Career Ian - Gotta Get Me Some ZZZ’s (Complete)

[Ian]

Season 3

After a relatively poor opening season for the team where we failed in all of the cup competitions we bounced back in the second season winning the whole lot which actually gave me a headache from a squad building perspective. When I’m playing these sort of saves I’ll usually be looking at the squad during the current season and working out what transfers I’m going to make in the summer to try and improve the squad. The thing that got me this season was that I’d planned a lot of stuff, had a good idea of who would be leaving and a few potential signings were line up but then we ended up winning the Champions League so I was sat there wondering if I should just leave a few things as they were. It was the way we won it that was getting to me as it was rather comfortable but yet could easily have just been a bit of a fluke so a conundrum for me to sort out anyway in terms of ins and outs. Our three Z’s have done well in both seasons so far so more of the same from them and I’ll be happy, let’s see how they and the team performed in season three.

 

Transfers

After much debate I ended up doing a decent amount of business in the market with some nice players arriving. Rodrigo Bentancur and another Z in Zielinski both came in to improve our midfield options and right winger Forrest was replaced by Spinazzola who will hopefully be an upgrade. We replaced our two back up central defenders Dean and Bednarek with Jovanovic and Anderson and Ochs came in as an option for the left wing or up front as cover for our boys. The two graduates were well rated but it’ll be unlikely we’ll see much from them on this save.

Spoiler

 

Team Results

We were straight into action after moving over to the new season with the CWC being all to play for. We played and beat PSG in the semi final who we’d also beat in last seasons Champions League final so they probably don’t like us much. Liverpool who we’d also had great joy against last season would be our opponents in the final and they got their revenge in a high scoring match. The domestic cups were all won but with much less dominance in the finals as you can see and our Champions League run ended in the semi final where Bayern put us out after our boys fired blanks in the return home leg. So even though we failed in the Champions League we still got right to the latter stages so plenty of games for our boys to feature in so we’ll see how they fared now.

Spoiler

 

ZZZ’s

It was only Zaha who’d spend a couple of short periods in the treatment room with an injury towards the start of the season and one towards the end.

Spoiler

 

The three boys had a stand out game not long into the season as they all got on the scoresheet in this 6-0 victory.

 

Another nice game a month or so later where all of our trio managed at least a goal and an assist each in this 7-1 victory.

 

Wilfried Zaha

Wilfried ended up having his worst season to date but still produced 28 goals and 24 assists so we can’t be too critical as he did suffer those two little injuries which I think hindered him in terms of consistency. You can see his attributes have dropped a bit which was more than likely because of his recent injury but at 29 it’ll be interesting to see if they jump back up again next season.

 

 

Simone Zaza

Simone had his best season to date with 49 goals and 20 assists which was probably helped by his robustness as he managed 60 games this year. He’s still looking good but with him about to turn 31 we’ll see whether he stays decent for the next two seasons.

 

Arber Zeneli

My wildcard who is slowly turning into the main man as he produced 47 goals and 24 assists in 58 games in a fine season for him. I feel he’s well suited to this league but struggles in the big Champions League games where he often fails to show up. He’s only 27 though and it’ll be intersting to see who will end up as our highest scoring player here with the other two ageing. Anyway, in total the trio managed a combined 192 goals and assists this season which was exactly the same as last year so we’re happy.

 

Player Stats

Spoiler

 

Score

 

Spoiler

 

Season 1

Wilfried Zaha: 24 goals and 35 assists in 50 games = 59

Simone Zaza: 54 goals and 10 assists in 53 games = 64

Arber Zeneli: 18 goals and 20 assists in 50 games = 38

Combined Total: 96 goals and 65 assists in 153 games = 161

 

Season 2

Wilfried Zaha: 36 goals and 35 assists in 53 games = 71

Simone Zaza: 41 goals and 18 assists in 54 games = 59

Arber Zeneli: 38 goals and 24 assists in 52 games = 62

Combined Total: 115 goals and 77 assists in 159 games = 192

 

 

Season 3

Wilfried Zaha: 28 goals and 24 assists in 50 games = 52

Simone Zaza: 49 goals and 20 assists in 60 games = 69

Arber Zeneli: 47 goals and 24 assists in 58 games = 71

Combined Total: 124 goals and 68 assists in 168 games = 192

 

Overall

Wilfried Zaha: 88 goals and 94 assists in 153 games = 182

Simone Zaza: 144 goals and 48 assists in 167 games = 192

Arber Zeneli: 103 goals and 68 assists in 160 games = 171

Combined Total: 335 goals and 210 assists in 480 games = 545

 

Thanks for reading and following, I’ll be back with the next update at a later date.

