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Career Armstrong shooting for 1000 goals


Scratch
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This is the first time I've attempted a challenge! I've been coming here since... well, I'm not sure, maybe four or five years before the domain name change. I've always been a lurker and I've never tried the challenges, but I'm finally having a go.
 
The Challenge

I'm going to try to get Adam Armstrong (from Newcastle) to score 1000 goals at Celtic. This is what he looks like at the start of the game:

armstrong-01.jpg
 
Why Adam Armstrong? Partly because I'm a Newcastle supporter. Partly because he developed into a beast one game I played. Partly because I wanted someone that no one else is doing.
 
Why Celtic? Partly because they are a strong team in a relatively weak League, which should translate to lots of goals. Partly because I've never managed outside of England (and I've been playing since CM2), so it's time I went abroad! 
 
Why not Newcastle? Because Armstrong is on loan at Barnsley at the beginning of the game and I can't recall him! But I can buy him at another club. Also for the reasons I mentioned above.
 
He starts the game with 20 goals to his name that I'll have to subtract later (sad to see the 5 wasted seasons there):
 
armstrong-02.jpg
 
Outlook
 
This is going to be tough! He's 19 at the start of the game, so I've lost a few years that might be crucial at the end. I'm not sure what his PA is and I'm a little worried he won't be as good this time around as he was for me previously. The new EME seems more realistic and resistant to miracle formations. Also, I've never done this before so will probably make some rookie mistakes!
 
Offset against that is that I'm hoping Celtic should be able to score a lot of goals. Will it be enough to catch up? Only time will tell. At the moment, my degree of confidence is only about 20%.
 
Season 1
 
I've already completed the first season as I wanted to make sure I was up for this. I am! And here's what happened.
 
First, to get Armstrong, I had to load England as the primary league and Scotland as a secondary league. He's not in the Newcastle squad otherwise. The Celtic squad seemed quite small - I guess because Scotland was a secondary league.

When I joined Celtic, they gave me £2.3M spending money, which was a less than I was expecting and which means it will take longer to shape the squad around Armstrong. Luckily, Newcastle were willing to sell Armstrong to me for £1.8M, so I could buy him right away.

My scout didn't think that much of him:

armstrong-03.jpg
 
But the board seemed to think I was on the right track:
 
armstrong-04.jpg
 
In other transfer news, I signed a bunch of free agents to beef up the squad (no one particularly notable) and I sold Moussa Dembélé (there can be only 1 star striker on this squad). I also tried to sell Leigh Griffiths as well, so that there was only one clear cut striker and noone would be upset about being left out. I thought I could use an attacking midfielder who can also play forward as cover. Anyway, I couldn't get a good price for him and as it happens, I ended up being quite glad to have him around as a sub.
 
Formation: For most of the season, I used the 4-2-3-1 formation. I varied the settings between short and direct, flanks and centre all season, so no point screenshotting that.
 
armstrong-05.jpg
 
I know the rules for this challenge say that you need to use your own formation and this one is popular on the forums at the moment, but I've been using it on and off for a couple of years. It's definitely not been a miracle formation for me this year. Some good runs and won league comfortably, to be expected as Celtic, but some bad patches too. 
 
Training: I'm not following any of the guides for intensive training, but I did turn off Defensive and turn up Fitness to Intensive. At various times, when he was struggling with settling into the team, I changed it so Tactical or Motivational was increased instead of Physical. Not sure if that had any effect, but it seemed worth a try.
 
How it went:

He got off to a good start and signaled his intent a few games in with this 5 goal effort:

armstrong-06.jpg
 
That's what I'm talking about! But not long afterwards, I noticed he was struggling to settle into the team:
 
armstrong-07.jpg
 
That lasted the whole season on and off. I didn't do much about it, although I did think about buying some players who spoke Geordie. :)
 
Worse was to come. Later in the season, I noticed he was feeling the pressure of first team football:
 
armstrong-08.jpg
 
Gulp! If you want to make it to 1000, you can't do it coming off the bench lad! We pushed through and luckily he got on board with being the star of the show. He got injured near the end of the season and missed the last 2 games (could have been worse).
 
We won the League and the Cup. He won Player of the Year for the Scottish Premiership (note Del Castillo who was the runner up - he'll be important next year):
 
armstrong-09.jpg
 
And I became his favourite person:
 
armstrong-10.jpg
 
It's mutual son...
 
