Re: How's Your FIFA Career Mode Going?
When last I left you, we had finished 5th in the Premier League and been given a hefty sum to work with for the transfer window. We certainly were not shy with our spending. We brought in Josh McEachran from Brentford for £5.5 million, Ashley Williams from relegated Bournemouth for £8.5 million, Ryan Gauld from Sporting CP for £9 million, Jack Butland from Stoke for £7 million, and Benik Afobe from Wolverhampton for £6.5 million.
We managed to offload plenty of players, too. Emanuele Giaccherini went to Udinese for £2.4 million, Vito Mannone signed with Atalanta in a £2.8 million deal, Steven Fletcher and Seb Larsson moved to Southampton for a total of £5.8 million, and Billy Jones moved to newly-promoted Sheffield Wednesday for £1.2 million. That replenished some of our transfer kitty.
Results went our way in August. We opened with a 1-0 home win against Crystal Palace, with Defoe scoring the winner. The next match was a 3-0 win at Fulham with goals from Afobe, Buckley and Sneijder. We then beat the noisy neighbours Newcastle 2-0 at home thanks to Buckley and Defoe. Our first Capital One Cup adventure, away to Accrington, was a 3-3 draw that went into extra time and saw us come away winning 4-2 on penalties. The last match for August was a 0-0 draw at Aston Villa, meaning we are yet to concede in the league despite some defensive frailties in the cup.
After this match, we received a transfer request from Jeremain Lens. In the interest of squad harmony, he was listed for sale before moving to Chelsea in a £14 million deal. We used the funds to strengthen at right back with Sam Byram from Leeds for £3.9 million. Our Europa League group was then announced to include Trabzonspor, Sporting Lokeren and Vitesse. This put me on the lookout for a quality replacement for Lens wide on the left.
Deadline day was a flurry of activity for the club. John O'Shea departed for Aston Villa on a free transfer, while Santiago Vergini moved to West Ham (£2.5 million) and Valentin Roberge to Leicester (£975,000), allowing us to shore up our reserves with Joe Gomez from Liverpool (£1.1 million), Jerome Binnom-Williams from Crystal Palace (£700,000), Tyler Walker from Nott'm Forest and Jake Flannigan of Southampton (both £650,000).
Despite working on a deal throughout the day, we were unable to push for our first-choice replacement for Lens. Schalke academy graduate Julian Draxler refused to join us despite a £17 million offer with a contract worth £100,00 per week. With less than four hours remaining, we put in a £14 million bid for Jay Rodriguez that was accepted by Southampton, and the player quickly signed a four-year deal that'll see him earn £75,000 a week.
September began with a 0-0 draw at Anfield, followed by a 1-0 home loss to Vitesse in our first Europa League encounter. We endured another 0-0 at Watford before bouncing back to beat Peterborough 2-1 in the Capital One Cup, the goals coming through Afobe and Gauld. Defoe and Buckley then masterminded a 2-0 home win against Chelsea, which we followed with a 3-0 European win at Lokeren, Buckley scoring twice and Rodriguez netting his first goal in Sunderland colours. This took us to second in the league and our Europa League group, and we've yet to let in a goal in the league.
October was a hell of a month. We started by beating Tottenham 1-0 at their place, Sneijder again causing them misery at White Hart Lane. We shipped our first goal of the season at home to Manchester City in a 1-1 stalemate, Rodwell scoring against his former side. The former Everton player scored again to earn us a point against Tranzonspor at home. We then travelled to Everton, where Lukaku put them 2-0 up at halftime, yet we came back to win 4-2 including two goals in the last three minutes. Chelsea then knocked us out of the Capital One Cup at our place, Diego Costa bagging a brace. To our credit, we finished strongly with a 1-0 home win against Arsenal to go top of the table, undefeated in 11 games.
November saw us beat Lokeren at home, Gauld picking up his first European goal of the season. Defoe then earned us a point in a 1-1 home draw with Swansea, before McEachran and Walker scored in our 2-1 away win at Sheffield Wednesday. We drew 0-0 in rainy conditions at Vitesse, requiring us to beat Trabzonspor in our final group stage match in order to qualify for the knockout rounds. We suffered our first loss of the season in a 1-0 home reverse to West Brom, taking us second behind Chelsea on 29 points in 14.
