Career English Kings of Monaco Challenge - Completed

[geordiekrispy]

Hi Vibers, 

 

I'm back, yes the crazy idiot who took on the 7 formations, 7 seasons, 1 team challenge with Newcastle...

 

Originally I wanted to go for a shorter challenge and tried doing a strikerless season with Borussia Dortmund, but got bored when all my non-strikers got injured at the same time.

Then I thought about doing the Larsson Jr challenge, only to find out he transfered to IFK Norrköping so I was unable to find to sign him for Celtic.

 

So I thought I'd give the English Kings of Monaco challenge a go:

Quote

 

 

I will post later when I have decided who my lucky Englishmen are to be, but I'm tempted to go for some younger players and seeing as Pellegri is already at Monaco, maybe I could extend the challenge to a double trouble or even just a 1k... throw in the assist challenge too... We'll just have to see how I go.

 

Let's just hope I learned something from my formation challenge debacle!

 

Wish me luck...

Edited December 18, 2018 by geordiekrispy
Title change

[geordiekrispy]

 

The chosen ones...

 

As Monaco don't have a massive amount of cash to spend it made this a little bit tougher.

 

Attacking Midfielder

The likes of Delle Alli, Jadon Sancho, Ryan Sessengon even Phil Foden the wonderkid from Man City were out of reach for my attacking midfielder.

So I decided to go for a younger, but promising player that is currently plying his trade in the Championship, I give you Mr Jack Grealish:

 

 

Striker

Now on to that ever elusive English centre forward...

As I mentioned previously Pellegri is already at Monaco, so I needed someone who I could partner with him to try and give the double trouble challenge a go, and if he doesn't work out, then hopefully I won't lose too much ground if I have to ditch my Englishman and push on with Pellegri as a solo 1k attempt.

So with all this in mind, I hunted high and low for someone I could afford that was good enough and has the possibility to set France and Europe alight in combination with the Italian superstar in the making, and I plumped for this guy:

Mainly after reading @kylieboi88's 1k career using him at Benfica, I can see that he can work solo to a decent enough level, but will he work alongside the Italian;

 

So without much more ado, I'd give you the rest of the prerequisites:

Initial Manager Profile:

 

My Transfer screen:

I'm relatively happy with my Transfers, had to part ex some of my more expensive players to bring in de Ligt and Grealish, but they were being replaced, and or strikers so I can't see it being an issue.

I tried to sell Falcao, but teams were only ever offering 8.5m, when he was initially worth 15m, so I'll probably just keep him as a backup, for the first season, then try and sell him either in the winter window or the next summer window.

 

Onwards!

Now to try and figure out how to get the best out of 2 strikers and an Attacking Midfielder...

I'm guessing Greenwood and Pellegri up front (duh!) with Grealish just behind them in an AP role.

But do I play with wingers or fill up the central midfield?

And then do I play 4 at the back and have 1 defensive midfielder or 3 at the back with wing backs and a holding central midfielder?

Argh! I really have no idea, I like the idea of a 2 wingers and an AP, but I'd be really empty in midfield.  Which would leave me open to counter attacks...  Not sure if I can get the idea of Defensive Wingers round my head properly, or re-train my team chock full of attacking midfielders...

Hmm, that would leave me with 4 at the back (that's ok Monaco don't have a massive amount of DC's available, hence me buying de Ligt, as he can also play that DM role) and I could swap between a DM or CM depending on the opposition and if I'm at home or away... I think that could work...

 

Edited December 7, 2018 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

Yep that seemed to work...

 

Somehow I've managed to mastermind a 2-1 win over PSG in the Trophêe des Champions! This was days after being beaten by them 2-1 in a friendly.

And Greenwood get 2 goals, with Grealish getting an assist too!

Off to a flying start of this challenge!

 

Why do I feel like it's going to come crashing around me very quickly...

Edited December 8, 2018 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

I'm going to try and do a mid season update when I get on the computer either tonight or tomorrow.

Let's say Monaco are doing well, but there seems to be a lack of communication in who's should be doing the scoring and who should be doing the assisting!

[geordiekrispy]

Mid-Season 1 review:

 

Ok, finally got a chance to get on to a computer to do a semi-proper mid-season review...

 

League Table

So a look at the table shows that Monaco are currently top, by a game or two.

 

With a respectable Goal Difference too, just need to work on that defense.

