Career Geordiekrispy's 1k Club Legend at Newcastle - S5

[geordiekrispy]

This year I really fancied giving a 1k a crack as my tactics from last year seemed to be working pretty well and following on from the Salah badge of honour I thought I could tweak it a little bit more and get some of the right style players in to make it a bit more “striker focused”.

I was also getting carried away with the Newcastle takeover and all the possibilities that could bring. I decided that just doing a 1k would be boring and after chatting to @Scratch & @Rich they agreed with my ideas to do a 1k and Club Legend joint challenge based at Newcastle. There may also be some extra challenges thrown in along the way, depends on who I sign and how it all goes...

Obviously, the temptation to wait and see what business was done in January and then go from that. But I decided to go for it.

Here’s a quick recap of the rules for both challenges if you’re not aware of them:

 

For Newcastle the club legend is obviously this man;

 

Not really, it’s this guy;

His stats are obviously pretty decent:

Here’s a bit more of a detailed dive into his statistics;

 

So, I need an English striker, who has at least 405 games left in him, and needs to score at least 0.51gpg. Should be easy right? There’s loads to choose from just looking at the Wonderkid list, he who shall not be named, Dane Scarlett, Liam Delap, Folarin Balogun, Layton Stewart, Jude Soonsup-Bell, Amani Richards, Mika Biereth, Joe Geldhardt, Louie Barry.

So who did I go for?

This guy!

 

Yep some random from Charlton that only costs 8k (I forgot to get a screenshot when I signed him, and only took it just before the start of the season, so you'll see that next update).

The weird thing is he’s got some decent enough stats in the right places and looking in real life he looks decent.

I did also get Mika Biereth as a back up to go in the reserves if he failed in his first year 😊

 

I’ve already played a couple of seasons so I’ll quickly go post those and then I’ll probably put a fairly standard update each season (maybe highlighting a player that’s done well for me each season if I remember).

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by geordiekrispy

[Scratch]

Looking forward to this mate. And great choice in striker!

[Dai_]

Excited for this. Best of luck. 😊

[Titjes]

good luck mate, can't wait to see how that striker develops  😊

[hhooo]

Love the player choice. 

[geordiekrispy]

End of Season 1 Review

First season done. I’m going to say that this season was a “rebuilding” season. Mainly trying to get rid of the deadwood that’s at the club, but more of that later.

 

Transfers

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Out:

 

In:
  

 

Awards

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Manager Profile & History

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Leagues & Cups

League

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Cups

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We didn't win any and got knocked up pretty much straight away... It seems you can take club off Ashley, but it's hard to take Ashley's mentality out of the Club!

 

Leaburn

This are his screens just before the first league game of the season:

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And after the season ended:

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al 

No major injuries due to managing his time, when he got to 80% I was taking him off for Wilson.

So as you can see a massive improvement in his Pace, Movement and Teamwork. Plus a good jump up in his Aerial to max that out and a steady improvement in his Shooting and Decisions. He does now have the dreaded "Needs to mature to improve further" but he's still showing lots of potential (according to my coaches).

I really want to work on his technique too, so he'll be better at scoring penalties as he missed pretty much everyone he took.

I was surprised at him taking out pretty much every annual award going with Player, Player's Player, Player's Young Player of the year, Top Scorer and also getting the striker position in the Premier Team of the Year.

I doubt I'll be able to do that again until he's fully in his prime, but we'll have to see. Given we're in Europe next year he came make more of an impression on that front and I'll have to hope England don't do well in the various competition to try and get that job, but I'm happy for him to mature a bit more before he breaks into the England team.

 

Team Stats

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The goals were fairly spread out between Tadic being the DLF/AM and Wilson being Leaburn's substitute for the majority of games.
But the Tadic as the DLF/AM also lead to him getting a lot of assists, and Vieira was used on the left wing for the majority of the season so he was getting a lot of assists too. Saint-Maximin being the dribbliest boi didn't assist too much so if a big offer comes in for him I'd be happy to replace him with someone more "winger-y" so get crosses in from that right hand side.