[smoggy90]

Great season mate and what a find Zeneli is proving to be!

[Rob]

Brilliant Ian 

[FuddledFox]

Going great Ian and it looks like all three are going to post really good scores.

[Kanegan]

Going pretty good so far.

[Ian]

7 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Great season mate and what a find Zeneli is proving to be!

Thank you Smoggy, Zeneli has turned out to be very good so I’m glad I went with him. A good option for a lot of teams for not so much money. In fact seeing him do well has opened my eyes as I think there are a lot of good options that can often be missed when searching and he’s just the tip of the iceberg.

5 hours ago, Rob said:

Brilliant Ian 

Thank you Rob, it’s the World Cup year next season though so we’ll see how we cope with that.

5 hours ago, Foxy said:

Going great Ian and it looks like all three are going to post really good scores.

Thank you Foxy, yes they look like they’ll all do fairly well and I have no idea at this stage who will do the best but it’ll be another three names added to the ever growing leaderboard which can only be a good thing.

5 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Going pretty good so far.

Thanks Kane, yes they’ve done well so far.

[Ian]

Season 4

This is the dreaded year where the World Cup is held in the middle of the season so not a favourite of mine I have to say. The Portugal fixture list is fairly congested at the best of times so I’m guessing things will be even more chaotic this year especially if we go deep in all of the cup competitions. The good news is I’ve finished the season so I now can relax and let you all know how it went.

 

Transfers

We offloaded a good few fringe or older players and made four new signings to freshen things up. I wanted better options for our midfield and went for Berge and Palacios with Berge being someone I’ve never used but always meant to so now is his time to hopefully shine. Palacios is totally new to me and I’ll be doing a little section on him later as he turned out to be very good. Kostic is a tried and tested decent left winger who should do a good enough job in this division as a rotation option and Tomori is a good looking centre back.

Spoiler

 

Team Results

The fixtures came left, right and centre all season apart from the break for the World Cup and we had a horrible time during one of the international breaks as we had hardly any players available to play. We overcame all of those hurdles but almost unfortunately for us we managed to perform well in all competitions and this run starting around the end of April was less than enjoyable to say the least.

 

Anyway, we fought through the fixtures and ended up winning everything but whether the pile ups have hindered our ZZZ’s remains to be seen and you’ll find out soon enough.

Spoiler

 

Exequiel Palacios

I thought I’d do a little section on this nice midfielder that I brought in for this season. He wasn’t cheap at £72m but is totally new to me so a nice find and just finding one player like this makes these careers worthwhile. You can see he performed really well this season in the BBM role based on his average rating and whilst he mightn’t look fantastic you also have to factor in that he’s still only 24 so may yet improve further but also could’ve been a whole lot better at this stage if bought and developed from earlier on. I’m sure plenty of you have used him or know more about him than I do but I thought I’d post him up as he’s a great find for myself and I’ll be trying him again that’s for sure. 

 

ZZZ’s

This was the highlight game this year as our ZZZ’s turned into ZZZZ’s with Zielinski getting himself in on the action. If I’d have kept Zivkovic from the start and brought in Ziyech things could’ve got a bit crazy here with Z’s all over the place.

 

We also managed a hat trick from each of our challengers and it was Zaza who suffered the only injury with a month long spell in the treatment rooms that turned out to be more like two due to the pile up of fixtures this year.

Spoiler

 

When the dust had finally settled on this mammoth campaign it was Zaha who put up the best return with a total of 69 consisting of 43 goals and 26 asssists, Zeneli was next up with 65 consisting of 41 goals and 24 assists and last up was Zaza with 51 consisting of 37 goals and 14 assists although his season was hindered by his unfortunate injury. Nice returns from all players though and it looks like they’ll all post decent scores for the challenge providing the older guys stay decent for the final season that is.

Spoiler

 

 

Player Stats

Spoiler

 

Score

 

Spoiler

 

Season 1

Wilfried Zaha: 24 goals and 35 assists in 50 games = 59

Simone Zaza: 54 goals and 10 assists in 53 games = 64

Arber Zeneli: 18 goals and 20 assists in 50 games = 38

Combined Total: 96 goals and 65 assists in 153 games = 161

 

Season 2

Wilfried Zaha: 36 goals and 35 assists in 53 games = 71

Simone Zaza: 41 goals and 18 assists in 54 games = 59

Arber Zeneli: 38 goals and 24 assists in 52 games = 62

Combined Total: 115 goals and 77 assists in 159 games = 192

 