December began with a 4-0 thrashing of West Ham at their new stadium, made all the sweeter with former Hammers man Defoe claiming his first hat-trick of the season, Rodriguez topping things off with a late penalty. In the Europa League, Rodriguez and Buckley combined to help us register a 2-1 win at Trabzonspor and put us through to the knockout rounds, where we will face none other than the Italian giants AC Milan. The momentum carried on with a 3-0 home win over Southampton, our English trident of Defoe, Buckley and Rodriguez scoring in the same match for the first time. We then ran riot at Burnley with a 4-0 win, Sneijder scoring twice and then signing a two-year extension that takes him to a staggering £140,000 per week! The Dutch maestro showed us why he's worth that kind of money by immediately setting up all three goals in a 3-1 win against Leicester, before being rested for our 2-0 loss at Old Trafford. A routine 1-0 home win over Fulham took us to the top of the table with 43 points from 20 games.
January opened with the FA Cup, a 1-1 home draw against Liverpool where Byram netted his first goal since joining from Leeds to earn us a replay. We thrashed Crystal Palace at their ground 3-1, sold Sebastian Coates to Aston Villa for £2.4 million, and took revenge on West Brom with a 2-0 win at home as Lynden Gooch bagged his first senior goal for the club. We dropped out of the FA Cup with a 1-0 loss in snowy conditions at Anfield, bounced back with a 2-1 win against Sheffield Wednesday, and managed to grind out a 0-0 against Watford with minimal rest. Liam Bridcutt asked to leave after playing just 11 times in over 30 games, setting up a departure to Southampton for £2.2 million. What happened next will blow you away.
Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard, fed up with the paparazzi and glamour of Los Angeles, has forced his way back into the Barclays Premier League with a £5 million transfer to title challengers Sunderland! The move has rankled many Anfield loyalists, who claim that the very least their former captain could have done was to sign with a club that's not competing for honours on two fronts. For his part, Gerrard was quite forthright in wanting to be challenged while he was still capable of producing at the highest level and showed little remorse over joining another club in the English top flight.
February started with a riot... almost literally. Gerrard, skippering us in the absence of Ashley Williams due to injury, put in a stellar performance at Anfield. Despite the chorus of boos dotted with bits of applause, he put in a game-changing performance in a 0-0 draw where Liverpool can fairly say they should have won by four or five goals. It was only through Gerrard's intelligence and positioning in midfield that many counter-attacks ended up producing nothing at the feet of Daniel Sturridge and Lazar Markovic. We moved on to a 2-0 home win over Tottenham, Buckley and former hero Defoe bagging the goals, before the first leg of our R32 tie against Milan.
Playing at home and Gerrard once again captaining the side, the script was written for a romantic night of football. Taking advantage of Milan's lack of wide players in midfield, Buckley took the ball down the right wing, evading two Milan defenders before putting in a low cross. Who else was there to meet it with his right and send it in at the near post? The very same man who caused Milan enormous heartache in 2005. Gerrard with the early goal, giving us a 1-0 win and deservedly being named as man of the match.
The next two games this month see us travel to Milan and Chelsea.
A word for some of my players. Through training, Buckley has grown to 82 overall with dribbling, finishing, ball control, crossing and passing stats in the mid-80s. He's netted 11 in the league and a few more in the cups, making him one half of our first-choice strike force. Defoe is the other side of that coin, picking up 12 in the league to deny Afobe the chance of an extended run of starts. Rodriguez has been average and could leave soon.
Sneijder has a staggering 14 assists in the league, showing us why he is on the wage he earns. Rodwell has been very solid and consistent, though his failure to influence games as we know he can and his refusal of a fresh contract could work against him this summer. In defence, Kaboul has been a rock again. Williams has been responsible for a couple of dropped points, but has largely performed well for a player who's 32 and on the wane. Adam Matthews and Patrick van Aanholt are now the weak links in my team. One has the pace and stamina but not the crossing ability, and the other is a well-rounded player but doesn't have the ability to change games. It is very likely that I will look to upgrade one or both in the summer transfer window.
Pantilimon is our best performer. We must extend his deal this summer.
Gerrard coming in is a game-changer and a defining moment in Sunderland's history. He gives us tactical flexibility like never before. We can play three in midfield with Rodwell in the holding role, McEachran pulling the strings, and Gerrard supporting the attack from deep. Sneijder is then freed up to play in the hole with two strikers ahead of him, or out wide in a three-man attack. And with attacking talent such as Mavrias, Rodriguez, Buckley, Gauld and Watmore supplemented by versatile lads like Sneijder, McEachran and Gerrard, we can play virtually any formation we want and make it work.
The next update will include results from Milan and Chelsea, plus March and further beyond. Thanks for reading and deepest apologies for the long post!
EDIT: We are second on the table: a point behind Chelsea, five ahead of United and 13 over Arsenal.