He's developing nicely (but has already turned 20!):
 
armstrong-11.jpg
 
And here are his stats for the season:
 
armstrong-12.jpg
 
Only 53. Not quite a goal a game. Not good enough to make it to 1000, but all things considered a decent start. Hopefully he'll pick up the rate next year...
 
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Good solid start. Nice choice of player and league. The league maybe easy but the money restrictions do make things challenging especially if you want European success in a regular basis. 

Good luck. 

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54 minutes ago, billy2shots said:

Good solid start. Nice choice of player and league. The league maybe easy but the money restrictions do make things challenging especially if you want European success in a regular basis. 

Good luck. 

Thanks. Yeah, I underestimated the financial implications of playing as Celtic. I'm not particularly focused on European success, apart from the extra games it gives you. Maybe I can make some progress in a few years when I've built a squad, but it's been difficult so far.

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26 minutes ago, Taff said:

It's a good start dude and hopefully he can improve from here on out

Thanks. I hit a bump at the beginning of season 2, I think because of my inexperience (bought other players that score too much). Getting back on track maybe, but slower than I'd like. Will write more about it soon. 

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I really enjoyed that opening post! Great choice of player too, I haven't heard about him in years haha. 

Decent start and I can't wait for more :) 

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Great to see another 1K career.

I like your pick. Good first season. Once he gets to play in a better team he'll start scoring even more.

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8 hours ago, Ashez said:

Great choice of player too, I haven't heard about him in years haha. 

Thanks. Yeah, he probably would have been a better choice a couple of years ago! I'm genuinely worried I've left it too late. But no backing out now. :)

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5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Great to see another 1K career.

I like your pick. Good first season. Once he gets to play in a better team he'll start scoring even more.

Thanks. Actually, it was reading your Villalibre attempt that pushed me over the edge and got me to try it. So double thanks to you!

Second season not going so well - only 30 out of 40 so far. I haven't found the balance for the team yet, nothing seems to stick.

I'm confident I can build a decent team in general, but building a decent team that is focused on creating chances for a single player is much harder for me. Normally when my attacking midfield player scores a hat-trick, I'm over the moon. Now, I'm like "WTF, why aren't you passing to the striker"! Learning the hard way. :)

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Season 2 Update
 
Season 2 was difficult and made me question whether Armstrong could make it to 1000. After a lot of work, he improved to the point that I see hope, but next season is going to be crucial.
 
Let's look at his final tally before I deconstruct things:
 
armstrong-season2-01.jpg
 
So, only 49 goals from 64 games. That pace is just not enough to make it 1000. There are a number of reasons for this, which I'll discuss below, and I'm hopeful I have my head around them now. Time will tell...
 
In General
 
It was positive that he played 64 games this year. He had no injuries and we made it further in Europe than last year. He needs this number of games each year to have a better chance of making it. He did get slightly tired from time to time, when playing that many games, but that's a good problem to have.
 
The team is good and comfortably won the league, clinching the title in February and remaining unbeaten in the league:

armstrong-season2-02.jpg

armstrong-season2-02a.jpg

 

That's a bit misleading however, as there are definitely periods we struggle through:
 
armstrong-season2-03.jpg
 
Also, while we generally dominate things in Scotland, we're not ready to take on the big boys in Europe. I've bought some good young players, but I've struggled to attract the big names to Celtic. I've saved up my money and can afford to spend £25M on a big player to provide assists, but none want to come. Only those lower down the leagues will come. That's not an excuse because we have enough class to score loads of goals in most games.
 
In terms of our lad's development, here are his attributes at the end of the season:
 
armstrong-season2-00.jpg
 
To be honest, I'm quite disappointed. There's almost no improvement from last year and it's a short of where he was in other Saves. Still, it should be enough to score in Scotland.
 
The Problem
 
There's no avoiding it - we need to talk about the slow rate of scoring... Armstrong got of to a very slow start:
 
armstrong-season2-04.jpg
 
What was even more concerning was what I saw in the detailed game stats:
 
armstrong-season2-05.jpg
 
We crushed the opposition, scoring 5 goals, and Armstrong scored none of them. He only managed 1 shot out of the 15 we had that day. If this had happened once - well, that's football. But this happened again and again. Something was wrong.
 
