Career Scratch Tries Chelsea Wonderkid Graduates [Att 2 Complete]

[Scratch]

Just finished this. Some of you will have seen me mention how badly this was going. All true. We were tenth not long before Christmas and the board were very disappointed with my performance. The team just were not performing well enough - we'd win some, then we'd lose or draw some.

Not long after that, things started to gel. We went on a long winning run and started to perform much better. I don't normally post the full fixture list, but I will this time so you can see how the team improved over time:

Spoiler

I was playing a very attacking tactic (which you'll see in a minute), with only 1 at the back, and my first thought was that such tactics no longer work in FMM21. But as you can see, they still work, albeit with the occasional loss to good teams. It feels like a) we don't score quite as many as we would have in FMM20 and b) we are more liable to concede a bucket load, but by the end of the season it was a fairly decent tactic.

That means the likely cause of the early slump was the fact that I sold half the team and brought in a bunch of new players. I guess that killed the team dynamics and it took almost 6 months to build it up again. If that's actually what happened, then I'm quite happy because it makes the game more realistic (even it severely restricts my preferred style of play). 

 

I guess we better look at those changes I made to the squad:

Spoiler

That gave us two full match day teams that rotated each game (with three of the lads subbed off):

Both decent teams. We had Lukaku on the bench, although he got a lot of starts due to having to rotate the players. 

 

We only had one injury, 10 days to Pulisic, which was incredibly lucky with 4 players in the mix:

Spoiler

 

And after turning around poor start, this is how our season ended:

We won the Premier League (only just, had to win on the last day of the season to clinch it) and the CL final. So the season ended in glory after all.

And I scored 86 points from league points and 52 points from Goal difference, giving me a sub total of 132 points.

 

On to the players:

Spoiler

So the players scored:

• Pulisic: 12 goals and 8 assists = 20 points
• Havertz: 20 goals and 33 assists = 53 points
• Abraham: 35 goals and 13 assists = 48 points
• Werner:  33 goals and 9 assists = 42 points
• For a player sub total of 163 points

Pretty happy with the lads in the end, except for Pulisic who couldn't really assert himself in the AP role. Maybe next time I need to get him out on the wing. Or maybe I will give Mount his turn...

 

Anyway adding the two sub totals together (132 + 163) gives me a total of 295 points. Not particularly happy with that and will be back to try it again with less squad carnage, but considering where I was halfway through, I've got to be happy with that...

 

Edited January 10, 2021 by Scratch

[Rich]

Great end result considering you were 10th Christmas time mate, now you’ve figured things out more, you’ll smash the second attempt big time I think!

[Scratch]

Just now, RichD said:

Great end result considering you were 10th Christmas time mate, now you’ve figured things out more, you’ll smash the second attempt big time I think!

Thanks mate. I'm pretty sure that by the time FMM22 comes around all the scores currently on the leaderboard will be at bottom! We're all going to figure this game out better soonish I reckon.

[Rob]

I was expecting a terrible score, but that’s a really good one.

[Kanegan]

Still a good score mate. 

[broodje kip]

Great score mate

[to_madeira]

Good score considering you "lost" half of the season.

[Scratch]

11 hours ago, Rob said:

I was expecting a terrible score, but that’s a really good one.

Thanks mate. Thoguh at the halfway mark I calculated my score and I was on track for about 160 to 180, so we really picked up in the second half (both the team performance and at the individual level too). 

[Scratch]

@Kanegan @broodje kip @to_madeira Thanks fellas! 

[geordiekrispy]

Really good job on turning around the results!
Not a bad score in the end and an interesting formation to use.

Hudson-Odoi was a beast as one of me backup players, ended up getting on the podium for young player of the year over the other two players I was focusing on...

[Scratch]

15 minutes ago, geordiekrispy said:

Really good job on turning around the results!
Not a bad score in the end and an interesting formation to use.

Hudson-Odoi was a beast as one of me backup players, ended up getting on the podium for young player of the year over the other two players I was focusing on...

Thanks mate. Sure was a strange season. That tactic would have rained goals in FMM20, but not as effective now. Though I think the problem is really with the dynamics... Learnt my lesson - maybe. And yeah Hudson-Odoi is fantastic in the game. 

[geordiekrispy]

I've found my tactic I was using in FMM19 is still doing the business, even more so with the set piece tweaks you can do now.
 