Season 3

Wilfried Zaha: 28 goals and 24 assists in 50 games = 52

Simone Zaza: 49 goals and 20 assists in 60 games = 69

Arber Zeneli: 47 goals and 24 assists in 58 games = 71

Combined Total: 124 goals and 68 assists in 168 games = 192

 

 

Season 4

Wilfried Zaha: 43 goals and 26 assists in 57 games = 69

Simone Zaza: 37 goals and 14 assists in 47 games = 51

Arber Zeneli: 41 goals and 24 assists in 56 games = 65

Combined Total: 121 goals and 64 assists in 160 games = 185

 

Overall

Wilfried Zaha: 131 goals and 120 assists in 210 games = 251

Simone Zaza: 181 goals and 62 assists in 214 games = 243

Arber Zeneli: 144 goals and 92 assists in 216 games = 236

Combined Total: 456 goals and 274 assists in 640 games = 730

 

So the question now is who will finish with the highest score out of our challengers? It’s interesting as they are all at different ages but I’d personally go for Zaha purely because of his advantage going into the final season.

 

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back with the final update at a later date.

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Ian

[Kanegan]

Still going great Ian. Zaha & Zaza tearing it up.

[Rob]

Destroying it. Palacios looks excellent. I see him in early season South American searches and never buy him. 

[smoggy90]

Brilliant Ian! You’ve got more goals and assists from your 3 players than I have from 4 at the same stage. Excellent work. 

[Scratch]

Great going mate. You should do a predictions thing like @Kanegan does to see which order they finish in! My money is on Zaha, then Zeneli, then Zaza.

As for Palacios - he is in my standard go to pack when starting a save at a club which doesn't have a billion $. Have used him at Celtic, Newcastle, etc. Cheap to get, always develops nicely. He's a great option.

[danovic78]

Nice going, solid seasons from the three. I have nearly finished my effort at this one with three players also. Shall post soon.

I bought Palacios a lot last season but he has always been too pricey in my saves for this season. Almada is my go to ARG wonderkid.

[Scratch]

1 hour ago, danovic78 said:

I bought Palacios a lot last season but he has always been too pricey in my saves for this season. Almada is my go to ARG wonderkid.

Hmm, I just looked back at a couple of my careers and in one I paid £6.75M for Almada (at PAOK) and in another I paid £8M for Palacios (at Newcastle), so I have then as roughly the same price in my head. But I guess it depends on just how tight your budget is and it probably varies slightly from save to save depending on which club you are at - I find that sometimes (not always) players cost more if you are at a big club.

Also, I use the super negotiating tactic to get a good price and I'm not sure if everyone knows about that or just a few (or just me), so maybe I got a better price than most?

I guess I better explain that tactic: when you make an offer at around their listed price and the club comes back with a price 3 or 4 times their price, don't just negotiate there as they often don't move much. Instead set the price at something like 1.3 times the list price and 'walk away' by tapping out of the negotiating window, then go back and choose make offer again, leaving the price at same value you left it before tapping away (it will remember), then suggest that (take it or leave it buddy).

They will often come back with a much lower  counter - some times they accept 1.3. Sometimes they come back with 1.4. Or if that is still way below their absolute minimum they will come back with whatever that is (for some players it's much higher, but for most it's close to your take it or leave it value). 

Does everybody know about that?

[Ian]

10 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Still going great Ian. Zaha & Zaza tearing it up.

Thanks Kane, I think this is almost the perfect league and team for those two to shine as it’s a weaker league yet the club is big enough for them to remain happy.

9 hours ago, Rob said:

Destroying it. Palacios looks excellent. I see him in early season South American searches and never buy him. 

Thanks Rob, yeah I thought others would be familiar with him. I had wondered if there’d be issues with work permits in most league when he’s young but it seems from the other comments that’s not the case.

5 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Brilliant Ian! You’ve got more goals and assists from your 3 players than I have from 4 at the same stage. Excellent work. 

Thank you Smoggy, It’s going really well but I feel you’ve got the tougher challenge in having to bring a team to the top in a tougher league. No disrespect to Boro though and it’s more interesting than this I’m sure as Benfica are just ready right off the bat to compete at every level really even though I had a bit of a shit first season.😂

4 hours ago, Scratch said:

Great going mate. You should do a predictions thing like @Kanegan does to see which order they finish in! My money is on Zaha, then Zeneli, then Zaza.

As for Palacios - he is in my standard go to pack when starting a save at a club which doesn't have a billion $. Have used him at Celtic, Newcastle, etc. Cheap to get, always develops nicely. He's a great option.

