Career Ian attempts the Lord Bendtner challenge (Season 3)

[Ian]

Hello Vibe and welcome to my first career on FMM20. I have a long save planned and I’m going to be attempting a few shorter challenges alongside that with this being the first. 

The challenge I’ve chosen to attempt is the Lord Bendtner challenge created by @Foxy so thanks to him for creating it.

The challenge is rather simple to understand as all we have to do is manage one of the clubs Nicklas Bendtner has played for during his career, sign him up, have him score more goals than he has done previously during his whole career and do it in as few games as possible with the number of games it takes us being our score for the challenge. He’s scored 112 goals throughout his career so 113 will be our target and hopefully we can get those goals in a quick fashion.

The team I’ve chosen to manage is.

Sunderland Association Football Club

As soon as I saw Sunderland as an available club I knew I’d be aiming to go that way provided Nicklas would sign as I was fairly confident he’d be a decent player in League One and it’d make for an enjoyable career with us attempting to bring the club back up to the Premier League.

He would sign and at a reasonable cost of £250k.

He’s got some good attribute numbers in shooting, aeriel, strength and movement but his lack of pace and poor stamina are concerns although the stamina mightn’t be such a problem with the nature of this challenge. Based on his coaching report it would appear he’s an enigmatic player which is not ideal but it looks as if he is prolific from the penalty spot which should be useful.

Anyway, that’s the introduction done and I’ll be back tomorrow with the next update.

Thanks for reading.

[Kun Aguero]

The Lord is back! 😂 Good luck!

[FuddledFox]

32 minutes ago, Ian said:

I have a long save planned and I’m going to be attempting a few shorter challenges alongside that with this being the first. 

I like the confidence you have that this won’t be a long challenge and it will be interesting to see if you are still saying that when you are in the Prem and the Lord’s attributes are in the toilet 😉

Anyway I’m glad someone is attempting this and Sunderland is a much more interesting choice of team as you build the club up the leagues than Juve or FCK where the league would be easy and they already have good squads.

Good luck my friend.

[broodje kip]

Good luck Ian the Lord is always a good choice but also loves to steal goals from Wind while I’m testing FCK save

[BatiGoal]

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish. – Michelangelo

The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough. – St. Patrick

The Lord can give, and the Lord can take away. I might be herding sheep next year. – Elvis Presley

Let the Lord judge the criminals. – Tupac Shakur

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime. – Martin Luther

Lord, grant that Ian may always accomplish more than he can desire. – BatiGoal

[broodje kip]

Sorry but I can grant any of this wishes 

[Kanegan]

My next challenge is also a similar one which will be unleashed later so good luck.

[Nucleus]

Nice challenge to set things off for the year Ian. All the best mate 

[Ian]

4 hours ago, Foxy said:

I like the confidence you have that this won’t be a long challenge and it will be interesting to see if you are still saying that when you are in the Prem and the Lord’s attributes are in the toilet 😉

Anyway I’m glad someone is attempting this and Sunderland is a much more interesting choice of team as you build the club up the leagues than Juve or FCK where the league would be easy and they already have good squads.

Good luck my friend.

Thank you Mr Fox, I’m holding out hope that he will do well in the first couple of years so if we then end up in the prem he won’t have too many goals to get. Of course I haven’t fully tested tactics and stuff at this stage so it’ll be interesting to see how the first season goes.

4 hours ago, Lord Danish said:

Good luck Ian the Lord is always a good choice but also loves to steal goals from Wind while I’m testing FCK save

Thank you Lord, hopefully he will come good for me!

4 hours ago, Kun Aguero said:

The Lord is back! 😂 Good luck!

He certainly is, thank you for the support.

3 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish. – Michelangelo

The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough. – St. Patrick

The Lord can give, and the Lord can take away. I might be herding sheep next year. – Elvis Presley

Let the Lord judge the criminals. – Tupac Shakur

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime. – Martin Luther

Lord, grant that Ian may always accomplish more than he can desire. – BatiGoal

Thank you very much for this Bati, I will place this on the notice board of the dressing room before every game to spur our boys and the Lord on.

3 hours ago, Kanegan said:

My next challenge is also a similar one which will be unleashed later so good luck.

Thanks and good luck with yours.

3 hours ago, Nucleus said:

Nice challenge to set things off for the year Ian. All the best mate 

Cheers Nuke, it’s a nice challenge to feel my way into the new game.

[Mr Tree]

Watched the Sunderland doc recently, so I'm looking forward to you restoring a smile to the faces of their poor fans. However, Bendtner is an utter dickwad, so I'm only supporting you on condition this is a representation of the "great Dane" and not actually real life.

[Rob]

Good luck Ian

[Woody]

Best of luck bud.

