Career Foxy's Tenuous Links - Season 3

[FuddledFox]

Welcome to what I am hoping will be my first long term save for FMM19. I say hoping as there is an element of jeopardy to this save which will become more clear if you keep reading.

At the moment I have no interest in doing goal challenges like 1Kc, DT’s or TT’s and I want to try and come up with save ideas that I will find interesting to play and fingers crossed those that read them will find interesting as well. Put simply I can’t be arsed with the grind of a single player focused challenge!

With that in mind I introduce Tenuous Links. Readers in the UK may have used to listen to the Chris Moyles Breakfast Show on Radio 1 and may have an idea where I am going with this already. Basically they used to play a song each day that linked to the previous days song through a series of random facts and links. I plan to do similar but with strikers on FMM19.

The idea of this save is that every year I will sign a new striker who has a link to my striker last season and each season the string of links I will need to use will increase by one. As the title suggests these links can be pretty tenuous and in fact I will be looking to make them as random as possible to keep the interest up.

Maybe the best way to explain is with some examples.

Season 1: I will have one link to use and the player I buy will need to link to my highest value striker already in the squad so…

Player 1 is English > Player 2 is English so I sign player 2 as this seasons striker.

Season 2: The player I used in season 1 will be sold and my next striker will need to link to him but I can use 2 links to get to him so….

Player 2 played for Man Utd > So did Wayne Rooney who also played for Everton > Player 3 plays for Everton as is my season 2 striker

And so on and so on…..

To add some jeopardy to the save the striker I sign each season needs to score 30 goals for me otherwise the save is over.

The Club

If you looked at the intro graphic you will already realise I will be managing my own team Oxford United.

This adds a few goals to the save beyond just sign a striker score 30 goals and repeat as well as the jeopardy that I haven’t managed LLM for a while and Oxford are a bit shit this season.

Club goals for the save.

·        Get promoted to the Premier League as quickly as possible.

·        Improve the infrastructure of the club.

·        Have a stadium built in my name.

·        Get the club a 5 star reputation.

·        Become the best team in Europe/World.

 

Oxford are currently in League 1 and we have been struggling so far this season although form has taken an up turn in recent weeks and we finally got out the relegation zone for the first time all season on Saturday.

In game we have just about the worst set up in League 1 with below average training and youth facilities hence why I want to improve the infrastructure and it would be good if in a few years I could get some youngsters coming through, although I will focus on training facilities first.

Very few Oxford fans like the Grenoble Road Stadium and a move away from there has been discussed for the last few years so it would be great if that move happened in game and to a stadium named by me.

 

I will be posting season 1 in the next few days but until then here is the player values and it shows that on loan striker Sam Smith is my highest value striker and the player that my striker will need to link to for season 1.

Lets hear your predictions as to who I will be linking to for season 1 and what the link will be.

So that is the save in a nutshell and I hope it all makes sense but just ask if you are unsure.

Cheers guys.

[Nucleus]

Great concept mate! Really well thought out.

As for my guess, well I have none! It could be anything, that’s the beauty of it 😛

[Woody]

Nice work Foxy. Really like this.

I will try this on for size at some point.

[URz]

Sam Smith is from Reading, so I predict that you are going to make this challenge really difficult for yourself and take another of our players. 😜  

[FuddledFox]

1 hour ago, Nucleus said:

Great concept mate! Really well thought out.

As for my guess, well I have none! It could be anything, that’s the beauty of it 😛

Well with the money I had I needed to go for anything tbh!

1 hour ago, Woody said:

Nice work Foxy. Really like this.

I will try this on for size at some point.

Cheers mate 👍🏻

32 minutes ago, URz said:

Sam Smith is from Reading, so I predict that you are going to make this challenge really difficult for yourself and take another of our players. 😜  

Na That would have been far to simple and straight forward a link for me 😉

[Ashez]

Absolutely love this concept mate, I can't wait to see how wacky these links get

[BatiGoal]

Keep those links clean, please 😂 

[FuddledFox]

7 hours ago, Ashez said:

Absolutely love this concept mate, I can't wait to see how wacky these links get

Cheers mate. Well link 1 is pretty random tbf.

