Career Armstrong shooting for 1000 goals

[Real_Random]

Congratulations @scratch99 on a fantastic achievement with a player who is not usually considered fantastic. Great job and I can't wait for your next career.

[Scratch]

6 hours ago, KennyMiller27 said:

GET IN YA LADDIE!congratulations on the thousand!

(Now if he'd whipped out a pie after that goal lol)

Thanks mate! Shoot, I forgot the pie. I'll remind him when he gets to 2000!

[Scratch]

3 hours ago, Real_Random said:

Congratulations @scratch99 on a fantastic achievement with a player who is not usually considered fantastic. Great job and I can't wait for your next career.

Thanks mate, but you and @Taff better stop with this 'little known striker' and 'not usually considered fantastic' thing! The man's a legend and hopefully will be in real life too!  

Seriously though, he wasn't a superstar or wonderkid like some other players out there, but he was a promising youngster. I guess it just goes to show that anyone with the right attributes for a poacher role can generally become a big scorer. 

I would like to try it with someone who's good in the air as well (someone like Mitrovic) as the 4 3 2 1 formation I used for most of this would probably suit someone like that perfectly. Armstrong scored loads, but lost lots of headers...

[Scratch]

Season 19 Update - Rest of Season

 

So, no need for any suspense this time around. Armstrong scored goal 1000 on Boxing Day! In the last update, I suggested I'd take a break, but we pressed on and finished the season. Got bills to pay and fans to please...

 

 

Goals

 

The rest of the season looked like this:

 

You're no doubt wondering what that big empty area is - more on that below.

 

Anyway, he ended up getting another 9 goals, taking him to 19 for the season, from 45 games. Definitely slowing down, but still scoring! Not bad given the condition he's in...

 

And that takes him to 970 goals for Celtic, plus 39 for England, for a total of 1009 goals. 

 

 

Injuries

 

In January, Armstrong suffered an injury during a match. Fortunately, he was fine once he got off the field and had a couple of beers (other players aren't allowed to drink, but Armstrong has earned some privileges!). He was able to suit up the very next game. He also scored a disallowed goal - a phantom goal to go with a phantom injury.

 

Then in March, he got a real injury (and a real goal to go with it).  

 

 

He returned from injury looking like this:

 

He's 38 now and he really hasn't bounced back from those injuries. 

 

So we'll keep pushing on, but he really shouldn't be playing for Celtic any more, except for the huge debt we owe him for all those goals!

 

 

Results

 

This year we won it all:

 

We won:

 

• The league, going 32-5-1, with 117 goals for and 24 goals against. Our worst season in the league since early on in this career.
• The Scottish Cup Final 4-0 over St Johnstone 
• The Betfred Cup Final 3-0 over Hearts

 

In the Champion's League we beat Chelsea 5-3, Athletico Madrid 4-3, Tottenham 8-1 (including a 7-0 drubbing in the first leg), then faced Barcelona in the final. We beat them 4-0, although we were only 1-0 up with 3 minutes to go.

 

 

Awards

 

Bruno da Silva Francisco won the World Player of the Year award this year (his 3rd time), with Andres Martinez coming runner up, both Celtic players. 

 

The same pairing won the Scottish Premiership Player of the Year and runner up, with myself as Manager of the Year again.

 

 

Shout out to Cattermole

 

I just have to mention Sean Cattermole who scored 6 goals in a 9-1 drubbing of Dunfermline.

 

Armstrong managed to score 6 before (twice I think, but I'd have to check), but that was in our 4 3 2 1 formation, designed for the vast majority of goals to come from the single forward. Cattermole did it in our 2 5 3 formation, where the goals are shared around much more. It was just one of those days were everything he touched turned to gold.

 

 

The Future

 

I guess I will press on for another season. The next target is 1000 goals for Celtic, which is 30 goals away. Could be tough as it will need two seasons and his attributes will be in the negatives by then... But I'll see. I really want try something different, but there is also part of me that wants to finish this before doing so.

[Seth Anacondas]

Armstrong definitely has the stats and hidden qualities to do a Totti.

