Arsenal Career - Entry #2

Season 2 (2014-2015)

With the school year coming to close, I decided to pick up FIFA again. It has become something of a summer ritual at this point. I started playing with my Grasshopper Zurich career, which I must have started some time around Christmas 2014, but as usual, I eventually found myself returning to my Arsenal career. My last save picked up in September or October of my fourth season with the team. I had several new high-quality players, so I decided to check out the blog and see if I had taken any notes. I was pleased to discover that I had published a detailed write-up of my first season, including a brief discussion of how I never finish any of my career modes. What luck!

I also checked my unpublished drafts, and I found a mid-season update on year one, which I've posted at the end of this entry. It offers an interesting glimpse into my thought process and future plans for the team. It's really fascinating to read these old video game entries, so I'm going to keep writing them for future me to enjoy.

As for my second season, I no longer have access to my save file. However, I have been able to piece together a few bits of information:

Record Transfer Fee Paid: Mats Hummels - 40.5 M 
Record Transfer Fee Received: Mathieu Debuchy - 9.0 M

I believe that this was also the season that I purchased Raphael Varane in order to fully revamp my aging back line of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny. I picked up Debuchy in season one because Arsenal purchased him in real life, but he was a flop for me as well as for the real life Arsenal. I believe that I stuck with Jenkinson (and probably Bellerin) for most of this season. It also wouldn't surprise me if I ended up playing Campbell in the RB spot for a few games.

Final Standings:
EPL: 5th
FA Cup: Winner
Capital One Cup: Winner 
Champions League: Winner 

I lost six matches during the entire campaign, and I had sixteen draws. If I remember correctly, I just didn't have the squad depth to crank out victory after victory during league play. Instead, I focused my efforts on cup competitions, a gamble that obviously paid off. Had I not won the Champions League, I would've spent the next season toiling in the Europa League. Although it would have been a nice change of pace, it's definitely not Arsenal's style to play in the junior tournament. And, of course, this is working under the assumption that the board would not have fired me on the spot for breaking Arsenal's Champions League streak.

During my first season with the team, I sold some quality players, but the problem was that I only brought in youth players and future prospects to replace them. This was part of my TEAM USA project, but despite my noble intentions, I just didn't have enough quality on the field to compete in both the league and in the tournaments. I still had Koscielny at this point, so my defense was solid. Both Brooks and Zimmerman performed admirably, although not always reliably against strong opposition. Without a doubt, defense is a major asset when it comes to progressing through tournaments. You can always grind out a game into extra time or penalties in order to decide a winner, but strong defense with a toothless offense leads to far too many dropped points over the course of a campaign.

Fortunately, I snapped a picture of my Champions League progress with my cell phone. The results were as follows:

Champions League:
Final: Arsenal 0-0 Inter Milan (5-4 pen.)
Semi-finals: Arsenal 2-0 Bayern Munich
Quarter-finals: Arsenal 3 - 2 Real Madrid
Round of 16: Arsenal 3 - 1 Athletic Madrid

A lackluster season in the league combined with a grueling defensive stalemate during the Champions League final convinced me that I needed to bring some big guns to the Emirates in order to compete next season.


And last but not least, here is my original post from about a year ago:

Season 1 (2013-2014)

Winter Transfer Window:

OUT
Nacho Monreal - Norwich - 4.0 M
Ryo Miyaichi - Aston Villa - 1.5 M
Thomas Eisfeld - Charlton Athletic - 375K
Mathieu Flamini - Swap (for Gonzalez)
 
IN
Alexis Sanchez -21.0 M
Javier Pastore - 16.0 M
Joel Campbell - 11.0 M
Omar Gonzalez - Flamini + 2.0 M


I probably should have held on to some of these guys for one more window because I haven't had a chance to fill out my roster with recruits from the youth academy. My roster's a bit thin, which makes it tough when I have back to back to back matches against strong opponents. I tried to sell Nacho last window, but their weren't any takers. I sold him for above value to Norwich. I wasn't super excited about selling Miyaichi because he's always been good to me, but he's too far down the pecking order. Eisfeld was never going to happen, so I let him go. I was running low on funds, so I used Flamini as a counter-weight. Like I said, I wish I had hung on to them a little longer, but I was operating under the philosophy of out with the old and in with the new. Hopefully, these guys will get some decent playing time.

Joel Campbell is already an Arsenal player, but he starts out at Olympiakos in the game. He had a monster World Cup, so I added him to the team. I finally paid the extra million dollars and picked up Pastore. He's an improvement on Podolski, but I still use both players. I tend to pair Pastore with Ox and Podolski with Walcott to even things out. I wanted a stronger CB...