Career Ian - Rooney’s Derby Days

[Ian]

Hello and welcome to my latest short career.

 

After failing the Ronny challenge in heartbreaking fashion a few days ago I felt I needed a day or two to get over it. I did get over it and rather than jump straight in with another go at that particular challenge I thought I’d just have a go at the next badge first.

 

The challenge is Rooney’s Derby Days created by @Rob. The challenge is badge number seven in the Vibe Badges of Honour series.

 

I failed this challenge not long after it was posted as I went with a very unusual system and fell flat on my face so this time inspired by my approach to the recent VPL Billy Sharp challenge I decided to go with a more normal system.

 

I went into the market looking to improve the squad and felt I just about did that. I wouldn’t say the best starting 11 we ended up with was much better than it originally was but the squad seemed stronger in depth. It was particularly nice to be able to use Tim Handwerker again as I had plenty of joy with him during 2019. I had the idea to try and build the squad with full transfers and then fill in any blanks with loans if required, they weren’t required though as I felt we were strong enough. I always find that you can pick up some better quality loans in January so we could always get a few in then if needed.

Spoiler

 

I’m just in January now and we’re in a good position sitting top of the league. We aren’t scoring loads which was to be expected given my approach but we seem solid enough and we just have to hope we can keep this going for the rest of the season.

 

Our home record is brilliant as we’ve won every game and only conceded two goals but our away record isn’t quite as good so I may try a few slight modifications for those games.

 

It just shows how the brain works or maybe just mine as I’ve been doing a lot of goalscoring stuff recently on the game and you get used to it and love to see the massive score lines whereas now with this it’s the opposite as those tight 1-0 wins become the greatest thing ever.

Here are two examples where we literally pinched the games with late winners, just brilliant.

 

Here’s Rooney in January and he’s still decent apart from those physical attributes. He’s playing up front and hasn’t exactly set the world alight with just 12 goals and 7 assists but he’s contributing and having him on the pitch in such an important role is not hindering us at this stage.

 

He was on the field as we shocked Everton in the League Cup at Goodison Park which would’ve been a proud moment for him I’m sure, just a shame he couldn’t get on the scoresheet.

 

So that’s where we’re at now and I’m thinking of bringing in a few good quality youngsters on loan to strengthen us as having played the first half of the season I feel we could get caught out in one or two areas if we were to suffer a few injuries. I’ve got the deals negotiated so you’ll find out who the players are on the next update.

 

Thank you for reading.

[Rich]

Great start to the season that Ian, looking brilliantly solid, hopefully more of the same for the rest of the season so you can get that elusive badge. 

[smoggy90]

Good start mate, I've found the Championship a tough league to start in this year with some top sides, so your start is very impressive.

[broodje kip]

Nice start that Ian. The 2nd half would be very interesting.

[Kanegan]

Good start Ian. Hopefully you continue this momentum.

[Ian]

5 hours ago, RichD said:

Great start to the season that Ian, looking brilliantly solid, hopefully more of the same for the rest of the season so you can get that elusive badge. 

Thank you Richard, hopefully we can keep things going like this until the end of the season. I suppose if we can keep the home form somewhat similar we should have no trouble with promotion.

5 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Good start mate, I've found the Championship a tough league to start in this year with some top sides, so your start is very impressive.

Cheers Smoggy, yeah I took it for granted on my first attempt and went with a system that was pushing it and paid for it. This seems better, well so far anyway.

4 hours ago, broodje kip said:

Nice start that Ian. The 2nd half would be very interesting.

Thanks Lord Danish, yes hopefully we won’t suffer too much of a drop off and hopefully my new loan players won’t upset the squad harmony.

3 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Good start Ian. Hopefully you continue this momentum.

Thank you Big Red Machine, I hope we can. I have a good feeling about this and I can’t see them totally bottling this which is mainly due to our great home form but you never know.😂

 

These are our new loan arrivals. Some nice youngsters there and I think I may have went a bit overboard to be honest, hopefully they don’t upset the squad harmony. 

Spoiler

 

We’ll see how they perform at the end of the season.

[hhooo]

That's a nice bit of business in January. Hopefully Rooney can hold up his ends of the bargain and get you a decent score! 

[Ian]

51 minutes ago, hhooo said:

That's a nice bit of business in January. Hopefully Rooney can hold up his ends of the bargain and get you a decent score! 

