't bother including these anymore.

ย 

Goals - Club

He scored 83 goals in 50 games:

pinamonti-season07-58.jpg.a6f585dc62b37f4f5ef4ca65d0329d7d.jpg

That's not as impressive as last year's total, but I'm happy enough with that given his ITN exploits.

ย 

Goals - ITN

Pinamonti had 33 goals when I took over the ITN job:

pinamonti-season07-07.jpg.22cb9c9a887d8006429f3131f29d128f.jpg

And he did a storming job, finish the Euros with 64 ITN goals, meaning he'd scored 31 goals in 15 games.

pinamonti-season07-77.jpg.0fdd44025917b3783815e46e6d3fecd0.jpg

Wow, seems much easier than South America was in 2017 (with Argentina).

ย 

The Euros

My first ITN tournament as manager. Italy is okay but definitely has some weaknesses and a general lack of depth. The Italian FA want us to make the semi-finals. Maybe, I'd end up sacked before I even got properly started?

No fear! Pinamonti had my back, scoring 16 goals in the 7 games, leading us to the title! That give me global recognition apparently...

Spoiler

ย 

pinamonti-season07-62.jpg.7ec6062bff87d585c814b991c3f700ef.jpg

pinamonti-season07-63.jpg.af25e8cdae023237477740a495de31dd.jpg

pinamonti-season07-67.jpg.f0b8acd56d8c7e23467c408e4b4fd9b8.jpg

pinamonti-season07-69.jpg.7ed3ed123a40117a7bc3d5c9a40e759b.jpg

pinamonti-season07-70.jpg.cd62ce731e674b1030f501fbc260eb5b.jpg

pinamonti-season07-73.jpg.f6fc4eadca42c6cd448da641ca8a50d0.jpg

pinamonti-season07-75.jpg.d64558e1fc950b0e891b034045f6bb2d.jpg

pinamonti-season07-76.jpg.27a477a3b72c7512ec6937a3ad9527c3.jpg

ย 

ย 

The Kingmaker

Who is providing all the club goals?

pinamonti-season07-59.jpg.6399b507e0b837914652201a998c8080.jpg

Pavon is still our top provider, but you'll notice he played a lot less this year. That's partly because he injury and partly because I gave Amiri another dedicated run at right wing (and corners). This is what I got from Amiri in that run:

pinamonti-season07-23.jpg.04046fbe56711a1220e042f87ea32954.jpg

Not enough. So I tried to sell him. Nobody wanted him (who can blame them), so Amiri's still here - mostly left behind on game day.

Apart from that, our fullbacks Passlack and Tierney assisted more regularly than they have so far and Marques (CR7a) actually seemed to be the best option at wide right (most of the assists were from the wing, most of the goals from upfront).

Cattani (Pirlo), Jacomo (Kaka), Arthur, Havertz, Malcom all disappointed..

ย 

Progress

25 years old (EOY) Season Total
Club Goals 83 449
ITN Goals 31 31
Totals 114 480

๏ปฟ

The Future

I'm over the moon with Pinamonti's goal tally, but he played 65 games this year. Can he keep it up? I'm not sure how many international games there will be next season or how hard they'll be, so I'll go conservative and set 100 goals as the target. That will still be epic.

At the club level, there is only one target: the Champions League. If I can't win it again soon, I'll get a reputation as someone who can't win at the highest level. Also, as mentioned above, there needs to be some major pruning to the squad.

Edited by scratch99
Fixing the broken formatting ... again...
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Ah, I know the frustration of the champions league all too well. I'm also guilty of buying far too many shiny, expensive players when I haven't really got space for them. Comes in handy when the injury fairy goes berserk and starts walloping your squad, though.ย 

Great season and congratulations on the international success. Surprising that Italy would appoint a non-Italian manager. Perhaps SI have relaxed that side of things a little this year.ย 

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17 hours ago, scratch99 said:

Update - Season 7

Last season saw mixed success, which gives us pretty obvious targets for this year:

  • Pinamonti had a breakout season last year with 90 goals. We want him to repeat that.

  • We failed to win the Champions League (again) last year. We want to win it for the second time.