 

Totals

(I'll make this look prettier at some point)

 

End of Season Review

I started this career knowing that the squad was an aging, lower quality squad and needed to replace a lot of players with higher quality, younger players. I think I managed to do that and still kept the core of the team there so it wasn’t a total overhaul (I know it doesn’t matter as much in FMM as it does in full fat FM).

My tactics from the Mo Salah badge of honour seemed to be working well, but I decided that I needed to play with 2 up front as my chosen striker was very young and needed to improve A LOT before he could hold his own up front in the Premier League (and Europe beyond that).

So I ended up using an older tactic from last years Ticket to Ride challenge;

But it seemed a bit too porous at the back and not strong enough in midfield, so some tinkering and investigations led me to this as a tactic;

It gave me the ability to manage Leaburn’s time on the pitch so he didn’t get too burnt out, but was also strong enough that all the other players were going to be able to push on and improve whilst still getting the results on the pitch.

 

Towards the end of the season Leaburn had improved a fair amount and so I tweaked the tactics to be a lone man up front with an AM behind him, this was one of the key reasons behind some of my signings (Tadic and Vieria as his eventual replacement). I needed someone who could hold the ball up and feed it through to the lone striker.

It seemed to work and I'm thinking it should be fine to be used all of next season, with some replacements coming in in key areas hopefully we can not get totally out classed in Europe and push on in the League and the Cups domestically.

Edited February 3, 2022 by geordiekrispy

[Meow]

Nice, he's actually already looking like a lethal finisher. He doesn't need to be able to do everything if you can just run, jump and put it in the net!

Out of curiosity, how did you manage to loan so many people out? You just list them and the offers come in? I swear there's always a handful that don't go by the end of the window.

[hhooo]

2 hours ago, Meow said:

Nice, he's actually already looking like a lethal finisher. He doesn't need to be able to do everything if you can just run, jump and put it in the net!

Out of curiosity, how did you manage to loan so many people out? You just list them and the offers come in? I swear there's always a handful that don't go by the end of the window.

That's the thing, he offered his entire team out for loan and just used who he couldn't get rid of

[geordiekrispy]

11 hours ago, Meow said:

Nice, he's actually already looking like a lethal finisher. He doesn't need to be able to do everything if you can just run, jump and put it in the net!

Out of curiosity, how did you manage to loan so many people out? You just list them and the offers come in? I swear there's always a handful that don't go by the end of the window.

 

8 hours ago, hhooo said:

That's the thing, he offered his entire team out for loan and just used who he couldn't get rid of

Pretty much.

I set the option for my assistant to loan out any one under 24. And everyone who went out on loan was from the reserves so they're all young.

I have a feeling it doubled up quite a few though.

[Scratch]

Great start mate. I've got Leaburn as a backup in my current save, but itching to give him a chance. He's gonna score a lot of goals for you and lead us to the EPL and UCL trophies!

[geordiekrispy]

Sorry this has taken so long to get posted, I've just been struggling to find the time/desire to play never mind post anything.

End of Season 2 Review

Second season in the bag and it all felt pretty straight forward no massive issues overall, no “major” injury scares for anyone that I can remember.

Spent the summer trimming the fat a bit more and getting in some “better” squad members.

Always nice when you get this at the start of a season:

 

Academy Graduates:

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Transfers

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Out:

 

In:

I knew I wanted some better options in midfield with Shelvey's contract up and Hayden wasn't quite good enough, Rice just seemed like a good idea, plus he's young and English.

I wasn't planning on selling Wilson, but Spurs offered what I thought was a decent amount for him and I could get a year younger Belotti on a free so it seemed worth it.

Chiesa was organised as soon as I could as I knew he'd be a great option for the wings.

Small is someone I know can become a great LB and I wasn't sure about using Lewis as he was never amazing, decent but not amazing, plus I wanted someone English

 

Awards

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Team:

 

Leaburn:

 

Me:

 

Player Stats

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Manager Profile & History

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Leagues & Cups

Europe

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League

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Cups

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Carabao Cup

 

FA Cup

 

Leaburn

Good ol' Miles had the “needs to mature” note pretty much all season, even after his birthday in November… So he’s improved just not as much as last year. His numbers got better, and Bellotti was an perfect substitute. I’ve also started him mentoring Miles to see if I can get Leaburn’s technique and finishing up a bit faster.

