Career Taff Attempts The Uk Challenge Ver 2.0

[mcandrew003]

Just caught up, fantastic and well done mate, your gonna make me play again  and challenge you all!

[Taff]

Season 6 (Otherwise known as the "Revenge of the Gunners")

So as my previous post said I decided that i had spent enough time in Ireland and decided to take a gamble and resign both my posts as Cliftonville manager and Cameroon manager 

So with my future uncertain I must admit to being a tad unsure of what to do with myself, I checked the job markets and not one week after my resignation a job in the SPL opened up, I was hesitant as I had had no success so far with any jobs in this league but you dont know if you dont try so I placed my application and within a week I was selected to take over for one of the most well known of all Scottish clubs

I am now the proud manager of Rangers and my journey through the UK can finally get the fresh start it needed 

So with the my appointment I take a look at the squad and see what I have to work with, and there not a bad bunch of boys, could do with some new additions but not bad at all.

So I hit the Transfer market and look at who I can bring in to help the squad out (you'll see why I've dubbed this "The Revenge of the Gunners"

Spoiler

So with a bit of financial tweaking I manage to grab some very decent players to help get the team to where i need them.  Morrison was already purchased before I joined, I added Taylor to give my FB position a much needed upgrade, Andrade was a great cheep find from SLB to help out the wide players (they have like 350 of them) and Jean-Philippe was a fantastic addition to the midfield.  but my four proudest buys were four (yes 4) ex Arsenal players in Sanchez, Ozil, Giroud and Koscielny all well into their 30's but come on these are world class players and I couldn't refuse

The players going out were all sold in the January window as they were the players most unhappy about not playing and when I started receiving offers I couldn't turn them down

 

So with a newly formed squad I had to decide on who was going to be my main man upfront so looking at the squad I had three very good candidates

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My newly acquired free agent Giroud who in his prime would have knocked this out of the park, but with low dribbling and his shooting now under 14 maybe Giroud would be a decent backup

The young man brought in before I joined, his shooting and pace make him a decent prospect but his stamina could let him down

Now this guy looks very good, shooting, pace, movement, stamina and decisions all in the green could he be my man

 

I decided to use the first round of games through till September to see which one of my guys could prove his worth and come September i had made my decision and chose to use this guy as my main attacker

So i put a more attacking formation in place choosing to go with a 4231 with Sanchez on the left as my IF and Ozil in behind the striker as an AP we set off in search of 38 domestic goals

So we went on our way through the SPL and the domestic cups, even managing to qualify for the UCL group stages

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Which went horribly but come on look at that for a group what chance did we have (We did only loose the 4 games by small margins each time but it was never really on the cards for us to get out of this group

The rest of the season went much better

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We take the league title with 7 games to go and leave Celtic in our rear view mirror 

Finishing a very good league campaign with just one loss and a very healthy amount of goals and points

So with the League in our pocket we also had two domestic cups to play for

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The first one is a cake walk with two of my ex Gunners getting in on the action

And the same score line sees us lift the Scottish cup over hearts thanks to a brace from Dodoo and Giroud (there a very catchy terrace chant in there some where "Dodoo and Giroud what more can they do..."

So a very good domestic season winning the league and both domestic cups, but this challenge isn't about trophies it's about records and so how did the little English man do up in the Highlands of Scotland 

Here's how his stats look at the end of the year

No real improvement but still a very decent looking striker

His season history 

43 goals in 47 games and he takes the record with an extra 6 goals (not amazing but enough to see me through when a job in WALES!!!! comes up) might try another season to see if I can improve on this but if a job comes up I'm happy to leave it there

Spoiler

The Magic moment he scored the all important goal #38

A great counter move started by Ozil, a nice pass over to Dodoo who steadies his feet in the wet conditions

He keeps the ball low and slides it into the bottom corner

And Rangers take the lead at Celtic Park, what a great move and pass from Ozil and a nice finish from Dodoo 

Here's how the season fixtures played out

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And here's the team stats for the end of the year

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Dodoo leading the way but a great 36 goals from my former Gunners helps us to a great domestic season

And two of my new additions combining for 37 assists from my AP and BBM

We manage to grab a few awards at the close of the season also

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My two main attacking threats claim the top two spots in the SPL POTY

My young CD Braniff claims the YPOTY

And I'm named SPL MOTY thanks to all my hard work I'm sure

So a very good season (would have liked a few more goals but can't complain

Will stay with Rangers (for another season or until a decent Job in Wales opens up)

As always thank you all so much for following and commenting I really do appreciate everyone taking the time to do so

Stay tuned

[BatiGoal]

Great to see some progress here. What a CL group btw  another season in SPL would probably get you a bigger record but if a Welsh club comes knocking.. either way good to see you're edging closer to that finishline.