Thanks Scratch, I’ll note your prediction and as I haven’t played the season yet I’ll add my own and just go Zaha, then Zaza and then Zeneli to be different. Really fancy Zaha for first and I think it’ll only be injury issues that could stop him but the other two i can hardly separate and again it could well be injuries that decide it.

I really like Palacios from what I’ve seen this season. It’s the BBM role I often have trouble with as I just want such a complete player with good physicals and pace and stamina both at green level. It can often be very hard to find someone ready made with everything in place so I was happy to stumble upon him.

4 hours ago, danovic78 said:

Nice going, solid seasons from the three. I have nearly finished my effort at this one with three players also. Shall post soon.

I bought Palacios a lot last season but he has always been too pricey in my saves for this season. Almada is my go to ARG wonderkid.

Thank you Danovic, it’s gone well so far and just one more season where hopefully we’ll finish up ok without any disasters. Look forward to seeing your attempt and which team and player/ player’s you’ve used.

I’m glad I’ve finally found Palacios and I’ve seen a lot from Alamada yet haven’t actually used him either I don’t think but he looks class.

2 hours ago, Scratch said:

Hmm, I just looked back at a couple of my careers and in one I paid £6.75M for Almada (at PAOK) and in another I paid £8M for Palacios (at Newcastle), so I have then as roughly the same price in my head. But I guess it depends on just how tight your budget is and it probably varies slightly from save to save depending on which club you are at - I find that sometimes (not always) players cost more if you are at a big club.

Also, I use the super negotiating tactic to get a good price and I'm not sure if everyone knows about that or just a few (or just me), so maybe I got a better price than most?

I guess I better explain that tactic: when you make an offer at around their listed price and the club comes back with a price 3 or 4 times their price, don't just negotiate there as they often don't move much. Instead set the price at something like 1.3 times the list price and 'walk away' by tapping out of the negotiating window, then go back and choose make offer again, leaving the price at same value you left it before tapping away (it will remember), then suggest that (take it or leave it buddy).

They will often come back with a much lower  counter - some times they accept 1.3. Sometimes they come back with 1.4. Or if that is still way below their absolute minimum they will come back with whatever that is (for some players it's much higher, but for most it's close to your take it or leave it value). 

Does everybody know about that?

Interesting and I didn’t know about it do thanks, I’ll try that.

There’s another one that @Rob told me about recently and I’m guessing most already know about it but if not I’ll explain. Say you get an offer coming in for one of your players and you decline which upsets them so you’ll probably have to wait and hope the unhappiness goes or get him to sign a new contract to remove it. It’ll probably happen again and before you know you usually just have to get rid. Well if you just accept the original transfer offer and then let him negotiate his contract with the other team, then when it’s ready to finalise the deal just pull out then and no unhappiness seems to occur. As I say most probably know about this but I didn’t so was very thankful of Rob when he told me as that whole thing was annoying me. Now I just accept every single transfer offer that comes in and just pull out at the end and it seems to work every time with no unhappiness.

[Scratch]

17 hours ago, Scratch said:

Hmm, I just looked back at a couple of my careers and in one I paid £6.75M for Almada (at PAOK) and in another I paid £8M for Palacios (at Newcastle), so I have then as roughly the same price in my head. But I guess it depends on just how tight your budget is and it probably varies slightly from save to save depending on which club you are at - I find that sometimes (not always) players cost more if you are at a big club.

@danovic78 I just tried to buy Palacios and wow is he expensive now - then I realised that when I got him for £8M I was using the November DB, not the March one, so that explains why I thought he was around the same price as Almada. Now I know exactly what you mean! 🙂

[Scratch]

14 hours ago, Ian said:

There’s another one that @Rob told me about recently and I’m guessing most already know about it but if not I’ll explain. Say you get an offer coming in for one of your players and you decline which upsets them so you’ll probably have to wait and hope the unhappiness goes or get him to sign a new contract to remove it. It’ll probably happen again and before you know you usually just have to get rid. Well if you just accept the original transfer offer and then let him negotiate his contract with the other team, then when it’s ready to finalise the deal just pull out then and no unhappiness seems to occur. As I say most probably know about this but I didn’t so was very thankful of Rob when he told me as that whole thing was annoying me. Now I just accept every single transfer offer that comes in and just pull out at the end and it seems to work every time with no unhappiness.

Umm, I never heard of that one! Sounds really handy, definitely going to try that next time it happens. Thanks!