 

Falcao has been coming on when Greenwood or Pellegri have been getting fatigued in games and has picked himself up a couple of goals here and there.

 

Henrichs was taking corners before I realised and changed it to Grealish:

 

The chosen Englishmen are doing ok

With Grealish showing a little bit of improvement, but I realised I didn't have him taking the corners, so I missed out on some assists... I soon changed that!

 

Greenwood is doing ok goals-wise for 2 up front, he seems to be getting tired a lot during games, so I need to work on his stamina I reckon now his Aerial is maxed out.

 

Pellegri does seem to be stealing some of Greenwood's goals, but I can't decide if the TM is scoring more or the Poacher in my front 2:

 

Manager screen shows I'm doing ok, not great but not bad for 6 months in:

 

I got knocked out of the Champions Cup at the group stage (both my losses being to Borussia Dortmund), but hopefully I'll be able to go further in the EURO cup.

 

Conclusion

So, all in all, it's not looking too bad.  Still can't decide if I want to go for a double trouble with Greenwood & Pellegri.  Or play just one up front with Greenwood and keep Pellegri as backup for injuries and when he gets tired during games.  It would mean Greenwood would get more goals, which would be great for the challenge and possible 1k with Greenwood, if I continue the career on after the 3 seasons.

 

I guess I'll see what the end of the season looks like, there are a lot of decent players out on loan and some deadwood I definitely want to get rid of as they don't fit the current formation.  We have a load of good AM RLC's, but I don't use them with 2 up top (I found I was missing the bodies in the middle of the park)  But i'm liking Grealish in a Defensive Winger role I just need to get someone to compliment him on the left hand side...

Edited December 11, 2018 by geordiekrispy

[ashrafrazin]

Doing great on top there mate. KIU💪🏼😉

[Yung.Gabe]

Keep the double up top. I want to see how they both end up.

[EvzeyWales]

Grealish was a beast for me on my Villa save in an advanced play maker role - averaged between 20-30 assists a season

[geordiekrispy]

End of Season 1

 

Overall I think this season went ok, there was a time when Greenwood got injured that I couldn't seem to get anyone else to score and I felt a bit Mourinho in the number of 1-0 wins and got sick of seeing "Monaco were in control but didn't manage to make their possession count" at the end of the game.  Plus I was able to sneak out wins against bigger teams, but struggled against smaller lower table sides, so I think a change of tactics might be required...

 

League Table

 

As you can see I missed out on the league title by 6 pts.  Which given the amount of draws I had, it's not too far out of the realms of expectation to think we can improve.

My defence wasn't too bad joint 3rd best, but my goals scored was not the best, the fact that it was joint 2nd best doesn't help really.

Amazingly PSG and OM were the teams that were at the top of the table all season, with PSG managing to drop down to 5th at one point, they then realised that scoring goals is good and smashed the second half of the season whilst hardly conceding at all!

 

Cups

I got the clean sweep of cups this season, I think I ended up playing OL a total of 6 times, twice in the league in the EURO cup semi finals, and in later stages of both cups.

 

Europe

As I said in my mid season review, I got knocked out of the Champions League at the group stage, but managed to get to the EURO cup final against Sporting, which I think I was unfortunate to lose 2-1.

 

Manager screen & Transfers

Not much happened in terms of Transfers, I was pretty happy with my squad, need to improve it before season 2, but that will depend on what formation I go with.

 

My manager profile hasn't changed a massive amount.

 

The Players

We'll start with the Englishmen as that's what this challenge is all about (primarily).

Greenwood

Like I mentioned, Greenwood picked up an injury for a month or so in the new year, so he was missing out on a fair amount of games, but he was incredibly consistent, just need to get his stamina stats up as he seems to tire out pretty quickly during games, which leads to me having to sub him out almost every game.

 

Grealish

Grealish really came into his own towards the end of the season, he also got an injury so missed a handful of games at a busy time, but overall he did well.  There was one game when he magically became full of greens, which is always nice to see.  He helped out by being able to play all across the park, but I still need to figure out where his best position is...

 

Pellegri

Pellegri was Mr Constant this season, pretty much always available, no major injuries and consistently finding the back of the net too.

 

The stats

 

So overall you can see that my strikers did pretty well, Falcao helping out when Greenwood was subbed or injured and getting a fairly respectable 22 goals for a 3rd choice striker.

But Grealish really smashed it in the second half of the season, getting 20 assists (and grabbing a couple of goals to boot).

