Career Foxy's Tenuous Links - Season 3

[S4NCH0]

55 minutes ago, Foxy said:

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 😂

hahaha, I get the bad results part. My team here in Mexico has been very bad over the last years, but it always comes down to those little details like the support clubs, the shirts, etc.

 

[Cockers2505]

Eh @Foxy I see you have risen in the world, I reckon if you brought back Ledson he would be a solid midfielder again for you if you can afford him, anyway looking good mate, Oxford gaining Promotion is a massive achievement, good luck in the new league

[FuddledFox]

We ended last season with the League 1 title and promotion up to the Championship which was great but its time to build on that and challenge for the Premier Division.

Last season Inih Effiong scored 44 goals as he helped us to get promoted but its time to say goodbye to him and find a new lad with 2 links in the chain to be our star this year.

We paid £35k for Inih so I was delighted to accept £1m from Blackburn for him.

This gave me around £1m to spend on our new guy but it was a struggle to find someone who I could get with only 2 links in the chain. In the end I worked a way to get this guy in for just under a mil.

Inih played in the Scottish Premiership > Hamilton play in the Premiership > Brustad played for Hamilton last season.

Proof

Spoiler

Not my best work link wise but the list of strikers I could get weren’t great so at least I got someone decent and hell the links work….just. My only real concern with Brustad is his movement and decisions but he should be worth at least 30 goals next season if I get a decent squad around him.

Transfers

Major work was going to be needed to the squad if I was going to cjalleneg for promotion but luckily I funded Brustad with the sell of Inih and then even better Leeds came in with £6m for Cameron Branighan. As decent a player as he is I snapped there hand off as I could use that money to not only bring a few players in but also to improve the training ground. A lot of players moved on at the end of there contracts or loans finished as well.

I brought in a huge number of players and I took advantage of the loan market as well as free transfers but I also spent £2.9m on a few good players. In total I brought in 20 players over the 2 windows and they are all under the spoiler below.

Spoiler

There is some real quality in that group and a few players who will hopefully develop over the season especially as the Brannighan money enabled me to improve the training ground from Below Average to Good.

Spoiler

The Season

I came into the season with high expectations with the quality of players I brought into the club and my main priority was the league so there was no major cup runs this year.

We did get to the 4^th round of the League Cup before Premier League Brighton did for us.

In the FA Cup we did manage to beat a Premier League side with an excellent 2-0 win in the 4^th round but we then went out to Championship Huddersfield in the next round.

Spoiler

Last season we cruised League 1 despite 7 loses and that was down to our ability to win matches as we only drew 4 times all year. This year in the first half of the season we did very well as we had a 3pt lead on New Years but we had doubled our draw count already and had 4 loses as well. Not a huge worry of course as we sat top but it shows that jump in quality.

The new year saw us draw another 7 games but we only lost twice in the final 20 games and despite scoring 16 pts less then last season we still won the league and by a healthy 8 pts as well.

Premier League here we come!

With another league title under our belt lets take a look at how big a part Brustad played and also whether he got the 30 goals he needed to mean that I can carry on for another year

Brustads Season

Fredrick disappointed me this season if I’m honest. He never managed to keep himself scoring consistently by FMM standards and by 1^st Jan he was scoring at below a GpG although he was only 8 goals away from the magic total.

Spoiler

The second half of the season he slowed down more and then got hit by an injury which ended his season in early April.

 

In the end he did break the 30 goal mark but only by 5 goals and it took him 47 games to score those 35 goals!

Spoiler

Maybe he didn’t suit my system but I think I went away from one attribute that I like my strikers to have and that is movement. I play the game with key highlights and the number of times the ball would be played into the box and Brustad was covered by a defender got so frustrating and I simply think he lacked the movement to create space for himself as it certainly wasn’t through lack of trying by my creative players. That said he did win player of the year in the Championship.