Fixing The Problem - Part 1: Del Castillo
 
My first suspect was Gaston Del Castillo (screenshot from end of Season 2):
 
armstrong-season2-06.jpg
 
I'd bought him for £3.3M from Independiente in season one, as part of the 'buy good young players who want to come' policy. He was a good player in season 1, finishing as runner up in the Scotland Premiership Player of the Year awards, and complementing Armstrong nicely in the AMC spot in the 4 2 3 1 formation. He scored a handy 13 goals and provided 10 assists:
 
armstrong-season2-07.jpg
 
But when he reported back at the beginning of season 2, it was clear he'd taken a big step. He was no longer content to play second fiddle to Armstrong. After 12 games, he was actually the leading scorers with 6 goals:
 
armstrong-season2-08.jpg
 
I briefly wondered if I should ditch Armstrong and take Del Castillo to 1000 instead! Alas, I'm not that fickle. The answer was that I'd have to stop playing Del Castillo and play other players who would fit the system.
 
Unfortunately, I only had one other candidate for the AMC role: Rogic and he has injury problems. At the point I realised that Del Castillo was the problem, Rogic was in the middle of a 2 month absence, so I had to persist with Del Castillo. I set him to the CM role to try to curtail his more adventurous play and this improved things slightly - but not enough.
 
As soon as Rogic was fit, he went straight into the team and that did help. Rogic scored goals too, but the balance was a lot better. Then he went and got injured for another 2 months... Del Castillo was back in the team and I vowing to buy another AMC in the January transfer window.
 
To give you an idea of Del Castillo's talent, he ended up playing 45 games, half of which were 10 minute substitutions at the end of games (when Armstrong came off), and he still came runner up in the Scottish Premiership Player of the Year award, with 22 goals and 8 assists and a rating of 7.88. 
 
Fixing The Problem - Part 2: Player Recruitment Approach
 
When working through the Del Castillo problem, I realised that the real problem was that I'd bought him in the first place. An attacking midfielder who can also play as striker, who dribbles well and has good movement and shooting. Of course he was going to score goals!
 
I'm used to building a team to win and Del Castillo would have been great for that. But now, the prime goal is to get Armstrong to 1000 goals, so I need to build a team to support that. That means buying players who are going to provide a bunch of assists and not want to score themselves. 
 
Reading @BatiGoal's Villalibre 1000 goal attempt gave me the clue that I needed players with high attributes for Passing, Creativity and Decisions. I also decided I wanted players who had a low goals to assists ratio in their past, as well as having a low Shooting attribute. I had a couple of those at the club already, so they came into the team right away. But I still needed that AMC to replace Del Castillo.
 
I tried so hard to bring in players meeting that criteria in the January window, but every time I agreed a fee, the player didn't want to come. I ended up with a transfer deadline day panic buy of Will Hughes. He wasn't someone I wanted to buy, because he's a known wonderkid (at least in the past). Seemed like a cop out. But he fit my criteria, had a record of assists, was in the price range and most importantly was willing to come to Celtic.
 
Lesson learned: I'll be much more careful about who I buy in future.
 
Fixing The Problem - Part 3: Tactics
 
Changing the personal helped, but things still weren't great. I started wondering if the tactics may have been at fault. I was using the same formation I'd been using all the way through (the 4 2 3 1 in the season 1 update above), but it seemed we were getting less chances than we did previously. Time for a change! 
 
We went to an attacking 3 3 3 1 to try to get more chances:
 
armstrong-season2-100.jpg
 
That seemed to work for a couple of months, but then the chances started drying up again. It was back to 4 2 3 1 and it wasn't too bad, but other players were still 'pinching' too many goals from Armstrong. 
 
Up until this point, I'd been watching the games with the highlights turned off, in order to get through games more quickly. That had been fine when Armstrong had been banging the goals in and it would have been fine if all I cared about was winning, but it was time to roll up my sleeves and work out what was going on. I set the highlights to extended.
 
One of the first things I noticed was that Armstrong was taking most of the corners - I'd neglected to set up any corner takers (rookie move I know!). We almost never score from corners, but I'd rather have him in the box than on the sideline. Fixed.
 
He was also taking the free kicks, which I had asked him to do (in the hope that he'd score more). The reality was that I only saw him score 1 goal from a free kick, but he was often taking free kicks from the halfway line and being nowhere near the box when the ball arrived there. Also Fixed.
 
But the bigger problem was how cramped everything was. For a start, the AMC was hanging off the striker's shoulder most of the time, as can be seen here: 
 
armstrong-season2-08a.jpg
 
No wonder he was pinching some of Armstrong's goals! Also it was often even more cramped, with other players getting in too close. It was fine for the team, as there were lots of chances and a selection of players to take them, but meant less chances for Armstrong.
 