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Job Offers

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Totals

 

End of Season Review

I knew I just needed to keep improving the squad and letting the younger players go out on loan if I wasn’t going to use them. I have a feeling my reserves are going to start to fill up with a lot of crap as I just can’t bring myself to trust the star ratings of some of the academy graduates. Other than the wonderkid so I reckon he’ll be someone to keep hold of 😊

Tactically, nothing really changed, I was still using the tactic from the end of last season all season and just rotating between first XI’s. Giving some of the fringe players the early cup games to prove their worth and get some game time under their belts.

Obviously we had a clean sweep so now it’s just a case of keeping up the winning ways.

[geordiekrispy]

End of Season 3 Review

Third season down and now it’s just a case of head down and plough through the games.

 

Transfers

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In

 

Out

Awards

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Leaburn

 

Rest of the Team

 

Me

 

Player Stats

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Manager Profile & History

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Leagues & Cups

Europe

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Super Cup

 

Champions League

League

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Cups

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Carabao Cup

FA Cup

 

Leaburn

For the first time in something like 18 months, Leaburn didn’t have the “needs to mature” note so he did actually pick up some attribute increases. Mainly Stamina and Finishing. I think he’s pretty much topped out now. So hopefully he can start scoring a bit more, but I think that’s the team around him providing him the crosses and passes.

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End of Season Review

It's always nice when you get one of these at these during the season, never mind two!

Domestically it was another clean sweep. In Europe we won the Champions League again but missed out on the Super Cup.

The squad was pretty much sorted from last year. With only a few changes, Donnarumma comes in to replace Onana. My thinking is that he won’t go to AFCON so will be available, and he’s slightly younger and I think slightly better.

Plata came up in my scouting reports as a “Cultured winger” at only 22 I thought he was worth a try, Fraser whilst being an assist machine, isn’t getting any younger and I was able to swap Joelinton (who nobody wanted to buy and I wasn’t using him) for Plata as a straight swap, so win-win right? Well maybe as Plata is considered a disruptive influence and refuses to learn English… Given that he’s mainly been coming off the bench rather than starting this season, it might improve next season when I make him a starting left winger. If not, I’ll get rid of him and try to either get someone from the academy or someone else in.

My midfield seems pretty sorted, I was using the Longstaffs as my midfield subs this year, but Sean just isn’t as good as Matty and so I’ll probably try to move him on during the summer. Ideally I want to keep Illic, Rice, Matty & Willock and then bring in some of the youngsters from the academy. But if Bellingham wanted to come and join the fun I'd more more than willing...

Tadic has had a few injuries this season, so I brought Anderson back from his loan and he’s fitting right in, possibly scoring too many goals to be honest. But he’ll be a starter next season now. Tadic has been captain, but there’s a couple of players who think he should hand over the armband, or think they’d be a better choice. So he’s probably going to not really play in the next season more than covering. He wants to retire after his contract is up anyway so that should be fine.

My wonderkid Dembele had an massive season on loan in League One, and made the top 10 wonderkids but I can't decide if I should be playing him, or sending him out on loan... Probably depend on who goes or comes in this summer.

Bellotti is still scoring for fun, so I don’t want to move him on quite yet, he hasn’t started to decline yet as he’s just turned 31. Maybe next season, I’ll see if any of the academy lads are any good, or maybe Biereth can start playing for us rather than going out on loan.

Hoping that next year we can win the Super Cup and that Frank Lampard gets sacked as manager after the Euros or close to it, so I can get Leaburn into the full England squad, he’s played some U21 games scoring in half of them so hopefully he can make the step up.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by geordiekrispy

[AdamNufc]

Just caught up with this @geordiekrispy Quality thread and nice to see you managing the best team in the world.

