Career Scratch and the Double Terrible - On Hold

[Scratch]

Season 3

Right, enough with the mini updates, let's get on with the main narrative here - how did Oxford and the two terrible lads go in their first season in the EPL? 

 

Transfers

Spoiler

As mentioned in the Season 2 update, I'm going to need to upgrade the team to become really strong at this level. We ended last season with averages of 121 CA and 139 PA.  That puts us a little behind Newcastle, though slightly in front of WBA and Fulham. Needless to say, we're a long way behind someone like Man City or Liverpool. 

In the off season, I sold a bunch of players who looked good, but had maxed out, especially the ones shown here:

Spoiler

They've been very good players for us, but we need to level up. 

Then after playing half the season, I decided more drastic action was needed and the next rung above them needed to go - players such as Mikey Johnston and Cameron Brannagan, etc.

Spoiler

Their performances were okay, but noticeably down on what they provided in the Championship. With no more development to come, this is the best we can hope from them, and it's not enough. Unfortunately I couldn't actually sell any of these players in January, so I was stuck with them for the second half of the season. 

I also had a lot of problem bringing in established players, so mostly went for youngsters. Signings of note include:

• My man Adam Armstrong as a backup striker - my first ever 1KC player, just love him, even though he's not strong in the air.
• Morten Thorsby, who I raved up in a previous career, but who's been disappointing this season - only dull green influence on the team and didn't make it through either of the two mentoring assignments before I had to cancel them.
• Arrey-Mbi, who I've used before, but who generated with very high PA in this game, will be truly world class.

And then there's this guy:

Spoiler

I normally walk right past him, because I find mid range PA players to work better in most cases - they reach their peak much quicker and will be more than good enough, while this guy probably won't max out until he's 28 and will take forever to recover any CA lost to injuries. Still, this is an open experiment sort of a save and I figured most of you might want to watch the development of Messi Jr... 

And here's a quick report on his first season: I've retrained him to be a LW and will use him that way next season, but this season he came off the bench for RW position (once the lads are off, I convert it to IF for him). He had 3 updates and now looks like this:

I'm pretty happy with that, as his crossing and his pace have improved a lot. I almost can't believe it was only 3 updates, but here is his after shot showing his PA has only increased by 15:

Spoiler

I also snapped up Buffon 2.0 in January, once I realised that my current keepers were never going to take us to the next level.

With all of these new players it will take a season or two before they are good enough to help us win anything, but when they do we'll be unstoppable. The problem of course is the meantime, although I have enough players in 150 PA range only a season or so of max, which should keep us performing pretty well.

Anyway, by the end of the season, we'd improved from averages of 121 CA and 139 PA to 133 CA and 149 PA, which is getting us closer to the top end of the table (closer but not there yet). Here's the squad at the end:

Spoiler

 

Results

Not a great season all things considered (note we actually finished 9th according to the league table):

We spent most of the season in 7th (the final Euro position) or higher, only to end the season like this:

We were only 1 point behind Leicester in in 7th, so a couple of extra goals in those draws or one goal losses would have gone a long way.

In all honesty, it comes down to having (and playing) two very average strikers. They definitely struggled at times. If I'd had Esposito up front (or Badji or even a nerfed Pellegri), we'd have made the UCL spots. That's made me realise the rest of the team has to be way better than even my normal teams are if we're to make the DT target...

Here are the rest of the screenshots: 

Spoiler

Note that Newcastle beat us 4-2 at St. James' Park to knock us out of the FA Cup at the 4th round, exactly 2 days before the 2 year anniversary of them beating us 4-2 at St. James' Park to knock us out of the FA Cup at the 4th round... We've come so far and yet nothing has changed.

 

Injuries

Only the one injury this season, one month out for Smith, but it came a couple of games before the 2022 mid-season World Cup, so he didn't miss much.

Spoiler

 

Development

The lads had to wait to mature to get their final updates, but both managed it this year, and they end the season looking like this:

Spoiler

Not sure why Bloxham lost 15 Movement, hopefully it's just temporary from overplaying him and he'll get it back. 

 

Goals

• Bloxham: 26 goals from 37 games
• Smith: 18 goals from 38 games

Wow, that's low for the 3rd year of a DT... Smith did have 10 from 15 when he was injured, so it was a steep drop off after that.

Spoiler

 

Targets

• Smith has 67 goals
• Bloxham has 86 goals
• Total: 153 goals out of 1200

Looking like this will be a long one! Unless of course surrounding them with a world class team helps (which it may).

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Scratch

[Scratch]

@Rich @Rob @Albionic - thanks for your comments guys! 

[Rich]

Really enjoyed that read mate, shame they couldn’t produce more, but plenty of time to build this squad up and hopefully they can start banging the goals in 🤞🏻

[Scratch]

14 minutes ago, Rich said:

plenty of time to build this squad up

Well, you say that, but if they don't lift their game in the next season or two, I will most likely pack it in! So there is a bit of pressure on them to get their act together... 🙂

[Scratch]

So....

This save is really hard work. Here's how it's going:

We dominate most games, but the lads can't put it away. Bloxham with his strong Aerial is doing okay with about a goal a game, but Smith only scores every 4th game. 

