Career Premier League Rejects - Late Bloomer Challenge - COMPLETE

[smoggy90]

Newcastle and Liverpool fans look away now!

First off thank to @Foxy for this challenge. All details can be found below but in brief you need to choose a 30 year old plus player and get him to exceed his goal tally to date, if they have under 100 goals then get them to 101. 
 

 

 

I am going to do something slightly different and try to complete 3 late bloomers in one career. I have a tactic I know gets a lot of goals out of a front 3 comprising two strikers and a treq behind them. Very similar to a tactic @Ian has used in that I also go two at the back and five across midfield but he has two AM’s and one striker.

I have decided to go north of the border for this challenge, I love playing in Scotland as you get some nice early European games which are generally easy, plenty of games and some nice easy opposition. That’s really why I have gone for 3 in 1 for this challenge, that and also because of my tactic and the fact I couldn’t make my mind up between my two strikers!

First off my club of choice is;

A decent squad and although a low budget some very good players to work with. 
 

Now my players, Newcastle fans do you remember this guy?

and Liverpool fans, this guy?

thirdly to round it off is a guy in my treq position who is one of the more successful Japanese players to play in Europe. If he can match Nakamura’s efforts at Celtic I’ll be very happy.

So if you haven’t guessed by now our players are Xisco, Le Tallec and Honda.

Revealed below are their attributes and histories at the start, so my targets are;

• 133 goals for Xisco.
• 101 goals for Le Tallec.
• 101 goals for Honda.

If they do well enough I will also enter them into the peak years challenge as they have all signed 5 year contracts. 

Spoiler

Thanks for reading and I should get the first season posted tomorrow. 

Edited August 29, 2020 by smoggy90

[Rob]

For some reason I had Le Tallec as much older, as in 40. Wow. Good luck!

[AdamNufc]

Xisco 😂😂😂

What a joker , £5m 9 games over 5 years and 1 goal 

Unfortunately yes I do remember him ha ha! 

Good luck with the challenge @smoggy90

[Mr Tree]

Nice! Good luck smoggy!

[Kanegan]

Honda, now that's a player i like. Agree with @Rob, i thought Le Tallec was much older. Good luck with this. Using Strikerless ??

[FuddledFox]

Quite a bunch of misfits but there’s nothing better than bringing those type of players to glory imo and it was part of my thinking behind the challenge.

Good luck.

[Ian]

I also thought Le Tallec would be much older. He was supposed to be the next great thing along with his cousin Sinama-Pongolle but it never happened although in fairness to Sinama I actually thought he was somewhat decent.

Looking forward to seeing how they get on, good luck. 

[Scratch]

XIsco who? Never heard of him. And even if I admitted that I had heard of him, how the hell did he get 133 goals in his career? Nah, this can't be real, it's just a nightmare. I'll just go back to sleep...

But in case it is real, good luck mate, you're gonna need it...  

[smoggy90]

17 hours ago, Rob said:

For some reason I had Le Tallec as much older, as in 40. Wow. Good luck!

 

16 hours ago, AdamNufc said:

Xisco 😂😂😂

What a joker , £5m 9 games over 5 years and 1 goal 

Unfortunately yes I do remember him ha ha! 

Good luck with the challenge @smoggy90

 

16 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

Nice! Good luck smoggy!

 

16 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Honda, now that's a player i like. Agree with @Rob, i thought Le Tallec was much older. Good luck with this. Using Strikerless ??

 

15 hours ago, Foxy said:

Quite a bunch of misfits but there’s nothing better than bringing those type of players to glory imo and it was part of my thinking behind the challenge.

Good luck.

 

14 hours ago, Ian said:

I also thought Le Tallec would be much older. He was supposed to be the next great thing along with his cousin Sinama-Pongolle but it never happened although in fairness to Sinama I actually thought he was somewhat decent.

Looking forward to seeing how they get on, good luck. 

 

25 minutes ago, Scratch said:

XIsco who? Never heard of him. And even if I admitted that I had heard of him, how the hell did he get 133 goals in his career? Nah, this can't be real, it's just a nightmare. I'll just go back to sleep...

But in case it is real, good luck mate, you're gonna need it...  

Thanks all, first season really enjoyable and I’ll post later. 
@Kanegan no mate not strikerless. I have a treq in behind a TM and AF. 

[smoggy90]

Season 1 of my late bloomers career and first up transfers. 

In came our three late bloomers plus a back up striker and a loan midfielder, out went a few fringe players to fund the incomings. 

Spoiler

 

You remember me mentioning the nice easy euro rounds in the intro? Well we had a few of them until we met Feyenoord in the 3rd round and got knocked out! So that was the end of European football for us this season. Domestically however we cleaned up. 
 