[Taff]

10 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Great to see some progress here. What a CL group btw  another season in SPL would probably get you a bigger record but if a Welsh club comes knocking.. either way good to see you're edging closer to that finishline.

Cheers dude, like you said I'll try to bump it up but if a decent Welsh team comes a knocking I can't really turn down the opportunity

@AndersJ the race is on my friend  

[Ashez]

Congrats on getting this out the way quickly! Loving the Arsenal tribute haha. Hopefully you get to Wales quickly  

[Taff]

2 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Congrats on getting this out the way quickly! Loving the Arsenal tribute haha. Hopefully you get to Wales quickly  

I'm keeping my eyes focused on the job market, but don't want to just jump into any team looking for TNS or maybe someone who finished top 5 last year

[AndersJ]

@Taff amazing!!! Great going mate and great player! Yes choose your club wisely and not like i did ( a club with only 3 Real players ??

best of luck

kind regards

Anders Jørgensen ( manager of Colchester )

[Taff]

Just now, AndersJ said:

@Taff amazing!!! Great going mate and great player! Yes choose your club wisely and not like i did ( a club with only 3 Real players ??

best of luck

kind regards

Anders Jørgensen ( manager of Colchester )

WOW a message from the manager of Colchester I'm so honoured 

Cheers dude, I'm in no rush if nothing comes up I'll try another season with Rangers to try and boost my goal tally

[AndersJ]

Yeah LOL! Its a great honour or something :D!!

wise choice - im in 2028 soon and still in league two. Does the game run till 2035?

[Mr.Manager]

Congrats on finally getting a Scottish job Taff! And a brilliant effort with Dodoo. I know you can squeeze a few more out of him, his stats look awesome.

[Taff]

Season 7

So we're back with our 7th season of the UK challenge.

We managed to break the record last season with my young English Striker Dodoo, but decided he could do better, so the Plan going into the season was to remain at Rangers unless one of the bigger teams in Wales (Pretty much just TNS) became available then I would jump ship, otherwise try and crack on and grab a bigger tally in Scotland

So with the possibility of another full season in Scotland I went shopping to try and strengthen the squad, while cutting away some deadwood

Spoiler

We made some good deals this year with the limited budget we had, Arias and Borriello were brought in to give Ozil some back up at the AP position (not that he really needed it) Cordoba and Schwartz were brought in to star in the CM area (always try to look for players with min stamina of 15) Mari and Zoller came in to give me more options at CD and Iancu was a great find for the RB position 

Not much in the way of sales going out but enough, they all had no place in the team and was glad to get the £2.5M which helped out immensely 

So we cracked on with the season hoping to get Dodoo to set the bar a little higher on the goal record, and he started so well, here's his history as of the 1st of January 2024

39 goals in 35 games and only 4 off his tally last season and I think "Hell boy you could hit 60 easy" and that was the kiss of death as he went the rest of the season (25 games) scoring only 16 goals

He did bag 5 in one game but look at all those wasted games

He finishes the season with a (respectable but slightly heartbreaking) tally of 55 goals in 60 games which should make me happy but the incredible dip in form just has no explanation apart from I should have rested him more maybe

But as for the clubs season well it went pretty well

Spoiler

We win our second SPL title with 6 games remaining and a good record 

We struggle towards the end of the year as our remaining 6 games we draw 4 and win 2, but have a very good 21 point gap over Celtic

As for the Cups

A very tight game sees both teams score twice in extra time taking the game to penalties where we emerge victorious and claim our second Betfred Cup

We manage to complete our second domestic treble in two years grabbing the Scottish Cup with a scrappy 3-1 win over Hearts

So another domestic treble for Rangers in a great season for the team.  We also managed to make our way through to the UCL group stage for the second year

Spoiler

And we're drawn in yet another tough group facing some of the biggest names in football, but we manage to hold our own

Finishing the group in the runner up spot after a decent run of games, beating Fenerbahce twice, a win and a loss to City and a loss and a draw with Barca

we would then go on to face SLB in the first knock out round where our journey ended

The home leg ended in a 0-0 draw and the away leg looked like ours for the taking on away goals until Jimenez knocked in the winner in the 93rd minute

Here's the full season fixture list

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Here's the team stats for the season

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Dodoo and Sanchez once again leading the attack (still kills me he didn't score more)

My RW and AP leading the way with the assists this year

And finally some end of season awards as well

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My two main attackers combine once more to claim the top two spots in the SPL POTY

And a MOTY award for myself

So a better season but could have been so much better

Here's how the goal tally stands after two stages

Ireland - 52

Scotland - 55

Total - 107

Thanks for following and stay tuned 

[AndersJ]

Totally great season :)! Im looking forward to your season in Wales :)!