 

Awards

Unfortunately, only Pellegri won awards and they were for foreign player of the year and top scorer, which I think Greenwood would have gotten if he didn't get injured.

 

Points

So, on to the points for this season:

	Season 1
Total Score	156
Greenwood
Goals	31
Grealish
Assists	20
Ligue 1:
2nd – 20 points	20
French Cup:
Winner - 25 points	25
Coupe de la Ligue:
Winner - 25 points	25
Trophée des Champions:
Winners – 10 points	10
Champions League:
Group stage - 0 points	0
Europa League:
Runners Up - 25 points	25

 

 

Looking forward

So as season 2 comes ever closer I think I need to tweak my formation, I'm tempted to try out a Gegen pressing style formation, I think I have the forwards for it, and probably the midfielders too (Golvin and Tielemans are definitely my best 2 CM's), just not sure about my defence or GK (both my GK's are over 30, so I might see about getting a new one). But my central defenders being de Ligt and N'Doram will be decent their stats have come on loads this season.

Plus the team seem to do so much better when playing in Overload compared to Control...

Might have a play around in the pre-season and see who is coming back from on loan and who I can get for a bargain as we don't have a lot of cash to spend.

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by geordiekrispy
Screenshots

[Kanegan]

Grealish is a very good player who develops pretty well. Greenwood is still very young so hopefully he scores more as he matures.

[geordiekrispy]

Mid-Season 2 Update

So... I changed my tactics to gegen pressing style, I wasn't sure during the pre-season friendlies, but after that.... daaaaannnng!  I've only lost 3 games in total, 2 in the league and 1 in the group stage of the Champions League.

The players who came back from loan were quite frankly much better than the players I had last season, they were to use the ever used phrase of Newcastle management, "like new signings".  So the formation just seemed to click straight away.

My big problem this season has been the low morale and lack of squad harmony.  I've been able to drag the morale up by playing the low moral squad members and them winning games/scoring/signing new contracts.  But the lack of harmony has me baffled, there doesn't seem to be anyone that people don't like, everyone appears to like their training, it's just there's no harmony...

 

I need to improve my youth facilities and get that youth and domestic player bias up a bit I think.

 

League Table

 

As you can see, I've been able to do a lot better in terms of conceding and scoring goals.

I did win the Trophee des Champions, again against PSG this year.

 

The players

Pellegri seems to be struggling a bit for goals this year, not sure if the SS role just doesn't suit him, or the fact that his strike partner got injured for the whole month of November, but stats wise he's doing well and his CA is up to 5 stars.

 

Greenwood was knocking them in for fun, until he got injured and I managed to get his stamina up so he wasn't quite as tired towards the end of games.

 

Grealish is well on to becoming a beast!

 

You can also see that both Grealish and Greenwood got their first caps this year, with Grealish scoring on his debut!

 

The goals seem a lot more spread through the team with these tactics, but I don't really mind, I'd rather do well over more competitions then get 10-15 extra goals for Greenwood. Plus whilst he's been injured, Balde seems to have decided that Monaco is a bigger enough club for him now.

 

So, we'll see how the rest of the season pans out, but I hope Greenwood can get back to scoring form after recovering from his injury, Pellegri find his form again, Grealish continues with his current form and the squad harmonise a bit.. Can I send them off to go go-karting or something?

[geordiekrispy]

Season 2 Review

 

Overall

Well... we won everything we were in for, so I think that can be classed as a good season?

Spoiler

League - ✔️

 

 

Coupe de la Ligue -✔️

 

French Cup - ✔️

 

Trophée des Champions - ✔️

 

Champions Cup - ✔️

 

 

So yeah... successful season I reckon...

It did bring my manager screen up quite a bit too

 

All the way through the season the board were worried about the harmony in the squad...

 

The Players

I realised after I was mid way through the next season that I didn't take screenshots of the players attributes...  So I'll pop them in the next mid season updated.

Greenwood ended up winning the golden boot for the league and ended up with 34 goals for the season, but he was injured for a bit of it, and I had a terrible month where he wanted a new contract, but wouldn't sign one, the old wage was just a line... But I rested him, and then played him for a few full games and he was happy as Larry again and started smashing the goals in again.

 

Grealish also had a stellar season, breaking in to the England squad as a regular and being my top assister from a box to box role in the middle of the park (and taking corners).

 

Transfers were a bit quite, just a few in replacing people who were going out more than anything.

