Career Armstrong shooting for 1000 goals

[Scratch]

11 minutes ago, danovic78 said:

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.

I've tried that in the past, but I wanted to experiment with a really attacking formation. I don't mind leaking goals at the back as long as we're banging them in up front in order to get Armstrong to 1000 goals.

But I'll probably stick with the 4 3 2 1 as my main formation for now as he gets most of the chances and when he's on fire he can get 4 or 5 goals.

I'll give some other formations a try as well, including 5 at the back, and we'll see how it goes! Thanks

[danovic78]

4 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

I've tried that in the past, but I wanted to experiment with a really attacking formation. I don't mind leaking goals at the back as long as we're banging them in up front in order to get Armstrong to 1000 goals.

But I'll probably stick with the 4 3 2 1 as my main formation for now as he gets most of the chances and when he's on fire he can get 4 or 5 goals.

I'll give some other formations a try as well, including 5 at the back, and we'll see how it goes! Thanks

Sounds good I guess you just need to keep an eye on the other players stealing Armstrong's goals.....

[Scratch]

15 minutes ago, danovic78 said:

Sounds good I guess you just need to keep an eye on the other players stealing Armstrong's goals.....

I give them extra laps and pushups if they shoot instead of passing to Armstrong.

[Scratch]

And after a 2 week scouting mission in China, I'm back! I didn't have an opportunity to post how Armstrong was going, or much opportunity to actually play, but I did get through a couple of seasons, so without further ado:

 

Season 4 Update

 

As a reminder, Armstrong is behind the curve:

 

so we can't afford anything other than an exceptional season from him.

 

I was hoping he'd reach 70 goals this term - so how did he do? Well he got off to a cracking start:

 

My hopes were high. If he could just keep this pace up, he'd be close to 100 goals for the season and we'd be back on track!

 

Sadly however, things followed what is now a familiar pattern: starting the season with a bang, then going of the boil for a while and then slowly getting back on track and grinding out a decent result. This is typical of the grind stage: 

 

That's 16 goals in 19 games, with one game where he was rested. Some braces, but also quite a few games where he didn't score.

 

There do seem to be more easy games at the start of the season with the early cup ties and the Champions League qualifiers, but I think it's more than that. After a certain number of games, the goals just don't flow as easily. It's nothing to do with morale and I've been trying to avoid him getting slightly tired, but it could be related to tactics (see below).

 

Anyway, he ended up with 55 goals in 60 games:

 

Not a bad effort, all in all, but not the 70 I was hoping for and not 100 he was briefly on track to reach. That leaves us on an even 200 goals in 4 seasons, which looks like this on my projection chart:

 

 

Almost holding steady and I'm not ready to write the 1000 goals off just yet, but we're still behind and we need to catch up soon.

 

Tactics

 

I've primarily been using the now familiar 4 3 2 1, sometimes with CM dropping back to DM. This is the most reliable formation to get Armstrong goals and it generally gets us wins, but operating as a single striker does tire him out more quickly.

 

Also, although the tactic works well most of the time, it does seem less effective after a little while. Basically, the results seem to go off when Armstrong's goals go off. Are the tactics going off and resulting in less goals for Armstrong? Or is Armstrong going off and the results are suffering as a result? Or a bit of both? I don't know.

 

Either way, I'd like some tactics that are less tiring and give bigger wins, so I experimented with a bunch of other formations.

 

I've tried the 2 3 2 3 (Hockey) formation I discussed above (post season 3 chat), but that gives us an equal number of big wins and big losses. I've tried 4 3 3 (with 2 wide IFs) and this worked well for a few games and then went off. I've tried 3 4 3 (both narrow and wide) and I've tried 3 4 2 1.

 

None of them are quite right. Armstrong likes passing too much in those formations. They might work better if he was selfish... but he's not. The results are that the other players score and he often won't. I'm trying to change the players around him to ones with high Teamwork and Passing and low Shooting, but it's a work in progress.

 

Results

The team once again won the Scottish Premier League comfortably and also won the Scottish Cup...

 

 

But we got hammered 5 - 1 by Hearts in the Betfred Cup final.

 

They deserved to win, but we didn't deserve to lose by 4 goals. Oh well... We went out early in Europe too, but I'm hoping to become more competitive there in the next couple of years as I build the squad.

 

Armstrong of course retained his Player of the Year award, but that dammed Ryan Giggs beat me to the Manager of the Year award.