[Westham_Till_I_Die]

I would love to see the team your using right now.

Could you maybe upload a screen shot?

[Jack]

Amazing job mate - congratulations on crossing the line! Always knew you'd make it. It'd be great to see how far you can take him if you're still motivated to continue! Thanks for entertainment and also for the inspiration to start my own 1KC career - just need to find the right player & club now.

[KennyMiller27]

On 2/22/2017 at 16:29, scratch99 said:

Thanks mate! Shoot, I forgot the pie. I'll remind him when he gets to 2000!

Just tell the bookies and the SFA to sod off with their investigations lol

[Scratch]

36 minutes ago, KennyMiller27 said:

Just tell the bookies and the SFA to sod off with their investigations lol

Nah, by the time he gets to 2000 he'll be 60 something and I'll be ready to part with him by then. If he still won't retire, it'll be be good if he has to resign...

[Scratch]

13 hours ago, Jack said:

Amazing job mate - congratulations on crossing the line! Always knew you'd make it. It'd be great to see how far you can take him if you're still motivated to continue! Thanks for entertainment and also for the inspiration to start my own 1KC career - just need to find the right player & club now.

Thanks mate. I sure didn't know I'd make, so appreciate the faith! I think I'll take him as far as I can, but might need a break after this season. I am going much faster now (not paying so much attention to the games, just pushing through).

And can't wait to see you're 1KC career!

[Scratch]

14 hours ago, Westham_Till_I_Die said:

I would love to see the team your using right now.

Could you maybe upload a screen shot?

I'll try to do a team post in the next day or so. I'll need to include screenshots of the players, as none of them are real players anymore, they are all generated, so the names won't mean much!

[Scratch]

Alright, here is an overview of the current team, as requested by @Westham_Till_I_Die. I've put it in spoilers as it's long (lots of screenshots).

Spoiler

Lineup

First, here is the formation we're currently playing and our last starting 11:

 

Goalkeepers

Domenichini has been our number 1 keeper for 11 years. Great keeper and still going strong at 35.

Hoffman has been our very patient understudy.

 

Centrebacks

We only have 2 positions, but are spoilt for choice.

First up, Hoyas, who we bought as a youngster and brought through the ranks.

Next, Dellal, another one we bought as a promising youngster. Tends to get grumpy if he doesn't play. He and Hoyos were our first choice pairing for years, but Hoyos disliked him for a long time because of Dellal wanting to leave the club when he wasn't playing. All friends now. But he's been poor this season. Maybe he needs the hate to get motivated!

Abdallah is new. We bought him at the start of the season for £75M. Looks promising.

Halstenberg has been with us a couple of seasons and is another great option for us.

 

Left Wing

On the left wing, we have a couple of choices:

First we have Morlanes who joined us last season, as we tried to improve our left side. Very good player, doing the job well.

Next we have da Silva. Not a bad player, but has been slightly disappointing. That could be because our tactics are down the centre and he's wide. Or it could be because we're forcing him into a DW role, when he's actually a AP. 

 

Right Wing

We have a few choices on the right, but the top two are:

Sean McCulloch, our only academy player to have come through (we let a couple of other ones go who turned out pretty good, but our academy has been very disappointing, I think because the team level is higher than Scotland in general).

Abderrahmane has been a good player for us, but a little inconsistent.

 

Central Midfield

We are quite spoiled for choice in this area and really have too many players. Here are our top five. We have another four or five decent options vying for a position, but I can't show you all of them.

Morales is probably our best central midfielder and has been for years. He joined the club as a youngster and fought his way into the team to become part of our most iconic midfield combination along with Tanner and Boardman.

Tanner joined as a youngster and became our captain when he was just 24. He's now 34 years old and his attributes are a lot lower than they were (many have dropped 3 or 4 points), but he's still doing a good job for us.

Sanchez has only been with us for a couple of years. We bought him with an eye for replacing Morales, Tanner and Boardman as they got older and he pushed Boardman out last season. 

Beltrame joined the club a the same time as Morales, but was always in his shadow. He's developed into a decent option for us, but would have played a lot more at any other team. Underachieving a little this year, but lots of bench appearances.