When last I left you, we had finished 5th in the Premier League and been given a hefty sum to work with for the transfer window. We certainly were not shy with our spending. We brought in Josh McEachran from Brentford for £5.5 million, Ashley Williams from relegated Bournemouth for £8.5 million, Ryan Gauld from Sporting CP for £9 million, Jack Butland from Stoke for £7 million, and Benik Afobe from Wolverhampton for £6.5 million.
We managed to offload plenty of players, too. Emanuele Giaccherini went to Udinese for £2.4 million, Vito Mannone signed with Atalanta in a £2.8 million deal, Steven Fletcher and Seb Larsson moved to Southampton for a total of £5.8 million, and Billy Jones moved to newly-promoted Sheffield Wednesday for £1.2 million. That replenished some of our transfer kitty.
Results went our way in August. We opened with a 1-0 home win against Crystal Palace, with Defoe scoring the winner. The next match was a 3-0 win at Fulham with goals from Afobe, Buckley and Sneijder. We then beat the noisy neighbours Newcastle 2-0 at home thanks to Buckley and Defoe. Our first Capital One Cup adventure, away to Accrington, was a 3-3 draw that went into extra time and saw us come away winning 4-2 on penalties. The last match for August was a 0-0 draw at Aston Villa, meaning we are yet to concede in the league despite some defensive frailties in the cup.
After this match, we received a transfer request from Jeremain Lens. In the interest of squad harmony, he was listed for sale before moving to Chelsea in a £14 million deal. We used the funds to strengthen at right back with Sam Byram from Leeds for £3.9 million. Our Europa League group was then announced to include Trabzonspor, Sporting Lokeren and Vitesse. This put me on the lookout for a quality replacement for Lens wide on the left.
Deadline day was a flurry of activity for the club. John O'Shea departed for Aston Villa on a free transfer, while Santiago Vergini moved to West Ham (£2.5 million) and Valentin Roberge to Leicester (£975,000), allowing us to shore up our reserves with Joe Gomez from Liverpool (£1.1 million), Jerome Binnom-Williams from Crystal Palace (£700,000), Tyler Walker from Nott'm Forest and Jake Flannigan of Southampton (both £650,000).
Despite working on a deal throughout the day, we were unable to push for our first-choice replacement for Lens. Schalke academy graduate Julian Draxler refused to join us despite a £17 million offer with a contract worth £100,00 per week. With less than four hours remaining, we put in a £14 million bid for Jay Rodriguez that was accepted by Southampton, and the player quickly signed a four-year deal that'll see him earn £75,000 a week.
September began with a 0-0 draw at Anfield, followed by a 1-0 home loss to Vitesse in our first Europa League encounter. We endured another 0-0 at Watford before bouncing back to beat Peterborough 2-1 in the Capital One Cup, the goals coming through Afobe and Gauld. Defoe and Buckley then masterminded a 2-0 home win against Chelsea, which we followed with a 3-0 European win at Lokeren, Buckley scoring twice and Rodriguez netting his first goal in Sunderland colours. This took us to second in the league and our Europa League group, and we've yet to let in a goal in the league.
October was a hell of a month. We started by beating Tottenham 1-0 at their place, Sneijder again causing them misery at White Hart Lane. We shipped our first goal of the season at home to Manchester City in a 1-1 stalemate, Rodwell scoring against his former side. The former Everton player scored again to earn us a point against Tranzonspor at home. We then travelled to Everton, where Lukaku put them 2-0 up at halftime, yet we came back to win 4-2 including two goals in the last three minutes. Chelsea then knocked us out of the Capital One Cup at our place, Diego Costa bagging a brace. To our credit, we finished strongly with a 1-0 home win against Arsenal to go top of the table, undefeated in 11 games.
November saw us beat Lokeren at home, Gauld picking up his first European goal of the season. Defoe then earned us a point in a 1-1 home draw with Swansea, before McEachran and Walker scored in our 2-1 away win at Sheffield Wednesday. We drew 0-0 in rainy conditions at Vitesse, requiring us to beat Trabzonspor in our final group stage match in order to qualify for the knockout rounds. We suffered our first loss of the season in a 1-0 home reverse to West Brom, taking us second behind Chelsea on 29 points in 14.
