2015 The French Connection (triple threat & 1k challenge)

[billy2shots]

For my next career I fancied a triple threat challenge. As a side challenge I will also look to complete the 1k challenge with one of my forwards.

My choices came down to-

An Italian team with Italian strikers

An English team with English strikers

A German team with German Players

Or a French team with French players.

From the title of this career its pretty obvious which one I decided on. The reasons were fairly simple. I have done the UK to death, the German players would miss out on valuable international call ups and if I'm honest, the Italian league wouldn't provide the amount of goals.

With France chosen as the location is was time to think about clubs and players.

PSG was too obvious and dare I say a little easy. I also wanted to use at least one player that was currently at the club.

My shortlist included Marseille, Lyon and Monaco.

The reason for this was quitesimply

Sorry for being original! Although I think I am right in saying he is yet to complete an intended challenge.

Now Monaco might seem an easy cop out but it's not all it appears.

Cash rich?

No! Monaco are also well over their wage budget so no room to move there. A fairly good starting 11 turns bad very quickly when looking past those first 11 players.

An ageing squad who don't even have their own right back at the club. Instead we have one right full back on loan.

Given all that, I felt it was enough of a challenge to keep me interested and with the monster that is PSG as rivals I was happy to begin.

The biggest single bonus of choosing Monaco was the ability to raise funds through selling Falcao. That money would be my chance to buy the other two forwards required for the triple threat whilst building a strong enough team to compete and score enough.

Falcao sold it was now time to buy the next 2 players that would come along on this journey.

The first is someone I have had my eye on for a while.

My 3 forward formation requires a certain player for it to work. If Florian would retrain as a forward this could work.

This was my first mistake!!!!!! I had a deal all sorted for Kingsley Coman but I cancelled it in favour of Florian. 3 times he refused to retrain and then we have his form and scoring ability to contend with.

Might as well end this challenge now before we even get going.

No! I will soldier on, it can't get any worse. Can it?

Ok , so maybe it can get a little worse but 2 months out of a long career is nothing really. Time for him to get fit, retrain and bang in some goals!

OK I give up! On to the 3rd player.

My 3rd player needs to be a scorer of goals but also needs to be an assist king. He will score 30 a season and provide 30 for the other 2. He MUST be a selfless team player with the team always bigger than himself.

So I bought a selfish poacher that won't pass to his team mates!

The main players bought, it was time to build a young team around them. I took my time and am really happy with the business I did. An overall £2m spend and now comfortably under our wage budget.

I hope you will join me to see if the 1500 goal triple threat and the 1k challenge can be done.

Will Martial score 1000 goals?

Will Sacko pass to a teammate?

Will Thauvin contribute anything to this challenge?

Time to find out.

[UKFootballScore]

nice opening post mate was a good read! good luck!

[DSW]

Brilliant OP. I'm hooked in! Will be following this closely and good luck!

[BatiGoal]

Goodluck Billy, I'm glad there's already a bumpy road ahead of you.

Makes it fun for us followers

[billy2shots]

Thanks for the comments. Season 1 finished, I will post my results later.

[fmhaberdeenfan]

Good Luck! Brilliant introduction and I can't wait for more

[Andeva]

Good luck with Monaco

[JustM1kePlays]

Good Luck Billy. Great OP mate looking forward to keeping up with this career.

[billy2shots]

Chapter 1.

You don't have to be a mathematician to work out 15 seasons scoring 100 goals each season would result in completing the 1500 goal target.

We all know its not as simple as that though, don't we.

Given the 3 forward players age and the fact 2 of them have only just joined, I set my target at 70-80.

Thauvin being injured for long spells had me revising that total.

Remember I still need to play a 3 forward formation and the goals scored by my stand in player will count for nothing!

New target 60.

Before I show you the main players, first some housekeeping.

With Thauvin injured, Ocampos was kept happy by stealing 19 goals from my other guys.