Hmm... We'll see how it turns out...

ย 

First Though...

There's going to be something different from here on in. You see, this happened in the off-season:

pinamonti-season07-01.jpg.2f4e04cb631e1c284b7bd962a7c9e9c1.jpg

Ancelotti retired or moved on or whatever. But would Italy appoint an Australian to the top position?

pinamonti-season07-02.jpg.bebe7017fc5bbf175b0ef138072ad7d6.jpg

Yes. Yes, they would. It seems I'm the dog's bollocks...

pinamonti-season07-03.jpg.0950a03e8042926e219dfa65c0832989.jpg

I didn't really want the ITN job (it's going to slow down this career a lot), but it's the only way to balance Pinamonti's game time and keep him reasonably fresh.

ย 

Transfers

I think I'm in trouble. I have too many toys and keep buying more. I loaned out a bunch of young superstars because I had to do something with them, but a reckoning is coming. In the next season or two some big names are going to have to leave.

ย  Reveal hidden contents

pinamonti-season07-54.jpg.86c40dd69222303806c221ab9d6ce0ab.jpg

pinamonti-season07-55.jpg.217de56d5f1fabfb4c8193b454ad3abc.jpg

pinamonti-season07-56.jpg.77acbe59f73ca04f9d5bc360a22b6800.jpg

Leaving us were:

  • Tom Davies, who came in with push to get more Englishmen. Good, but just not quite good enough.

  • Timmy Abraham, who I wanted to keep (top notch in this save), but who managed to outcast himself.

While coming in were:

  • Malcom, who I didn't really need, but well, he was free, right?

  • Rod Shackell, the Ashley Cole regen, who came through our academy.

ย 

Tactics

I'm still using 4 3 2 1, but I keep changing the instructions. Sometimes changing the instructions has clear positive effects, sometimes it seems to have no effect. Here's my current thinking:

  • If the opposition defenders are slow or have bad position, then Early Crosses seems to create goals for Pinamonti. However, if we are up against better opposition then that's a futile approach, so I turn it off.

  • I generally keep Through Balls turned on, as I have a lot of players with high Creativity and Passing who like to play killer balls. Hopefully that will create more chances for Pinamonti. I'm worried the Run at Defence option will lead some of my superstar midfielders to dribble through the opposition and take a shot.

  • Sometimes using Work into Box and Short seems to create more chances (if they are hard to break down I guess). Sometimes turning that off and going Direct works better. I basically just flip these around as the game progresses to see which gets more chances.

  • With Team Mentality, I often go with Attacking or Overload, although I occasionally use Control or Counter if the other team is attacking (they generally don't).

  • I've been using Expressive all the way through, on the basis that it's likely to lead to more goals. However, I've started to wonder if Balanced or Disciplined might actually better. Would a midfielder who likes to take a shot be more likely to shoot on Expressive and more likely to follow the Try Through Balls instruction on Disciplined? I'll experiment next season.

But's all just guess work. If you have good insights on any of this (or there is an article written somewhere), please give me a shout!

ย 

Competitions

Here's how we did in the various competitions this seasons:

  • Won the Community Shield, beating Man City 3-2 (no penalties needed this year), with 2 goals from Pinamonti.

  • Won the League Cup, beating Chelsea 1-0 in the final, with the goal coming from Pinamonti.

  • Won the FA Cup, beating Charlton 2-0 in the final, with 1 goal from Pinamonti.

  • Won the Premier League again. We got back to our usual habit of wrapping it up with 6 games to spare. I won't dwell on it publicly (privately: oh what a party!) but our next-door neighbours sadly went down.

  • Lost the Champions League Final AGAIN, this time 2-1 to Man City. We were terrible (match report below).