Cistaro is another we've had for years since joining as a youngster who's developed quite nicely. Probably lining up as the replacement for Tanner at the moment, but obviously not quite as good (slower, can't dribble).

 

Attackers

We have a bucket load of good strikers. We need it because they don't seem to last and often our 3 subs are all forwards.

First we have da Silva Francisco, three time Word Player of the Year, who is probably our best attacker, and normally plays in one of the DLF positions.

Sean Cattermole is another striker who's been brilliant for us. In fact he probably is our biggest goal threat over the last few seasons. He also scored 6 goals in a game, as mentioned in the last season update. I sometimes play him as a DF, but most often as a DLF.

Sisenando is another one who we play in one of the DLF positions. Great player, but normally comes off the bench, hence the lower average rating.

Martinez is our backup poacher, but sometimes plays in a starting DLF position. Up there with Cattermole as our greatest goal threat. Signed as a youngster and worked his way through. Great player.

Vangioni is another we signed as youngster, but hasn't really had much opportunity. Backup for the DLF positions.

And then we have the main man himself:

 

Now, can you spot the odd one out?

 

 

[Emer71]

Great job! Armstrong is a Celtic's legend!

[Scratch]

On 2/25/2017 at 22:45, Emer71 said:

Great job! Armstrong is a Celtic's legend!

Thanks mate! He sure is!

[Scratch]

Season 20 Update

 

Armstrong is into his 20th season at Celtic! He's scored 1009 goals under my management, but only 970 of those have been for Celtic (the rest are international goals). Now he's pushing on and trying to get to the 1000 goal mark for Celtic.

 

 

Injuries and Aging

 

Armstrong started the season looking like this:

 

Not looking pretty, but it's going to get worse! Armstrong knows it's all downhill from here of course, so he decided he was going to retire at the end of the season. 

 

Of course I talked him out of it. He's going down as Celtic's greatest player ever, but I told him that his legendary status would be next level if he could score 1000 goals for the club. He can see that and he wants it too.

 

He was working his way slowly towards that, but then in September he got an injury that would keep him out for 2 months. 

 

Of course I told the media he'd bounce back and he appreciated that, but the board didn't appreciate it so much.

 

By the time he started training again in November, he looked like this:

 

Over the next month, he worked his way back to this, which is probably the best it will ever be from now on:

 

Then in March, he was injured in an England friendly. Out for another 2 months... I should have quit as I suggested I would in the last update!

 

 

By the time he started training again, he looked like this. Not as bad as last time at least!

 

And that's where we leave things until next season.

 

 

Goals

 

The first half of his season looked like this:

 

And the second looked like this:

 

The high mark for the year was a hat-trick against lower level opposition, even if 2 of those came from penalties. He had another goal disallowed too. 

 

He scored 16 goals from 35 appearances, taking him to 1006 club goals, 986 of which have been scored for Celtic. Only 14 to go to reach 1000 for Celtic.

 

He also has 41 goals for England (see last screenshot in the Skills and Aging section above), taking him to a total of 1027 goals under my management.

 

 

Results

 

Our downward spiral continues:

 

This is mainly due to me getting through the games more quickly and not particularly caring about a bad result here and there. 

 

We won:

• The league, going 28-8-2, with 104 goals for and 30 against. So bad!  
• The Scottish Cup Final 2-0 over Kilmarnock
• The Euro Super Cup Final over Liverpool on penalties after the score was tied at 3-3 after extra time
• Club World Championship: 2-0 over Cruz Azul

 

But we lost both the Betfred Cup Final 2-0 to St.Johnstone and the Champion's League Final 3-2 to Juventus (I fell asleep during the second half and didn't make any subs which didn't help).

 

 

Awards

 

For the first time in a long long time, the World Player of the Year award was won by someone who didn't play for Celtic. Mind you it was won by someone we let go and the runner up was our goalkeeper. 

 

da Silva Francisco won the Scottish Premiership Player of the Year again and Martinez was runner up. I didn't win Manager of the Year (fair enough this year!).