December began with a 4-0 thrashing of West Ham at their new stadium, made all the sweeter with former Hammers man Defoe claiming his first hat-trick of the season, Rodriguez topping things off with a late penalty. In the Europa League, Rodriguez and Buckley combined to help us register a 2-1 win at Trabzonspor and put us through to the knockout rounds, where we will face none other than the Italian giants AC Milan. The momentum carried on with a 3-0 home win over Southampton, our English trident of Defoe, Buckley and Rodriguez scoring in the same match for the first time. We then ran riot at Burnley with a 4-0 win, Sneijder scoring twice and then signing a two-year extension that takes him to a staggering £140,000 per week! The Dutch maestro showed us why he's worth that kind of money by immediately setting up all three goals in a 3-1 win against Leicester, before being rested for our 2-0 loss at Old Trafford. A routine 1-0 home win over Fulham took us to the top of the table with 43 points from 20 games.
January opened with the FA Cup, a 1-1 home draw against Liverpool where Byram netted his first goal since joining from Leeds to earn us a replay. We thrashed Crystal Palace at their ground 3-1, sold Sebastian Coates to Aston Villa for £2.4 million, and took revenge on West Brom with a 2-0 win at home as Lynden Gooch bagged his first senior goal for the club. We dropped out of the FA Cup with a 1-0 loss in snowy conditions at Anfield, bounced back with a 2-1 win against Sheffield Wednesday, and managed to grind out a 0-0 against Watford with minimal rest. Liam Bridcutt asked to leave after playing just 11 times in over 30 games, setting up a departure to Southampton for £2.2 million. What happened next will blow you away.
Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard, fed up with the paparazzi and glamour of Los Angeles, has forced his way back into the Barclays Premier League with a £5 million transfer to title challengers Sunderland! The move has rankled many Anfield loyalists, who claim that the very least their former captain could have done was to sign with a club that's not competing for honours on two fronts. For his part, Gerrard was quite forthright in wanting to be challenged while he was still capable of producing at the highest level and showed little remorse over joining another club in the English top flight.
February started with a riot... almost literally. Gerrard, skippering us in the absence of Ashley Williams due to injury, put in a stellar performance at Anfield. Despite the chorus of boos dotted with bits of applause, he put in a game-changing performance in a 0-0 draw where Liverpool can fairly say they should have won by four or five goals. It was only through Gerrard's intelligence and positioning in midfield that many counter-attacks ended up producing nothing at the feet of Daniel Sturridge and Lazar Markovic. We moved on to a 2-0 home win over Tottenham, Buckley and former hero Defoe bagging the goals, before the first leg of our R32 tie against Milan.
Playing at home and Gerrard once again captaining the side, the script was written for a romantic night of football. Taking advantage of Milan's lack of wide players in midfield, Buckley took the ball down the right wing, evading two Milan defenders before putting in a low cross. Who else was there to meet it with his right and send it in at the near post? The very same man who caused Milan enormous heartache in 2005. Gerrard with the early goal, giving us a 1-0 win and deservedly being named as man of the match.
The next two games this month see us travel to Milan and Chelsea.
A word for some of my players. Through training, Buckley has grown to 82 overall with dribbling, finishing, ball control, crossing and passing stats in the mid-80s. He's netted 11 in the league and a few more in the cups, making him one half of our first-choice strike force. Defoe is the other side of that coin, picking up 12 in the league to deny Afobe the chance of an extended run of starts. Rodriguez has been average and could leave soon.
Sneijder has a staggering 14 assists in the league, showing us why he is on the wage he earns. Rodwell has been very solid and consistent, though his failure to influence games as we know he can and his refusal of a fresh contract could work against him this summer. In defence, Kaboul has been a rock again. Williams has been responsible for a couple of dropped points, but has largely performed well for a player who's 32 and on the wane. Adam Matthews and Patrick van Aanholt are now the weak links in my team. One has the pace and stamina but not the crossing ability, and the other is a well-rounded player but doesn't have the ability to change games. It is very likely that I will look to upgrade one or both in the summer transfer window.
Pantilimon is our best performer. We must extend his deal this summer.
Gerrard coming in is a game-changer and a defining moment in Sunderland's history. He gives us tactical flexibility like never before. We can play three in midfield with Rodwell in the holding role, McEachran pulling the strings, and Gerrard supporting the attack from deep. Sneijder is then freed up to play in the hole with two strikers ahead of him, or out wide in a three-man attack. And with attacking talent such as Mavrias, Rodriguez, Buckley, Gauld and Watmore supplemented by versatile lads like Sneijder, McEachran and Gerrard, we can play virtually any formation we want and make it work.
The next update will include results from Milan and Chelsea, plus March and further beyond. Thanks for reading and deepest apologies for the long post!
EDIT: We are second on the table: a point behind Chelsea, five ahead of United and 13 over Arsenal.
Diarra 16'
Giles 45' (Hyperextended knee, out 3 weeks)
Dall'Oglio 89'
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