Solid enough. I think you've done as well as you possibly could in the window. It's difficult to gauge that now given how far into the save though! The progression of the squad is encouraging so progression should follow with an improvement upon last season and the final position there.
Things are continuing to improve and you should be proud of that. The additions of King and Cannella look to be some good signings, despite Cannella's poor start. There seems to be a good amount of depth and first team quality added and I believe you have the ability to get that top half finish this season, despite what the preview says.
#124 - Goals goals goals…
26/12/2042 -- Never a dull moment if you are watching Spartans. That’s for sure. But I can’t enjoy it any longer to be honest. This game, set-pieces together with the match-engine in particular, is really broken isn’t it? Man, man man what the fuck is going on all the time? Seriously. I had the intention not to complain about this game anymore since the ridiculous West Ham United match, but the game leaves me behind with no choice other than complaining again. I spend hours for doing some proper set-pieces settings but it doesn’t really matter whether you do it or not, isn’t it? It seems even more worse right now actually… You have to believe me 95% of the goals we concede over the last ten matches (or actually throughout the whole season) are scored by set-pieces or as a direct result from set-pieces. It’s just not realistic anymore. Also the amount of penalties against us is insane. Ten already in nineteen matches! And we are playing not even aggressive or such… Most of the time those penalties are given after a very tiny push or a ridiculous foul from one of my players in the most outer corner of the box where it doesn’t make any sense because there are plenty of players left behind the ball.
So far we concede 38 goals. 38! Two per game, even more on average then last season… The most of all teams in the league, and we are not even playing very attacking or such. And on top of that it’s definitely not because of my goalkeeper! He’s even on an average rating of 6.89 currently. That’s probably the highest average rating for a goalkeeper so far throughout my entire career! He made some awesome saves already, but yeah, what can he possibly do if every team is rewarded with at least ten free kicks per game close to the box with my tall defenders not able for heading the ball away more often… In the Rangers game my goalkeeper was even rewarded with a 7.90! He stopped two penalties (and made many more saves), but couldn’t avoid we were 2-0 behind after the first half. Both goals from set-pieces, but that’s no surprise at all. We were completely outplayed with them creating many chances, but the only way to score goals is from set-pieces apparently. In the second half suddenly from nowhere we scored two absolute missiles from distance, without changing anything at the tactics. After the 2-2 I got slightly more defensively, but of course Rangers scored the late winning goal at the end again (a proper field goal this time, which is very rare!). Don’t get me wrong, they deserved the result, but the way how things are sorting out on the pitch felt so unnatural to me all the time.
Tactics doesn’t seemed to work properly anyway. Throughout my entire career I got more attacking during the last twenty minutes or so when we are just one goal behind in at least 300 matches or so. But the amount of times we forced a turnaround can be count on the fingers of only one hand. But the times our opponent is forcing a late equalizer, or even handled to win the game with two late goals is happening far more often. It’s completely out of balance. Even if I got more defensive (which I do quite often). Apparently they can score a goal when they are playing more attacking at the end, but for some reason we are not allowed to do so. Whatever you are doing, most of the time exactly the opposite of what you could expect after you made some changes is happening. Never I have the feeling there is really something that has changed on the pitch if you made some tactical changes during the match. It’s just completely out of your hands all the time what is going on (in fact that's always the case of course, but you know what I mean, don't you!?). You are entirely delivered to the games under the carpet AI settings. Especially in cup games. There is some kind of a setting which is allowing smaller teams to beat bigger teams as a surprise, but that setting is never ever in my favour when I’m facing a bigger team.
So I think I can say now this match engine is probably one of the worst in all the years I’m playing this game. All the fun I could have is draining away currently. Very rapidly. It’s completely random what is going on all the time. I mean, it’s quite remarkable we are scoring so much goals this season (46 already), but how in the world is that possible? Honestly. We are not playing very attacking (more like balanced) and we barely score a goal from set-pieces. Almost all the goals we score are from some proper field play. How is it possible then that our opponents can only score from set-pieces? And what about those full-backs in this game. I have used multiple tactics throughout my entire career, I have played with players in a range from world-class to absolute shit, but there average rating is always terrible. Just always. They are making awful decisions all the time. Although, that’s what the match engine does show to you and that’s the main reason why there are so many set-pieces currently I think. Because the players on those two spots need to recover their stupid mistakes with a foul all the time. If there is a next season I’m going to play with defensive wingers, just to see if there is any difference. I did it earlier before for a couple of months when at Hearts, but that went horribly wrong by the time…
I’m asking myself right now why I am still playing this game actually. This has nothing to do anymore with football. It’s just a gigantic box with settings and the game is picking situations out of it completely random, or at least far too random. There is no coincidence between circumstances at all, and that seems to get even more worse when you are reaching further and further into your career. Take a look at the transfers the AI is doing for instance. There are so many stupid transfers going on all the time. It’s a problem since ages in this franchise, but apparently it’s not important for those developers to solve it. How difficult will it be to add some algorithms that avoids a club to sell the same player twice (or sometimes even for a third time) and written him off just a year later over and over again because he doesn't have the skills obvious. But no, apparently all those stupid media things, interviews, ship-tonnes of twitter nonsense (is somebody really reading this?) and dozens of press conferences which are driving you mad after a while seems to have way more importance (and are affecting the results too heavily is my strong feeling, but I have no proof for that).