[Ian]

19 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

Watched the Sunderland doc recently, so I'm looking forward to you restoring a smile to the faces of their poor fans. However, Bendtner is an utter dickwad, so I'm only supporting you on condition this is a representation of the "great Dane" and not actually real life.

I tried to watch the documentary but I couldn’t get into it. I much prefer the other one from the 90’s with Peter Reid as manager, quality entertainment that one 😂

I fully agree on Bendtner.

16 hours ago, Rob said:

Good luck Ian

Thank you Rob, it’s a nice little save to get me started on 20.

13 hours ago, Woody said:

Best of luck bud.

Cheers Woody, hopefully he or I won’t be a big disappointment to the black cats.

[Ian]

Season 1

Nicklas seems like he should be a decent player at this level but quite frankly I have no idea how he’ll do as I haven’t fully tested my tactics and such. I conducted a few brief tests with Liverpool when I first got the game but I can’t say I’ve worked much out yet so this will offer me a nice opportunity to further test things out in a challenge environment.

Let’s see what kind of start the main man made in his first season.

Nicklas Bendtner

He had a few great games such as this one.

And this one.

And these ones.

Spoiler

He also had a few poor games and ended up scoring 55 goals in 50 games. I was hoping for more if I’m honest but can’t be helped and we have nearly half of the required goals scored already.

One or two of his attributes including his shooting has actually increased to 15 and hopefully it’ll stay there for a while before he starts to decline.

Transfers

I offloaded a few players I didn’t fancy and brought some new boys in to hopefully improve the squad. Ngbakoto, Stambelli and Ketkeo are all wingers. Ro-Shaun Williams is a decent young centre back who will hopefully develop into a good player and Strinic is a great veteran left wing back who looks like he might have another good couple of seasons in him yet. I loaned in a few youngsters but none of them ended up featuring much and sold a few boys who either weren’t in my plans or I felt could get us a decent fee if sold.

Spoiler

Team Results

League

We won the league comfortably with only Coventry proving any real threat.

League Cup

We battled past a couple of decent teams in Stoke and Blackburn Rovers to set up a rather tricky third round tie away to Chelsea. We gave a good account of ourselves but ultimately fell short as their quality shone through in the end.

FA Cup

The less said about the FA Cup the better as we simply failed to show up to our third round tie against fellow League One side Coventry City. Poor finishing from our boys and a 3-0 drubbing.

Leasing.com Trophy

We battled through the earlier rounds and found ourselves at Wembley for the final against Southend. The Lord showed up and scored a hat trick to help us win 5-1 in a rather one sided affair.

Fixtures

Spoiler

Manager

Spoiler

Final Thoughts

We’d have liked a few more goals from Nicklas but we take it and move on to the Championship where hopefully we’ll be able to do some decent work in the transfer market to improve the squad.

Thank you for reading.

[Gunners Rishi]

I see I am late here but best of luck and don’t be too hard on yourself that’s a good return nevertheless. 

[Kanegan]

Thats a great start mate. The lord is back.

[Woody]

Nicely done sir, a great start.

Shame its at Sunderland though but i can forgive you for that 

[FuddledFox]

Considering the state Sunderland are in I think that was a good return but can you stop teasing @samhardy with the kind of wins he can only dream of irl.

[BatiGoal]

Great start. Surely he can't do that a second season. 

[Ian]

3 hours ago, Gunners Rishi said:

I see I am late here but best of luck and don’t be too hard on yourself that’s a good return nevertheless. 

Thank you Rishi, yeah I’m happy with it and we move closer to the target.

3 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Thats a great start mate. The lord is back.

Cheers, he did well and hopefully he can still get a few goals in the higher division.

3 hours ago, Woody said:

Nicely done sir, a great start.

Shame its at Sunderland though but i can forgive you for that 

Thank you Woody, I’ve just checked and we’ll be playing the toon next season as they got relegated.

3 hours ago, Foxy said:

Considering the state Sunderland are in I think that was a good return but can you stop teasing @samhardy with the kind of wins he can only dream of irl.

Thanks you Mr Fox, that was a great result as they just kept scoring but I feel the sending off helped us.

1 hour ago, BatiGoal said:

Great start. Surely he can't do that a second season. 

Thanks Bati, my original target was around a goal a game for the 113 goals but I’ve lowered that as I just can’t see him making it now. I’ll aim for 120 games now and hope that is still possible after next season 😂

[Woody]

28 minutes ago, Ian said:

Thank you Rishi, yeah I’m happy with it and we move closer to the target.

Cheers, he did well and hopefully he can still get a few goals in the higher division.

Thank you Woody, I’ve just checked and we’ll be playing the toon next season as they got relegated.

Thanks you Mr Fox, that was a great result as they just kept scoring but I feel the sending off helped us.