 

 

The Euros

 

It's that time again and the FA want us to qualify for the Quarter Finals. No goals for Armstrong, only a phantom injury that made him miss a game. But here are the results for anyone who's interested:

 

Spoiler

 

Good start with a 2-0 win over Denmark:

 

Followed by a loss to Croatia! Not a great performance.

 

But we won our third group game 1-0 over the Czech Republic. That's only a phantom injury, thank goodness!

 

That left us on top of the group. Notice I've abandoned the "get a nice safe draw" approach. It's kill or be killed!

 

Tough match against Belgium that went to extra time, but we got the only goal.

 

And so to the Quarter Final against Romania. It was a tight match that went to extra time, but we lost on penalties... Yes, there really were two players named Marius Tatarusanu in their team. That's not a bug.

 

We made the Quarter Finals, the FA were satisfied, but I just want to get back to Celtic. 

 

The Future

 

I guess it's obvious I'm ready to move on to a different challenge. It's very slow progress, quite frustrating and not that rewarding. That said, at least I know he can score the odd goal with almost no skills, and if I can keep him fit, he will reach the 1000 for Celtic this season. So we'll press on!!

[Ashez]

Great going mate! I've been here before where you want that little bit more and it turns into a massive grind, it'll all be worth it when he enters the exclusive 1000 club goals club! 

[BatiGoal]

That's it, mate, keep squeezing him until retires. He'll thank you for it one day. Cement your place on the leaderboard

[Scratch]

Heck, even I can't believe how that just worked out!

[Scratch]

Spoiler

 

 

[Real_Random]

Congratulations mate on letting him reach the 1000 club goals club, how many more seasons can you get out of him? Maybe a 1.5kc is in order 

[Oi Oi]

Wow what an achievement! 

[Scratch]

9 hours ago, Real_Random said:

Congratulations mate on letting him reach the 1000 club goals club, how many more seasons can you get out of him? Maybe a 1.5kc is in order 

Not much, going at about 20 goals a season, or less. Not going to get much further...

[Scratch]

Season 21 Update

 

We enter our 21st season and Armstrong is still going strong. Well, he's still going... We left him having scored 1027 goals under my management, but with still 14 goals to go to reach 1000 goals for Celtic. Will he reach that this season? If you read the spoilers above, you know the answer, but read on in any case.

 

 

So Long England

 

When I started this career, I had no plans to take the England job, planning for Armstrong to score 1,000 goals just for Celtic. However, when the England job became available, I took it. Everyone said the international goals would make the difference in reaching 1000, and they sure helped - much more than I expected them to.

 

But the England squad need an overhaul and I have no patience for that task at the moment. The benefit (two or three goals per season at this point) is not worth the effort that goes into it, especially given I'm now focusing on the club goal target. So I resigned.

 

That leaves Armstrong on 41 international goals, all under my management. And with that, we can focus fully on scoring for Celtic.

 

 

Injuries and Aging

 

For the second season a row, Armstrong started the season by informing me he plans to retire. 

 

For the second season in a row, I talked him out of it, telling him of the glory he'd get if he reached 1000 goals for Celtic.

 

And so we head into the season with Armstrong looking like this:

 

He's like the Terminator, keeping going right to the end, despite major damage along the way. 

 

The first injury came in September, out for 2 weeks after a training incident.

 

That knocked a point or so off his attributes by the time he came back. He spent the season yo-yoing between this and the attributes shown above.

 

In December he was out for a few days. The first time in 21 years that the Physios picked up one of his injuries before it became more serious.

 

Then in January he was injured during a match and was out for a couple of weeks:

 

 

And then in May, the big one, two months out after being injured in training (where were you this time Mr Physio?)...

 

He ended the season looking like this:

 

Let's hope he bounces back over the off season. Either way, he'll keep going, just like the Terminator, until the bitter end...

 

 

Goals

 

The first half of his season looked like this:

 

And the second looked like this:

 

As you can see, long periods with no goals, followed by runs that are pretty good. There's a fair bit of white space where he was injured, but not as much as you might have expected having read the injuries section above.