 

Team Stats

Spoiler

This was a mixed season for me as we performed well and to win the division as easily as we did only spending £2.9m was great, plus we have now got a Good rated training ground as well. The frustration of Brustad struggling for goals was real though and has clouded my thoughts this season but it has also made me determined to correct that next season with my player choice.

So going into the Premier League we have 3 links in the chain to get us to our next striker and I have identified my next player already.

As a little clue he has signed for clubs in Italy and Spain during his career before coming to the UK.

Cheers lads

 

 

[Ashez]

Quality league campaign mate but striker wise that was close! Hopefully you can get some better strikes in now to make things a bit more comfortable! 

[S4NCH0]

Very good update, even better season for your team. Looking forward to how Dion Beeney (hope I got his name right) develops in the near future seems like a quality youngster who will bring in some quality into the team if he is retained or at least millions to the  bank when sold. KIU

 

as for your next player this time I’ve got no clue.

 

[S4NCH0]

My only guess would be this:

 

Brustad has a brother>> His brother scored an international goal against South Africa>>Fernando Llorente scored against South Africa

 

+Fernando has good movement stats (as you mentioned you like in a striker) and played in both Italy and Spain.

 

My other guess would be Fernando Forestieri 

[FuddledFox]

52 minutes ago, S4NCH0 said:

Very good update, even better season for your team. Looking forward to how Dion Beeney (hope I got his name right) develops in the near future seems like a quality youngster who will bring in some quality into the team if he is retained or at least millions to the  bank when sold. KIU

 

as for your next player this time I’ve got no clue.

 

Beeney looks like he could be good and I have no plans to sell him on for a profit if I can help it.

Nope not Llorente but my guy shares a couple of clubs in common with Forestieri.

[Rob]

What always gets bypassed i these challenges is how easy you make it look bearing teams, especially in this and your Bournemouth save.

[FuddledFox]

39 minutes ago, Rob2017 said:

What always gets bypassed i these challenges is how easy you make it look bearing teams, especially in this and your Bournemouth save.

Cheers mate 🙂

Its been a real balancing act so far compared with other saves I have done since I converted to the mobile side as I don’t have the unlimited funds to just spend on the best of the best and I want promotions and to build a competitive team as much as I want my striker to score huge amounts of goals. 

Its for these reasons that I am loving this save and why probably if I get to a money no object stage I will probably get bored.

[S4NCH0]

5 hours ago, Foxy said:

Beeney looks like he could be good and I have no plans to sell him on for a profit if I can help it.

Nope not Llorente but my guy shares a couple of clubs in common with Forestieri.

I understand but sometimes as a small team one is forced to sell to keep the ship afloat. Wouldn’t be a massive problem for you, I guess, seeing that you tend to use your budget really wisely. 

 

My new guess will be Isaac Succes  no idea on the links though so here is a crappy one:

Brustad has a brother>> His brother played for Wimbledon>> Wimbledon starts with a W>> Watford does as well>> Isaac Played for Watford.

[FuddledFox]

7 hours ago, S4NCH0 said:

 

My new guess will be Isaac Succes  no idea on the links though so here is a crappy one:

Brustad has a brother>> His brother played for Wimbledon>> Wimbledon starts with a W>> Watford does as well>> Isaac Played for Watford.

Correct with the player but not even close with the link, although it was a good link you came up with. You will have to wait for the next update to find out the link.

[FuddledFox]

We head into the Premier League and hopes are high.

Over the Summer Brexit happened and we got of lightly as there will be no change to the work permits so that’s a nice bonus and something I took advantage of in the transfer market.

The Link

Last season Brustad was a disappointment so hopefully going up a league we can get someone that can fire in the goals at this level but first we needed to ship out Brustad. I had to offer him out a few times but in the end he went to Strasbourg and for some profit as well as I had spent £975k to get him a year ago.

I had already got in my player for this season by the time Brustad packed his bags for France. I was absolutely delighted with the player that I brought and even better was the price I paid for him.

