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Am I playing FIFA or PES??? Or FC25🤓🤓🤓 Lombardia?? Maybe my only time saying, utter woke nonsense etc. anyway. Playing Inter in the Champions League today! Interesting kits, interesting name, interesting stadium, putting the Inter in interesting! That was horrific I do apologise. Onto the game. Inter have a good early chance but got too close to Lammens like Slenderman, their vision went all funny and they couldn’t put away the chance! We go down the other end but Duranville can’t put it away! He’s called Sommer but he had to Spring into action to stop that one. Zirkzee then plays the game like a bottle and opens it right up! Pavlovic PavUnlocks the defense (these are getting worse), sets Zirkzee free and he fires past Sommer to make it 1-0. Inter playing a bit dirty and injured Mainoo on a really dodgy tackle. Not very happy. Not long after though and Big Zirker HD is at the double! Systematically moving inwards from the right wing, ball at Zirkzee’s feet, 2-0 United. Inter get one back before the half though as Martinez seems to lose control of his limbs trying to defend. The ball was about an inch from his big toe for 10 seconds and I was pressing tackle the whole time. Do something! 100k a week for what! Stick your leg out you melon. Into the second half and Lammens has swapped Slenderman for SpongeBob as he does a Patrick Star impression to keep Inter from equalising. Oh but they do it anyway moments later. Sick. Fed up of this game. They do a pointless lob, Martinez (again) goes for the header, misses entirely, falls on the floor, while the Inter player has the ball hit him in the chest, bounce off his knee, off his chest again and then perfectly controls it to swivel 180 degrees and run into the open space. 2-2. Joke. We have one or two more chances but it seems like it’s gonna end as a draw until Julien Duranville scores as our hopes dwindled! Wow. Inter get a free kick 2 minutes past extra time and if they score I’ll throw my controller out the window. Thankfully it’s safe for another day. 3-2 win. These CL games have been crazy. We also get the news Mainoo is out for a month. Thanks, Lombardia. #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Just to add to the fun schedule we’ve been facing, it’s Newcastle as our next opponents! We won the league last season (don’t know if I’ve mentioned that before) by beating them in the final game, with a goal in the last 10 minutes. Wouldn’t mind a repeat of that, no bother! Almost instantly, a bit like the Chelsea game, Bruno Fernandes gets absolutely annihilated and this time gets sent to 30,000 feet! Call him Bruno Fernairndes. I’ll kms on the way out. Bad joke or two there, what else is new? Moving on! Newcastle open the scoring first with Sue Barker getting on the scoresheet. Similar to the Dortmund goal, passing around the box unlocks the space for an easy finish. Don’t know how to defend it when I press tackle and nothing happens, and anyone I don’t control stands dead still like they’re modelling for Madamde Tussauds. Nae bother! Nusa brings us back level on the counter in the 11th minute. 2 goals already, fast starters here. Not before Zirkzee doubles our tally straight away! And then Bruce Lee’s the corner flag for good measure sure why not. He then gets our third in 18 minutes?? What is happening? We went down early, and are now 3-1 up inside 20 minutes lmao. Game is on crack. Isak has a goal ruled out for Newcastle for offside as well… what a wild, end to end game! We run down to the other end one more time, Mainoo shoots but Pope parries, but Zirkzee is there to pick up the pieces for a first half hattrick, wow! Rashford wants to then get in on the action, makes a nice run down the left wing and adds to the scoresheet. 5-1??? I feel like we’ve scored from every shot bar Mainoo’s which turned into a goal anyway. Absolutely insane first half. Into the second, Isak has another chance but takes the shot too early and Lammens prevents a 7th goal of the game temporarily, but Isak does eventually get his second. Untackleable dribble down the wing, cuts it back to Isak in loads of space and it’s another goal. 5-2. Crazy. #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

United v Liverpool! Clash of the titans. Big day in the Prem. We’ve had a tough go of it recently, facing Arsenal, Chelsea, Dortmund and now Liverpool in 4 consecutive games. Lost the first two, won the last. What will we make of this one? Were at a rainy Old Trafford, what else is new? Breaking news fork found in kitchen etc. We get off the mark in the derby thanks to Marcus Rashford! Last seasons leading goalscorer is on the hunt for another golden boot trophy, being assisted by Kobbie Mainoo. Takes the ball on his left foot and powers home. 1-0 United, more where that came from if you don’t mind! Liverpool have been having more and more attacks as we approach the half, but haven’t been able to get the final touches to actually let a shot off, so it’s been a lot of building pressure but nothing shooting at the end of it. Sounds like Edging. Big fan. Of the Blink-182 song. Anyway. Into the second half, getting towards the hour mark and that man Joshua Zirkzee gets on the scoresheet, what a machine. Great run, great pass, great balls of fire it’s 2-0. Big win! #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Flip flopping back to the Champions League today to face Dortmund at Old Trafford! Should be a fun game! They also play 3 at the back but it’s not like the West Ham’s of the world. We ain’t winning 8-0 in this one. Schlotterbeck doing his best Alex Honnold impression, got a game at 7 and climbing El Capitan