The season past by better than I thought it would. Sure there were plenty of frustrations. I lost count of how many keepers rated 10 against me and in 3 games I coulded score past or beat Toulouse.

On the plus side I had some big wins. The biggest coming in the cup.

Just the 7 for Martial!

End of season results.

Now the main events.

Thauvin. No surprise, his first season was a bit of a struggle.

Looking ahead to the 2nd season there was some good news.

Player2. Sacko had a decent first season. I can't complain really.

So 40 goals for the first 2. Maybe I could still reach the 70-80 goal target after all.

On the other hand, why just reach it? Why not smash it out of the water!

Boom!!!

That's 117 goals down in season 1. Given the dodgy start it couldn't have gone any better.

[Thepremiermanager]

Great stuff Billy.

Initially sounded like you were going to have real problems but even Thauvin had a decent season with his injuries.

This will be a good one to follow. Good luck.

[dako1991]

Enjoyed reading this good luck

[billy2shots]

Cheers guys. I really couldn't have wished for a better first season taking everything into account.

[hrvat67]

Woow, that's amazing, can you show me your tactic?

[RJH777]

Great start and op - will definitely be following this one! Hopefully now the stamina bug is gone Martial won't get nuked like he used to.

[Ashez]

Awesome start

[wallywonka]

fantastic start billy. just curious, where did most of your assists come from? I noticed the front 3 don't really assist much.

[billy2shots]

fantastic start billy. just curious, where did most of your assists come from? I noticed the front 3 don't really assist much.

Normally the assists come from the front 3 but these players don't reslly suit my system. Luckily Moutinho and Kondogbia have created a lot from central midfield and my wing backs have chipped in.

Obviously Ocampos laid on 20. Without Ocampos, Martial would have scoref a lot less.

[billy2shots]

Chapter 2

A frustrating season this. It was the year of the disallowed goal (28!!) and superhuman goalkeepers.

Great hat trick, oh wait.

This was far too common and had me turning off the game out of annoyance. I'm going to put it down to second season syndrome and hope it improves.

Now anyone that doesn't realise already will soon learn that I love a good moan. I will finish with this and then move on to more positive things.

France is a real squad killer! 3 games in a week or 4 matches in 10 games are a regular thing.

Here you will see from May 7th - May 14th I had 4 matches. 4 matches in a week, Ouchy!!

With that in mind, I must learn to use a bigger squad. I love small 22 man squads but it might not be right in France.

Only outgoings this year. No new players.

Another decent season. Lost the first match of the season the Champions Trophy (Community Shield) and the semi of one of the cups but all went well apart from those minor blips.

Best win was this little beauty.

Also enjoyed the Champions League Final. I love the games where the 3 main men all score.

Now on to the main course.

Maths was never my strong point, but I make that 127 goals.

Running total of 244 goals after 2 seasons. International goals will be added at the end if needed.

[billy2shots]

Early 3rd season update.

Took over France for 2 reasons. Help with the scoring but more importantly game management. My 3 attackers are unplayable for a couple of games when they return from international duty. Their fitness levels are destroyed. This way I can make sure they are fresh for me.

Quite excited as this is the first time in FMH that I have been offered a job at international level.

That not so good news is, I'm sat here writing this rather then playing the save on my day off. I have had to turn it off and cool down. My game has gone bonkers! Only about 13 games into the season and its another disallowed goal fest. Opposition keepers have all turned into Buffon and their strikers have been touched by Pele.

Last minute goal? Don't mind if I do.

I may not update for a while.

[billy2shots]

Chapter 3

A real mixed bag this season. On the whole it was a decent enough season for the team but the lack of form and goals from my front 3 made it a poor season as regards the challenge.

Really happy with my business. Check out that free signing!

Before we get on to the front 3, I thought I would show some of the key players in the team.

Moutinho has been the heartbeat of the team. Not his best season but a very important cog in the wheel.