After experimentation, I made things a lot better by dropping the AMC to CM and switching to a 4 3 2 1 formation:
 
armstrong-season2-09.jpg
 
That, after I spent all that effort trying to get someone for the AMC role. Luckily Hughes is better in a CM role than a AMC role, so that worked out even better than I'd planned.
 
The change in formation gave more space, but still wasn't quite working. I fiddled with the settings and eventually landed on attacking (we want to score lots!), direct (get it into him quick), through the centre (he's not the sort of striker to like crosses) and counter attack (use his pace to the best advantage). 
 
armstrong-season2-09a.jpg
 
That seemed to work a lot better. The first game I tried that exact combination, he scored 4 goals:
 
armstrong-season2-10.jpg
 
Yeah! He's back baby!!
 
The final 16 games yielded 17 goals - so we're back on track. The effectiveness waned towards the end of the season, so I may need to switch formation again sometime soon. I'll admit that worries me...
 
The Future
 
All I can do is stick with it. We had some real challenges this year, but we eventually overcame them (and I learned a lot). But he's going to have to kick it up a notch next year to have any chance of making it to 1000.
 
Edited by scratch99
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Great to see it's working out for you.

I know it's a pain finding the right formation for the players. Thing is not every formation works for the players. I've had good formations working well for one team but not the other. There's so many factors to consider..pace..tackling..teamwork..passing..etc etc. That's why it's sometimes hard to give good advice as you just need to try things out with the players you got and tweak and fine-tune until it clicks. That's how I've always done things.

But of course the better your players the more formations they're able to play in if you know what I mean because of their worldclass attributes. One thing you could try tho is playing "balanced mentality" in away games. Balanced style doesn't necessarily mean that you won't attack as much as in home games, it just means that you 'give' the opponent some space to attack which leaves you with more opportunities and space near their goal. I sometimes score more goals playing balanced than attacking ment. go figure.

You're doing fantastic, mate KIU!

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Thanks! I totally understand about it hard to give good advice now. I'd been thinking I could zip through this challenge much faster than a normal game, but actually I think I've been slower trying to make things work for this one player. It's actually more challenging and I think I'm more engaged in the game than I have been in years.

Will definitely try out the balanced style in away games. I normally do that in other games, but left it on attacking here because I don't mind losing the game if I get an extra goal from him (unless it's a cup game, then I want the extra game winning will give me).

Start of season 3: He's scored 7 goals from 5 games. Hope it continues. :)

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16 hours ago, Real_Random said:

Hey mate. Just caught up with your attempt and great job getting Armstrong to score. KIU and maybe try for 60's or 70's next year. 

Thanks! Looking he's on track for around the 60s if he can just keep this up (27 from 25 games now).

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On 12/4/2016 at 07:18, scratch99 said:

It's actually more challenging and I think I'm more engaged in the game than I have been in years.

For me player challenges are the way forward if you want to really achieve something in the game. Finding a tactic that wins +90% of the time is one thing but tinkering until you have something that is tailored so minutely you don't just win, you win whilst having your chosen player reach unfathomable targets with a normal tactic gives so much more satisfaction.

The only issue (for me anyway) is there is no going back... It's challenges or nothin!

 

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1 minute ago, Joewins said:

For me player challenges are the way forward if you want to really achieve something in the game. Finding a tactic that wins +90% of the time is one thing but tinkering until you have something that is tailored so minutely you don't just win, you win whilst having your chosen player reach unfathomable targets with a normal tactic gives so much more satisfaction.

The only issue (for me anyway) is there is no going back... It's challenges or nothin!

 

Yeah, that's exactly how I'm feeling right now. To be honest the last 3 or 5 versions, I've bought it but only played a few seasons before getting bored. This is so much more challenging!

 

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On 06/12/2016 at 02:47, kts365 said:

Nice to see a challenge involving a toon player. I also love the way you've analysed possible reasons for a.lack of goals. good work

Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback.

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Season 3 Update
 
I started season 3 with high hopes. This was going to be the year that our boy Armstrong stepped it up and laid down a marker showing that 1000 goals was not only on the cards, but a certainty!
 
Alas, it wasn't to be. Armstrong started strongly, scoring a goal a game for the first 30 games or so and on track for 60 goals for the season. He had 25 goals after 23 games:
 
armstrong-season03-1.png
 
After that, he slowed down a little. He was often slightly tired and had to miss the odd game and come off earlier. In the next 14 games he only scored 8 times, taking him to 33 goals after 37 games:
 
armstrong-season03-2.png
 
That's still pretty good and I was hopeful that things would pick up again. Sure enough, he kept ploughing along at about about a goal game and I thought that the nervous wobble was over.
 