I was curious, when you manage Newcastle what manager rep do you choose? Unknown Normal or Household? I normally choose normal but have been finding it quite hard on this year's save due to not getting backing from players.

[geordiekrispy]

57 minutes ago, AdamNufc said:

Just caught up with this @geordiekrispy Quality thread and nice to see you managing the best team in the world.

I was curious, when you manage Newcastle what manager rep do you choose? Unknown Normal or Household? I normally choose normal but have been finding it quite hard on this year's save due to not getting backing from players.

It depends on the save, for this one I picked household name. I knew I needed the reputation to be able to buy the players we needed to ensure the club could start doing well straight away.

[smoggy90]

Nice start mate and great choice of player, look forward to following.

[Rob]

Lovely start and interesting choice of career

[geordiekrispy]

Season 4

Fourth season done and overall feel a bit disappointed from this season for some reason.

 

Transfers

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In:

 

Out:
  

 

Awards 

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Leaburn

Me

 

Team

 

Player Stats

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Reveal hidden contents

 

Manager Profile & History

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Leagues & Cups

Europe

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Super Cup

 

Champions League

League

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Cups

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Community Shield

Carabao Cup

 

 

FA Cup

 

Leaburn

I feel like he’s starting to hit his stride, he’s been pretty consistent in that if he scores, he’ll get a brace, but I’m still trying to bring him off when he gets to 80% condition. I think if he gets a bit better service he should be able to hit the mythical 100 goals. But he's definitely maxed out now.

It's the Club World Cup this season, with the first game before the new season reset (Leaburn's already scored 2), so hopefully we can get him a few extra goals and not get knocked out of the FA Cup in the first game!

I'm right in saying U21 goals don't count right? And I can't remember if international goals count if I'm not managing the team...

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End of Season Review

Annoyingly we got knocked out of the FA cup early on, but everything else we won.

I was still alternating between two full teams (apart from Leaburn) and as Donnuramma got a little bit upset and was contemplating leaving, so I started to just play him every game and he seemed to be satisfied with that. Annoyingly Onana is now classed as a world class goalkeeper, whereas Donnuramma isn’t.

Plata is still refusing to learn English and quite frankly doesn’t want to be here and wasn’t the best Fraser was doing better when he came on, so I might try and see if I can get a replacement this summer.

Tadic is honestly ancient now and is finally retiring this summer, so I took the captaincy off him and gave it to Rice, who everyone seemed to thing was a good captain, helping organise the defence.

Speaking of defence I got into a bidding war for Bastoni and couldn’t be bothered cancelling the transfer and doing it all again at the end of the season… It’s not as if I don’t have the money right! 😊

My midfield seems to need a bit more tweaking, I was playing Longstaff alongside Willock and they got the lovely red line really early one and it hasn’t gone away even after winning almost all the games… So given that he’s the “weakest” midfielder I’m either going to have to sell him, which I’m kind of loathe to do but unless I pair him with Rice or Illic I’ll have to replace him… I kind of want to buy Bellingham but he’s stupidly expensive, like nearly 200m.

I’m been alternating between Bellotti and Biereth and honestly, I can’t tell who’s been playing better.

Frank Lampard still refuses to get sacked by England, but Leaburn has been playing some U21 games again, he’s almost there for the full step up, but Kane refuses to go away.

[Scratch]

Just caught up with this mate, and looking good. The lad has bright greens in all the right places and is scoring well too. He'll hit 100 sooner or later.

Shame Plata is being such an idiot - he's been good for me before, but that was at Sporting so I guess he felt more at home there. As for Bellingham costing £200M - what are you doing with all your money anyway? May as well spend some of it... 🤣

BTW, I just started a new career a couple of days ago (will be posting a challenge around it) and I ended up with both Leaburn and Biereth (at Oxford). I probably won't stick with them when we get to UCL level, probably switch to a Piccoli or a Lucca or something) but they are my guys for the first few seasons.

Anyway, good luck!

[geordiekrispy]

3 hours ago, Scratch said:

Just caught up with this mate, and looking good. The lad has bright greens in all the right places and is scoring well too. He'll hit 100 sooner or later.