[Taff]

44 minutes ago, AndersJ said:

Totally great season :)! Im looking forward to your season in Wales :)!

Just got to get there first LOL

[BatiGoal]

Your total is looking good, mate! Hope you get to the next stage soon.

[Taff]

Season 8

So onto our 8th season now of this challenge and what a ride it's been from the Emerald Isle to the Highlands now we need to get to the Dragons Den

Wales is a holy crap storm of a league and anyone who has had success there fair play, but apart from TNS (The New Saints) the other teams have no one to write home about.

I began the season still at Rangers but looked early into the Job Market and there were two jobs in the WPL available, one with Carmarthen who had 8-9 players in the squad, so that ruled them out, but the other had a full squad and I didn't want to hang around as needing 48 goals in a league where they only play 32 games was a huge task, so I applied for the other Vacancy and am glad (sort of) to announce that Hellfor Leather is now the manager of....

YEAH THATS RIGHT BABY Cardiff Met Uni!!!!!!!!!!!  Not sure how happy I'll be but what the hell I'm here now

So after an extensive look at the players we have a decentish team but I scoured the Free Agents pool (no Transfer budget at all) and grabbed a few extra players to boost the squad (except for strikers as the team has like 7 of them, and at first I thought I'd found a few gems here but mostly youngsters who are regens of sort (looked at their history and they are all youth academy rejects from Premiership clubs who turn up in the game around 2017/2018) so there not eligible, but the team brought in a striker from TNS and although he wasn't spectacular to look at he was real and had decent stats so this will be my man.

Jonathan Evans, decent shooting, dribbling, positioning, pace and stamina (trust me 10 in these two is good in this league)

So with Evans set to be my main man we set off, needing a miracle, but my prayers were answered as the team just clicked this year (I changed tactics every three or four games to keep the AI guessing and it seemed to work) although around 75% of Evans goals came from penalties and free kicks (which he was amazing at seriously high % of free kicks scored) we ploughed on and he did very well scoring in nearly every game, but I started sweating when he still needed 10 goals in 7 games but thankfully on the very last WPL game of the season he answered

Scoring a penalty in the 7th minute to tie the record and then...

Smashes home a free kick to grab the all important 48th goal of the season

We then went into the JD Welsh Cup Final where...

Evans grabs another double to end the season with 50 goals.

A fantastic buy by the previous manager

here's his stats at the end of the season

His pace came down, but shooting up 2 points and passing and dribbling still good.

So there it is STAGE 3 COMPLETE BRING ON THE EPL BABY

This great season was all down to the team though everyone setup to provide for my striker

Spoiler

A few goals shared around (David English would have killed this challenge in three months the way he played when asked, but as a regen I used him as either a TM/DLF or DF to help provide chances for Evans

Glendinning was a great BBM and Mckinney played as either a AP or CM role but all the team were set up with more passing roles to give Evans more chances and it seemed to work

 Here's the transfers (the big club release clause struck again)

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Evans must have used up the clubs resources then was forced to sell three of my star players in the winter transfer market so grabbed Burke (CD), McKinney (CM) and Clarke (CM) with some funds received, then Williams, Parry, Bell, Dempster and Law all free agents but all played a big big part in this years success 

All 4 players were big parts of the squad but the release clause meant I had no power over their staying but got some good replacements with the funds so no hard feelings (TRAITORS THE LOT OF YOU!!!!!)

Here's how the team did this season 

Spoiler

We manage to make it to the Nathaniel MG Cup final after two or three penalty shootout wins, and the final was no different with Evans grabbing a brace in the game and getting the shootout to a good start (didn't realise my CD would be up next but never mind)

We destroyed the league winning with 6 games to go

A nice gap over our nearest rivals Llandudno (how they came second in the league with negative GD I'll never know)

and as you've already seen

We make it 2/2 in the domestic cup competitions thanks to another cup final brace from Evans 

Here's our season fixtures

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We manage to grab a few end of season awards as well

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Evans rightly grabs the WPL POTY

My great young CD Ross comes 2nd in the YPOTY

But apparently I only did enough to claim 2nd in the MOTY award

So onto season four and hopefully a job in the EPL, which I'm confident about getting due to my manager rep

Spoiler

11th best ranked manager in the World so hopefully should be able to grab a job ASAP

Cheers for following guys and I'll be back soon

[AndersJ]

Haha NOOOOOOOO!!!! i give up @Taff ???

seriously thats AWESOME done that!!