 

Giggs always wins Manager of the Month, but I normally take home the yearly prize. Not this year. This guy is getting under my skin!

 

Corners!

 

Another thing that gets under my skin is Armstrong taking corners! I want him in the box scoring, not taking the corners! Here is an example. It's a corner and Armstrong (number 11) is closest to the ball:

 

He grabs it and runs over to the sideline to take the corner:

 

Here are the players on the field at the time:

 

And here are my Corner Assignments:

 

Armstrong is taking a left corner and Habran is assigned to take these and is on the field at the time. Even if I somehow messed up and that's a right corner, Pedraza, Hughes and Tierney are all on the pitch. I guess he just really likes taking corners!

 

Anyway, season 4 is over and it's on to season 5.

Edited December 23, 2016 by scratch99

[Scratch]

Season 5 Update

 

Off Season 

 

Some interesting things happened over the off season. First, I got this message about the English Premier League revenues declining:

 

Of course, I'm not actually in the English Premier League, so it doesn't directly affect me, but I found that interesting. I wonder if it is related to the co-efficients?

 

Next, the board of directors told me that they owed me one and would give me a free pass for a request:

 

I'd already upgraded all the training facilities to the max so I asked for some more dosh for salaries (even though I was only using a third of the currently allowed level) and they duly granted an increase. That was it though - they wouldn't grant any more requests. Had to try!

 

Then I achieved the Work Permits Unlockable:

 

Followed shortly after by the Transfer Window Unlockable:

 

Of course, I'm slow on the uptake and thought that the 2 unlockables were in-game events, so I accepted both, wondering how I got so lucky in this save. I ran like that for almost 6 months before I realised they were actually unlockables and that I'd violated the 'No Unlockable' rule of this Challenge.

 

I did sign a couple of players who probably wouldn't have got a work permit and I did make transfers outside of the window, so I did get an advantage. Oh well, I'm doing this to see if I can reach 1000, so I'll continue regardless. Not much I can do about it now (although I promptly turned it off when I realised). 

 

Next, I sold Will Hughes, as I had better options and his performance had declined slowly over the 3 seasons he'd been at the club. Time to move him on... But the squad (including Armstrong) didn't agree:

 

 

Time to offer a bunch of new contracts.

 

Armstrong's Season

 

It started off well with slightly over a goal a game, before fading somewhat, as in previous seasons. But then this happened:

 

 

Luckily there was no message after the game and he showed up as being available for selection and not having an injury:

 

But he missed one game and then took a while to get back into goal scoring form (as he did in Season 3):

 

Oh well, five games lost... Could be worse. Worse you say?

 

 

Yes, that's another 11 games down the tubes. At least he scored in his comeback match instead of spending another month working his way back into form. But after 33 games he only had 21 goals. He powered home to the end of the season:

 

To end up with 40 goals from 47 games:

 

That leaves Armstrong with 240 goals after 5 seasons.

 

He's just turned 24 now and the clock is ticking. I haven't given up, but I'm not confident of hitting 1000. I'd say 800 is probably achievable and anything above that is a bonus. But I'll be back for season 6 (currently in progress). 

 

A Satisfying Side-note Part 1

 

Well, that jumped up Ryan Giggs won't be taking any more Manager of the Year Awards from me. All those awards he won didn't stop Rangers sacking him for a disappointing run of results. 

 

Although... I wouldn't admit this publicly, but he did seem like a decent manager and this might not have been the best move by Rangers. Works for me though!

 

A Satisfying Side-note Part 2

 

Three months later, I avoided the potential banana skin of of losing to those minnows, Rangers...

 

Results

 

Once again we won the league easily and we also won the Betfred Cup. We lost the Scottish Cup Final and although we got through the group stage of the Champion's league, we got dumped out of Europe in the 1st knockout round by Barcelona. Hoping for better next year.

 

Although he was out injured for a large chunk of the year, Armstrong still won Player of the Year. Well done lad. Good persistence to come back like that.

 

But what do I need to do to win Manager of the year? Winning the league by 31 points, with a cup thrown in, isn't enough? Russell Slade, I'm coming for you next! You'll end up going the way of Ryan Giggs...

 

Tactics - Direct Passing

 

I always use direct passing in this save, as I want the team to get the ball in quickly to Armstrong, so he can shoot. I found that with short passing, more players were within range of goal, resulting in more long shots from other players and more passes from Armstrong to others in a decent position. With direct passing, he's often the only one in a good position, so he takes more shots and scores more goals. 