 

Isaac wanted out from Watford as they had been relegated in season 1 and then failed to get promoted last season. He looks really good as a striker joining a newly promoted club and he only cost me £925k!!!

The big question is how does he link to Brustad of course.

I had 3 links in the chain to use and this is what I came up with.

Brustad played for Stabaek > Stabaek were once managed by Billy Mckinlay > Billy Mckinlay also managed Watford > Success plays for Watford

Spoiler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrik_Brustad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_McKinlay

Transfers

We didn’t have bucket loads of cash to spend and in the end I only spent £16m on bringing players in although we spent plenty on wages as I went for loan players again. The total on the transfers in is skewed because that screenshot is from just before the season change and it includes the money we spent on next seasons striker. I did bring in one player that I hope can contribute for a few seasons in Joshua Onomah from Spurs but I simply don’t have the cash to spend on the quality of players that I would like to bring in but if we stay up I hope that will start to change next season.

 

Spoiler

Not many players left for money as I either kept them or they were out of contract and left.

The Season

My aim was to get into Europe for next season but the league was more important for me this year as my thinking is the higher we finish the more money we will have next year.

We seem to do much better in the League Cup so far this save as we got to the semi final but Man Utd proved too strong for us this year as we went out 4-3 over 2 legs. I was disappointed to go out this way as we had the better of both legs and after drawing the away leg 1-1 I thought we had a real chance of making the final but Man Utd were just to clinical.

Spoiler

We had another poor season in the FA Cup as we crashed out to Fulham in the 3^rd round.

Spoiler

The league campaign was what I was most interested in but it was very mixed for the first half of the season as we lost 5 games and drew 5 as well but that did have us just outside the European spots.

In the 2^nd half of the season we started to find more form and with 3 games remaining we had a great chance of making the top 4 in our first season. Our final 3 games would come against Chelsea, Everton and Man City so not an easy run in but we have a chance.

That chance had evaporated as we lost to both Chelsea and Everton and it was no longer mathematically possible to get top 4 by the final game where we made it 3 losses in a row as we went down 3-1. So after a run of 5 wins we blew it right at the end.

We did make the Europa League though as we finished 5^th.

Success

Issac started the season really well and was banging goals in for fun, he had started to slow down a bit by Christmas but he had broken the 30 goal mark so I was hoping for a big season from him, in fact I was so confident I forgot to get the half season screenshot of his goal total.

His goalscoring had slowed a bit around Xmas and afterwards and then he went and got himself injured for 2 months in early February.

Once he came back he then decided he was too big for the club and wanted out. Not a massive problem as he is off in the summer and January had been and gone but then he started being disruptive in training.

 

In the end he had a good goals to game ratio and he broke the 30 goal mark which is what matters and despite the injury he only missed about 6 games as we had already been knocked out the cups.

Team Stats

Spoiler

A decent season and I am glad to have made Europe next season even if it is the Europa as it may help me get a bit more money to spend and maybe attract some good players and it will be a more winnable cup than the Champions League at the moment. What is frustrating is its another season where my striker started on fire and then the 2^nd half of the season his form just dropped. If I was overplaying my strikers I could see the reason but I’m very good at subbing them off in matches even early in the season to try and keep them fresh.

Next season I hope we can challenge for the title and win ourselves a trophy and get a striker to score more then 50 goals would be nice as well.

Cheers lads

 

[S4NCH0]

Nice! I don’t know why I didn’t get notified about this update. Great season and those links are really hard to crack. Having lots of fun!

[FuddledFox]

1 hour ago, S4NCH0 said:

Nice! I don’t know why I didn’t get notified about this update. Great season and those links are really hard to crack. Having lots of fun!

Don’t worry, thanks for catching up.

This is on the back burner at the moment but Season 4 is done so I will try and update this week and then make a start on season 5 when I find the time.

[Ashez]

All in all.I'd call that a successful season

[FuddledFox]

1 hour ago, Ashez said:

All in all.I'd call that a successful season

It was certainly a 1st Premier League season that gave me something to build on....