ย  Reveal hidden contents

ย 

pinamonti-season07-04.jpg.edf857ff4646fecc8989f5f5da8ecd6d.jpg

pinamonti-season07-37.jpg.69377ea1dd4484f804a4d4a916c43a52.jpg

pinamonti-season07-50.jpg.5b8f9bff2a2c2bbc9a430cb03f179d71.jpg

pinamonti-season07-53.jpg.aa0de51aef6b89458a4206e54aae4a67.jpg

pinamonti-season07-51.jpg.aa8048508d3982c1459c774751506376.jpg

pinamonti-season07-52.jpg.3a951d128b416bb1b0fe0597e8ef1d00.jpg

ย 

Quite frankly, this is not good enough:

pinamonti-season07-65.jpg.e1d11ca6be696a5dd6e5d54dec3c9310.jpg

With this team, we would have won it 5 times by now in FMM 2017. What's going on here? It IS harder in FMM 2018 right? Or am I just crap?

ย 

Injuries

All clear this year. First season in a long time that his rarely injured skill actually seemed to work!

ย 

Development

This is what Pinamonti looks like now:

pinamonti-season07-57.jpg.58a9473b705d351a19967f79b5596fd9.jpg

A fine specimen.

ย 

Goals - Highlights

At the club level, Pinamonti scored 5 goals once and 4 goals once, both against West Ham. You could say he 'hammered' them... cheesy grin.

pinamonti-season07-08.jpg.6ec450760aa01d3ea71fd8bfe7732ee6.jpg

pinamonti-season07-31.jpg.896f12e7700d25012d2efdd310a03d20.jpg

He also put 4 past Wales and 4 past Switzerland for Italy:

pinamonti-season07-63a.jpg.832d87ff0a1ec4fcdc53e3ac0da440d3.jpg

pinamonti-season07-73a.jpg.bceb05cb7fa7d871e6af46b7771ade20.jpg

He scored 9 hat-tricks as well, but I won't bother including these anymore.

ย 

Goals - Club

He scored 83 goals in 50 games:

pinamonti-season07-58.jpg.a6f585dc62b37f4f5ef4ca65d0329d7d.jpg

That's not as impressive as last year's total, but I'm happy enough with that given his ITN exploits.

ย 

Goals - ITN

Pinamonti had 33 goals when I took over the ITN job:

pinamonti-season07-07.jpg.22cb9c9a887d8006429f3131f29d128f.jpg

And he did a storming job, finish the Euros with 64 ITN goals, meaning he'd scored 31 goals in 15 games.

pinamonti-season07-77.jpg.0fdd44025917b3783815e46e6d3fecd0.jpg

Wow, seems much easier than South America was in 2017 (with Argentina).

ย 

The Euros

My first ITN tournament as manager. Italy is okay but definitely has some weaknesses and a general lack of depth. The Italian FA want us to make the semi-finals. Maybe, I'd end up sacked before I even got properly started?

No fear! Pinamonti had my back, scoring 16 goals in the 7 games, leading us to the title! That give me global recognition apparently...

ย  Reveal hidden contents

ย 

pinamonti-season07-62.jpg.7ec6062bff87d585c814b991c3f700ef.jpg

pinamonti-season07-63.jpg.af25e8cdae023237477740a495de31dd.jpg

pinamonti-season07-67.jpg.f0b8acd56d8c7e23467c408e4b4fd9b8.jpg

pinamonti-season07-69.jpg.7ed3ed123a40117a7bc3d5c9a40e759b.jpg

pinamonti-season07-70.jpg.cd62ce731e674b1030f501fbc260eb5b.jpg

pinamonti-season07-73.jpg.f6fc4eadca42c6cd448da641ca8a50d0.jpg

pinamonti-season07-75.jpg.d64558e1fc950b0e891b034045f6bb2d.jpg

pinamonti-season07-76.jpg.27a477a3b72c7512ec6937a3ad9527c3.jpg

ย 

ย 

The Kingmaker

Who is providing all the club goals?

pinamonti-season07-59.jpg.6399b507e0b837914652201a998c8080.jpg

Pavon is still our top provider, but you'll notice he played a lot less this year. That's partly because he injury and partly because I gave Amiri another dedicated run at right wing (and corners). This is what I got from Amiri in that run:

pinamonti-season07-23.jpg.04046fbe56711a1220e042f87ea32954.jpg

Not enough. So I tried to sell him. Nobody wanted him (who can blame them), so Amiri's still here - mostly left behind on game day.

