The Premier league is proving to be a tough nut to crack, it feels like we are floating along, never really cementing a solid place near the top of the table, several reasons, the in-game ‘wobble’ that is enforced upon you is very difficult to come through without dropping substantial points, then there’s the games penchant for throwing up random fuckery matches, you know the ones I mean, the ones where you know from the kick off that you just are not going to win no matter what, I had a 6-2 defeat at Stoke and in the last session a 4-0 battering from Arsenal, both teams I beat previously and both matches where it was evident that my players just weren’t going to be allowed to do anything, whilst the COM received a super-boost, frustrating.
Once again my focus has to be to achieve European qualification for next season, too far off the top two to mount any serious title push now, Champions league qualification would be a success.
Meanwhile, we are excelling in the cup comps, still in the Europa League, Carabao cup and FA Cup.
Valencia are the opponents in the last 16 of the Europa League, will be a very tricky tie, but looking forward to playing at the Mestalla Stadium.
Squad rotation will have to be looked at carefully with so many fixtures piling up, and squad fatigue being a proper thing, I’m often starting matches with fatigued players or a second string of sorts side, which has also added to an injury list and dropping points.
Next focus though is this:
We reached the Carabao cup final after a very nervy and intense 2 legged semi-final against Man City, easily the toughest team to play in the game, their speed, and agility and player individuality means every time they attack my arse clenches, they are almost impossible to stop.
We drew the first leg at the Emirates 2-2, two away goals gave me hope but of course City only needed a 1-0 win back at our place to go through.
They indeed led 1-0, until this:
An acrobatic finish from Emmanuel Dennis in the 24th minute to level it at 3-3 on aggregate, but with us leading on away goals, the following 65 minutes were a very tense affair, I felt physically tired after playing that match but we hung on for dear life to claim a place in our first cup final.
After checking the calendar to see when the final was, I was disappointed to see this:
A game vs Stoke on Sat 1st March, then the Carabao Cup final vs league leaders Wolves the very next day, this has to be a bug, but means I will have to put out an almost youth team against Stoke, risking dropping more points in the league, in order to field a strong fit team for the final.
The board seems happy with the way I’m running the club, this was helped by the signing in the January window of LW Kluivert from Roma for £62.4 million, who subsequently scored on his debut and offers us bags of pace on the wing.
Below is a mini compilation showing Grujic dinking a shoulder to fool the defender and illicit a foul, and a penalty, then previously mentioned Kluivert grabbing a 91st minute leveller, and finally a weird glitchy type occurrence from our GK.
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – that is disappointing that there are still ganes in which the cpu simply decides that you must lose (or win for that matter). Could use a bit more subtlety to it. BTW the cup final scheduling thingy is a bug. EA has fixed that on the latest patch if I’m not mistaken hut only for NEW career mode saves.
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#1 – Yeah since read the scheduling fix, pretty pointless though as I’m not going to restart a career mode 7 seasons in just to apply that fix.
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Fixture scheduling bug is amateur hour at EA and has been in the game for years. I had two games the same day again this past season. Despite that, well done on your cup performances, I imagine there’ll be more shenanigans in the cup at some point? I went out of the League Cup to a lower league team and hitting the woodwork 4 times whilst they scored their only shot.
I finished in 5th in my final season having to win the final game to qualify for the play-offs against the bottom team. Managed it in the 88th minute with a deflected 25 yarder, lovely stuff. Then proceeded to lose convincingly to Norwich home and away to go out without much of a fight. I have 4 decent players coming on pre-contracts so aiming for automatic promotion in Season 5. Board rating still in the 80s.
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Cook – never seen 2 games the same day, but plenty of day-after fixtures.
That’s often the way, dominate a game, plenty of chances, yet cant score and then they score with one shot, happens in real life of course too, its the games where you just feel you cannot do anything that grate.
Bad luck going out in the play-offs, I’ve been there before and it does make that 46 game slog feel like a waste of time, but one player can make all the difference, so hopefully you’ll fare better next season.
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Paul – nice scissors kick from Dennis there, although a closer replay might have seen it downgraded to a hook-shot only. Incidentally I was listening to the radio Saturday afternoon and first heard Benteke’s against-the-bar effort for Palace described by the match summariser as a bicycle kick, then later the presenter (James Whoever) said it was a scissors kick, and finally in the text match report it had become an overhead kick. To say that there is no clear understanding in the football world of the correct nomenclature for these types of kicks is something of an understatement. I suppose it’s similar to how you very often have to put up with people sitting at work talking to you normally who have a bit of a sniffle, but they say – and will angrily insist – that they have ‘flu. Laughing my ass off, rolling on the floor, etc.
Good progress in the career. There is nothing like being neck-deep in a career is there? As I remarked elsewhere, it’s all about sticking with it and going on.
Jealous of you still being in the Europa though. Although I’m on another game entirely and a few seasons ahead, our teams are roughly at the same stages.
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NG – I’d probably label that goal as hooked turning volley, when it went in, at no point did i ever think ‘That was another bicycle kick’.
Nice goal given the context though, one which sealed our cup final place.
When you get 7 or more in your case, seasons into a career, you HAVE to care, otherwise it’s not worth playing.All that time and effort invested that could have been spent on other things have to mean something.
I did think when writing the post that my career is closely mirroring yours, steadily building, doing well in cups, can beat anyone on our day but not quite enough there yet to genuinely challenge for the title.
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NG – In my 45 years I have only ever had Flu once and that is like nothing you could ever describe. I currently have a Chest Infection which has been unpleasant with me coughing up blood at one stage but would not class this as being anything like Flu.
Still playing The Forest and have already sunk a lot of hours into it. The best game of its kind as it is a real thinking mans game where your only option to defeat the enemy is to sneak around from location to location and use Gorilla Warfare as your tactic.
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Hope you feel better soon Darryl. lots of nasty winter viruses doing the rounds, had a nasty cold for 2 weeks myself, feel better now but the cough is still lingering, makes my daily 5k run a bit of a chore!
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Cheers Paul. The last few days I couldn’t muster the energy to run a bath. Antibiotics working and am on the mend.
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Wow, finally something that Keith Ken konami fixed that ea didn’t – that consecutive day fixtures was a pre 2013 arse up I recall, an occasion where fatigue actually counted. However, it was actually a thing back in the pre modern football world wasn’t it – yer old schoolers playing home and away in two days particularly over Yuletide. Is it arsenal at the top of the division then?
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Turf – PES has the most cocked up scheduling of all.
The consecutive day matches in FIFA has now been patched and fixed.
PES schedule has you play 3 games at home followed by 5 away, then 3 more at home, an away, 2 more at home, 4 away, its completely screwed and unrealistic.
Cup games at neutral grounds etc.
Wolves are currently top of the table in my CM. Closely flanked by City.
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Yes, to be fair the schedule is ludicrous like that – why they have neutral cup venues can surely be down to someone simply not understanding football or being too useless to have a line of code saying ‘for semi and final neutral, all others not’. I don’t even look at the home/away thing because it makes no difference to play, and no difference to atmosphere when there are so few genuine stadiums.
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Two games the same day though, that’s bonkers and shows how little play testing is carried out offline. I’m approaching the 4th round FA Cup/championship double header soon, I’ll try to remember screen shots.
Otherwise I’m having a great time. I doubled the wage bill this season but it wasn’t going well for the first 12 games, stuck in the bottom 3. I changed tactics to a high press 442 and haven’t lost since. Autos or bust this season.
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All fixed now anyway Cook.
This mornings post at 10 am describes the latest development in my career.
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