 

 

 

Points

	Season 2
Total Score	356
	200
Ligue 1:
1st – 25 points	25
French Cup:
Winner - 25 points	25
Coupe de la Ligue:
Winner - 25 points	25
Trophée des Champions:
Winners – 10 points	10
Champions League:
Winners – 50 points	50
BONUS:
French Ligue 1 Top Goalscorer - 5 points	5

 

So 200 points, mainly just the Champions League points as the goals and assists were about the same compared to last season.

 

Onward to season 3 and let's hope we can keep this momentum going!

 

(Hint, yes we can)

Edited December 17, 2018 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

Mid-Season 3 Update

 

Harmony

So I figured out how to improve my harmony.  I had sent all the loaned out players to the reserves and couldn't bring them back up when they were loaned out.  So when they came back I went through and checked the happiness of all the players in terms of the training and game time and also went through the reserves and anyone who wanted to play for a bigger club, train with the first team or wanted to be promoted from the b-side.  I promoted up to the first team and started to systematically put the on the bench and bring them on, or play them from the start and sub them off, usually in the games I thought I'd win, and this is the result:

 

League

Quite frankly the other teams in the league are all merging into one, I only really notice when I'm playing one of the other teams near the top, so PSG, OL or OM, all the rest I expect the team to beat comfortably, so I'm happy doing a fair bit of squad rotation.

 

Greenwood is almost up to the same number of goals he got all of last season, ok he scored a hat-trick and a brace in the World Club Cup games and got a brace in the Euro Super Cup, but still... He seems to have turned a corner in terms of playing.  I actually think it's down to the harmony of the squad!

 

Trophies so far...

So, Trophée des Champion (won against PSG again), Euro Super Cup (won against Inter, was an end to end game) and walked the Club World Championship against Independiente.

Spoiler

Fingers crossed for the rest of the season and I hope Grealish picks up a bit, think he needs a rest tbh.

Edited December 17, 2018 by geordiekrispy

[geordiekrispy]

Season 3 - The Finale

 

 

Aargh! I just finished my write up and it went away...

 

FFS!

 

Trophies

Everything bar the League cup due to me messing up and putting out a reserve side for the quarter final and losing it 0-1 to OL.

Trophee des Champions (again)

 

Euro Super Cup

 

World Club Cup

 

Won the league undefeated and early (start of March).

 

Thought I'd struggle to hit 100 goals, as I needed about 3 goals per game but ended up doing it comfortably.

 

French Cup

 

Champions league.

The final was a bit disappointing, but the semi against Man Utd was nerve wracking, having lost 0-3 at Old Trafford, I smashed them 4-0 in the second leg at home.

 

The Chosen Few

Grealish

Such an amazing player, regular in the England side now, which may have tired him out a bit causing him to get less assists this season.

 

Greenwood

Managed to get his attributes up well, including his low stamina and speed, but it took a while, so his mental side needs work now.

 

Can't complain with nearly a goal a game both overall and smashed it in Europe!

 

Pellegri

Everyone knows he turns it to an Italian god, but damn...

Also, he managed to pip Greenwood to the league golden boot, but he did play more games.

 

Manager Profile and Board Confidence

 

Transfers

 

Points

	Season 3
Total Score	598
Season Score	242
Greenwood
Goals	50
Grealish
Assists	22
Ligue 1:
1st – 25 points	25
French Cup:
Winner - 25 points	25
Coupe de la Ligue:
Quarter Final - 10 points	10
Trophée des Champions:
Winners – 10 points	10
Champions League:
Winners – 50 points	50
European Super Cup:
Winners – 25 points	25
FIFA World Club Cup:
Winners – 25 points	25

 

Final Thoughts

So a decent enough total of 598 points, not amazing, but couldn't really ask for that much more, maybe a solo striker up top would have scored more and winning the league in my first season.

 

Overall I think that season was my best I've ever had in a game of football or championship manager, without save scumming.

I almost didn't need to do anything, there's definitely room for improvement in the squad, which I wasn't really doing as I knew it was good enough.

 

I think I'm going to keep the save and maybe come back to it and try and complete the double trouble with Greenwood and Pellegri (if I can get him to sign a new contract), but I've got my eye on another challenge which I'll probably set up tonight and see how I go...

 

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by geordiekrispy

[Kanegan]

Brilliant career mate. Bad luck with Pellegri not scoring more. Grealish is a great player to have in your squad.