Spoiler

 

Our trio also nailed some nice end of season awards. To have the 1,2 and 3 in the top scorers list was nice but it was bizarre that Honda and Le Tallec featured in the euro player of the season award seeing as we didn’t even make the group stage!
 

Spoiler

 

This is how our guys looked at the end of season 1 and how they performed. Honda was really the star, playing as a treq behind two strikers and he nearly out-scored them! Each of them made a big chunk into their targets so all good so far despite the attribute decreases.
 

Spoiler

 

Here’s how things look in summary, a combined 179 goal contributions is a great start and just what we need given their advancing years. Hope for more of the same in season 2.

 

Thanks for reading. 

[Ian]

A fantastic start to proceedings Smog. I thought when you explained your system that you’d get a good chunk of the goals and assists going through the front three and that’s proved to be the case. Hopefully they can keep it somewhat together for the full five seasons.

[Kanegan]

That's a fantastic start Smog.

[smoggy90]

Thanks @Ianand @Kanegan

Unfortunately disaster has struck. At the start of season 2 Xisco announces his retirement at the end of the season and won’t reconsider. 

Still reeling from that news and this happens.

Honda retires just like that! Gone, disappeared, nowhere to be seen 😢 

He had started the season great and had just notched two assists the day he retired. 

 

So that leaves this career in ruins really. I’m gutted.

Looking at my options I have Jermaine Defoe but he’s 37 and needs over 200 goals, a big ask and what’s to say he won’t just pack it in all of a sudden too. I could also bring in Kagawa as a replacement for Honda. Japanese for Japanese and he needs 130ish goals. However it doesn’t feel the same as it’s not what I set out to do. Do I just abandon the whole save? Thoughts appreciated. 

[Ian]

Disaster although I think it’s a bug with Xisco where it says he’s retiring at the end of the season but it really means at the end of his contract. If you go into this screen that is the detailed/ happiness view it should say in his happiness section that he’s retiring at the end of his contract rather than season. 

 

Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

[smoggy90]

Thanks mate, I can’t seem to find anything on that screen to indicate what he will do. However given what you’ve said I’ll finish the season and keep my fingers crossed that he’s doesn’t retire. 

[Scratch]

Oh that sucks.. Gutted for you mate.

The shock retirement thing is really really rare (though I notice it doesn't actually say shock retirement anymore). It's only ever happened once to me, unfortunately when Colidio was 7 goals short of my first ever 1.5KC: 

It just leaves you cold and empty... 😞

As for Xisco I agree with @Ian that it's likely he will play out his contract. At least I hope he does.

I'd vote you push on and see how far you can get him and Le Tallec, but will understand if you just want to trash this one...

[smoggy90]

14 hours ago, Scratch said:

Oh that sucks.. Gutted for you mate.

The shock retirement thing is really really rare (though I notice it doesn't actually say shock retirement anymore). It's only ever happened once to me, unfortunately when Colidio was 7 goals short of my first ever 1.5KC: 

It just leaves you cold and empty... 😞

As for Xisco I agree with @Ian that it's likely he will play out his contract. At least I hope he does.

I'd vote you push on and see how far you can get him and Le Tallec, but will understand if you just want to trash this one...

Thanks mate and that’s a tough one to take with Colidio 😤

I’m cracking on this season and hopefully you’re right he’ll see out his contract. Fingers crossed. 

[Scratch]

10 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Thanks mate and that’s a tough one to take with Colidio 😤

I’m cracking on this season and hopefully you’re right he’ll see out his contract. Fingers crossed. 

Haha, yeah it was, still bitter 2 years later... 😄

Yeah, really hope I'm right about the contract. I've definitely seen it happen like that in the past, but never quite 100% sure something hasn't changed... But I think you'll be right...

[smoggy90]

So after the drama above this was the state of play at the start of season 2.

• Honda retired suddenly and finished with 33 of his 101 target.
• I decided to sign Kagawa as a like for like replacement. He had 112 goals so my target is 113 for him. 
• Xisco is on 36 of his 133 target but may/may not retire at the season end. 
• Le Tallec is on 34/101.

This is proof of my Kagawa purchase and goals required;

Spoiler

 

So back to the season summary and these were our transfers;

Spoiler

 

On the pitch Celtic actually beat us to the league, they were brilliant, we shared a cup each. Our CL campaign was short lived as we exited at the group stage, we did get into the Europa League but Monaco soon knocked us out of that. A mixed season in all.

Spoiler

 

 

This is how our players now look and how they performed;

Spoiler

 

This left us looking like this;

• Xisco 81/133.
• Le Tallec 57/101.
• Kagawa 37/113.