The only thing that keeps me afloat is the never ending hunger for success. The little glimmer of satisfaction when you have won something. Although you know somewhere deep into your heart that it’s probably scripted anyway… Remember the season when I became the champion with Spurs in the last playing round for instance… It felt like the game was already preparing itself for such an outcome... Well, this is my frustration update again for a while, I am completely ‘emptied’ now for the next couple of seasons with some shit going on all over the place again! Almost forgot to say we are performing not that bad in the league, but it’s more like the way how things are sorting out. We are nineth in the league currently after we played a couple of tough matches during the last month. Especially the Celtic game was a big joke. They scored five goals as you can see. All five goals from a free kick. One direct and four as a crossing which were headed in. Truly realistic… Even not if you are the most worse team in the league with the most terrible defenders into your squad, or being the most worse manager who don’t know anything about set-pieces… I just have to deal with it for the time being I guess…
Note: Sorry guys, just had to lose some of my frustration about the game. Which worked for me, ha-ha! So far so good Scott. Being 9th currently is really not bad, although I'm definitely not happy the way how it goes. King should be a very good player indeed TheLFCFan, however it doesn't sort out on the pitch in either way. Currently he is even warming the bench most of the time... I truly hope so Griffo!
You'll be licking your lips over how close you are to the teams above. Could very well climb into a European spot soon!
Your rant posts always make for great reading and entertainment. I personally disagree with many aspects of it, but that's all down to personal opinion.
#125 - What about European football?
13/03/2043 -- After all the complains last time we performed quite well in the next seven league games. I think I need to complain more often! When I did so during my period at Spurs after the famous West Ham game our form suddenly increased heavily, and this time exactly the same happened. We only lost terribly against Queen of the South, but the other six matches granted us 18 point! Quite amazing, which brought us even within the best five in the league at some point. That seems to good to be true and so it was. The next games against tough opponents like Celtic and Hearts went lost (although it was pretty close), we played a draw against Saint Mirren which is one of the few teams we are always struggling with for some reason, but straighten our backs again in the Dunfermline away game, which we handled to win with 1-0.
Again most of the goals we conceded over the last eleven games were from set-pieces, so all the instructions I’ve set doesn’t seemed to work properly yet… Maybe I need to do some more tweaks, but I have to figuring out first what is actually going wrong all the time. Currently we are sixth in the league, which is far better than I already expected. Actually we are pretty close behind the spots for European football. Could you believe! But that will probably not happen. The current league table is a little bit messed up because both Dundee and Kilmarnock have five(!) games in hand because of European football. If they handle to win 2/3 of this matches, which is likely going to happen, they will overtook us for sure. On top of that we have some tough games in front of us till the end of the season. So, European football is probably not given to us already, but I think we should be truly satisfied that we can even talk about European football at this point. I mean, it’s only our second season in the Premiership!
Winter transfers
I’m not a huge fan of winter transfers (partly because we don’t have the necessary funds for it either!) and because of that I barely have done transfers during wintertime this entire career. But last window I did a winter transfer since a very long time I believe. My second goalkeeper was complaining for a while already because of he didn’t play much, but I couldn’t sell him because we don’t have any proper back-up goalkeepers. But when a bid was coming in of around £270,000 I decided to take a look at the loan market to search for a temporary replacement till the end of the season. I found just one guy, but one is enough! So at the end I made the decision for selling Kareem Grant to Crewe Alexandra and hired young goalkeeper Stewart Schiavone from Saint Johnstone for the rest of the season. Everybody happy, but beside of that we just need the money because we have ran into debts again currently. Although that will be solved after we receive our prize money at the end of the season, which can be really high this time if we handled to finish around the 7th place or so.
With just a few games to go, you're incredibly close to European qualification! You might just end up with continental competition soon with some good form!
I'm really pleased to see this upturn in form. Perhaps the number of games Dundee and Kilmarnock have to play could catch up with them and enable you to capitalise?