[BatiGoal]

No surprise you rocked your home league! Amazing job getting stage 3 done in 1 season. It's tough getting 50 gls in Wales without having much time and money for squad building. Can't wait to see your club and player for the final stage. You gotta bring this home, you gotta!

[Brenty92]

For some reason I'd followed this thread when you started it and I weren't getting the notifications so I've refollowed now (it's worked this time!). Brilliant going there bud all that's left is some idiot in England needs to be cut short ? Good luck!

[Ashez]

Seriously smashing this! Good luck moving to the Prem!

[veerus]

How do you get to the Hall of Fame coaching page?

[Taff]

16 hours ago, AndersJ said:

Haha NOOOOOOOO!!!! i give up @Taff ???

seriously thats AWESOME done that!!

Cheers dude, I was hoping that my manager ranking would make it easy to grab a Prem job but none (and I mean none have come up in my second season in Wales, but your's is looking good and think you'll crack it in your next season

16 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

No surprise you rocked your home league! Amazing job getting stage 3 done in 1 season. It's tough getting 50 gls in Wales without having much time and money for squad building. Can't wait to see your club and player for the final stage. You gotta bring this home, you gotta!

Truthfully I was just incredibly lucky, I don't think I could repeat it in a million years but glad it's out of the way just have to wait for a Prem job now, almost through my second season in the WPL and nothing has come up

16 hours ago, Brenty92 said:

For some reason I'd followed this thread when you started it and I weren't getting the notifications so I've refollowed now (it's worked this time!). Brilliant going there bud all that's left is some idiot in England needs to be cut short ? Good luck!

Cheers for following me twice Brenty nice to feel loved

15 hours ago, Ashez said:

Seriously smashing this! Good luck moving to the Prem!

Cheers Ash, hoping to land a decent team and smash this out of the park

5 hours ago, veerus said:

How do you get to the Hall of Fame coaching page?

To to the Options tap and there's a big gold star with the hall of fame lets you check the manager rankings, unfortunately the job in Wales has knocked me from 11th to right off the board which is really annoying as getting a Prem job now will be seriously hard

[Taff]

OK might have a problem here

Due to my manager ranking slipping back down to regional I'm struggling to land a PREm job, and because I loaded the leagues in order I can't do what my very clever friend @AndersJ did and take control of a league two team and move up.  I'll keep trying but I think I've screwed the pooch here

[AndersJ]

What mate ? Why cant you do that ? Can we do anything to help you?

[Taff]

Because I loaded the Irish League as the Primary the English league only loads the Premiership and my manager stats went from 11th best in the world all the way back to regional because I chose to manage in the WPL

I've taken on the Nigeria job in the hopes of boosting my stats but I think I'm out of options apart from starting over if nothing happens after another season

[AndersJ]

Ohhh that makes scence yes, sorry to hear if you dont get the opportunity to complete the mission we are on together mate.

[Taff]

I'll keep plugging away for now but if I have to start over it's not the end of the world

[Mr.Manager]

Ah, so you've got top league only for England? That's a nightmare mate. I'd guess success for Nigeria might help you, or if you manage to get Cardiff Met Uni to make an impact on Europe (you can do it!)

[Taff]

There my only options, Cardiff have done ok got them through two sets of qualifying for the past two seasons and if by some miracle i can get Nigeria to the WC 1/4 finals hopefully I'll be OK but might just have to bite the bullet

@BatiGoal is going to be so disappointed if I have to start over after getting so close

[Mr.Manager]

10 minutes ago, Taff said:

There my only options, Cardiff have done ok got them through two sets of qualifying for the past two seasons and if by some miracle i can get Nigeria to the WC 1/4 finals hopefully I'll be OK but might just have to bite the bullet

@BatiGoal is going to be so disappointed if I have to start over after getting so close

That'd be such a shame mate. You're clearly some player though, wringing so many goals out of these guys.

[Taff]

Just luck and finding some decent players but I'm gonna leave this here for now and go back to my latin challenge and revisit this later on