I'm still trying to get my AMC to score/assist more, but my striker and IFs are smashing in the goals.
I get the occasional thumping by a top level team, but that's with me doing minimal transfers as I don't know my squad well enough to know who needs to be replaced/what positions I'm needing backups for.
(This is the reason my Napoli career hasn't progressed, I'm not happy with the AMC which is the key to the entire career)

[Scratch]

1 minute ago, geordiekrispy said:

I've found my tactic I was using in FMM19 is still doing the business, even more so with the set piece tweaks you can do now.
 

I'm still trying to get my AMC to score/assist more, but my striker and IFs are smashing in the goals.
I get the occasional thumping by a top level team, but that's with me doing minimal transfers as I don't know my squad well enough to know who needs to be replaced/what positions I'm needing backups for.
(This is the reason my Napoli career hasn't progressed, I'm not happy with the AMC which is the key to the entire career)

Yeah, I think my problems are mostly with the dynamics - although in my current save I only sold friendless players and only brought in players who could speak at least some of the language and I'm still struggling after 7 games. But I think it will eventually come good. 

Although I do think my tactics with 1 at the back don't work quite as well even when the team has bedded in. Which is a good thing to be honest

[Scratch]

ATTEMPT 2

Last time the tactic was a little meh, so I thought I better come back and try it again now that I have one that works better.

 

Transfers

Spoiler

Probably not much to mention there - I kept the inner core of the sqaud, sold off a bunch who didn't fit my plans and then brought in some of the usual suspects. 

 

The Tactic

I used my Buck Wild TT Blaster tactic, although I tweaked it slightly to suit the players:

I started the season with same roles as in my recent Three Kings save: TM T TM with an AM behind them. Werner and Abraham were the TMs with Havertz (with his greater creativity) running the channel between as the T.

Mount was playing as RW, which got a lot of assists in my Three Kings save. However, his crossing wasn't good enough for it to work as well for him, so after a few months I moved him into the AM position. Because that was a support role that doesn't get many goals or assists, I changed it to a T. 

That left me with two Ts operating in the same space (one coming forward, one coming back), which I didn't really want. By this time Havertz was a little stronger in the air, so I moved him to TM and made Werner a P in the middle. Seemed to work pretty well. I'd go back to the original for a TT, but this works well for 4 player challenges. Here's a couple of hightlights:

Spoiler

A pretty good first half! Only a couple of contributions in the second though.

Check out this game by Mount! 4 assists and 2 goals. The other lads provided solid support too (Werner was injured).

And 9 clear cut chances against Liverpool aint so bad...

 

The Lads

Both Abraham and Havertz were mentored by Aerial expert Carrillo and you can see the results below. Havertz couldn't actually be mentored by Carrillo from day 1 (there was no way to select him), he had to wait a until he had retrained upfront and I'd sold off a bunch of youngsters that my staff thought Carrillo shoud mentor. But eventually we got the relationship set up...

Spoiler

 

 

 

Injuries

Spoiler

Three injuries: 3 weeks for both Mount and Werner, 10 days for Abraham. 

 

Results

We won the league, scoring 140 goals to boot - not as many as I got in the 3 Kings, but that was a weaker league. We won the Carabao Cup (3-0 over Spurs), but Bayern knocked us out of the CL (7-4) in the first knockout stage and Man Utd knocked us out of the FA Cup (1-0) in the 5th round.

Spoiler

Anyway, we had a GD of 81 and we got 98 points in the League, giving us a subtotal of 179. That's a lot better than the 132 that I got last time. 

 

Contributions

Alright let's see the player history screens:

Spoiler

And the Summary Screen:

So the lads got:

• Havertz: 28 goals and 15 assists = 43 points. Good all round performance, considering he didn't really fit the tactic.
• Abraham: 30 goals and 9 assists = 39 points. Decent performance, but disappointing given he should have suited the tactic better.
• Mount: 19 goals and 24 assists = 43 points. Good performance, though slightly inflated as he was on corners.
• Werner: 42 goals and 12 assists = 54 points. Good performance, though slighly inflated as he was on pens.

Actually that turned out remarkably even, with all of them contributing well and no-one really dominating (like you sometimes get in these saves). Adding it up gives us a subtotal of 179.

 

TOTAL

Adding the subtotals together (179+179) gives us a total of 358 points. That's a lot more than the 295 I got last time and is good enough for second on the leaderboard, but @Rob can rest safely, as it's a fair way behind his top score.

Pretty happy with that and it was a lot of fun!

 

[broodje kip]

Nice score Scratch. I know this is off topic but may I know how you successfully use Carrillo as mentor? Can’t seems to make it work every time.