Thanks Bati, my original target was around a goal a game for the 113 goals but I’ve lowered that as I just can’t see him making it now. I’ll aim for 120 games now and hope that is still possible after next season 😂

😂 hardly suprising really

[broodje kip]

Lord Bendtner is the next Jonas Wind 😂

[CamelXCVII]

Nice start. Great to see you've chosen Sunderland. Loved Lord Bendtner when he was here, especially with him scoring against Newcastle.

[Ian]

On 24/11/2019 at 22:45, Lord Danish said:

Lord Bendtner is the next Jonas Wind 😂

Yes maybe he is 😂

On 25/11/2019 at 01:16, CamelXCVII said:

Nice start. Great to see you've chosen Sunderland. Loved Lord Bendtner when he was here, especially with him scoring against Newcastle.

Thank you, hopefully he can score against them again this next season.

[Ian]

Season 2

Last season Bendtner scored 55 goals and the team won the League One title in good style. We need to build on that and Bendtner needs to prove he can still be a decent striker in the Championship. I’ll be going with three in midfield this year as I’m not convinced we’ll be strong enough to carry my other system with two in midfield and inverted wing backs as I find that that particular system usually falls apart if my team is not so much stronger than the opposition. 

Let’s see how it went.

Lord Bendtner

He did ok but not fantastic as he hit 37 goals in the 40 games he played in as he suffered a couple of injuries. Even though it’s less than a goal a game we are still under that in total so not too bad. So just 21 goals required and we’ll be looking to try and get them next season.

Transfers

We did plenty of work in the market this year to try and improve the squad for the Championship. I brought in centre back Luka Racic from Brentford who I have used a few times on last year's game, he’s a player that always seems to perform well for me and I can’t recommend him enough. Kemen and Crooks were both brought in to improve our options in midfield and Kane and Abita are both wing backs, one each side. Young Josh Bowler and Marvin Johnson will fight it out for a place on the left wing whilst Moukam will try to force his way into the side on the right.

Spoiler

Team Results

Derbies

Unfortunately we lost the first derby game at the Stadium of Light which was also our first loss of the season. We just couldn’t convert our chances.

Revenge was sweet as we beat them in the FA Cup fourth round, again it was played at the Stadium of Light and this time we were much more prolific in front of goal with the Lord netting the opener to set us on our way to a 3-1 victory.

The reverse league fixture at St. James’ Park eventually went our way as after initially falling behind to a Joe Willock strike, Bendtner equalised from the spot and Moukam won us the points with a late winner.

League

We won the league comfortably and it was the toon that were our biggest threat for most of the season but unfortunately for them they had a truly horrible run in and ended up in third. They won’t be joining us in the Premiership either as they slipped up in the Play-Offs.

League Cup

There wasn’t much to shout about in this competition as even though we beat Wrexham 7-0 in the first round we would then go on the get dumped out in the second by Bournemouth. The match was a tight affair that ended 2-2 with the subsequent penalty shootout going their way.

FA Cup

So you know we beat Newcastle in one of the earlier rounds which unfortunately would turn out to be the highlight of the competition. We did put in another good performance in the next round as we went to Hull and won 1-3 but that was that as we were then hammered at Wolves in the next round.

Fixtures

Spoiler

Manager

Spoiler

Final Thoughts

So The Lord needs 21 goals next season with the main problem being that he’ll need to get them in the Premier League. I feel the target is attainable provided he stays injury free but how many games it takes is another question.

We’ll find out next time whether he can do it or not.

Thanks for reading.

[BatiGoal]

Great number to have to hit coming into the EPL. Yours to lose now, Ian. We're watching and believing 👀 

[FuddledFox]

Very good 2nd season but 21 goals looks a lot to get in the EPL.

[BatiGoal]

10 minutes ago, Foxy said:

Very good 2nd season but 21 goals looks a lot to get in the EPL.

I see what you're doing. Making him nervous before he switches back to his golf career, clever Fox you! 

[FuddledFox]

6 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

I see what you're doing. Making him nervous before he switches back to his golf career, clever Fox you! 

You have a suspicious mind.

[Ian]

1 hour ago, BatiGoal said:

Great number to have to hit coming into the EPL. Yours to lose now, Ian. We're watching and believing 👀 

Thank you BG, I’ll try my best, the good thing is that he’s fantastic at penalties but he may well be a liability up top on his own so we’ll just have to see I guess.

1 hour ago, Foxy said:

Very good 2nd season but 21 goals looks a lot to get in the EPL.

Thank you Mr Fox, if we can manage to score a fair few goals then I can see him getting the 21 but it’s a big if as if our results go sour I may have to change things up.

58 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

I see what you're doing. Making him nervous before he switches back to his golf career, clever Fox you! 

I won’t lose my focus on Augusta so he’s quite simply wasting his time.