 

However, I did notice this:

 

Nine headers and not one of them won by Armstrong! So that's the downside of using direct passing with a short striker... It's often not that pronounced, but we definitely waste a lot of opportunities as a team with this tactic - but I'm sticking with it for now, as it maximises the individual opportunities for Armstrong. And it can lead to performances like this (which also had 9 headers with 0 won):

 

Tactics - Penalties

 

The lad is just a terrible penalty taker. I'd estimate that he misses about 40% of the penalties. But I have to leave him as the penalty taker as I need him to get those other 60%. 

 

Anyway, onwards and upwards as they say. 

Edited December 23, 2016 by scratch99

[BatiGoal]

Hmm the bit about corners is strange. I will have to re-check my own career as I usually play commentary only.

50 goals in season 4 isn't a bad number but you're right it needs to be 60-70 to stand a chance.

In season 5 you scored 22 goals in your last 19 games. You're clearly behind schedule but you'll be OK if you manage to maintain the recent form. Did you change anything specific that led up to that?

[Ashez]

The unlockables are fine as they were unlocked on that save, wanted to say that first so I wouldn't forget haha. 

As for the challenge I can see why it's a little frustrating but I think it's going okay, the 40 last season is a tad worrying however. Praying he peaks into a beast for you  

[Scratch]

12 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Hmm the bit about corners is strange. I will have to re-check my own career as I usually play commentary only

Don't get me wrong - he only takes them occasionally. I should have said that above! Maybe 1 in 15 or 1 in 20. It's not a lot really, but it frustrates me every time I see that. I wish I could discipline him for it!

I guess the Assignments are more like strong recommendations, but players can make their own decisions occasionally? This is the only time I've bothered to investigate and only one corner taker for that side is on the field. Maybe he was temporarily occupied? Pulling up his socks or something...

12 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

In season 5 you scored 22 goals in your last 19 games. You're clearly behind schedule but you'll be OK if you manage to maintain the recent form. Did you change anything specific that led up to that?

There were no specific changes leading to this, apart from bringing in some better quality team mates for him. I've been slowly improving the team and my budget has reached the point where I can pay over the odds to attract players that wouldn't have looked at Celtic before. 

Having said that, 22 in 19 is around the rate he scores at the start of the season, while he is fresh. I think he came back from the injury feeling fresh and that helped his scoring rate. He did maintain that streak slightly longer than at the beginning of the season.

12 hours ago, Ashez said:

The unlockables are fine as they were unlocked on that save, wanted to say that first so I wouldn't forget haha.

Thanks! That make sense I guess, but I've stopped using them now. Actually, the Transfer Window one was a pain anyway as it really slowed down my game play! I need the window to stop scouring for potential new players!

12 hours ago, Ashez said:

As for the challenge I can see why it's a little frustrating but I think it's going okay, the 40 last season is a tad worrying however. Praying he peaks into a beast for you

Thanks! We'll see what happens - but spoiler: He loses another month to injury in the first half of season 6. He's not injury prone that I can tell, but none of the Physios have him listed at the moment, so can't see what they think. I hope they flesh the Physio role out in future editions as I've love to be able to get a report on one of my players or assign them for special treatment, etc.

[billy2shots]

Normally I would be giving you a hurry up round about now but having played 5 seasons myself now I can see goals are much harder to come by on this years game. Whilst 40 is still a little on the low side it appears 60 odd is about the limit to consistently achieve. 

Try and get the England job as this save (like my own) could depend on International goals. 100-150 goals for England could just sneak you over the line. 

[Real_Random]

Just caught up mate. I agree with the comments above you really need to pick the totals up if you want to win. Good luck and hopefully improve the scoring 

[Scratch]

On 12/24/2016 at 18:26, billy2shots said:

Normally I would be giving you a hurry up round about now but having played 5 seasons myself now I can see goals are much harder to come by on this years game. Whilst 40 is still a little on the low side it appears 60 odd is about the limit to consistently achieve. 

Try and get the England job as this save (like my own) could depend on International goals. 100-150 goals for England could just sneak you over the line. 

Yeah, I can't see Armstrong breaking the 60 mark at the moment and that means he's going to have to play for a long time...