Apart from that, our fullbacks Passlack and Tierney assisted more regularly than they have so far and Marques (CR7a) actually seemed to be the best option at wide right (most of the assists were from the wing, most of the goals from upfront).

Cattani (Pirlo), Jacomo (Kaka), Arthur, Havertz, Malcom all disappointed..

ย 

Progress

25 years old (EOY) Season Total
Club Goals 83 449
ITN Goals 31 31
Totals 114 480

๏ปฟ

The Future

I'm over the moon with Pinamonti's goal tally, but he played 65 games this year. Can he keep it up? I'm not sure how many international games there will be next season or how hard they'll be, so I'll go conservative and set 100 goals as the target. That will still be epic.

At the club level, there is only one target: the Champions League. If I can't win it again soon, I'll get a reputation as someone who can't win at the highest level. Also, as mentioned above, there needs to be some major pruning to the squad.

Great going mate kiuย 

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22 minutes ago, Peely said:

Ah, I know the frustration of the champions league all too well. I'm also guilty of buying far too many shiny, expensive players when I haven't really got space for them. Comes in handy when the injury fairy goes berserk and starts walloping your squad, though.ย 

Great season and congratulations on the international success. Surprising that Italy would appoint a non-Italian manager. Perhaps SI have relaxed that side of things a little this year.ย 

Thanks mate! Yeah the CL is definitely harder to win this year, but that seems to be more realistic, so I sort of like it. In FMM 2017 I had Celtic win it 10 times in a row which doesn't seem right.

It IS weird for Italy to have a non Italian manager, but I think that was relaxed a while back. In FMM 2017 I managed both England and Argentina as an Aussie, which would be pretty unusual in real life (although not as weird as Italy appointing a foreigner).

Iย remember the days of telling CM/FMย that I was English to increase my chances of both club and national job, but never really noticed whether the same limitations were in FMM. Maybe it's one of those playability tradeoffs where they don't want to put realism in the way of the game being fun to people (in this case from other countries).ย 

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4 minutes ago, Foxy said:

A little bit down on last year but I don't think you have much to worry about at this stage:)

Well with the ITN goals, it actually turned out to be my highest scoring season ever (better than Colidio managed)! So pretty happy here! I'll take less club goals if it means more overall.ย :D

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Your doing brilliant mate...dont be too disheartened.

I love your thinking on the expressive vs disciplined approach, i think you have something here. ๐Ÿ˜†

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11 minutes ago, Woody said:

Your doing brilliant mate...dont be too disheartened.

I love your thinking on the expressive vs disciplined approach, i think you have something here. ๐Ÿ˜†

Thanks mate. It's hard to work out the effect of Expressive vs Disciplined because each match is so different anyway. At the moment, I've ended up going with Expressive most of the time as itย feelsย as though it leads to more goals and Pinamonti often gets a good share. But I'd really like a better experiment on this, where the same game is replayed 10 times on both settings or something. Maybe later!

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41 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

Well with the ITN goals, it actually turned out to be my highest scoring season ever (better than Colidio managed)! So pretty happy here! I'll take less club goals if it means more overall.ย :D

I must have been in such shock that you got the Italy job that ย i forgot to count those goals๐Ÿ˜”ย 

I agree with you on the whole expressive v disciplined problem and I have experimented with both but haven't seen any real difference in either option compared with just keeping it in the middle. Say it quietly but maybe theres a chance that optionย doesnt really work this year.

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2 minutes ago, Foxy said:

I must have been in such shock that you got the Italy job that ย i forgot to count those goals๐Ÿ˜”ย 

I agree with you on the whole expressive v disciplined problem and I have experimented with both but haven't seen any real difference in either option compared with just keeping it in the middle. Say it quietly but maybe theres a chance that optionย doesnt really work this year.

Hehe, must be the way I write it up! Should make it clearer. :)ย 

Lucky I just upgraded my glasses or I would have missed that line there! Just your thoughts, or you heard it through the grapevine?

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Just now, Foxy said:

Just my opinion based on trying out all 3 settings and not seeing much if any difference.