However then disaster struck;

 

Xisco started the season and scored a few in Europe then retired! So he didn’t see out his contract he Did go near end of the season unfortunately. 
However I am going to crack on and try to get Le Tallec and Kagawa to their targets. It’s pretty frustrating as I had Xisco on set pieces due to his higher target and I could’ve had Le Tallec on them.

Nothing can be done now though so it is just the Le Tallec and Kagawa show moving forward and I pray for no more sudden retirements!

Thanks for reading. 

[Rob]

Geez mate, that is incredible. Doing brilliantly in spite of it! 

[Kanegan]

Damn!! Retirement hurts.

Hopefully the remaining two does the job for you.

[AdamNufc]

Just read this from beginning , the double blow of retirements was a bit gutting but well done for continuing and some good scores so far 

[Ian]

Disaster with the retirements. Since your first sudden retirement I’ve had one of my own as my assist warrior retired one season before he was due to, he hadn’t played a game the season before though which I thought might’ve contributed to it but maybe not. Seems the sudden retirement is fairly common, I was always confident that Baros would see his contract out but little did I know it seems there was always the chance he’d have binned it off at anytime after all.

Let’s hope the others see it through. 

[smoggy90]

17 hours ago, Rob said:

Geez mate, that is incredible. Doing brilliantly in spite of it! 

 

17 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Damn!! Retirement hurts.

Hopefully the remaining two does the job for you.

 

17 hours ago, AdamNufc said:

Just read this from beginning , the double blow of retirements was a bit gutting but well done for continuing and some good scores so far 

 

15 hours ago, Ian said:

Disaster with the retirements. Since your first sudden retirement I’ve had one of my own as my assist warrior retired one season before he was due to, he hadn’t played a game the season before though which I thought might’ve contributed to it but maybe not. Seems the sudden retirement is fairly common, I was always confident that Baros would see his contract out but little did I know it seems there was always the chance he’d have binned it off at anytime after all.

Let’s hope the others see it through. 

Cheers guys, the retirements took a bit of a shine off the career for a while, but I’m back into it determined specifically to get Le Tallec over the line. 

[smoggy90]

Season 3 of this challenge and it is now all about Le Tallec mainly, but I also have Kagawa with a chance of becoming a late bloomer. 

Transfers below, not too much to report although I am using Pablo Mari and Wulker Farinez for the first time and they are both quality. Morelos had to go for the criminally low fee of £8m as he was in his last year of his contract and refusing to extend. 
 

Spoiler

 

On the pitch we got back to winning the league and also got to the Europa League final, unfortunately losing to Chelsea. A good season all round.

Spoiler

 

This game was a particular highlight with a double hat trick from Kagawa.

Spoiler

Here’s how our guys look now and how they performed. Le Tallec is now 37 and rapidly declining, however with him now on penalties and free kicks he had his best ever return for a single season. Kagawa is holding up well but is 4 years younger at 33. That treq role is brilliant for scoring goals (playing behind two strikers) and with his assists he nailed 70 goal contributions throughout the season.

Spoiler

 

So that leaves us within touching distance. Just 10 goals required from Le Tallec and 31 from Kagawa so there’s a chance we may complete this season.

• Le Tallec 92/101.
• Kagawa 82/113.

Thanks for reading. 

[AdamNufc]

9 minutes ago, smoggy90 said:

Season 3 of this challenge and it is now all about Le Tallec mainly, but I also have Kagawa with a chance of becoming a late bloomer. 

Transfers below, not too much to report although I am using Pablo Mari and Wulker Farinez for the first time and they are both quality. Morelos had to go for the criminally low fee of £8m as he was in his last year of his contract and refusing to extend. 
 

  Hide contents

 

On the pitch we got back to winning the league and also got to the Europa League final, unfortunately losing to Chelsea. A good season all round.

  Hide contents

 

This game was a particular highlight with a double hat trick from Kagawa.

  Reveal hidden contents

Here’s how our guys look now and how they performed. Le Tallec is now 37 and rapidly declining, however with him now on penalties and free kicks he had his best ever return for a single season. Kagawa is holding up well but is 4 years younger at 33. That treq role is brilliant for scoring goals (playing behind two strikers) and with his assists he nailed 70 goal contributions throughout the season.

  Hide contents

 

So that leaves us within touching distance. Just 10 goals required from Le Tallec and 31 from Kagawa so there’s a chance we may complete this season.

• Le Tallec 92/101.
• Kagawa 82/113.

Thanks for reading. 

Good season that @smoggy90and hopefully you can smash it next season! Well Done mate

[Rob]

Brilliant again Smog

[Kanegan]

Brilliant season mate. 

[FuddledFox]

Bad luck with the Xisco and Honda retirements Smoggy but hopefully Le Tallac and Kagawa will keep going till the end for you.

[Ian]

Brilliant season and within touching distance now. I’m confident that these two will see it through.