Kondogbia. Again not has best season, he still knitted play together well. A jack of all trades which is vital in my tactic.

Toulalan. A destoyer, a player with one role, to break up play and stop the opposition from playing. The fact he assisted so many is a complete shock to me.

On the the 3 amigos

Sacko. An acceptable goal return but a hideous assist count. This position requires 25/30 assists each year. Not god enough fella.

Martial. A season completely ruined by injury. Nothing major but constant 10 day injuries. He never really got going.

Thauvin. If I fail in this challenge it will be because of a huge mistake I made. From a previous save (I didn't manage him) he appeared to be exactly what i was looking for. His stats suggested he could be vital in my success.

The reality is, he is just not a goal scorer. Constantly moaningnand wantingnnew contracts doesn't help and if he is rested for 1 game, he feels he has been treated unfairly. A managers nightmare!

To make matters worse I also dropped the ball regards his age. He is 24 and not too far off 25 now. It realistically gives me another 8 years to complete this thing totaling 11 seasons not the 15 I thought I would need. At 4 years younger, Kingsley Coman should have been chosen instead!

98 goals for Monaco this season. I'm hoping this is a slight blip. I really need to be 120 plus from here on out.

[BatiGoal]

Lacazette on a free??? Sweet man!! that alone makes the season a success.

 

Tough luck on the injuries and you'd better find a way to get that lazy Thauvin to bang them in.

Come on, Billy!

[Ashez]

Not bad going mate, shame that season was a tad lower than you had hoped.

[billy2shots]

Thanks guys. Season 4 has started well. Thauvin 2 goals in 15! However Martial is more than making up for it.

I can't decide if Thauvin isn't a goal scorer or if it's Sacko being greedy and not assisting him.

[billy2shots]

Over the past few weeks I have had a number of requests for my tactic. I'm all for people finding things out for themselves but I also want people to enjoy this game as much as possible. Check out the fact is section if you're interested.

[billy2shots]

Chapter 4

I had a nagging feeling that the other 'better' forward players at the club were holding my guys back. With that in mind, here are my transfers this season.

Ocampos wasn't happy with a bit part role and Lacazette was just too good!

I also have a great couple of youngsters who have been promoted from the youth setup.

That leads me on to my next point. Thauvin really isn't cutting the mustard

and this guy was promoted from the youth team a couple of years back.

I was so tempted to reset the goal count to zero and use this guy instead.

I decided against it though! I'm 99% sure I won't complete this challenge now but it would mean a hell of a lot more if somehow it worked out using 3 original players.

On to the season itself.

It was a mixed bag really. Team goals were up this year but early exits from a couple of cups were unexpected.

The 3 stooges.

Thauvin.

No point in moaning about him anymore, I have stuck with him and he is what he is.

Sacko.

A great end to the season meant an acceptable season.

Way short on the this seasons target. Could Martial save us again?

Never in doubt! An injury free season meant consistent form throughout.

Season total 132

Running total 474 goals for Monaco

Thauvin is 25 and I'm not even 1/3 of the way through!!!

[Ashez]

It'll be tight but i have faith! Going to guess with ITN you've broke 500 so if you continue to hit 100 plus for ten years you have a chance!

[billy2shots]

It'll be tight but i have faith! Going to guess with ITN you've broke 500 so if you continue to hit 100 plus for ten years you have a chance!

Just about 500 with ITN. 20 years will do it but Thauvin will be 35/36 by then so the goals will slow. I desperately need to get ahead of the game!

[BatiGoal]

132 is a pretty number tho whether it's divided equally over the three or not.

You got this challenge.

[Ashez]

As Bati says it doesn't need to be split equally so as long as you hit 100 + you're fine, remember three seasons of 132 basically removes the need of one of the ten seasons hitting 100 as the extra 32 goals times three is almost 100.

I understand some times a career can look bleak but while the math works out it's worth powering on!

[lilgwanz]

nice career Billy really amazing