I just (literally) discovered another thing. I have a 21yo player I can't sell. He's only worth £130K. I'd normally offer him out for 1M or so and often get some interest, but noone's interested in this guy even at 130K. So I offered him out for loan. Someone came in for a loan and I switched Loan to Transfer in the negotiation screen and set the price to 10M. They came back with 0, so no cigar. I countered with 6M and they came back with 2.1M!! So 10M was obviously way too high for them to even consider, but 6M was enough to trigger serious negotiations. I kept negotiating and eventually agreed £3.2M. Not bad for a player noone would touch at 130K!!!

I don't know how repeatable this is, literally discovered it 20 minutes ago, but I'll be trying this more in future.

[AdamNufc]

@Ian I really enjoyed reading this and seeing how you improved season upon season , as soon as I read Zaza I was positive that he was the dodgy run up guy who blasted over the bar and as I continued reading turns out he was 😂

That Zeneli has turned into a good player baring in mind neither you nor I bet many if any on this forum actually knew who he was before this

You've managed to get the best out of Zaha too who often has many fitness issues and struggles often with form from my past experience! 

I'm baffled however how you get such a tactic with only 2 at the back and no wing backs as support to work , I guess the BBMs provide transition from the defence to the midfield but in your first season in the League you only conceded 22 goals , every time I have tried a tactic with 2 at the back although I've scored for fun the back line has always been so fragile and let in about the same amount of goals as I'd score in a season 

Congrats tho was a really fun read 😀

[Ian]

On 11/07/2020 at 07:06, Scratch said:

Umm, I never heard of that one! Sounds really handy, definitely going to try that next time it happens. Thanks!

I just (literally) discovered another thing. I have a 21yo player I can't sell. He's only worth £130K. I'd normally offer him out for 1M or so and often get some interest, but noone's interested in this guy even at 130K. So I offered him out for loan. Someone came in for a loan and I switched Loan to Transfer in the negotiation screen and set the price to 10M. They came back with 0, so no cigar. I countered with 6M and they came back with 2.1M!! So 10M was obviously way too high for them to even consider, but 6M was enough to trigger serious negotiations. I kept negotiating and eventually agreed £3.2M. Not bad for a player noone would touch at 130K!!!

I don't know how repeatable this is, literally discovered it 20 minutes ago, but I'll be trying this more in future.

Yeah the transfer unhappiness thing was making some long saves practically unplayable for me. I think it depends on what team and players you’re using but as I say on some saves it can be all the time where you’re getting offers and then players getting unhappy if you reject them. I’d usually take the approach of just part exchanging them for a similar type of player but when you’re doing that all of the time it just becomes monotonous for me.

I may try the other technique sometime as a good way of raising funds.

[Ian]

On 11/07/2020 at 09:48, AdamNufc said:

@Ian I really enjoyed reading this and seeing how you improved season upon season , as soon as I read Zaza I was positive that he was the dodgy run up guy who blasted over the bar and as I continued reading turns out he was 😂

That Zeneli has turned into a good player baring in mind neither you nor I bet many if any on this forum actually knew who he was before this

You've managed to get the best out of Zaha too who often has many fitness issues and struggles often with form from my past experience! 

I'm baffled however how you get such a tactic with only 2 at the back and no wing backs as support to work , I guess the BBMs provide transition from the defence to the midfield but in your first season in the League you only conceded 22 goals , every time I have tried a tactic with 2 at the back although I've scored for fun the back line has always been so fragile and let in about the same amount of goals as I'd score in a season 

Congrats tho was a really fun read 😀

Thank you Adam, they are all less than great on pens as I discovered in the first season so I just put Zeneli on them for the rest of the time as he’s the lesser player so it might help get a few more goals. I have been tempted to take him off when starts missing them but held off and I’ll just leave him on them for the final season now.

Zeneli seems half decent especially for this league and he did improve a lot over the first season in particular. I remember when I’d decided on Zaza and Zaha and wants another Z for the AM position I think there was only him and another guy that would be available in our price range. The other guy was a bit older so that’s what swayed me to Zeneli as I had hope that he might improve a bit and luckily he did.

I’ve never used Zaha before so wasn’t sure what he’d be like. He’s probably had the most injuries out of the three but not many really and he’s been quite robust. They all have ‘very rarely injuried’ on their coaching profiles though which only just checked now so it seems they aren’t bad in that regard.

If I get say a central defender sent off I often just put the other to the middle and let him go it alone especially in league games and we still often do ok. The system does require certain player types and BBM’s are and CB’s are probably the most important for keeping it relatively tight. There’s no real reason why this system should work but it does in-game with the right players. It is a disaster with a lesser side mind as I’ve tested it and you can score a decent amount but unfortunately you seem to concede about a million 😂

I still haven’t played the final season so I will do next so the final update could be anytime over the next few days.
 