Shame Plata is being such an idiot - he's been good for me before, but that was at Sporting so I guess he felt more at home there. As for Bellingham costing £200M - what are you doing with all your money anyway? May as well spend some of it... 🤣

BTW, I just started a new career a couple of days ago (will be posting a challenge around it) and I ended up with both Leaburn and Biereth (at Oxford). I probably won't stick with them when we get to UCL level, probably switch to a Piccoli or a Lucca or something) but they are my guys for the first few seasons.

Anyway, good luck!

Nice, I look forward to the career! Honestly Leaburn seems like a bit of a hidden gem. If his PA is randomised then you may luck out and get some slightly better stats in some places (or better mentors).

 

For Bellingham, it's a choice between Longstaff and him. I'm trying to not be guided by my heart, but there's only him, Fraser, Woodman and St. Max left from the original squad and St. Max wants a new challenge and asked to be transfer listed (I agreed as he's my weakest winger). Fraser is getting old and Woodman just isn't good enough, I've got a wonderkid keeper that's almost as good as him in the reserves.

[geordiekrispy]

I've just realised that Leaburn has beaten Shearer's record of highest goal scorer for Newcastle, at the end of last season...

Bit anticlimactic there, sorry.

[geordiekrispy]

11 hours ago, geordiekrispy said:

I've just realised that Leaburn has beaten Shearer's record of highest goal scorer for Newcastle, at the end of last season...

Bit anticlimactic there, sorry.

Right, so I loaded up this seasons save and after doing some counting (I've included the my workings for you all to follow along with me), Miles Leaburn beat Alan Shearer's Newcastle goal scoring record after 210 games, this means he has a gpg of 0.95.

 

So @FuddledFox can you add me to the leaderboard (and probably copy over the challenge to this year's challenge list )

 

Spoiler

For Newcastle Shearer had scored 206 goals in 405 games with a gpg of 0.51

 

Here's Leaburn at the end of the season with 212 goals (he hadn't scored any before he signed for me) in 223 games.

 

Here's the fixtures at the end of the season, and let's work our way back to get to 209 goals.

Game 223 - Goals 211 & 212

Game 222 - Goals 209 & 210

Game 221 - Goal 208

Game 220 - Goals 207 & 206

So that means he took 220 games to equal & then better Shearer's record so a gpg of 

 

[Scratch]

On 14/03/2022 at 16:02, geordiekrispy said:

Nice, I look forward to the career! Honestly Leaburn seems like a bit of a hidden gem. If his PA is randomised then you may luck out and get some slightly better stats in some places (or better mentors).

For Bellingham, it's a choice between Longstaff and him. I'm trying to not be guided by my heart, but there's only him, Fraser, Woodman and St. Max left from the original squad and St. Max wants a new challenge and asked to be transfer listed (I agreed as he's my weakest winger). Fraser is getting old and Woodman just isn't good enough, I've got a wonderkid keeper that's almost as good as him in the reserves.

Yeah, he's decent alright, mainly because he has so much development waiting for him. He's still a fair way short of a Lucca or a Piccoli though - you should give those lads a try some time!  

Know what you mean, it's always hard to part ways with the remaining lads when you get to that stage. But I gotta think Bellingham will be better? Doesn't hurt to keep one though.

[smoggy90]

Great work mate, nice to see a player like Leaburn smashing it!

[geordiekrispy]

End of Season 5 Review

Fifth season completed and a very strange season as it didn’t appear to be going particularly well, but we managed a clean sweep, and Leaburn continued to improve his tally.

Like I said earlier, we managed to get a full clean sweep of trophies this season. I think that’s going to be the case going forward now as most of the players seem to be “peak” ages and a lot of them still have 3-4 years left before I’d want to move them on and still get some money for them.

In terms of the team I was pretty happy, I couldn’t decide which way around I wanted Rice and Bellingham as they were one of my midfield pairs. I think Rice was better as the DLP compared to CM. Mainly because Bellingham was better at going forward and the CM tended to be the one who went forward more often than the DLP.