#126 - This can’t be true…
24/05/2043 -- Fasten your seatbelts, a new rollercoaster ride full of emotions is starting to begin this episode. And of course Luke Barra Henderson is taking part of it! The game pushed me to the absolute limits again as never seen before. Just hang on and read with me, don’t scroll down immediately for screwing up this utterly surprising outcome of this season…
Our last run of eight games starts with an away match against Hamilton. By the time I was at the wheel at Hearts they were pretty good because of oil money, but that Russian dude isn’t in charge anymore and since then they are slightly dropping down in the league over the last years. So we are certainly not without a chance in advance. We gave them a really good game, but at the end they scored from two set-pieces again with the game ending in a 2-2 draw… All those set-piece goals are frustrating me heavily, but maybe I have found a solution. Almost all of the free kicks against us are scored after a cross into the box with one of their players banging in a goal via an header or sometimes a shot. Almost all of them at the far post.
I always make use of two guys standing at the goal line, but now I decide to move them up into the box, at one single line together with everybody else. We are now trying to force our opponents into an offside position for doing so. And that seems to work so far! Until the end of the season we concede less goals from set-pieces. This might be a solution to become more successful next season. But first back to this year’s league. Our next game was against Rangers, who are struggling this season, just as they did the season before. But yeah, could you expect something else when you are hiring Mark van Bommel as a manager, who is sacked just everywhere throughout his entire career year after year. Well, he can search for a new job once again, because he was sacked immediately after we beat them with a glorious 3-1 win!
We are coming close to the top five again if we can win the game against Partick Thistle, but also Partick is one of the opponents we are struggling with quite often. That wasn’t any different today and so we lost in front of our own crowd… The next two games are pretty hard and are crucial for the outcome of this season. The first of them was Hibernian away, the last seasons champion (and the second ‘Edinburgh’ title in a row after Hearts has won the league the year before). Again we played a pretty good match but as so many times before we lost two points after an extra time winner… No, I’m not born to be lucky at all…
But a very surprising win in the away game thereafter against Kilmarnock kept us in the race for European football a little while longer. We handled to win the game with 2-0 after Monaghan (with a wonderful goal from distance in the upper right corner of the goal) and Walker-Nightingale took care for the goals. Walker-Nightingale really improved this season and forms a deadly couple together with Williamson, although Williamson lost some form in the last few months this season. Sadly, because he was in the lead for winning the top goalscorers title the entire season, but is now overtaken by a guy from Queen of the South (who never scored more than 7 goals in one season all years before by the way…). I feel a bit sad for him, because last season this was the case as well, although it was because of an injury that time.
Anyway, if we can win the next game against Dundee United as well there might be a chance we can take our destiny in our own hands. They are fifteenth in the league, so it could be possible. But of course we screwed it again… Although we didn’t play bad it was not given to us today. After a very early goal (which happened to us quite often this year) they went fully defensive and we couldn’t find a gap to score the deserved equalizer afterwards. Everything seemed lost now. After we were fifth or sixth in the league for a while, we dropped all the way down till the eight position in the league because of Kilmarnock and Dundee have played a lot of their games in hand and with Rangers suddenly from nowhere winning three games in a row as well. Maybe they should have sacked Van Bommel earlier before!
And our schedule doesn’t seemed very bright either. We have to play against Aberdeen now, they are on top of the ladder and they need only one point more to secure their league title. But a first minute own goal (although Williamson has scored that one pretty sure if he didn’t) provide us a flying start! Walker-Nightingale doubled the score just a minute before half time and so we disappeared into the dressing room with a big smile on our faces! Maybe it’s not enough to compete for European football anymore, but winning against the upcoming champion is a pretty good result for sure. But the match hasn’t end yet. There are 45 minutes more to play and only ten minutes after the pause Aberdeen scored the connection goal. But I strongly had the feeling we were still in control of the game and wasn’t to much worried about it. After we failed to score more goals from a couple of sitters it became a bit tensive till the end, but we handled to secure the three points. Another very good result against one of the big teams in the league! But most important, because of Kilmarnock has lost their game and with Rangers playing a draw, we are not entirely without a chance for ending fifth and so qualifying ourselves for the European Conference League if the outcome of the Scotch Cup final is right. But, we need some big help from the other teams in the last playing round for doing so. Underneath I have shown the schedule for the last playing round and the league table after the 37th playing round.