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Keep those links clean, please 😂 

I'm not promising anything  

[Scratch]

Interesting! Will be watching. But going to be so hard to guess these links. I mean, it could just be they are both English. Or both left footed. Or anything... 😱

[Nucleus]

I’ve thought about it and I’ve got a slight guess, probably way off. Anyway, he shares his name with the musics star Sam Smith who was born in London. So I’m guessing you’ve got a player from a London club as your link 🤷🏻‍♂️

[FuddledFox]

5 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Interesting! Will be watching. But going to be so hard to guess these links. I mean, it could just be they are both English. Or both left footed. Or anything... 😱

I will try to stay away from simple stuff like nationality until the links get longer but yep it could be anything....

4 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

I’ve thought about it and I’ve got a slight guess, probably way off. Anyway, he shares his name with the musics star Sam Smith who was born in London. So I’m guessing you’ve got a player from a London club as your link 🤷🏻‍♂️

Its a good shout but that would be too many links in the chain for season 1. 

Sam Smith > Sam Smith the musician was born in London > Player from London Club.

I could have done that in season 2 but not season 1

[Cockers2505]

Look at you, you just have to get Oxford in the Limelight 🙂 

Been to a few games this season, and they are no way near as bad as Oldham, we have sooo many loanees I can't keep up!!!

I'll keep my eye on this, you always seem to pop up with amazing concepts instead of simply winning EVERYTHING over and over again, good luck mate

[FuddledFox]

1 hour ago, Cockers2505 said:

Look at you, you just have to get Oxford in the Limelight 🙂

Yeah I guess so 🙂 tbh I couldn’t think of another club I would rather do this career with and I hope the whole “build a club” element adds more fun for me and hopefully anyone that follows.

I plan to use a few loanees myself in this save as I want to move up the leagues quickly, I have very little budget and any money I bring in I want to spend a good % on the facilities if the board will let me.

I hope I get to the point where I will win EVERYTHING in this save but it maybe a few years so it will be good to have you on board for the journey.

[FuddledFox]

 

It’s time to get started and the first job is to reveal who my first link will be used on.

Just to remind you that I need to find a player that links to Sam Smith who is my most valuable striker at the start of the save, Sam will then be sent back to Reading as I can’t use him. That was actually OK with me anyway as he was on decent money and our wage situation is interesting to say the least.

Spoiler

I only need one link in the chain for season 1 so easy-peasy really as I could go nationality or town of birth but that’s too simple for me so I looked a little deeper. In fact what I did was create a list of possible signings that I thought could do a job and I could afford and then looked through the list for possible random links between Smithy and them.

This is who I came up with…

This hot stepper looks decent for a conference player but what is the link I found between Inih and Smith?

Sam Smith scored his first senior goal for a club from the county of Hertfordshire > As did Inih Effiong.

Sam Smith scored in a loan spell at Bishops Stortford to get his first senior goal and Inih scored his first senior goal for Boreham Wood and both clubs are based in Hertfordshire.

Spoiler

Yes its random and tenuous but that’s what this save is about!

Transfers

I had just over 160k to spend on transfers at the start of the season but we were well above our wage budget.

 

I only sold the 1 player which was a surplus CB and I did get £100k for him.

I decided that the loan market was the place I could go for some quality additions and I have to admit I hit it pretty hard. I did spend some money though as I brought in Inih for £35k and I really splashed out on a LB with Stevenson costing £140k

It’s the loanees that really catch the eye though.

Spoiler

With the additions I made to the squad and some of the decent players I already had I felt that a promotion push was a must. The players that caught my eye that I inherited were midfielder Cameron Brannighan and defender Curtis Nelson.