[AdamNufc]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

Thank you Adam, they are all less than great on pens as I discovered in the first season so I just put Zeneli on them for the rest of the time as he’s the lesser player so it might help get a few more goals. I have been tempted to take him off when starts missing them but held off and I’ll just leave him on them for the final season now.

Zeneli seems half decent especially for this league and he did improve a lot over the first season in particular. I remember when I’d decided on Zaza and Zaha and wants another Z for the AM position I think there was only him and another guy that would be available in our price range. The other guy was a bit older so that’s what swayed me to Zeneli as I had hope that he might improve a bit and luckily he did.

I’ve never used Zaha before so wasn’t sure what he’d be like. He’s probably had the most injuries out of the three but not many really and he’s been quite robust. They all have ‘very rarely injuried’ on their coaching profiles though which only just checked now so it seems they aren’t bad in that regard.

If I get say a central defender sent off I often just put the other to the middle and let him go it alone especially in league games and we still often do ok. The system does require certain player types and BBM’s are and CB’s are probably the most important for keeping it relatively tight. There’s no real reason why this system should work but it does in-game with the right players. It is a disaster with a lesser side mind as I’ve tested it and you can score a decent amount but unfortunately you seem to concede about a million 😂

I still haven’t played the final season so I will do next so the final update could be anytime over the next few days.
 

Doesn't matter what the tactic looks like does it as long as it works effectively! I'm a big fan of BBMs in a tactic but often find you need a 2 players with high stats in fitness if they going to play a consistent amount of games together , yeah I've found tactics with few at the back work wonders with a quality side. I managed to get a 3 at back with Dagenham working effectively but anything with 2 or 1 defenders only is suicide! 

[Ian]

11 hours ago, AdamNufc said:

Doesn't matter what the tactic looks like does it as long as it works effectively! I'm a big fan of BBMs in a tactic but often find you need a 2 players with high stats in fitness if they going to play a consistent amount of games together , yeah I've found tactics with few at the back work wonders with a quality side. I managed to get a 3 at back with Dagenham working effectively but anything with 2 or 1 defenders only is suicide! 

Yep it works well and the BBM’s need good physicals with stamina being most important but also for pace I like 14+ if possible but 13 is okay. If I’m using two BBM’s then I’ll more than likely have four or even maybe five in the squad so we’ll just rotate from game to game depending on tiredness. Two at the back like this shouldn’t work but it hasn’t proved suicidal for me as I’ve got about 4 saves ongoing at the moment on the forum with a similar setup and we usually keep a somewhat reasonable defence. Again it shouldn’t work but I suppose if anyone wants to justify it in realistic ways then they can just imagine the wingers are wing backs and that’s their somewhat attacking position displayed and the AP is more of a DLP. You could even switch to those roles on this but then I’m guessing the total team goals would drop considerably so not so good for me here as it’s goals I’m after. 

[Scratch]

On 11/07/2020 at 16:06, Scratch said:

I just (literally) discovered another thing. I have a 21yo player I can't sell. He's only worth £130K. I'd normally offer him out for 1M or so and often get some interest, but noone's interested in this guy even at 130K. So I offered him out for loan. Someone came in for a loan and I switched Loan to Transfer in the negotiation screen and set the price to 10M. They came back with 0, so no cigar. I countered with 6M and they came back with 2.1M!! So 10M was obviously way too high for them to even consider, but 6M was enough to trigger serious negotiations. I kept negotiating and eventually agreed £3.2M. Not bad for a player noone would touch at 130K!!!

I don't know how repeatable this is, literally discovered it 20 minutes ago, but I'll be trying this more in future.

Just to follow up on that, it seems it was too good to be true. The principle seems to apply, but the values are normally way lower than that. For example, a £130K player might be sold for £250K to £400K in most cases (for me), but I've never seen it in the millions again. From memory it was a cashed up Chinese club that time and I guess other clubs can't throw their money around like that!

[Ian]

Season 5

I seem to have a never ending amount of careers ongoing at the moment but the time has come to bring this one to a close. The main question we had going into this season was which one of our three challengers would end up with the highest total as there’s only 15 points between the player in first and the player in third. It was Zaha who went into the final season in the lead with 251 points with Zeneli last on 236 and Zaza somewhere in the middle on 243 so it was all up for grabs and now we’ll find out who took the highest position.

First up I’ll get the team stuff out of the way.