As you can see we need to play against Saint Johnstone (definitely not the easiest one). If we want to finish fifth Dundee should not beat Kilmarnock at their own place and Rangers is not allowed to gain three points out of the game against Partick Thistle away. It might be possible, but it’s not very likely both of these games are ending in our favour. But first we have to win ourselves, which isn’t that easy either. Especially not if we are conceding an early goal again… A brilliant 27-yards direct free-kick from one of their midfielders plopped in the upper right corner of the goal. Cannella could only watch… Although we controlled the match we didn’t create much and after 45 minutes the score was still 0-1. After the pause I went fully attacking because only a win is good enough. But in the 57th minute the equalizer is finally there when Lee Hinchcliffe is calm enough at the far post after a sharp cross from Williamson. But we need another goal. We gave everything we’ve got, I even send another attacking midfielder on the pitch, but the minutes were slightly ticking away. But just like two seasons ago we were saved by the bell once more. Hinchcliffe again scored a goal, this time after a long crossing from the back, a decent first touch and a powerful shot in the lower corner of the goal! With Cannella taking care for one last great save in the 90+5th minute we have done our job and now we have to wait till the other matches are completed.
When the noise at the stands was slightly taking place for screaming, celebrating and laughing fans we knew enough already! Dundee and Rangers both didn’t win their game and so we finished fifth in the league. This can’t be true! Am I living a dream or what? Who was saying I’m certainly not a manager with a golden dick? Look at my dick now! How gold does it looks to you huh? Figuratively spoken of course. I don’t want to be banned for the first few months next season! But seriously. Who could possibly have expected we were able for finishing fifth in the league? And most likely we are playing European football next season as well! It’s an absolute miracle. Especially if you take in account our yearly wage spending is the lowest in the league, and this being only our second season in history that we are acting at the highest tier for Scottish football. I am speechless now. This is probably my best achievement this entire career so far. Even more when I realized the treble with Spurs.
So, the only thing that needs to be done is Aberdeen winning the Scotch Cup Final against Airdrieonians - who even got relegated this season - and our very first European football appearance in the clubs history is secured! Easy peasy right? Not really… Those fucking Aberdeen bastards… Guess what. They have lost after penalties… Our delirious joy has taking place for deeply sadness right now. This game is really playing with my balls again, isn’t it? Even harder than ever before… It’s just insane what just happened… Yup, this can only happen if your name sounds like Luke Barra Henderson. My golden dick has turned into a pathetic shriveled piece of skin right now… Why always me? Why for god sake. Those fuckers from Airdrie should have been eliminated in the quarters already against Celtic, or in the semi’s against Rangers or at least against Aberdeen, the fucking Champions. But no, this little club beat them all. And you know what? They even have beaten us in the second round already after that insane 6-4 match… I didn’t even remember it anymore until I searched for it. Now I’m even more sick about it, we could have stopped it all by ourselves even early on…! Although it's very hard to admit they have done a hell of a job for sure. So yeah, one of the next seasons Championship sides is playing European football and we are left behind with empty hands once more...
And there’s even more why we are just so fucked… Until last season Scotland could divide six European tickets in total because they were sixth at the coefficient list for a while, but they lost that position from this season on after the terrible performances of Scottish clubs in Europe the year before this one… Of course! Just exactly at the moment we could took advance of it. Oh dear, if I had faced just 10% more luck out of the 90% of bad luck I have had all the time this entire save, my career should have so much more successfull at this point. Although complain about it is fun sometimes as well, but at the end I prefer to have some more silverwork instead…
Shall I tell you a little secret? I was so sick of missing European football (just because of the way it happened) that I was thinking about reloading the game after the Cup final result for at least five minutes… Thousands of thoughts passed my mind at the same time. But again I didn’t… It will ruin this entire career. At the end I realized myself that finishing fifth is already an outstanding performance. I had signed for it with my eyes closed if you asked me about it before this season was even started. There must be a reason for it. It’s hard to believe, but it must be. That moment of true happiness after we have won something with Spartans at a certain moment must happening now. This (scripted?) game will remember this terrible loss and someday it will pay off again. I just have to believe in that, it’s the only way right now which kept me afloat… Underneath I have shown the squad performances from this season and my own profile; next time I’m back with our squad judgement together with the new pre-season period. Disappointment still prevails right now… Teardrop…
Listen, 5th is fantastic. No Europe? No problem. You've been absolutely fantastic this season, even though it has definitely been a season of 'so close but so far'. Be proud of the season, next season you'll place higher.
5th shows how quickly this team and club is developing. It was only a few years back you were a Championship side and struggling in midtable there. Now you are pushing for European football and with some better luck would have secured that. It is building and building fast, stay patient, it'll be worth it.
That's gutting to say the least but it shouldn't detract from what has been a great season. Come back stronger next season and who knows what may happen?
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