Spoiler

The Season

We started the season very well and this was emphasised in three excellent results in the League Cup as we first knocked out Sunderland then Reading and finally Bristol City. We then took Burnley to penalties in the 4^th round but that was where the adventure came to an end for us.

Spoiler

We didn’t fair as well in the FA Cup as we went out in a 2^nd round replay to Charlton and although it’s a cliché I really wasn’t that bothered as promotion is the aim.

Spoiler

In the Checkashit we got to the area semi final and finally lost to Peterborough on penalties again I didn’t shed a tear to go out.

Spoiler

I don’t want to be in League 1 for more than this season and with the players I have promotion should be more than achievable. As it turned out our early season cup form was also translated into the league as well and by the 1^st of Jan we had a 6 pt lead over the divisions big boys Sunderland. It was a bit different to have lost 4 games by this stage of the season but this is LLM and you have to put up with a lot of games early in the season which test the squad to the full.

 

With us going out the FA Cup and Checkashit fairly early the second half of the season was almost exclusively about the league and maintaining that lead to the end.

As it was we secured the title on the 6^th of April with a 3-1 win at Walsall meaning we had the final few games left to see if we could break the 100 pt barrier.

 

In the end we did and quite comfortably actually. We lost 7 games across the season, although we only drew 4 games which was kinda crazy and still finished well clear at the top by 20 points.

If you’re interested Barnsley won the play-offs.

Inih Effiong

Winning the league and getting promotion was great but it would mean nothing if Inih didn’t score 30 goals plus across the season. He started the season very well but got slowed down by a 3 week injury which meant he missed 6 games and stalled his goal scoring afterwards a bit as well.

Before the injury he was scoring at just over a goal a game but the injury and also his average stamina meant that slowed a bit. The rate had dropped to below a goal a game by Jan 1^st but he was only 6 away from the magic number of 30.

Spoiler

He had stamina of 10 which is ok but with games coming thick and fast he wasn’t able to last more than an hour in a lot of games and often if he hadn’t scored by half time it was unlikely he would score at all unless we got a penalty although he was awful at them! This emphasised by the fact that his understudy Jonathan Obika played 43 times through the season with the majority coming as a sub for Inih.

He only needed 6 more goals in the new year and unsurprisingly he got them and 14 more to finish with 44 goals in 47 games which was a decent enough return for a player jumping up 2 divisions but I would have loved a lot more.

 

He also made team of the year which I hope will boost his reputation and mean I can see him for a good profit in the summer when my new lad joins.

Team Stats

Spoiler

Mission accomplished then as we move up to the Championship and the save continues as we got the goals we needed. Next season will be tougher so I am going to need to shop a bit higher than the Conference for my striker if I want to get the required 30 goals and I am going to need 2 links in the chain to get him. I don’t know what kind of budgets I will get from the board but I will be looking at the loan market a lot again I think to make sure I am competitive.

 If I get a good budget I would like to use some to improve the training ground more than buying players that if we got promoted won’t be good enough in the Premier League. Loans may seem short term and mean I don’t have players with any resale value but I am looking to jump up these leagues quickly and I don’t want to spend millions on players that won’t be good enough in the future when we could use any money we do have to improve things behind the scenes for the day we are in a position to bring good players that we can improve.

Any comments will be greatly received and if you have any predictions as to how I get from Inih to my next guy I am all ears.

As a little clue the striker next season is Norwegian 😉

Cheers lads

[Woody]

Cracking start for such and inexperienced choice too.

 

That link was really tenuous 😁, is your Norwegian choice well known?

[FuddledFox]

3 minutes ago, Woody said:

your Norwegian choice well known?

Depends on your knowledge of Norwegian footballers I guess 😉

I can tell you that it’s not Tore Andre Flo if that’s any help.

[Woody]

1 hour ago, Foxy said:

Depends on your knowledge of Norwegian footballers I guess 😉

I can tell you that it’s not Tore Andre Flo if that’s any help.