I hadn't really considered the England job - I can't see then appointing an Australian! Also Gareth Southgate has been solid in that job - although I just finished season 6 and England got knocked out early in the World Cup, so he's insecure right now. I guess if they sack him, I'll apply and see what happens. I'm World Class now so they may consider me.

Although in all honestly, I wouldn't enjoy it that much and I'd be worried about him getting too tired from too many games. But we'll see if I get the chance first! 

On 12/24/2016 at 19:56, Real_Random said:

Just caught up mate. I agree with the comments above you really need to pick the totals up if you want to win. Good luck and hopefully improve the scoring 

Thanks! Yep, I keep thinking that it's not going to be enough....  But I'll going!  

[Scratch]

Season 6 Update

 

So another season where we need a great result to hang in there. Will we get it? Read on!

 

Squad Refresh

 

I haven't focused too much on Armstrong's team-mates in the previous season updates, but while they were good enough for us to dominate Scotland, they weren't great enough for us to have success in Europe.

 

I'd been buying lots of promising youngsters and signing decent free agents all the way through - often with 20 or more players coming into the club each season. Some of these would become starters, some would end up on the bench, some would never play. To maintain that rate of incoming players, I had to sell a lot of players. It's not the greatest way to build a *team*, but there was no ill effect on harmony because we were winning all the time it and allowed me to build my budget and to offer better wages. 

 

The previous season I'd upgraded the central midfield with Emre Can and Sergi Samper coming in and this season I upgraded the wide midfield players. I brought in Rivas, Castro and Costa (along with a few other contenders):

Spoiler

 

 

Still not top notch, but an upgrade that should help. I also added a couple of strikers as backup for Armstrong, including an old friend: Moussa Dembele, who I sold in season 1 for £11.5M, but who came back on a Bosman. 

 

The Season

 

The first disappointment of the season came when there were no Champions League qualifiers to play. For some reason we were put directly into the group stage. Now, a real club would say "great!", but these were a good source of goals for Armstrong against easy competition. I have no idea why this happened. A look at the co-efficients show Scotland down slightly, so it's not that. Maybe the club consistently making the first knockout stage may have helped. Oh well, chin up and keep going.

 

The second disappointment:

 

Yes, another injury. At this stage Armstrong had 9 goals from 10 matches, so on track for a decent season, but now he was facing a month out, likely followed by a slow transition back into form. He was injured in the 50th minute and wasn't tired. He doesn't seem to be injury prone. He's just unlucky... Maybe that's just football.

 

With Armstrong out, I turned to Dembele to keep us winning games. He was out to prove a point:

 

Yes, 11 goals in 6 games... I can't help but wonder where things would be at if I'd tried the challenge with Dembele instead of Armstrong... Still, there's no going back now and I don't like doing the obvious anyway.

 

Luckily, there was no extended hangover when Armstrong came back. He wasn't scoring every game, but he was making up for it with hat-tricks:

 

He continued like this for the rest of the season. Here's a hat-trick with his trademark missed penalty thrown in for good measure:

 

And here he is scoring 4: 

 

And another 4:

 

But it wasn't all like that - it was offset by plenty of no-scores: In the end he scored 52 goals from 54 games:

 

Not as much as I was hoping for, but more than I thought he'd get after his injury. After 6 seasons (and having just turned 25) he has 292 goals:

 

He seems to average about a goal a game, so if I can keep him fit, we might finally make the 60 mark - but it probably won't be enough to catchup on that chart. If he's going to make it to 1000, I think he's going to have to play all the way to 40. 

 

England Calling

 

A few weeks after returning from injury, Armstrong was handed his England debut, although with a rating of 5 it was pretty underwhelming. He followed it up with a rating of 7 (no goals or assists) and that's the extent of his England career - he didn't play again for the rest of the season or make the World Cup squad. I can't say I'm sad - that means he won't tire as quickly for us! 

 

Results

 

Our season looked like this:

 

We won the Scottish Premiership easily. We won both cups. And we won the Champions League! That's right - the quadruple. We hadn't done more than a double before as far as I can recall, and we were always knocked out of the Champions League at the first knockout stage, so this was major! 

 

Not sure about my board though. Why are they so delighted by winning the premiership (again), instead of the Champions League win? Oh well, as long as they keep giving me money...