[Scratch]

7 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

Nice score Scratch. I know this is off topic but may I know how you successfully use Carrillo as mentor? Can’t seems to make it work every time.

Thanks mate.

As for Carrillo, it just seems to work for me. He is strong in Aerial, but not in Team Work, Agression, Leadership (or else he'd want to teach them that instead). I did have one player where he wanted to teach something else, but for most (including Havertz and Abraham), Aerial is the thing he wants to teach them. Then I set their trained role to Target Man and trained attribute to Aerial (though I rotate it a bit for younger players).

They seem to get +2 from Carrillo (two lots of +1, one near the beginning, one near the end) and then they get a bit from the training. This time around Abraham got +1 from training update, and +2 from Carrillo. Havertz got +1 from training update and +1 from Carrillo (I had to abandon it before the second +1 because he felt training wasn't happening fast enough).

Which players are you trying him with?

[broodje kip]

11 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Thanks mate.

As for Carrillo, it just seems to work for me. He is strong in Aerial, but not in Team Work, Agression, Leadership (or else he'd want to teach them that instead). I did have one player where he wanted to teach something else, but for most (including Havertz and Abraham), Aerial is the thing he wants to teach them. Then I set their trained role to Target Man and trained attribute to Aerial (though I rotate it a bit for younger players).

They seem to get +2 from Carrillo (two lots of +1, one near the beginning, one near the end) and then they get a bit from the training. This time around Abraham got +1 from training update, and +2 from Carrillo. Havertz got +1 from training update and +1 from Carrillo (I had to abandon it before the second +1 because he felt training wasn't happening fast enough).

Which players are you trying him with?

I tried with Unuvar, then Pino and in another save with Luqman Hakim

[Kun Aguero]

6 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

I tried with Unuvar, then Pino and in another save with Luqman Hakim

From what I know, Luqman Hakim's aerial never improve 😂

Anyway great score there @Scratch, 140 goals scored in PL is insane!

Edited January 10, 2021 by Kun Aguero

[Scratch]

8 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

I tried with Unuvar, then Pino and in another save with Luqman Hakim

I don't have Luqman or Pino in any of my saves at the moment (ie not the right leagues loaded), but I just bought Unuvar and can assign him to Carrillo, but it only says he'll be a good influence, not ideal or perfect role model. It does say he can improve his Aerial, so I'd guess there'd be some improvement, might just be slower? Maybe only +1 at the end? Or maybe they aren't similar enough that there would be any improvement? I don't know.

But Unuvar is only 6 Aerial which is really low. I got him to 20 last year (very first version of 20), when it was still easy to train Aerial, but these days, when I see anything lower than 12, I forget trying to train that striker in Aerial. I always go for Pellegri, Esposito, Zirkzee, Sargent, Hornby, because they all have decent Aerial for a youngster and I know they can improve it. Even Havertz starts with 13 in Aerial, so he's decent. But I think Unuvar might be a lost cause... 🙁

[Scratch]

11 minutes ago, Kun Aguero said:

From what I know, Luqman Hakim's aerial never improve 😂

Anyway great score there @Scratch, 140 goals scored in PL is insane!

Thanks mate! Got 155 in Serie A. This tactic is gung ho! But you can get smashed every so often... I'm going back to my Celtic save now and I reckon 160 is on the card given it is the first season (be looking for 180 before too long). 😄

[broodje kip]

12 minutes ago, Scratch said:

I don't have Luqman or Pino in any of my saves at the moment (ie not the right leagues loaded), but I just bought Unuvar and can assign him to Carrillo, but it only says he'll be a good influence, not ideal or perfect role model. It does say he can improve his Aerial, so I'd guess there'd be some improvement, might just be slower? Maybe only +1 at the end? Or maybe they aren't similar enough that there would be any improvement? I don't know.

But Unuvar is only 6 Aerial which is really low. I got him to 20 last year (very first version of 20), when it was still easy to train Aerial, but these days, when I see anything lower than 12, I forget trying to train that striker in Aerial. I always go for Pellegri, Esposito, Zirkzee, Sargent, Hornby, because they all have decent Aerial for a youngster and I know they can improve it. Even Havertz starts with 13 in Aerial, so he's decent. But I think Unuvar might be a lost cause... 🙁

That’s interesting. I’ll try to use him in a better league with better facilities. That might help.