Thanks - that roughly matches my experience so far, though like I said I feelย like there are more goals with Expressive. But just a vague feeling. Hope they make this have more of an impact in 2019.

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Update - Season 8

Last season saw Pinamonti score beyond my greatest expectations (114 goals for club and country). Will be be able to reach that 100 mark again?ย At club level, we failed to win the Champions League again! Can we put that right this season?

Hint: I generally get one out of two for these things.

ย 

Transfers

I set this up last update, when I said "a reckoning is coming. In the next season or two some big names are going to have to leave". It were carnage, mostly in what's now known as Bloody January:

Spoiler

pinamonti-season08-43.jpg.3ef08def51aa6cd3eed1d660f78b3ed7.jpg

pinamonti-season08-44.jpg.114b81a0bb3fa0e5c6e32b242e60bbb9.jpg

pinamonti-season08-45.jpg.c36f2f67ba4df291c18d133334546896.jpg

pinamonti-season08-47.jpg.d608c0037d8db92c4552944d26d5c188.jpg

Leaving us were:

  • Christian Pavon: Our top assist provider throughout this save, but he wouldn't sign a new contract. No-one is bigger than the club laddie. We'll even let you go to Man Utd on free if you want. No skin off our nose... (not sure why he shows up as a Bosman to Tottenham too, that definitely didn't happen).

  • Vinicius Junior: An awesome player, but no longer amongst our best back up strikers or our best left wingers.

  • Rodrygo: Exactly the same as Vinicius Junior.

  • Malcom: We got him on a free last season and he did pretty well all things considered, but was not our first choice and was deemed expendable.

  • Leon Bailey: We got him on a free at the start of the year and he was okay, but not as good as the incumbents, so we shipped him off in January.

  • Justin Kluivert: Lasted longer at St James' Park than his old man, but wasn't any more effective in the bigger scheme of things. Time to call it quits, even though I suspect he would have worked out eventually.

  • Vashon Weaver (Joe Cole regen): Wanted a new challenge, just as I started playing him in the first team instead of loaning him out... Righto, go challenge yourself elsewhere mate! Actually, go do it at West Ham, which is your spiritual home.

  • Ronaldo Vieira: A very good and solid DLP, who is English to boot. Unfortunately 'very good' and 'solid' don't cut it here anymore.

  • Vidaic: An excellent right back that would fit into any team in the world, but slipped to third choice and therefore ended up in the Cull column.

Seven of those were wide midfielders, which gives you some idea of: a) just how bloated we were in those positions and b) just how good the players we've kept must be!

Coming in were:

  • Bailey: On a free, but as mentioned above, he only lasted to January. Selling him though led to half the team being unhappy though, which gave us something to think about.

  • Kingsley Coman: My old friend from 2017 days, although we really only bought him to settle down the team after selling Bailey. We'll give him a chance of course, he may be good enough to stay.

  • Marijan Monek: Who may be the Modric regen, although he looks too weak to me. He's not as good as many of our current central midfielders, but I think he will do a job for us and provide more assists (and less goals).

  • Felice Carrera: A decent Italian DLP, who will take Vieira's position as backup to Catani (who is an outcast, but too good to let go). I may have too many central midfielders now...

ย 

Competitions

Here's how we did in the various competitions this seasons:

  • Won the Community Shield, beating Man Utd 3-2, with a hat-trick from Pinamonti.

  • Won the League Cup, beating Man Utd 3-1 in the final.

  • Won the FA Cup, beating Man City 4-3 in the final, with 1 goal from Pinamonti and the winner from sub Sosa in the 93rd minute! Man City got back into it as I stuck on overloading too long hunting for more goals.

  • Won the Premier League, once again wrapping it up with 6 games to spare (I think that's 5 times out of the last 6 now we did it after 32 matches). We scored 117 goals too, which is okay (but we want more!).

  • Won the Champions League for the second time AT LAST! We beat PSG 2-0 in the final, but it could have gone either way to be honest. The monkey is off our back, but can we be the first team to retain the Champions League since Real Madrid in 2017?

  • Italy won the International League, beating Portugal 3-2 in the final.