 

Also, it elevated me into 4th best manager in the world (although I dropped back to 8th in the off season):

 

The Champion's League win also immediately triggered the Sugar Daddy unlockable:

 

At least this time I recognised it was an unlockable and said No! I'm already doing reasonably well financially and don't want to spoil this by suddenly buying the best players in the world. I'll work for it thanks!

 

Champion's League

 

If you're interested here's our Champions League results:

Spoiler

 

 

Wins over AC Milan, Porto and Arsenal were fairly comfortable, but we were slightly lucky against Man Utd in the final - it could have gone either way. 

 

Awards

 

Armstrong of course won Scottish Premiership Player of the Year again:

 

But I still can't win the Manager of the Year award. I wasn't even runner up. We won the league by 46 points for goodness sake! 

 

Headhunted!

 

When Robert Mancini was sacked by Manchester City (yes Mancini!), the media suggested I was the favourite to take over. Sure enough, they were right:

 

 

Hmm, that's a tasty thought: A better quality squad, with lots of resale value (ie upgradability) and a large budget to boot, at a club that would attract the best in the world. I wondered: does the 1K challenge allow you to switch clubs and then buy your striker and continue from there? I quickly dismissed the thought. I'm in it for the long haul at Celtic. 

 

Anyway, that's season 6 done! I wonder what awaits next year... More goals I hope!

[BatiGoal]

52 is a decent number already. Keep doing what you're doing, tweaking and improving the team around Armstrong. Take him as far as you can go.

Look on the bright side if you do fail you've learned a lot and bring that valuable experience into your next attempts. But nothing lost yet. KIU!!

[Scratch]

On 12/26/2016 at 15:15, BatiGoal said:

52 is a decent number already. Keep doing what you're doing, tweaking and improving the team around Armstrong. Take him as far as you can go.

Look on the bright side if you do fail you've learned a lot and bring that valuable experience into your next attempts. But nothing lost yet. KIU!!

Heh, yep, I've learnt lots for next time round - though I'm not sure how much of it is specific to this particular striker. For example, it seems this one particular formation gets the best out of him, whereas I know that others (such as you!) seem to be able to get other formations working well enough.

Anyway, I'll keep going and see what happens.

[Ashez]

Slow and steady, a goal a game isn't bad if he can manage 1000 goals . It will be tight and all depends on how he peaks and how long that period lasts now IMO. Keeping the faith! 

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, Ashez said:

Slow and steady, a goal a game isn't bad if he can manage 1000 goals . It will be tight and all depends on how he peaks and how long that period lasts now IMO. Keeping the faith! 

The faith is slipping away! He can do a goal a game, but he'll have to keep that up until he's 39, by which time he'll have terrible stats - and that's if he hasn't retired! But I've come this far with him, so I need to see it through. Truth be told, I'm going to miss him when it's all over.

[Scratch]

Season 7 Update

 

Pre-season

 

We started pre-season with a little drama. Actually it started late in season 6, with several clubs bidding for Emre Can, one our best players:

 

I negotiated to £150M on each occasion and predictably no-one wanted him that badly. He was happy with this approach for the first few bids, but eventually he got upset. No worries, I thought. He'll get over it, I thought. And he did... But his teammates didn't:

 

It turned out 7 or 8 of them had an issue with Can. I've never found a way to fix strained relationships. I think they are permanent, although I'd love to be wrong about that. Anyway, for the sake of team harmony, I regretfully had to sell Can. He was worth £25.5M so I offered him out at £50M. Man Utd came to the party with £47M. Easy come, easy go. But I'll miss him...

 

Next, it seems that players have a definite used by date and need to be thrown out once they reach about 31 years old. Makes me worried about what will happen to Armstrong once he gets to that point. I used to have a policy not to buy older players, but I broke that last season when dropping £21.5M on then 30 year old Douglas Costa. Well, by pre-season he was 31 and he was a shadow of his former self, with most of his attributes down somewhere between 2 and 4. His value had dropped from £22.5M to £8.5M. I tried to sell him, but no one would touch him. I eventually offered him out for a free transfer, but still no takers. His salary is way too high to release him, so I'm still stuck with him in season 8. it looks like he's here for the long haul... 