11 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Thanks mate! Got 155 in Serie A. This tactic is gung ho! But you can get smashed every so often... I'm going back to my Celtic save now and I reckon 160 is on the card given it is the first season (be looking for 180 before too long). 😄

160? You’ll get 200 easily with Celtics 😂

[Scratch]

1 minute ago, broodje kip said:

That’s interesting. I’ll try to use him in a better league with better facilities. That might help.

Okay, I set him to retrain as a striker, assigned him to Carrillo (at Inter with top facilities and staff), set his training to TM and Aerial and holidayed through 6 months.

After 2 months he was up to 8 (ie +2) just from training updates (which surprised me a bit). Then after 3 months or so he was up another one (to 9) which was from Carrillo (it showed the green ^ for Aerial in the mentoring screen).

But after that, it all stalled. By 4 months he'd had enough of Carillo and felt like he wasn't learning anything - maybe that's because they weren't an ideal match? Not sure. Then he had one more training update, but Aerial didn't improve, and he got the needs to mature message.

So... 6 to 9 in a few months isn't bad, maybe he can get 15+ with time, but it won't come from Carillo as a mentor - looks like +1 is the best you get from that (from one quick test, so could be wrong of course). The rest has to be training...

7 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

160? You’ll get 200 easily with Celtics 😂

Haha, not in the first season, the lads are still learning how to play. 😄

[broodje kip]

19 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Okay, I set him to retrain as a striker, assigned him to Carrillo (at Inter with top facilities and staff), set his training to TM and Aerial and holidayed through 6 months.

After 2 months he was up to 8 (ie +2) just from training updates (which surprised me a bit). Then after 3 months or so he was up another one (to 9) which was from Carrillo (it showed the green ^ for Aerial in the mentoring screen).

But after that, it all stalled. By 4 months he'd had enough of Carillo and felt like he wasn't learning anything - maybe that's because they weren't an ideal match? Not sure. Then he had one more training update, but Aerial didn't improve, and he got the needs to mature message.

So... 6 to 9 in a few months isn't bad, maybe he can get 15+ with time, but it won't come from Carillo as a mentor - looks like +1 is the best you get from that (from one quick test, so could be wrong of course). The rest has to be training...

Haha, not in the first season, the lads are still learning how to play. 😄

That’s what I thought too. Maybe if we let him without mentor until around 22-23 and mentor him that time would help.

I’m very surprised with the low quality Scottish league is having. They doesn’t play much games but easily would be able to score 110+ goals each seasons 

[Rob]

That is a great score. Those league goals too. Wow. 

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, broodje kip said:

That’s what I thought too. Maybe if we let him without mentor until around 22-23 and mentor him that time would help.

I’m very surprised with the low quality Scottish league is having. They doesn’t play much games but easily would be able to score 110+ goals each seasons 

Yeah, leaving it till he's a bit older might work. Around 20 should be fine though, they don't seem to get held up at that age, though it does seem to differ player by player.

The SPL is an awesome place to score a lot of goals. If you play as Celtic, you'll have a fair amount of resources and can really build a dominant squad pretty quickly. Well, you'd have a dominant squad just by using the players there, but you can take it next level pretty easily.

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, Rob said:

That is a great score. Those league goals too. Wow. 

Thanks mate. As you know, it's been a long hard road to find a tactic that really works for me, and it feels great to finally have one. Your tactic must be next level though - glad you got things working too! 😄

[Rich]

Awesome Scratch, great score and the tactic got you a lot of goals! I’m actually finding that my all out attack formations are getting more goals than on last years, I’m looking forward to trying this one again and the Bruno one with more attacking intent 😁

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, RichD said:

Awesome Scratch, great score and the tactic got you a lot of goals! I’m actually finding that my all out attack formations are getting more goals than on last years, I’m looking forward to trying this one again and the Bruno one with more attacking intent 😁

Thanks mate. Which vresion are you on? I'm on the latest and things that were working last year seem to be working again, but they didn't work so well in the first FMM version. I'm so confused... Did they accidentally make it easier again? Or have I just gotten the hang of things? Got no idea to be honest...

[Rich]

Just now, Scratch said:

Thanks mate. Which vresion are you on? I'm on the latest and things that were working last year seem to be working again, but they didn't work so well in the first FMM version. I'm so confused... Did they accidentally make it easier again? Or have I just gotten the hang of things? Got no idea to be honest...

I’m the same mate, on the latest version I’ve been scoring so many goals, Which I’m not complaining about, Either we’ve figured out the way of getting as many goals or it has got easier again, I’m about to start my Bruno one again, I wonder how many goals I will get!