 

Transfers

The squad was in pretty good shape going into this season so I wasn’t planning on doing a great deal of business, my only real priority was a new AP to challenge Zielinski and Chiquinho for the centre midfield AP position and offer cover for Zeneli in the number 10 position. Nikolo Vlasic was the chosen player and a hefty £68m was spent on him but our spending wasn’t finished there as we still had a decent kitty as I’d received that message that the board loves me so I asked them for more money and got my wish. I decided to try and upgrade my second choice wingers and it was Bergwijn and Szymanski who I went for and if the truth be told I’m not sure they were actually upgrades but decent players all the same. We also kind of needed a better second choice keeper and with still having a good chunk of funds left I was able to buy Rulli from Real Sociedad who is probably just as good as our current number one so a nice battle will take place for the number one jersey this year. We let a few go to help fund these transfers and notably our old wingers and Keita who left in January as he just wasn’t playing enough.

Spoiler

 

Team Results

We had a decent final campaign in winning everything except for the Champions League where Man City ended our hopes at the quarter final stage. We played well enough in the home game but didn’t take a big enough lead into the second away leg and unfortunately forgot to pack our shooting boots as we proceeded to blast the ball everywhere except into the net. So that defeat could either be a blessing or a hindrance to our challengers depending on how you look at it and we’ll soon find out which way it went.

Spoiler

 

ZZZ’s

The highlight game for the three as a unit was probably this one where Zaha and Zaza both helped themselves to a brace of goals, Zeneli managed a brace of assists and Zaha added a further assist in a fine 5-0 victory for the team.

 

Now we’ll see the players got on individually.

 

Simone Zaza

Zaza was the oldest of our trio going into this season so the concern was always going to be whether he could hold it together for one last season. Here’s how he looks now at the end of the season so if you compare it to last year there’s a slight drop in movement, shooting and pace but he’s still in reasonable shape.

 

Unfortunately there were no hat tricks for Simone this year but he picked away and ended up scoring 32 goals and assisting another 21 goals to give him a season return of 53. The return is two more than his last year's total but with much more games played so signs of decline perhaps which won’t bother us as we’re now finished! He ends the challenge with a total return of 296 which we’re more than happy with.

 

Arber Zeneli

Arber was my wildcard but after a first developmental season he’s very much been an integral member of the ZZZ’s and you could argue he’s the main man now. He’s the youngest of our boys and very much at his peak and you can see no decline took place with him this season.

 

He had some great moments this season with multiple hat tricks but this four goal haul was certainly his highlight game.

 

Arber saved his best season for last as he managed 47 goals and 27 assists to earn him 74 points which is the highest yet to date from any of our ZZZ’s. With that hefty return he takes the lead over Simone with a total return of 310 which is brilliant considering he was our wildcard so it’s now up to Zaha to score at least 60 points to take the top spot.

 

Can he do it?

 

Wilfried Zaha

Unfortunately not long into the season he suffered a month long layoff.

 

He wasn’t long back when he suffered another three week injury to really wreck his consistency.

 

He fought back and was contributing well to the cause, none more so than in this game in January where he scored a fabulous hat trick.

 

Another hat trick for Wilfried in March so it looks like he’s back on track but the other two look pretty good too!

 

Here he is at the end of the season so still looking great although his movement is down which I’ve found tends to happen after he gets injured but would normally come back up whereas this time I think it won’t with him now being 31 years old.

 

Wilfried needed 60 to take the top spot and managed 29 goals and 22 assists for a season total of 51 so with a total return or 302 he’ll have to make do with the second spot in the battle of the ZZZ’s. Still a great return though but unfortunately as I mentioned in the previous comments it’d more than likely be injuries that would be the only thing that could stop Zaha and that has probably proven to be the case.

 

The three combined ended up with a season return of 178 which whilst being a touch down on last year is still great as there was slight decline shown in the older players. A combined total return for the ZZZ’s of 908 which we’re happy with.

 

Player Stats

Spoiler

 

Manager

 

Score

Spoiler

Season 1

Wilfried Zaha: 24 goals and 35 assists in 50 games = 59

Simone Zaza: 54 goals and 10 assists in 53 games = 64

Arber Zeneli: 18 goals and 20 assists in 50 games = 38

Combined Total: 96 goals and 65 assists in 153 games = 161

 

Season 2

Wilfried Zaha: 36 goals and 35 assists in 53 games = 71

Simone Zaza: 41 goals and 18 assists in 54 games = 59

Arber Zeneli: 38 goals and 24 assists in 52 games = 62

Combined Total: 115 goals and 77 assists in 159 games = 192

 

Season 3

Wilfried Zaha: 28 goals and 24 assists in 50 games = 52

Simone Zaza: 49 goals and 20 assists in 60 games = 69

Arber Zeneli: 47 goals and 24 assists in 58 games = 71

Combined Total: 124 goals and 68 assists in 168 games = 192

 