  • Italy lost the Confederations Cup, with Argentina beating us 2-1 in the final.

Spoiler

ย 

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ย 

ย 

Injuries

I thought he'd got through a second year all clear, but injury struck in the Champions League Final (3 weeks out):

pinamonti-season08-38.jpg.8aa706fc4e5f8b8af892b5b8a8169895.jpg

A good time to get an injury you might think, but it did mean he missed some ITN games, including an easy one against the UAE.

ย 

Development

This is what Pinamonti looks like now:

Spoiler

pinamonti-season08-48.jpg.47333eacd5e6a530ca4053a21a8632d6.jpg

ย 

Goals - Highlights

Pinamonti scored 5 goals twice and 4 goals once:

Spoiler

ย 

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He generally scores every single game, although he does have the occasional game where he doesn't even get a shot (we won this one 3-0):

pinamonti-season08-33.jpg.c1863dabca214279b0e8071751fedf2d.jpg

ย 

Goals - Club

He scored 78 goals in 52 games:

pinamonti-season08-49.jpg.a6dedcaaf23374b104a7aa501747f900.jpg

Once again the total slipped. Still a very good total and there are still his ITN goals to consider, but it's not a great trend given that he's coming into his peak right now.

ย 

Goals - ITN

Pinamonti had 64 goals at the start of the year:

pinamonti-season07-77.jpg.9d25447a261eaf8c08e9c5681d9cd01a.jpg

And he finished with 84, meaning he'd scored 20 goals in 10 games.

pinamonti-season08-60.jpg.176d9d2a56dd5b365a8a02aa90d1d5b6.jpg

ย 

Progress

26 years old (EOY) Season Total
Club Goals 78 527
ITN Goals 20 ย  51
Totals 98 578

So.. he fell short of the 100 target, but that's still pretty impressive. He past halfway and motoring on!

ย 

The Kingmaker

Who is providing all the club goals?

Spoiler

pinamonti-season08-41.jpg.6fa95492b5e59ab987a00e22ef5237d4.jpg

With Pavon gone, Amiri was our top provider - but still not as impressive as I'd like, given he had most of the corners. He'll be up against Coman (who only got 4 assists in 13 games) for the right wing position next year.

We really are a sharing club, with 8 players getting at least 10 assists. Maybe that's why we don't have one player gets a lot. Maybe there are too many creative people for any one player to stand above the rest?

๏ปฟ

The Future

Once again we'll be aiming for 100 goals for Pinamonti along with a Champions League win for the team. Also, it's World Cup year, so hoping to make it to at least the semi finals (who am I kidding, we're going to win it!).

ย 

Edited by scratch99
Fixing the broken formatting ... again...
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Good, solid progress from Pinamonti. The 1k shouldn't be in doubt, so ti'll be interesting to see how many more he gets before he hangs up his boots. Congratulations on that elusive Champions League win, as well.

I've had a lot of players refusing to sign new contracts and leaving on a free this year, even those who are getting regular game time. It's really quite annoying.

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Just now, Peely said:

I've had a lot of players refusing to sign new contracts and leaving on a free this year, even those who are getting regular game time. It's really quite annoying.

The same for me it was a massive struggle keeping hold of Goretzka, Amiri and Arp in my save because they kept refusing to resign until the last minute and in fact I had to buy Amiri back at one point to carry on his challenge.

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18 hours ago, Peely said:

Good, solid progress from Pinamonti. The 1k shouldn't be in doubt, so ti'll be interesting to see how many more he gets before he hangs up his boots. Congratulations on that elusive Champions League win, as well.

I've had a lot of players refusing to sign new contracts and leaving on a free this year, even those who are getting regular game time. It's really quite annoying.

Thanks mate! Yeah at this rate, the 1K should be straightforward enough. I'm aiming for 1.5K as I fell only 7 goals short of that with Colidio. The CL win was nerve-racking. I fully expected us to lose it somehow!

As for players not re-signing - thatย is an interesting one to me. Would hate it to happen to my 1KC striker, that would be devastating... But, it does make the game a bit more realistic as that sort of thing does happen in real life, even at the top teams occasionally.ย 

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