 

Finally, we arrive at the curious case of goalkeeper Mattia Perin. He came in on a free transfer, even though I really didn't need him. He had good attributes and had played 44 times for Italy, but he wasn't quite as strong as Timo Horn and I didn't need him as backup because I have several awesome youngsters who need game time. Still, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth, so I signed him. As soon as he arrived, I noticed this:

 

He feels that Horn, his rival, is a vital part of the team! Did you just come here to collect your paycheck and wind down your career Mattia? Costa has that deal all wrapped up. Out you go: 

 

Yes, I signed him on a Bosman and sold him for £38M less than a month after he arrived. I'll be my own sugar daddy thanks!

 

The Season

 

Alright Adam, we need a big season from you. I want at least 60 goals from you. I believe you can do it! Now go out there and make an impact!

 

First game of the season. He made an impact alright! A goal after 5 minutes and a red card after 18 minutes. Oh well, it's his first red card in 7 seasons, so no fine this time around! He missed a game, then scored a series of braces, before fading, then bouncing back. Here's a 'photoshop' of the first half of the season:

 

 

I won't show all the hat-tricks, but here's a 5 goal effort in the World Club Championship Final:

 

We had a couple of significant injuries (Samper and Tibbling) in central midfield in the first half of the season, which left us relying on youngsters that weren't as good as I'd thought. I should have replaced Emre Can! I had to buy some midfielders in the January transfer window to solidify that area. The most significant signing was Denis Arevalo who came in from Machester United for £50M plus a £10M player:

 

A little older than I'd like, but not much out there and I have money to burn.

 

Here's the second half of the season:

 

Not bad at all, but pity about the fade out at the end. He had a goal disallowed and then missed a penalty in the last game and if both of those had been goals, he would have made it to 60. In the end, he scored 58 goals from 57 games:

 

Although it seems Armstrong maxed out his star rating (and presumably CA/PA) some time ago, having more experience seems to have helped. For one thing, he used to convert only about 60% of his penalties. That must now be closer to 90%. Maybe that little bit of extra maturity means he's less anxious when he steps up to take them. Also, he seems to last longer in games and recover more quickly between them, even though his Stamina value hasn't moved from 15 for several years.

 

He now has 350 goals in 7 seasons at Celtic:

 

He's averaging 50 goals a season, which isn't too bad, but means he has to play until he's 39 to make it. Given he's going to fall to pieces in his early 30's, it's going to be big ask.

 

Results

 

Another good season, this time a domestic treble: 

 

The one dark spot on the season is that after winning the Champions League last year, we went back to getting knocked out at the first knockout stage. Man Utd had our number this year, but only just.

Spoiler

 

 

We really missed Castro who was out injured as he seems capable of swinging match like this. Which is ironic as I'm going to complain about him being too good later!

 

Awards

 

Armstrong of course won the Scottish Premiership Player of the Year award again, with Castro being runner up (28 goals and 10 assists in 34 games with an average rating of 8.14). 

 

I still can't win Manager of the Year, but at least I was the runner up this year.

 

Other Things

 

One thing I can't help worrying about is that Armstrong's higher quality teammates sometimes take control of a game, even when using the 4 3 2 1 tactic that is supposed to ensure most chances fall to Armstrong. For example, here Castro bags 4 goals:

 

He's done that a number of times. Armstrong is still getting his goals, so I'm not too worried, but I do sometimes wonder if I could find some world class players who always pass and never shoot! I mean Castro got 28 goals and 10 assists - I'd have been happy with 19 goals and 19 assists instead!

 

Also, as we've gotten better as a team, I've noticed that quite a lot of the teams we face have instructions like this:

 

Parking the bus! You can really notice the number of defenders in the box when we attack. We often have less chances than we'd have against better teams who play more attackingly, and you can see that many shots are made under pressure. It's quite frustrating (as their strategy intended).

 

Finally, I've mentioned several times that our team has improved, but haven't really mentioned much about the other players, so here is a glimpse of some of his teammates:

Spoiler

Timo Horn, Bosman signing in season 6, surprisingly no caps for Germany, but still got a work permit:

 

Alex Marriot, Bosman signing in season 3, developing into Horn's replacement:

 

Denis Arevalo, £50M (plus £10M player) from Man Utd, this year:

 

Sergi Samper, £25M from Barcelona in season 5, bought while the work permit unlockable was in place:

 

Simon Tibbling, Bosman signing in season 4:

 

Fernando Rivas, £3.9M from Jiangsu in season 6:

 

Balde Keita, £15M from Vigo in season 7:

 

Leandro Nascimento Castro, £2.5M from COR in season 6, the pick of the bunch, appeal for work permit successful even though he has no caps:

 

Orlando Henrique, £3.7 from Vit Guimaraes in season 7 (but he lost most of those numbers after injury, needs to build them back up):

 

Oleg Mamaev, Bosman signing in season 3:

 

Alfredo Contento, £16.5M from Lazio in season 6 (he should be good, but he only gets subbed on at the end of games, so haven't really tested him!):

 

 

 

Oh and I should probably show you the man himself:

 

Far from the best player on the team, but knows how to do his job... Season 8, now underway!

