Career "Goal a Mile" challenge - S21, Northampton, EFL Championship

[Mr Tree]

Cheers @Paul186- we are indeed on the move...

I realised I'd forgotten a trick, especially useful after Brexit cos work permits make foreign signings much more tricky. But loans get around that, and unticking "interested only" shows players listed for loan from Barcelona etc - and they're worth a cheeky bid cos sometimes they'll join. 

So i tooled up and we had some good games...

...before it became time to say goodbye:

With Hep on 83 miles overall (he already had one goal when i joined in the first season), we found a home 82 miles away... a bit east, but i like it:

One of my best mates is from Northampton, so I'll try to restore some glory for the Cobblers. They're struggling in League Two with no obvious striker prospect in the squad, but I've got two weeks of wheeler-dealing to see what i can do

Edited January 12 by Mr Tree

[George Traistă]

I hope the de touring to the east to worth it. Good luck in finding a nice striker! 

[Mr Tree]

11 minutes ago, George Traistă said:

I hope the de touring to the east to worth it. Good luck in finding a nice striker! 

cheers George. the target is looking very attainable, but maybe i'll pay for my cockiness (i think similar happened last time ) - anyway, it's all about the journey, not the destination  

there are some odd "dead patches" in the rich tapestry of English towns, and i remember there being an issue with the West country last time. so i think kicking out east might give me more options in due course. but i've been wrong before!!

[George Traistă]

Knowing the football Geography will give you an advantage so if you say so, east can get you more. 

Good luck on that!! 

[Mr Tree]

Lol, no guarantees at all, but at least something different

[Paul186]

Nothing wrong with the East the best part of the country (as someone who live in the mostly eastern town in England), but hopefully the lower leagues can mean lots of goals/miles, good luck.

[Mr Tree]

Lol, well I'm never gonna make it quite THAT far east @Paul186, but thanks, always appreciate your support!

An insanely frantic couple of weeks must have left Cobblers fans wondering who's on their team now! Unable to hire a goddamn physio, i sold our best player to generate loot (he didn't look much cop anyway), and then went wild...

Of course, i forgot to screenshot the table when i arrived... i scrapped out a 1-0 win at the bottom team to start my reign, leaving us in this position:

The bottom two are miles clear, so not a concern. As you can see, the difference between us and Cambridge is they draw, we lose! Not insurmountable, but a lot of teams to get over. 

Second game was a 1-0 win at Cambridge

And then we signed two more strikers and a proper left wing-back, so now it's looking good...

This might be a risk, but i bought this kid from Dover to be our hero, hopefully up until the Champions League:

Although i was tempted to see what this fella could do for me...

McFadzean! Bit old now though, learned my lesson with oldies earlier in the save, so he can just be a useful squad member

[geordiekrispy]

Not too hard to get into those play off positions. Hopefully some wins against the top half teams and you'll be right up there.

 

Turner-Cooke looks like he could progress to a decent enough lower league striker, nice enough aerial and shooting and a little bit of pace.

Looking forward to see how he performs!

[broodje kip]

He looks good. Stamina is nice too

[Paul186]

Lowestoft doesn't start in the game, but are a division below but  can get promoted and become playable after a few seasons, but would never feature in a North - South challenge in the UK too far from anywhere, but you look like a good choice and with good foals prospects nad a great chance to make a big move to Plymouth.

[Mr Tree]

Many thanks @geordiekrispyand @Paul186, plus a big shout-out to the legend @broodje kipfor throwing a heart on every post during this career

Alas, it was very disappointing - my frantic recruitment left some holes unfortunately, e.g. centre-back, where I'd picked up a loanee from both Stoke and Bradford thinking they'd smash it, but they were distinctly average. It took us a while to click... we finished the season with an 8-match unbeaten run:

...but the four winless games prior had left us with too much to do:

So my 17 games were W9, D5, L3, F31, A23 - decent, but not good enough

I was a bit worried too cos Tricky Ricky took a while to show signs of life... but he finished well:

Should've had more faith and chosen McFadzean for a return as my designated striker though

Think he finished on 14, while Ricky ended on 7 (as above).

A big summer ahead...

