Re: How's Your FIFA Career Mode Going?
Season 1
The Sky Blues
January 2016
Ah yes, back to the F.A. cup. There's not many things that can compare to the magic that this cup brings to the lower division clubs. It's a great equalizer where even the minnows know that they can sneak away with a win from time to time. We won't be facing any sharks in this round, but we do come against a solid Ipswich side who are sitting 8th in the Championship. Ipswich run a pretty basic 4-2-3-1, and so we invert their midfield and match them in overall numbers with a 4-3-2-1. We received good news prior to this one as Gadzhev is now fit to play, and Vincelot has resumed training, but was not able to dress for this one. Joe Cole comes back from his self imposed rest and he sits in the forward portion of the midfield along with Andy Rose. Lameiras keeps his spot on the right wing after an impressive display in the last match and we bring our in form full backs back into the lineup. If we are going to win this one we will have to focus on controlling the game through the middle. Their two holding midfielders will look to clog anything in their final third up so we will have to be instrumental with our decision making. I give the lads a pep talk and now it's time to take the pitch.
F.A. Cup
Coventry City 3 - 2 Ipswich Town
COV - Armstrong 21', 23', Gadzhev 77'
IPS - Bru 53', McGoldrick 90'
MOTM: Armstrong
And the pep talk worked! At least for Rose and Armstrong, but hey that was all we needed. The scoring opened up in the first half with a pair of Rose crosses resulting in a pair of Armstrong headers into the back of the net. After the half though Bru scored to keep the match within reach and the pressure was back on us to see it out. But Gadzhev, in his first game back from injury stepped up to the challenge and he scored a fantastic solo effort to put the game out of reach. They added an annoying consolation goal with the last kick, but this one was all us from start to finish and we advance again in the F.A. Cup as we keep our eyes on making a good run this season.
I'm a bit weary of the potential of a down every time we are flying high, but I can't deny that we have had a fantastic season so far. But a bump may be awaiting us as Wigan comes to visit this week. Wigan are third in the table and one of the better teams we have faced this season already. Their 4-3-3 has a lot of attacking power, and we field a 4-2-2-2 to utilize the two holding midfielders as support and keeping our width to attack the empty space between the wings. Armstrong pairs with Henderson up front as we usually do with a two forward set. Murphy and Cole are played out on the wing where we will have to keep an eye on Cole but the extra space out there should make his lack of pace a minimal problem. Gadzhev and Rose fill in at the holding positions and the back line has Ricketts come in as the only change in place of Stephens.
Coventry City 1 - 3 Wigan Athletic
COV - Armstrong 31'
WIG - Grigg 3', Parodi 17', Perkins 86'
MOTM: Grigg
I knew it, I saw it coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Wigan came in and they just had their way with us. Grigg opened it up with a ling range stunner and Parodi added a second before the first 20 minutes were even played. A glimmer of hope shined through when Parodi took out Murphy in the box and Armstrong finished it off to cut the lead in half, but it was only false hope. Wigan dominated the rest of the way and Perkins finished us off with their third goal leaving us with nothing but a shameful performance in front of our own fans.
As much as I would love to beat up on Oldham to get over that last loss, I have to be careful. We have the first leg of the semi-final against Liverpool just 3 days after this and as such I am forced to rest some key players for this one as we choose our battles. Still, Oldham are sitting in the relegation zone and this should still be a winnable match. They run a flat 4-4-2 so we decide to roll out a 4-2-3-1 that we've had success with in the past against these formations. We shuffle up several of the players in our lineup, but the biggest news is the return of Romaine Vincelot who is of course given the armband once again.
Coventry City 2 - 1 Oldham Athletic
COV - Lameiras 11', Fortune 86'
OLD - Forte 78'
MOTM: Lameiras
Despite the mix of reserves we still took care of business. Lameiras got it started early when he tapped in a pass from Maddison and then after that it felt like neither side really did much in the way of trying to score. In the second half, Leutwiler passed the ball directly to the attacker and Forte punished him immediately. I swear sometimes you just want to tear your eyes out watching things like that. Luckily Fortune was able to head home a corner to help us avoid losing, but not for lack of trying. Now we can officially look ahead to the Capital One Cup semi-final against Liverpool up next.
Liverpool, Anfield, huge tasks ahead of us and no one gives us a chance. Especially with two legs involved to separate the two sides. Screw them, screw all of them. Today we march in and face a red army against all odds. Let them underestimate us. I know what this squad is capable of, and I feel like we can surprise a lot of teams when we play at our best. Liverpool will use a 4-2-3-1 and we will face it with a 4-3-2-1 and aim to control the middle. A lot of people might thing we are crazy trying to win a midfield battle against a Premier League giant, but we certainly won't win it if we shell up and hide inside our own half inviting them to assault us.