Edited December 28, 2016 by scratch99

[Scratch]

Wow, these updates are getting longer! 

[BatiGoal]

58 goals is great. Just try to get 60 goals and maybe even 70 and worry about the rest later. Go as far as you can go. KIU!

[Scratch]

20 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

58 goals is great. Just try to get 60 goals and maybe even 70 and worry about the rest later. Go as far as you can go. KIU!

Thanks for the encouragement. I think I'll be very happy if I can get him to 900. I'm already planning the next 1K attempt though.

[PriZe]

Just catched up with your progress so far. Pfff m8 some tough going so far! But keep faith  if you need help with the tactic just gimme a shout!

[Scratch]

12 hours ago, PriZe said:

Just catched up with your progress so far. Pfff m8 some tough going so far! But keep faith  if you need help with the tactic just gimme a shout!

Thanks! Actually the tactic is working really well at the moment. I'm up to February in Season 8 and we've drawn 2 games and won everything else! 85 goals for in the league and only 5 goals against! 

The tactic used to go off after a while, but now that I've got really good players, that doesn't happen anymore. In fact, they seem to dominate no matter which formation we use. Makes sense I guess! Once you have great players the formation isn't nearly as important.

With so many teams parking the bus against us, I generally switch to this formation if we haven't scored after 30 minutes:

Everyone is still green, no one playing in a position they aren't comfortable with, but we score more and generally don't concede at the other end. I'm using DLFs instead of IFs to give more Armstrong more space (IFs really crowd him). In fact, it's going so well, I might switch to this as my starting formation.

[PriZe]

Good to hear it is working m8! Hope Armstrong picks up for you now  Interesting looking tactic! And yeah if you have the right players in place you mostly dominate the games  KIU!

[Scratch]

Season 8 Update

 

Season 8 and once again, we really need somewhere in the region of 60 to 70 to keep our faint hopes of making it to 1000 goals alive. How did things go? Read on, but spoiler: it was a great season for both the team and for Armstrong.

 

Pre-season

 

For a change, not much happened in pre-season. We had the usual intake of new players, but no-one particularly noteworthy.

 

Season

 

The season got off to a great start for the team with an 8 - 0 defeat of St Johnstone: 

 

Only 1 goal for Armstrong, but we really signaled our intent. From there it just continued on. We only lost 1 game all season (and unfortunately it was one that mattered). Here's another important moment for the team, dominating Bayern and beating them 5 - 0 away:

 

No goal for Armstrong that day, but he did score a lot this year. Here is the first half of the season:

 

And here is the second:

 

Armstrong managed to stay healthy. He picked up 5 or 6 knocks, but no injuries and only needed to be rested for 2 games. In the end, he scored 70 goals in 58 games:

 

I have to be happy with that. He's now up to 420 goals for Celtic in 8 seasons, and has made a slight recovery on the chart:

 

If he can keep banging in 70 goals a year, we'll get back on track. However, he's now turned 27 and the question is long can he keep that sort of number up. I suspect it won't be long enough, but we'll see. 

 

Results

 

As is becoming a habit, we got the domestic treble:

 

In the league we went 37 - 1 - 0, with a 112 goals for and only 7 against. A good season by any measure. Shame about that draw! Still we need something to shoot for next year.  

 

In the Champions League, we brushed aside Besiktas 9 - 2 over two legs, then Porto 8 - 1, then Chelsea 3 - 1, but Sevilla managed to beat us 2 - 1 in the final:

 

This was the only game we lost all season and as you can see, we had more shots than our opponents. After we scored, I left our tactics as attacking instead of changing to a more defensive setup and we paid the price 5 minutes later. I need to take these European games more seriously! #suchanoob

 

Awards

 

As usual, Armstrong won the Scottish Premiership Player of the Year award:

 

I finally won the Manager of the Year award after many years of being overlooked! I guess they couldn't pass me by after winning the league by 51 points with a goal difference of 105.