Season 4

Wilfried Zaha: 43 goals and 26 assists in 57 games = 69

Simone Zaza: 37 goals and 14 assists in 47 games = 51

Arber Zeneli: 41 goals and 24 assists in 56 games = 65

Combined Total: 121 goals and 64 assists in 160 games = 185

 

Season 5

Wilfried Zaha: 29 goals and 22 assists in 47 games = 51

Simone Zaza: 32 goals and 21 assists in 57 games = 53

Arber Zeneli: 47 goals and 27 assists in 57 games = 74

Combined Total: 108 goals and 70 assists in 161 games = 178

 

Overall

Wilfried Zaha: 160 goals and 142 assists in 257 games = 302

Simone Zaza: 213 goals and 83 assists in 271 games = 296

Arber Zeneli: 191 goals and 119 assists in 273 games = 310

Combined Total: 564 goals and 344 assists in 801 games = 908

 

Leaderboard Summary

Wilfried Zaha (Overall): 302

Simone Zaza (Overall): 296

Arber Zeneli (Overall and Non Striker): 310

3 Player Combined: 908

 

If you could please add my totals to the ever growing leaderboards @Foxy I’d be grateful.

A thoroughly enjoyable challenge this one has been and certainly up there with my favourites both on this year's game and the last. I think it was the multiple players at once but all going individually that I enjoyed the most as I kind of got wrapped up in which player would end up on top. Never even thought about the leaderboard throughout in all honesty but it’ll be nice to see my ZZZ’s up there.

 

Thank you for reading and following.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Ian

[AdamNufc]

That's a smashing end to the challenge @Ian but how did you manage to even persuade the board to loosen the purse strings!!! Every time I ask the board this in any save they always reject me 👀 

You got a coup in that Zeneli turning him into a star of the show from being your wild card choice , Zaha would have probably led the pack tho , so was very unlucky to spend 7 weeks on the treatment table!

[Rob]

Excellent final score Ian. I love the split of the goals. That’s some tactic you’ve got there to get that score with those players. Masterclass.

Will be good if you give it another go, but maybe with top class players? In fact, I have an idea...

[Ian]

2 hours ago, AdamNufc said:

That's a smashing end to the challenge @Ian but how did you manage to even persuade the board to loosen the purse strings!!! Every time I ask the board this in any save they always reject me 👀 

You got a coup in that Zeneli turning him into a star of the show from being your wild card choice , Zaha would have probably led the pack tho , so was very unlucky to spend 7 weeks on the treatment table!

Thank you Adam, I think they persuaded themselves. Have you not had the message that sometimes comes up after a good few years of decent success with one club which basically tells you that the board are so happy with you that any requests will more likely be agreed to? Basically means you can then go straight into the board request page and ask for anything and your first request will be accepted. The facilities were all maxed out and I didn’t see the point in asking to upgrade the stadium with just a season left so just went for the extra transfer funds option. Not really sure how much we got tbh and can’t say we really needed it as the budget here has been rather decent throughout.

I think Zaha would’ve done it if even just one of those injuries didn’t happen. I’ve found he tends to take time to get back to his best after injuries so getting the two fairly close together did nothing for him.

2 hours ago, Rob said:

Excellent final score Ian. I love the split of the goals. That’s some tactic you’ve got there to get that score with those players. Masterclass.

Will be good if you give it another go, but maybe with top class players? In fact, I have an idea...

Thank you Rob, they did well and it was nice just playing with them all contributing throughout and me just wondering who’d do best.

Yes, must revisit this challenge again I think.

[AdamNufc]

@Ian yeah I've often had that message but always when I've selected more funds it's never been accepted but always accepted has been pretty much everything else

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by AdamNufc

[Kanegan]

Great final score Ian. Really well done. 

[Ian]

29 minutes ago, AdamNufc said:

@Ian yeah I've often had that message but always when I've selected more funds it's never been accepted but always accepted has been pretty much everything else

 

Interesting, every time that message has come up for me I’ve always had my first request accepted no matter what it is. My experience and the bits I’ve seen on the forum always pointed to it being guaranteed that the first request would be accepted after that message but maybe that’s not the case.

7 minutes ago, Kanegan said:

Great final score Ian. Really well done. 

Thank you Kane, it went really well and the ZZZ’s have done me proud!

[FuddledFox]

Great scores from all three players and combined and as Rob said it’s impressive that you got them all to contribute almost equally.

I’ve added them to the leaderboard but you might want to double check I got them all right.