Dembele was doing really well coming off the bench and going into the CM role, I think he may end up moving forward to the AM role, but I’m not sure. He’s classed a mercurial talent so it seems better to have that type of player further forward where he can create more chances rather than be in central midfield where if he doesn’t bother tracking back we’re more at risk of conceding.

I was happy with my defence everyone was doing their thing very well, Tomori is 28 so I had one of my wonderkid’s from the academy in the first team on the bench getting some experience, but he’s probably going to go on loan next season.

Same with my GK, I had  a decent offer for Woodman, I’ll replace him with one of the better academy graduates, there's a wonderkid that's been out on loan to Spurs I think, or someone a year older that's not quite as good (potential ability-wise).

I’m tempted to try and get a Sir John Hall dream of an all academy first XI (obviously Leaburn would by the 11^th). But I seem to be lacking in wing backs and left wingers (I’ve got a striker who can play out there and looks promising when he’s been out on loan).

Longstaff I think is done, he doesn’t like the work rate that’s expected of him from the team and for all that his attributes are decent, he’s just not quite right for the team. He’s a B2B and I need more playmakers or more attacking midfielders. Willock somehow got in the Premier League Best XI so I guess he’s just quietly doing the right things without being spectacular, So maybe a good bench warmer depending on if I bring Dembele into the starting XI.

Chiesa’s contract expired this season but he refused to lower his wage demands from over 300k a week so I couldn’t afford it… I have to think it’s not going to go well when he leaves, as he’s agreed to go to Barcelona on a Bosman, the same way he came to us.
So I’ll have to decide if I want to promote one of the young graduates who done really well on loan to a premiership club or buy someone. Depends if I sell Plata and Vilca (who hasn’t exactly pulled up any trees when he’s played) I’m guessing…

Hagi can cover both sides, Fraser is still doing a good job of coming off the bench. Vieira is good on the left on in the centre. Anderson is better in the centre than either wing. But my two youngsters are both right wingers…

So I think I’ll have Anderson in AMC. maybe have Dembele cover CM and AMC, Vieira cover LW and AMC, Hagi LW and RW cover, new guys RW, Fraser cover RW/LW. I still feel that’s a bit light… especially if Longstaff gets sold, I might need a backup youngster for the CM role.

Biereth got a broken leg really early in the season so I’ve been relying on Belloti to come on a sub. Which he seems happy to do, but he’s 31 I think now, so Biereth will be 1^st choice backup again next season.

 

England have the world cup this year and if they don’t win it, I’m hoping that Frank will get the sack/resign. So I’ll be able to get the job and promote Leaburn from the U21 to be Kane’s “understudy”.

 

I know that was a massive amount of text... so here's the screenshots.

 

Transfers

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In

 Out 

I really wish they'd fix the player going out on loan multiple times to the same club bug...

Awards

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 Leaburn  

 

 

Team

Me

 

Player Stats

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Manager Profile & History

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Leagues & Cups

Europe

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Super Cup

 

Champions League

League

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Cups

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Community Shield

FA Cup


Carabao Cup

 

Leaburn

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I’ve had the message from multiple staff saying that Leaburn has maxed out now, so he categorically is not going to improve any more, which is fine. He seems like he’s got all the attributes in the right places. He tends to struggle against a top class defence, Van-Dijk had him marked out of the games against Liverpool, plus his coaching comments says he struggles in big games. He’s still only young, so hopefully some more experience will get rid of this. He was so close to getting into the mythical 100 club this year, fingers crossed some better wingers will help him get there.

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by geordiekrispy

[Titjes]

Fantastic work mate 😉

I think your GpG is wrong though, as you made more goals then you played matches (297 in 292). It should be just above 1 now, no? 🤔😅

[geordiekrispy]

55 minutes ago, Titjes said:

Fantastic work mate 😉

I think your GpG is wrong though, as you made more goals then you played matches (297 in 292). It should be just above 1 now, no? 🤔😅

Yep you're right. The overall GpG had not moved down from season 2! I've corrected it now.

Edited March 29, 2022 by geordiekrispy