Well its certainly narrows it down.

Now due to your modest budget....im guessing it could be Havard Nielsen or Niklas Haugland.

Ive used FMM for that guess.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Woody

[Rob]

Absolutely love the concept of this challenge. Keep at it Mr Fox

[FuddledFox]

2 hours ago, Woody said:

Havard Nielsen or Niklas Haugland.

No neither of them mate.

1 hour ago, Rob2017 said:

Absolutely love the concept of this challenge. Keep at it Mr Fox

Cheers fella.

[Ashez]

Wonderful update Foxy, personally I really enjoy that style. 

Results wise what can I say as you achieved your targets, I'm very interested to see how this save grows from here, or should I say links together

[BatiGoal]

Starting strong there with an immediate promotion. Nice! 

As for the Norwegian fellow, really don't know many of them. I do remember Carew cause he played for Villa. Think he's retired now tho. 

[S4NCH0]

Alexander Sørloth? By any chance

[FuddledFox]

10 hours ago, Ashez said:

Wonderful update Foxy, personally I really enjoy that style. 

Results wise what can I say as you achieved your targets, I'm very interested to see how this save grows from here, or should I say links together

Cheers mate.

6 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

As for the Norwegian fellow, really don't know many of them. I do remember Carew cause he played for Villa. Think he's retired now tho. 

Nope not Carew.

4 hours ago, S4NCH0 said:

Alexander Sørloth? By any chance

Sorry not him.

[S4NCH0]

Going through the Norwegians in the game, I’m confident it is Jean Alassane Mendy.

 

From Effiong’s History I saw he played for Ross County>Dundee plays in the same country as them> Mendy plays for Dundee

[FuddledFox]

3 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

Going through the Norwegians in the game, I’m confident it is Jean Alassane Mendy.

 

From Effiong’s History I saw he played for Ross County>Dundee plays in the same country as them> Mendy plays for Dundee

Your wrong but not a million miles away!!!

[S4NCH0]

 

2 minutes ago, Foxy said:

Your wrong but not a million miles away!!!

The only other Scottish-based Norwegian striker on my database is a guy named Bustard. Is that him?? 

[FuddledFox]

3 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

 

The only other Scottish-based Norwegian striker on my database is a guy named Bustard. Is that him?? 

👍🏻

I have to ask mate. How did a Mexican come to support Bradford?

[Nucleus]

6 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

Bustard

Language!!

Apologies Foxy, the first season passed me by! Congrats on the league win, shame Sunderland have to go up as well mind. No point in me guessing the player as some bustard got in there before me

[S4NCH0]

2 minutes ago, Foxy said:

👍🏻

I have to ask mate. How did a Mexican come to support Bradford?

It is a long story 

Summer camp in the usa, met a guy from Bermuda, traded national team shirts, his had Nahki Wells on the back. Nahki Wells played for Bradford City at the time, looked the team up and fell in love with their history (former Premier League team, also Valley Parade fire is very emotional), I also loved their claret and amber striped jersey, finally their striker duo on that specific season Wells and Hanson were tearing League Two apart and got promoted against Northampton (being televised by SkySports here in Mexico!), next season the beat Chelasea 4-2 in the FA Cup, and the show goes on. To summarize it, by pure luck I got to know a club that by coincidence was playing the top of it's football. Hope that explains it  

I am guessing you support Oxford because you live inside or in the near from Oxfordshire?

 

6 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

Language!!

Apologies Foxy, the first season passed me by! Congrats on the league win, shame Sunderland have to go up as well mind. No point in me guessing the player as some bustard got in there before me

Hahaha, got to admit the puns made me laugh!

Better luck next time, guess you'll be needing it.

[FuddledFox]

9 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

am guessing you support Oxford because you live inside or in the near from Oxfordshire?

I live under an hour from Oxford but I started going to there games with a mate when I was still at school and they became my team maybe they wouldn’t have if I realised how terrible they would be over most of the next 20 years 😂