Then in late January, things went off the rails. First Armstrong got injured:
 
armstrong-season03-3.png
 
It was only 10 days, but he ended up missing 3 games. No biggie, I said. Could be worse, I said. But it was worse - that was the end of the goals:
 
armstrong-season03-4.png
 
You can see the 6 games without a goal after the 3 games off injured. The team's form was poor as well:
 
armstrong-season03-5.png
 
We struggled through games, with only a few chances created. We lost critical games, being dumped out the cups, meaning Armstrong had less games to score in. By the beginning of May, he'd only score 38 out of 50:
 
armstrong-season03-6.png
 
At this point I was starting to think it was all over and Armstrong would never make it 1000. I couldn't seem to fix whatever was broken. But in a small positive sign he rallied at the end of the season, scoring 5 in the last 4 games, giving him a final tally of 43 for the year:
 
armstrong-season03-7.png
 
So, the season where I was expecting him to step up, turned out to be his worse season yet. 43 goals is just not enough. If you map out how many goals he needs a year, assuming he will play to 35, you can see that his current total of 145 is way behind where he should be (although that is a flat graph and doesn't take into account the probable slow start and slow finish).
 
armstrong-progress.PNG
 
I was almost ready to say he's not going to make, but that last little burst of goals has convinced me to see what next year brings. It better be stellar though. We're behind and we're playing catchup. If he doesn't get 70 next year, it's probably all over.
 
Reason for Goal Drought
 
I wish I knew.
 
It happened right after I applied the second update for FMM2017 and one other person using the 4 3 2 1 formation also complained of their performance dropping. I'd like to think it's not my fault and that it's just a change in the game. However, SI Games has said nothing changed in the match engine which should cause that, and the fact that it came good at the end shows it still can work - so it's probably just a coincidence.
 
I've previously had problems with keeping one tactic all the way through a season. I've had to swap them about a bit to keep things 'fresh'. Maybe the AI managers have figured out our team when we use that formation. I spent 3 or 4 games changing formation and could get anything that worked (not even those that used to work). When things clicked again was just as I returned to the 4 3 2 1 after that short period away.
 
I think I will start with that format again next year and see how it goes. I notice that @BatiGoal has switched to a system with 5 strikers in his Villalibre 1000K challenge! I get his approach - if it's raining goals, your main striker's going to drink! I don't think I could go with 5 strikers though, because a) I don't have the personnel for it and b) I would never have thought of that myself, so it would just be straight up copying BatiGoal. :)
 
I might prepare a backup formation with 2 or 3 upfront and see how that goes. However, I need to buy some strikers that will compliment Armstrong (ie create goals for him, without taking too many). When I experimented with 2 or 3 up front this year, the other strikers (that I have now) were much more likely to score than Armstrong. I need to get me some Emil Heskey types...
 
Other Happenings
 
Well, we won the league again, but that was all we won this year. And we weren't as far out in front as last year. Only 71 goals scored this year, compared to 103 last year. Tough year...
 
Armstrong's stats are almost identical to last year, so I won't post them again. He was player of the year again:
 
armstrong-season03-8.png
 
As you can see Del Castillo, who caused so much trouble last season, wasn't runner up this year. He did win Young Player of the Year, which was something of a surprise as he only had limited opportunities this year.
 
Leicester tried to buy Armstrong for £16.25M. I told them to pay me £150M, but they declined. Armstrong wasn't happy about it though:
 
armstrong-season03-9.png
 
Oh well, time for a new contract then:
 
armstrong-season03-10.png
 
He went right back to being happy. If any clubs out there read this, please stop unsettling our lad! 
 
Also, Brexit happened in April, so I'll need work permits for EU players from now on. I haven't played past this point yet, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out.
 
Anyway, that's all for this update. On to season 4, which is really going to be 'make or break'.
 
Note: Updates will be slow over the next few weeks due to some real life commitments!

 

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You can't really go crazy with players and formations when you're just 1-2 seasons into a save as the transfer budget won't allow you to buy the top players you'd like to have. And being at Celtic makes it a challenge in itself of course but once Armstrong has a strong team around him he should start to perform better and more consistent.