Capital One Cup Semi-Final Leg 1
Liverpool FC 1 - 0 Coventry City
LFC - Ings 30'
MOTM: Mignolet
I felt like we deserved more. We threw everything at them, and the fact that their keeper was the man of the match just proves how much pressure we put on their goal. Ings scored off of a lucky rebound and we hit the post twice with no such luck on our side. Liverpool will take the goal advantage from this one, but we went a long way in terms of proving ourselves. They know they will have to be on watch in the second leg now or else we will be the ones celebrating at the end.
Unfortunately sometimes you have to make tough decisions, and this was one of them. We head to the 4th round of the F.A. Cup and we draw Southampton as our opponent which is no easy task. The issue is, we play the second leg of our Capital One Cup semi-final in two days time against Liverpool. We reluctantly, I choose to rest most of our players in order to focus on that. If we advance in neither then it's a decision I will have to live with, but being so close to the final I feel like it's what had to be done. Southampton Run a 4-2-3-1 and we match it with a 4-3-2-1 in order to keep them from overrunning our midfield. We will look to find any space we can and break them down. The most important aspect is to keep our defense strong and if we force a replay then at least we get a chance to have them with our first choice players.
F.A. Cup
Coventry City 2 - 1 Southampton FC
COV - Maddison 76' (PEN), Thomas 89'
SOU - Juanmi
MOTM: Leutwiler
I don't know how, but pulled it out. We should have lost that one by all means, but instead we won. I'm speechless, really. Juanmi opened it in the first half after some terrible excuse of defense and it looked like our decision to play the reserves was going about as expected. Southampton keep laying siege to our goal taking shot after shot, and we could barely string two passes together when we had it. Then the football gods smiled on us. Wanyama took out Lameiras in the box and Maddison converted from the spot and it looked like we could actually force a replay out of this one. But it wasn't over, oh no it wasn't over. With a minute to play we got on the counter and the ball ended up at Thomas' feet with only the keeper to beat. He hit it first time and that one kick sent us to victory. I don't know how, I don't know why, but on we march!
This is it! The second leg of the semi-final. We are down a goal, but now we head into Ricoh Arena to face the Reds of Liverpool. We bring in our starters, all rested since the last match, and we put out the same 4-3-2-1 to take them on. We outplayed them last time, but a lucky goal went in their favor. Luck only lasts so long though. The sky blues are on the march and in this one we will show no mercy. A spot in the final is on the line.
Capital One Cup Semi-Final Leg 2
Coventry City (3) 3 - 1 (2) Liverpool FC
COV - Armstrong 5' (PEN), Vincelot 34', Cole 56'
LFC - Firmino 89'
MOTM: Vincelot
This is our stadium, this is our field, these are our fans, and this was our win! The red shirts of the mighty Liverpool had no effect on us. After we marched into Anfield and went toe to toe with them, we knew they were beatable. Rather than be overwhelmed by the stage, we overwhelmed them on the pitch. We got a helping hand early as Sakho clobbered our man in the box and Armstrong converted from the spot. It only got better as our captain added the second before half, and then Cole made it 3 not long after the break. Liverpool tried to come back, but we were having none of it. Firmino got a late consolation goal, but this one was us from the start. On to the final, on to potential glory. The sky blues won't stop their march.
We head to Crewe Alexandra for this one and they are sitting just inside the relegation zone at the moment. I feel good about this one, and a win would do nicely to keep our separation from Wigan who are trying to creep up on us. Crewe run the same 4-2-3-1 we've played against the last 3 matches so our formation stays the same with Maddison in for Cole, Lameiras in for Jones, and Lorentzson in for Phillips who took a knock in the last one and wasn't fully fit for this one. We should find out game plan much easier to execute now that we are getting back to a lower competition level.
Crewe Alexandra 0 - 2 Coventry City
COV - Armstrong 4' (PEN), Murphy 74'
MOTM: Murphy
Three straight matches against Premier League opponents, and it was nice to get back to league play after that. Our form continued as well as we rolled through this one with relative ease. Another early penalty got us off to a fast start with Armstrong converting and Murphy added another in the second half to see out the easy win. Top of the table, advancing to the final of the Capital One Cup, and on to the round of 16 in the FA Cup. This was a great month.
Youth Academy
Another month in Scotland, and we had some promising prospects turn up on our report from the scout, but we are waiting for our F.A. Cup money to come in after the replays are played to finish the round and then we can look more seriously at signing some of these players.