I do think that if I continue on, the team will eventually be so strong that the lads will score a lot more than that, but... I'm just not enjoying it at the moment. If this was a real save with a leaderboard spot at stake, I'd probably push on and see if I could do it, but this isn't a real save and I know I can eventually get this team even stronger than I normally do. And as much as I like seeing behind the scenes, it's not as enjoyable as a real save. Oh and writing the career up is a lot of work compared to a normal one. I was really starting to lose my enthusiasm for FMM.

I needed this save to use my app and improve it etc and I've done that and got the app almost ready for a beta release. I can always come back to the save to test things out when problem arise, but there's no pressing need to keep going right now.

I've been thinking about all of that over the last couple of days and then I made a fatal mistake - I had a great idea for a new save in the shower. Then I made it worse - I started a save and tried to see if I could sign the players. Unfortunately, I could.... And I got excited about FMM again. 

So um... I guess this career is on hold for now... I might come back to it, but most likely only for testing the app. 

Sorry to everyone who was following along. I thought I'd go all the way with this one, but it's not to be... 

 

[hhooo]

1 hour ago, Scratch said:

So....

This save is really hard work. Here's how it's going:

We dominate most games, but the lads can't put it away. Bloxham with his strong Aerial is doing okay with about a goal a game, but Smith only scores every 4th game. 

I do think that if I continue on, the team will eventually be so strong that the lads will score a lot more than that, but... I'm just not enjoying it at the moment. If this was a real save with a leaderboard spot at stake, I'd probably push on and see if I could do it, but this isn't a real save and I know I can eventually get this team even stronger than I normally do. And as much as I like seeing behind the scenes, it's not as enjoyable as a real save. Oh and writing the career up is a lot of work compared to a normal one. I was really starting to lose my enthusiasm for FMM.

I needed this save to use my app and improve it etc and I've done that and got the app almost ready for a beta release. I can always come back to the save to test things out when problem arise, but there's no pressing need to keep going right now.

I've been thinking about all of that over the last couple of days and then I made a fatal mistake - I had a great idea for a new save in the shower. Then I made it worse - I started a save and tried to see if I could sign the players. Unfortunately, I could.... And I got excited about FMM again. 

So um... I guess this career is on hold for now... I might come back to it, but most likely only for testing the app. 

Sorry to everyone who was following along. I thought I'd go all the way with this one, but it's not to be... 

 

Give us some clues for the new one, don't be shy

[Rob]

Does the new save involve Stevey Sponge and Stuart Soap?

[Scratch]

55 minutes ago, Rob said:

Does the new save involve Stevey Sponge and Stuart Soap?

Umm... No, I'll leave them to you!

[Scratch]

3 hours ago, hhooo said:

Give us some clues for the new one, don't be shy

Oh, it's going to be a high scoring one - probably aiming for 2K goals and 1K assists from 5 players in 10 years... Haven't quite worked out if that's too hard or too easy or just right... The club is one I've used a lot (though not so much recently) and the players all achieved a 1KC for me at that club at some point over the last 5 years.

EDIT: Once I had the idea to combine the 5 players into a single mega career, I couldn't stop thinking about it...

Edited June 29, 2021 by Scratch

[Rich]

Shame this didn’t work out, was great to follow. But I’m looking forward to whatever you go for next mate 😁

[Rob]

39 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Oh, it's going to be a high scoring one - probably aiming for 2K goals and 1K assists from 5 players in 10 years... Haven't quite worked out if that's too hard or too easy or just right... The club is one I've used a lot (though not so much recently) and the players all achieved a 1KC for me at that club at some point over the last 5 years.

EDIT: Once I had the idea to combine the 5 players into a single mega career, I couldn't stop thinking about it...

Brain, blown.

added 0 minutes later

42 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Umm... No, I'll leave them to you!

Just clarify, this was in reference to you thinking of the save in the shower. It wasn’t just a random comment about soap and a sponge. 🤣

[Scratch]

2 minutes ago, Rob said:

Brain, blown.

Yeah it blew my brain too, and then it was too hard to keep this one going... I love that early idea stage of a career, best part of the game, but it can really kill long term careers (especially when you're not enjoying it so much).

3 minutes ago, Rob said:

Just clarify, this was in reference to you thinking of the save in the shower. It wasn’t just a random comment about soap and a sponge. 🤣

Ah, that makes sense. Not sure what I was thinking! 

[geordiekrispy]

55 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Oh, it's going to be a high scoring one - probably aiming for 2K goals and 1K assists from 5 players in 10 years... Haven't quite worked out if that's too hard or too easy or just right... The club is one I've used a lot (though not so much recently) and the players all achieved a 1KC for me at that club at some point over the last 5 years.

EDIT: Once I had the idea to combine the 5 players into a single mega career, I couldn't stop thinking about it...

This new career sounds insane...

5x 2k goals and 1k assists? In 10 years? That's going to be a big ask!

[Scratch]

6 minutes ago, geordiekrispy said:

This new career sounds insane...

5x 2k goals and 1k assists? In 10 years? That's going to be a big ask!

Ah, I might have confused people with how I worded that! 2K goals in total and 1K assists in total, not 5x2K goals. I'm not even sure that would be mathematically possible!  

I actually think the numbers might be a bit low, but I'm not sure yet.

[Scratch]

Yeah, after looking into it, I brought down the 2K to 1.5K.... It's over here: 

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by Scratch