Also, when I struggle with formations, or finding the right form etc. I stop playing the career and move to a test save. Try to replicate the situation with a similar team/players or even go as crazy as I've done quite a few times to run a synchronized (test) save -just holiday through- with the exact same squad (which will never be entirely identical due to playing time, injuries, slightly different starting line-up etc.) but it's usually close enough to be able to find working solutions for your original career.

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7 hours ago, Ashez said:

Steady going but insee why you are concerned about his form. He has plenty of time left however so hopefully he peaks into a god :)

Thanks - but yeah, if he doesn't peak into a god sometime soon, I'm in trouble! :)

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4 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

You can't really go crazy with players and formations when you're just 1-2 seasons into a save as the transfer budget won't allow you to buy the top players you'd like to have. And being at Celtic makes it a challenge in itself of course but once Armstrong has a strong team around him he should start to perform better and more consistent.

Also, when I struggle with formations, or finding the right form etc. I stop playing the career and move to a test save. Try to replicate the situation with a similar team/players or even go as crazy as I've done quite a few times to run a synchronized (test) save -just holiday through- with the exact same squad (which will never be entirely identical due to playing time, injuries, slightly different starting line-up etc.) but it's usually close enough to be able to find working solutions for your original career.

I'm starting to build up a budget, but having trouble spending it on players of real quality. I have some youngsters maturing though and the competition isn't too strong, apart from Europe - but I might be tied in terms of which formations I can use.

All the ones I've tried have ended up failing (at least in terms of Armstrong scoring) and I come back to the 4 3 2 1. It's working again, so maybe last season was just an off season. The main problem with it is the tiredness. I'll experiment with some 3 up front formations so he doesn't have to run as much! Otherwise, I will just give him more games off and hope the hat tricks make up for it.

Good idea about using another game to test it out. Thanks! Again!. I'm like a young manager who calls up Sir Alex Ferguson for advice! :)

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20 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

I'm starting to build up a budget, but having trouble spending it on players of real quality. I have some youngsters maturing though and the competition isn't too strong, apart from Europe - but I might be tied in terms of which formations I can use.

All the ones I've tried have ended up failing (at least in terms of Armstrong scoring) and I come back to the 4 3 2 1. It's working again, so maybe last season was just an off season. The main problem with it is the tiredness. I'll experiment with some 3 up front formations so he doesn't have to run as much! Otherwise, I will just give him more games off and hope the hat tricks make up for it.

Good idea about using another game to test it out. Thanks! Again!. I'm like a young manager who calls up Sir Alex Ferguson for advice! :)

I wish the latter were true but it ain't :) thanks tho. But being very self-critical and very competitive does help in the long run.

Regarding the club and the league (as well as the player obviously) that's a major decision a manager needs to make before embarking on this 1K challenge. Weaker league and club means you'll have trouble signing worldclass players to suit your 1K guy but weaker opponents could lead to more goals. Whereas stronger league and club means you'll have little to no trouble signing worldclass teammates for your striker but it's also tougher scoring against stronger opposition. I personally prefer the latter as I like having the best players for my formation, but the first option can be a major advantage too. Ultimately depends on the manager.

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1 hour ago, BatiGoal said:

I wish the latter were true but it ain't :) thanks tho. But being very self-critical and very competitive does help in the long run.

Regarding the club and the league (as well as the player obviously) that's a major decision a manager needs to make before embarking on this 1K challenge. Weaker league and club means you'll have trouble signing worldclass players to suit your 1K guy but weaker opponents could lead to more goals. Whereas stronger league and club means you'll have little to no trouble signing worldclass teammates for your striker but it's also tougher scoring against stronger opposition. I personally prefer the latter as I like having the best players for my formation, but the first option can be a major advantage too. Ultimately depends on the manager.

Agree with all that! Well, I've made my choice and now I've got to stick with it - for another 855 goals anyway!

BTW, here is my new backup strategy:

hockey1.png

Yep, that's the 2 3 2 3 from your old formations post (and my old hockey formation), although I have the second line lower down the pitch. It's working well against weak opposition (and beat Rangers with it to although they are not very strong):

hockey3.png

hockey4.png

Armstrong can play a full match with that formation. I'll keep experimenting but it's looking good after a couple of games.

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There is a danger to over experiment with formations, I know from experience that can cost you.

Have you thought about a 5 at the back formation with the wing backs providing the width/assists? Less attacking players higher up the pitch.

It worked for me in 2016.

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51 minutes ago, Joewins said:

I've noticed that following an injury the player can take weeks if not months to get back to form.

Oh, so maybe he only lost form because of that! Thanks, I hadn't considered that...

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