Greg Fox - 17 years old, Scotland, CB, 51 OVR, 74-94 POT
Amari'i Seager - 15 years old, England, CB, 58 OVR, 68-76 POT
Matthew Cox - 15 years old, England, LB, 51 OVR, 65-77 POT
Transfer Business
Remember how I said we had no money? Well turns out that certainly makes your transfer window a much harder endeavor. First we focused on Bosman transfers, assuming the players were willing to accept fairly low wages. Three key positions were identified, a utility midfielder who can play several roles, a winger, and a back up striker. Unfortunately it became obvious pretty quickly that we were only going to be able to afford two of those. After a few inquiries went out, we were able to secure signatures from Jamie Proctor and Enoch Andoh to join at the start of next season. Proctor will be our back up striker to Armstrong with Henderson and Fortune both getting older it was something that I felt was an important priority to bring in. Proctor can fill in as a target man and also be used as a quicker forward if needed as well. Enoch Ando was also brought in to provide cover for the aging Stephen Hunt out on the wings. He provides pace that we can put to great use, and he will be much needed depth for next season.
With that business wrapped up, we came into some money at the end of the month from our Capital One Cup victory so we turned that into wage funds and went out and started bringing in depth to cover for the current season in the form of loans. Unfortunately Stephen Hunt will miss the next 2 months after getting injured against Southampton so Gboly Ariyibi comes in to cover for us on the wing and give our starters some rest and provide a substitute option that can really run at defenders. Another issue we've been having is Joe Cole's fitness level where he is constantly having to be rested and can't sustain multiple matches in a row. All we have to cover for him is Maddison so in comes Ryan Edwards as another attacking midfielder to fill out the rotation.
Transfers Out
GK, Corey Addai, Ghana, 18 yrs old, 56 OVR - Loaned to Plymouth Argyle
Transfers In
RM, Gboly Ariyibi, United States, 21 yrs old, 64 OVR - Loaned from Chesterfield FC
ST, Jamie Proctor, England, 23 yrs old, 63 OVR - Bosman transfer from Bradford City
LM, Enoch Andoh, Ghana, 23 yrs old, 62 OVR - Bosman transfer from Port Vale
CAM, Ryan Edwards, Australia, 22 yrs old, 61 OVR - Loaned from Patrick Thistle
The Sky Blues
January 2016
Ah yes, back to the F.A. cup. There's not many things that can compare to the magic that this cup brings to the lower division clubs. It's a great equalizer where even the minnows know that they can sneak away with a win from time to time. We won't be facing any sharks in this round, but we do come against a solid Ipswich side who are sitting 8th in the Championship. Ipswich run a pretty basic 4-2-3-1, and so we invert their midfield and match them in overall numbers with a 4-3-2-1. We received good news prior to this one as Gadzhev is now fit to play, and Vincelot has resumed training, but was not able to dress for this one. Joe Cole comes back from his self imposed rest and he sits in the forward portion of the midfield along with Andy Rose. Lameiras keeps his spot on the right wing after an impressive display in the last match and we bring our in form full backs back into the lineup. If we are going to win this one we will have to focus on controlling the game through the middle. Their two holding midfielders will look to clog anything in their final third up so we will have to be instrumental with our decision making. I give the lads a pep talk and now it's time to take the pitch.
F.A. Cup
Coventry City 3 - 2 Ipswich Town
COV - Armstrong 21', 23', Gadzhev 77'
IPS - Bru 53', McGoldrick 90'
MOTM: Armstrong
And the pep talk worked! At least for Rose and Armstrong, but hey that was all we needed. The scoring opened up in the first half with a pair of Rose crosses resulting in a pair of Armstrong headers into the back of the net. After the half though Bru scored to keep the match within reach and the pressure was back on us to see it out. But Gadzhev, in his first game back from injury stepped up to the challenge and he scored a fantastic solo effort to put the game out of reach. They added an annoying consolation goal with the last kick, but this one was all us from start to finish and we advance again in the F.A. Cup as we keep our eyes on making a good run this season.
I'm a bit weary of the potential of a down every time we are flying high, but I can't deny that we have had a fantastic season so far. But a bump may be awaiting us as Wigan comes to visit this week. Wigan are third in the table and one of the better teams we have faced this season already. Their 4-3-3 has a lot of attacking power, and we field a 4-2-2-2 to utilize the two holding midfielders as support and keeping our width to attack the empty space between the wings. Armstrong pairs with Henderson up front as we usually do with a two forward set. Murphy and Cole are played out on the wing where we will have to keep an eye on Cole but the extra space out there should make his lack of pace a minimal problem. Gadzhev and Rose fill in at the holding positions and the back line has Ricketts come in as the only change in place of Stephens.