 

And a surprise came in December as Armstrong won the World Player of the Year award, the first time he's been recognised outside of Scotland:

 

Way to go Adam!

 

Formation

 

I've been using the same 4 3 2 1 formation for years now, but because the vast majority of opponents park the bus against us, I've shifted to this alternative (sometimes from mid-game, sometimes from the start):

 

Basically everyone is pushed forward a bit. The 2 extra forwards are DLFs so that they don't crowd Armstrong too much. This formation is working well, although I may experiment with other more attacking formations in future.

 

England

 

Two seasons after Armstrong's two England appearances, Gareth Southgate came calling again and gave him two more caps. This time he rated 7 in both games, but no goals. Southgate just doesn't know how to get the best out of him. And Southgate is taking Gareth Bates, our backup striker, to the Euros instead of Armstrong...

 

@billy2shots suggested that I should apply for the England job and get him some extra goals that way. I'm not sure they'd want an Australian, but I decided I'd apply if it became available. Unfortunately Southgate has hung onto the job. He was insecure for a while after England was knocked out in the first knockout stage of the last World Cup, but he wasn't sacked and is no longer in danger. Looks like we're doing this just on club goals!

 

Other - Castro

 

In the last season update, I mentioned it was surprising that Castro had not had any caps for Brazil. Well the Work Permit office knew what they were doing when they gave him a work permit, as Castro made his international debut and played in 7 games with 4 goals and 3 assists. A late start at 27, but he is a genuine superstar. I muzzled him a bit for Celtic, rotating him, bringing him off the bench, forcing him into the winger role, so he didn't take away from Armstrong too much, but he is great!

 

Other - Fixture Madness

 

At one point we had to play 4 games in 8 days:

 

We have a large squad, so we could cope with it, but the Champions League Semi Final two days after the Scottish Cup Semi Final? Harsh. There, I'm a proper manager now that I've moaned about fixtures...

 

Anyway, another year over and I can only hope for more of the same next year!

[BatiGoal]

70 goals! that's the works. one thing, try going with a CD instead of LD. CD is a much better match up for BPDs as they will provide the possession a BPD needs to work more effectively. More runs more passes etc. Should get you more chances and eventually more goals.

It's rare to get 2 defs work especially only conceding 7 goals in the league. I guess Scotland is the place. Really hope Armstrong gets there. KIU!

[PriZe]

Nice one m8! Great improvement

[Scratch]

On 12/31/2016 at 19:18, BatiGoal said:

70 goals! that's the works. one thing, try going with a CD instead of LD. CD is a much better match up for BPDs as they will provide the possession a BPD needs to work more effectively. More runs more passes etc. Should get you more chances and eventually more goals.

It's rare to get 2 defs work especially only conceding 7 goals in the league. I guess Scotland is the place. Really hope Armstrong gets there. KIU!

Thanks, I read the theory behind that in your combinations post - I'm trying it out this season. Not necessarily related to that, but after 4 league games, we've already let in 4 goals!

Maybe last season was a once off. Most likely it was because everyone parked the bus against us and didn't even try to score. This season, in at least 2 of those 4 games, teams have been attacking us and get getting some goals. We're still winning (3-1-0), but conceding more.

Also, I changed goal keeper and it seems the new one is a little more leaky. His stats are generally great, but his Communication is only 16 compared to 20 for the old keeper, so that may also explain why we're letting more in. And I'm mixing the defenders around a little (though I did that last year too).

Anyway, I don't mind letting in more goals if we're scoring more... and Armstrong has 8 goals from 4 games in the league!

15 hours ago, PriZe said:

Nice one m8! Great improvement

Thanks!

[Jack]

One if the best careers I've read through, really enjoyable read.

Two or three more big seasons like that and you'll be back on track... Definitely possible given your team if you can keep him injury free!

Edited January 1, 2017 by Jack

[Scratch]

3 hours ago, Jack said:

One if the best careers be read through, really enjoyable read.

Two or three more big seasons like that and you'll be back on track... Definitely possible given your team if you can keep him injury free!

Thanks! I'd almost given up but I'm definitely a lot more positive now. But still a long way to go. We'll take it one match at a time.

[Scratch]

Speaking of one match at a time, this was our last match:

Yes,  6 goals for Armstrong! Six!

I couldn't wait until the season update to share this!