 

The key moment was this one. In the second minute, Armstrong slotted home a free kick to score his 1000th goal for Celtic. This was on our home ground, against our arch rivals Rangers, on the day we clinched our 21st league title in a row (under my management). It was glorious!!! 

 

Note you can see the goal in the video in the spoiler section, a few posts before this one.

 

Armstrong ended up with 19 goals from 46 appearances, taking him to 1005 goals for Celtic, plus the 41 international goals, for a grand total of 1046 goals under my management.

 

 

Results

 

This was our year:

 

We won:

• The league, going 33-3-2, with 114 goals for and 31 against . Better than last year, but not as good as in our prime.
• The Scottish Cup Final, 2-0 over Ross County
• The Betfred Cup Final, 3-0 over Kilmarnock
• The Euro Cup Final, 3-1 over Man City

 

Wait, what's that? The Euro Cup? Yep, that's right, we were knocked out of the Champions League in the group stages...

 

Tough group, but we should have done a lot better than that!

 

 

Awards

 

The World Player of the Year award was won by Sean Cattermole and the runner up was Jesus Morales, both Celtic players. 

 

The following is from last season, but I don't need to edit it all this year: da Silva Francisco won the Scottish Premiership Player of the Year and Martinez was runner up. I didn't win Manager of the Year again (fair enough!). 

 

 

The Future

 

Well... We've done the 1K in total. We've done the 1K for Celtic. What's left?

 

Asier Villalibre (and @BatiGoal) set a record of 1091, which is 45 goals away. That's a long way to go. On the plus side, Armstrong's attributes can't get much worse and he's still scoring around 20 goals a season, but surely that's a step too far? I think so, but we'll see what happens next season.

 

Edited March 1, 2017 by scratch99

[BatiGoal]

Amazing mate!! But uhmm.. retire already!

If you do break my record I'd have serious motivation to do the 1KC all over again Goodluck to you and Armstrong and I do hope you manage to reach the 1100 goals milestone I just came short off.

[Scratch]

12 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Amazing mate!! But uhmm.. retire already!

If you do break my record I'd have serious motivation to do the 1KC all over again Goodluck to you and Armstrong and I do hope you manage to reach the 1100 goals milestone I just came short off.

Hehe, not going to happen... He listened to you!! Couldn't talk him out of retiring at the start of the next season.

So we've got one more season to go and we'll do what we can, but Asier can rest safe...

[BatiGoal]

9 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

Hehe, not going to happen... He listened to you!! Couldn't talk him out of retiring at the start of the next season.

So we've got one more season to go and we'll do what we can, but Asier can rest safe...

Ultimately it's the 1000 goals that matter. Can't wait to see you join me on the leaderboard.

[Scratch]

1 hour ago, BatiGoal said:

Ultimately it's the 1000 goals that matter. Can't wait to see you join me on the leaderboard.

Should have this wrapped up in the next couple of days. It's good to have a definite endpoint now, compared to 1 more season each time. I need this to end soon.

[Taff]

What an unbelievable achievement mate a huge congrats to you and Armstrong and I can't blame him for wanting to retire he has bled Celtic Green for 21 years he deserves a rest

[Gonzolito]

Wowowow, that's just amazing ! How you could push on for 1000 goals for Celtic after the 1000 global goals amazes me ! CONGRATULATIONS !!

[Scratch]

On 3/1/2017 at 20:59, Taff said:

What an unbelievable achievement mate a huge congrats to you and Armstrong and I can't blame him for wanting to retire he has bled Celtic Green for 21 years he deserves a rest

Thanks mate. Sorry for the delay in posting! Needed a rest. I'm just about to post the final season, then he can rest and I can move on to new challenges (well I have already!).

added 0 minutes later

On 3/5/2017 at 00:30, Gonzolito said:

Wowowow, that's just amazing ! How you could push on for 1000 goals for Celtic after the 1000 global goals amazes me ! CONGRATULATIONS !!

Thanks! It was pretty hard work to push on, but I'm glad I did it now!