I’ve played on a bit more and Saliba is not very well liked by a few in the squad it would seem so I’ve kept him as fourth choice so he hasn’t played much so far. We aren’t going to have any trouble getting a promotion place so a lot comes down to Rooney now as he’s supposed to be the main man.

[Ian]

Hello and here I am with the final update of this career where we’ll see how the second half of the season went.

 

Transfers

Here are the final transfer screenshots which include the few loan signings we made in January. The loan players all did ok apart from Saliba who seemed to upset a few in the squad but it was Tete and Saka who were the best two performers with Pinamonti also doing well as backup striker to Rooney.

Spoiler

 

Cup Competitions

After beating Everton early on in the League Cup we were dreaming of glory and possibly a trip to Wembley, albeit an empty Wembley but still Wembley. Didn’t happen as Southampton put us out in the next round with Danny Ings doing the damage. It was a fairly close game though which could’ve easily gone in our favour on another day. We beat Peterborough in the third round of the FA Cup only to find ourselves then drawn against Liverpool. We held our own until Jota scored with the last kick of the game which was ironic given how I’d talked in the introduction post about loving late 1-0 wins.

 

League

We ended up winning the league comfortably and were very solid throughout apart from one little poor spell which came after we’d mathematically won the thing so didn’t matter too much. 

 

Our great home form from the first half of the season continued on into the second half and we ended up going the whole season unbeaten with just one draw and five goals conceded. Away form was not quite so great though.

 

Fixtures

You can see the little poor spell I talked about earlier with a couple of defeats and our only home draw against Birmingham towards the end of the season. The poor spell coincided with Dan Gosling’s injury which makes you think that that may have contributed to it but we’ll never really know now I guess. It was still a solid campaign though. 

Spoiler

 

Rooney

Wayne proved to be very much our main man as he topped both the league scoring and assisting charts which was pleasing.

 

He ended the season in fine style with a nice brace of goals in our final league game at home to Sheffield Wednesday.

 

His totals at the end in all competitions were 28 goals and 16 assists, so a decent contribution from him.

 

Here are his final attributes and stats.

Spoiler

 

Manager

Spoiler

 

Score

League Points: 109

Rooney Goals: 28

Rooney Assists: 16

Total: 153

 

Final Thoughts

A nice little challenge which turned out ok and Rooney produced a nice farewell season. I must now go and have another go at the Ronaldo challenge.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

Edited February 5, 2021 by Ian

[broodje kip]

Impressive Ian. Nice score it is. I know you’d be able to do this.

[Scratch]

Well done mate, that's a good total. Looking forward to trying this sometime (although not the less attacking football part of it). 

That's a really nice squad you put together and those loan moves you made are great! I love that you brought in Pinamonti, one of my favourites a couple of years ago, and Saka must be over powered at this level.

As for Rooney, that's pretty good for an old fella! Did you try retraining him as a Striker? Actually, sounds weird to say that about Rooney, he's still a striker in my head...

[Rob]

Well done Ian.

[Rich]

Fantastic score Ian, that defensive record is brilliant, Rooney done great as well 😁

[Ian]

10 hours ago, broodje kip said:

Impressive Ian. Nice score it is. I know you’d be able to do this.

Thank you Lord Danish.

2 hours ago, Scratch said:

Well done mate, that's a good total. Looking forward to trying this sometime (although not the less attacking football part of it). 

That's a really nice squad you put together and those loan moves you made are great! I love that you brought in Pinamonti, one of my favourites a couple of years ago, and Saka must be over powered at this level.

As for Rooney, that's pretty good for an old fella! Did you try retraining him as a Striker? Actually, sounds weird to say that about Rooney, he's still a striker in my head...

Thanks Scratch, it does seem like you can get better quality youngsters in on loan in January. Practically all of the ones I brought in were good enough to go straight into the first team and Saka was a mainstay from then on in. Pinamonti was great too, it might not show in his returns though but he was second to Rooney a lot of the time so mainly coming off the bench.

I tried to retrain him at the start but he refused and I just let it at that.

2 hours ago, Rob said:

Well done Ian.

Thank you Rob.

35 minutes ago, RichD said:

Fantastic score Ian, that defensive record is brilliant, Rooney done great as well 😁

Cheers Richard, yeah I was looking at the defensive record and getting annoyed when we started conceding a few towards the end. No problems at home though as we turned Pride Park into a fortress 😂