Coventry City 1 - 3 Wigan Athletic
COV - Armstrong 31'
WIG - Grigg 3', Parodi 17', Perkins 86'
MOTM: Grigg
I knew it, I saw it coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Wigan came in and they just had their way with us. Grigg opened it up with a ling range stunner and Parodi added a second before the first 20 minutes were even played. A glimmer of hope shined through when Parodi took out Murphy in the box and Armstrong finished it off to cut the lead in half, but it was only false hope. Wigan dominated the rest of the way and Perkins finished us off with their third goal leaving us with nothing but a shameful performance in front of our own fans.
As much as I would love to beat up on Oldham to get over that last loss, I have to be careful. We have the first leg of the semi-final against Liverpool just 3 days after this and as such I am forced to rest some key players for this one as we choose our battles. Still, Oldham are sitting in the relegation zone and this should still be a winnable match. They run a flat 4-4-2 so we decide to roll out a 4-2-3-1 that we've had success with in the past against these formations. We shuffle up several of the players in our lineup, but the biggest news is the return of Romaine Vincelot who is of course given the armband once again.
Coventry City 2 - 1 Oldham Athletic
COV - Lameiras 11', Fortune 86'
OLD - Forte 78'
MOTM: Lameiras
Despite the mix of reserves we still took care of business. Lameiras got it started early when he tapped in a pass from Maddison and then after that it felt like neither side really did much in the way of trying to score. In the second half, Leutwiler passed the ball directly to the attacker and Forte punished him immediately. I swear sometimes you just want to tear your eyes out watching things like that. Luckily Fortune was able to head home a corner to help us avoid losing, but not for lack of trying. Now we can officially look ahead to the Capital One Cup semi-final against Liverpool up next.
Liverpool, Anfield, huge tasks ahead of us and no one gives us a chance. Especially with two legs involved to separate the two sides. Screw them, screw all of them. Today we march in and face a red army against all odds. Let them underestimate us. I know what this squad is capable of, and I feel like we can surprise a lot of teams when we play at our best. Liverpool will use a 4-2-3-1 and we will face it with a 4-3-2-1 and aim to control the middle. A lot of people might thing we are crazy trying to win a midfield battle against a Premier League giant, but we certainly won't win it if we shell up and hide inside our own half inviting them to assault us.
Capital One Cup Semi-Final Leg 1
Liverpool FC 1 - 0 Coventry City
LFC - Ings 30'
MOTM: Mignolet
I felt like we deserved more. We threw everything at them, and the fact that their keeper was the man of the match just proves how much pressure we put on their goal. Ings scored off of a lucky rebound and we hit the post twice with no such luck on our side. Liverpool will take the goal advantage from this one, but we went a long way in terms of proving ourselves. They know they will have to be on watch in the second leg now or else we will be the ones celebrating at the end.
Unfortunately sometimes you have to make tough decisions, and this was one of them. We head to the 4th round of the F.A. Cup and we draw Southampton as our opponent which is no easy task. The issue is, we play the second leg of our Capital One Cup semi-final in two days time against Liverpool. We reluctantly, I choose to rest most of our players in order to focus on that. If we advance in neither then it's a decision I will have to live with, but being so close to the final I feel like it's what had to be done. Southampton Run a 4-2-3-1 and we match it with a 4-3-2-1 in order to keep them from overrunning our midfield. We will look to find any space we can and break them down. The most important aspect is to keep our defense strong and if we force a replay then at least we get a chance to have them with our first choice players.
F.A. Cup
Coventry City 2 - 1 Southampton FC
COV - Maddison 76' (PEN), Thomas 89'
SOU - Juanmi
MOTM: Leutwiler
I don't know how, but pulled it out. We should have lost that one by all means, but instead we won. I'm speechless, really. Juanmi opened it in the first half after some terrible excuse of defense and it looked like our decision to play the reserves was going about as expected. Southampton keep laying siege to our goal taking shot after shot, and we could barely string two passes together when we had it. Then the football gods smiled on us. Wanyama took out Lameiras in the box and Maddison converted from the spot and it looked like we could actually force a replay out of this one. But it wasn't over, oh no it wasn't over. With a minute to play we got on the counter and the ball ended up at Thomas' feet with only the keeper to beat. He hit it first time and that one kick sent us to victory. I don't know how, I don't know why, but on we march!