Meanwhile Stoke won the playoff final, starting 7 loanees

And up north, East Fife beat Bonnyrigg Rose in the SPL Relegation Playoff - so obviously, i was happy to see the Fifers do well, but a bit sad to see the Rose drop

A full season at Northampton beckons, we'll see how we get on and whether we stay longer...

[broodje kip]

Love it too much that I give heart to every posts  

[smoggy90]

Just caught up on this mate and what a fantastic read as always. Excellent work!

[Shector]

Big season ahead, sure you'll make improvements in the summer and be up there! 

[Mr Tree]

Many thanks @broodje kip, @smoggy90and @Shector- always highly appreciated! 

Been having great fun in the transfer market. Loans are very exploitable - i always offer at zero with no recall. Sometimes you get a flat no, sometimes they want 50% of wages covered, but sometimes they just say yes and you get a good player or at least decent backup / squad depth for free

So I've tooled up, with about 58 midfielders which might prove problematic...

There was a World Cup this summer, and two goals in a minute had Argentina partying in Morocco:

My first league game was encouraging!!

But who knows, maybe AFCW are the worst team in the division so this was just a bit lucky? 

I've only played a few - Ricky is knocking in a goal a game so far, and enjoying life with new loanee strike partner Clayton. Of course, the game didn't like that, so Clayton has promptly been injured...

[Mr Tree]

Won my first eight, although knocked out of the League Cup by bloody QPR

He's developing nicely... or, was

sigh...

[broodje kip]

Oh man bad luck with the injury. Hope it won’t affect his form after he returns

[George Traistă]

Plenty of time to recover and bag more goals

[Mr Tree]

cheers @broodje kipand @George Traistă- btw, didn't notice that jump in value previously! he went from 22k to 550k in two weeks

[George Traistă]

5 minutes ago, Mr Tree said:

cheers @broodje kipand @George Traistă- btw, didn't notice that jump in value previously! he went from 22k to 550k in two weeks

The manager added value 😁

[broodje kip]

15 minutes ago, Mr Tree said:

cheers @broodje kipand @George Traistă- btw, didn't notice that jump in value previously! he went from 22k to 550k in two weeks

It’s all due to the manager’s reputation 

[Paul186]

Great start, Plymouth looking very probablevat the moment.

[Mr Tree]

Many thanks @Paul186- this is looking like a great season in our pursuit of the target:

Doncaster of League One swept aside before we lost to Championship Ipswich in R3...

As you can imagine, having a striker that good is helping us to do well:

Here's a little look at Ricky, who's shaping up nicely - not all of my mad plans come off, so it's gratifying when one occasionally hits!

Thanks for reading

[George Traistă]

Rick is looking great and I'm sure he can still develop. Let's hope he won't get any big injury! 

[StuartM]

He's looking very good for the lower leagues, maybe one big leap to Plymouth?!

[Mr Tree]

Many thanks @George Traistăand @StuartM- it's 212 miles from Northampton to Plymouth... if i can get the Cobblers to the EPL and Rick's still contributing, we'll see... it'd be good if he can get us halfway at least...

But maybe i should just accept whatever fate comes up - if a move for roughly the right amount of miles in roughly the right direction comes up, then maybe i should stay true to the game and jump in... I've had my one full season at Sixfields at least, and what a season it was:

The mentoring helped...

...but another injury didn't

A lacklustre last few weeks was at least salvaged by a last-day hat-trick that will surely bring a smile to @FuddledFox's face...

...as that brutal defeat consigned Swindon to the VNL

That gave Rick 41 for the season, 48 overall after his 7 at end of last season:

Not good enough to pip Clayton for a spot on the Team of the Year though! 4 reps for us in total:

And he was at least on the podium for our clean sweep of League 2 Player of the Season:

So as ever, I'll prepare my squad as if I'm staying.... but I'll keep an eye out for possible alternatives.....

[RichD]

Great season there mate, so many goals, I love it, good luck for next season 😁

[Paul186]

Great season, about 4 more of them to Plymouth.

[Mr Tree]

Many thanks @RichDand @Paul186, always highly appreciated! 

Another encouraging start to the season here...

Just sold Muirhead (my star winger) for £3.2m (signed for free last summer) - i didn't think he was that good tbh (obv he was half-decent but...), so this gives me some money to play with...

[broodje kip]

£3.2M sounds like a good amount of money. Probably sign some great regens