This is it! The second leg of the semi-final. We are down a goal, but now we head into Ricoh Arena to face the Reds of Liverpool. We bring in our starters, all rested since the last match, and we put out the same 4-3-2-1 to take them on. We outplayed them last time, but a lucky goal went in their favor. Luck only lasts so long though. The sky blues are on the march and in this one we will show no mercy. A spot in the final is on the line.
Capital One Cup Semi-Final Leg 2
Coventry City (3) 3 - 1 (2) Liverpool FC
COV - Armstrong 5' (PEN), Vincelot 34', Cole 56'
LFC - Firmino 89'
MOTM: Vincelot
This is our stadium, this is our field, these are our fans, and this was our win! The red shirts of the mighty Liverpool had no effect on us. After we marched into Anfield and went toe to toe with them, we knew they were beatable. Rather than be overwhelmed by the stage, we overwhelmed them on the pitch. We got a helping hand early as Sakho clobbered our man in the box and Armstrong converted from the spot. It only got better as our captain added the second before half, and then Cole made it 3 not long after the break. Liverpool tried to come back, but we were having none of it. Firmino got a late consolation goal, but this one was us from the start. On to the final, on to potential glory. The sky blues won't stop their march.
We head to Crewe Alexandra for this one and they are sitting just inside the relegation zone at the moment. I feel good about this one, and a win would do nicely to keep our separation from Wigan who are trying to creep up on us. Crewe run the same 4-2-3-1 we've played against the last 3 matches so our formation stays the same with Maddison in for Cole, Lameiras in for Jones, and Lorentzson in for Phillips who took a knock in the last one and wasn't fully fit for this one. We should find out game plan much easier to execute now that we are getting back to a lower competition level.
Crewe Alexandra 0 - 2 Coventry City
COV - Armstrong 4' (PEN), Murphy 74'
MOTM: Murphy
Three straight matches against Premier League opponents, and it was nice to get back to league play after that. Our form continued as well as we rolled through this one with relative ease. Another early penalty got us off to a fast start with Armstrong converting and Murphy added another in the second half to see out the easy win. Top of the table, advancing to the final of the Capital One Cup, and on to the round of 16 in the FA Cup. This was a great month.
Youth Academy
Another month in Scotland, and we had some promising prospects turn up on our report from the scout, but we are waiting for our F.A. Cup money to come in after the replays are played to finish the round and then we can look more seriously at signing some of these players.
Greg Fox - 17 years old, Scotland, CB, 51 OVR, 74-94 POT
Amari'i Seager - 15 years old, England, CB, 58 OVR, 68-76 POT
Matthew Cox - 15 years old, England, LB, 51 OVR, 65-77 POT
Transfer Business
Remember how I said we had no money? Well turns out that certainly makes your transfer window a much harder endeavor. First we focused on Bosman transfers, assuming the players were willing to accept fairly low wages. Three key positions were identified, a utility midfielder who can play several roles, a winger, and a back up striker. Unfortunately it became obvious pretty quickly that we were only going to be able to afford two of those. After a few inquiries went out, we were able to secure signatures from Jamie Proctor and Enoch Andoh to join at the start of next season. Proctor will be our back up striker to Armstrong with Henderson and Fortune both getting older it was something that I felt was an important priority to bring in. Proctor can fill in as a target man and also be used as a quicker forward if needed as well. Enoch Ando was also brought in to provide cover for the aging Stephen Hunt out on the wings. He provides pace that we can put to great use, and he will be much needed depth for next season.
With that business wrapped up, we came into some money at the end of the month from our Capital One Cup victory so we turned that into wage funds and went out and started bringing in depth to cover for the current season in the form of loans. Unfortunately Stephen Hunt will miss the next 2 months after getting injured against Southampton so Gboly Ariyibi comes in to cover for us on the wing and give our starters some rest and provide a substitute option that can really run at defenders. Another issue we've been having is Joe Cole's fitness level where he is constantly having to be rested and can't sustain multiple matches in a row. All we have to cover for him is Maddison so in comes Ryan Edwards as another attacking midfielder to fill out the rotation.
Transfers Out
GK, Corey Addai, Ghana, 18 yrs old, 56 OVR - Loaned to Plymouth Argyle
Transfers In
RM, Gboly Ariyibi, United States, 21 yrs old, 64 OVR - Loaned from Chesterfield FC
ST, Jamie Proctor, England, 23 yrs old, 63 OVR - Bosman transfer from Bradford City
LM, Enoch Andoh, Ghana, 23 yrs old, 62 OVR - Bosman transfer from Port Vale
CAM, Ryan Edwards, Australia, 22 yrs old, 61 OVR - Loaned from Patrick Thistle
Alonso 81'
Cools 47' (Sprained ankle, out 3 weeks)
Juanpi 42'
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