at 10. Tense game, back and forth until Dortmund break the deadlock around half an hour in. Tiki Taka passing breaks our defense apart and Lookman fires them ahead. Cant wait for two losses in a row! Nusa gives us our first chance of the game but fails to convert. Ramping up the pressure though, and I’ve heard that makes diamonds for tyres or smn like that. Kobbie Mainoo finally comes through to make it level just before halftime! With a pass across the area, he hits it first time and makes it 1-1. Good stuff. Into the second half and we flop a chance in the most bizarre way. Nusa is making a run on goal, Schlotterbeck slides in, takes the ball and his follow through wipes out Nusa, who then gets sent rolling and sliding into the box, which is perfectly in the path of Rashford. He then has to hurdle his teammate, leaving the ball running and can’t then shoot without smacking a Dortmund defender so it deflects and Sabitzer (United legend) clears. What did I just see. No matter! Bruno Fernandes puts us ahead anyway! Pavlovic shoots on goal but Sommer parries away, we get it back on the wing, drill the pass to Fernandes who fires us ahead from the edge of the box! The joy doesn’t last long (as most things don’t I’ve found) as Lookman is too strong, too fast and makes it 2-2. Ffs. Gimme a break. Super sub and former Dortmund player Duranville doesn’t mess around though and gives us the lead at the death!! Perfect through ball, hits it first time and can’t miss from there. United win. Come on! #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Chelsea up next! They sit 17th as it stands but I take zero stock in that cos not only is it early in the season, but form and momentum have no bearing on what happens in the game which is a shame. I’d love for there to be some momentum mechanic in there somewhere, cos it doesn’t matter that they’re 17th and in disarray, their team and player ratings are the same so they’re still as good. Game starts, and almost directly from kickoff Cole Palmer obliterates Bruno Fernandes and promptly gets himself sent off. Usually that’s a blessing (so long as Bruno isn’t injured), but for me it’s a curse. I know exactly how this is gonna go now. Every time the opposition gets a red card, the AI turn the cheese-o-meter up to 10000 and twat us. Sure enough, soon after, Joao Felix scores. The red card means literally nothing. Our starting RB Arnau Martinez goes down injured half an hour in and we are in shambles. Just an annoying game to play when the AI are like this. Also don’t know how that 1 shot consitituted 1.0xG but whatever at this point. Into the second half, defenders split like the Red Sea, Dorgu parks himself in front of Jackson but fails the block, 2-0 Chelsea. Zirkzee manages to bring one back but the effort is futile, as Chelsea get a BS penalty cos fuck me. I press square to clear the ball, Dorgu slide tackles, penalty. Not my fault in the slightest, the ball is in the vicinity and no player is in control of it. We are closer to it. No matter, I’ll just guess the right way on the penalty but oh! That doesn’t matter either! They score it. Might as well not play if the inputs are misinterpreted or make next to no difference. I’ll watch it on sim. Buzz Aldrin then gets PTSD seeing all the space our CB’s have left for Chelsea and they score again. 4-1. Get me out. Arnau also did his ACL and is out for 7 months. Glad I do this for fun👍 #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

First game in the Carabao Cup and it’s against Arsenal. Sweet, very happy. Great draw! I’ve said that this time I’ll put the youth players and the backups who don’t get much game time in, and I’ll play the games cos if I sim with the youth team I’ll guarantee lose every time. That plan goes out the window when we face teams like Arsenal and not Preston North End but oh well. We stick to it! Arsenal roll out a full first XI, we play a few academy graduates and the rest are backups. I can see this going one way! Martinelli has a chance early on, don’t know how Yoro didn’t block it, but the ball hits the post and we clear anyway. Phew. Very shorted lived though, as Martinelli then puts Arsenal up 1-0 on the brink of halftime. Infuriating. I’m spamming to clear the ball, doesn’t happen, we get dispossessed and they score. Very happy. We’ve not played all that bad given the circumstances but we end up behind at the half. Second half doesn’t go much better, Martinelli again on the scoresheet. One long touch, uses his pace to burn past everyone, shoots from outside the box because he knows he doesn’t even need to get close to guarantee a goal. Excellent. 2-0 Arsenal and that’s gonna be game. Out of the cup straight away, what a sad little life. #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Brighton having a bit of a stinky start to the year. Feel like they were 8th or 9th last season and were around the top 6 before the end, but they’ve started off this time out being plumb last. Still a decent side, means they’re still a team to be wary about! Brighton get the first chance of the game with an absolutely perfect run and pass to get past our entire defensive line, but Lammens dislocated his arm seemingly saving the shot. Body on the line for the badge, gotta respect it. Zirkzee gets our first chance but yeets the ball off the post, maybe distracted by Slenderman and the CB does some kind of floating scissor kick clear. Sweet. Fuming we haven’t scored yet, we’ve been all over them like a bad rash or idk, Santa laying on an ant. That was horrid. Moving on! Zirkzee opens the scoring straight away into the second half let’s go! Finally, the edging is complete. Duranville makes it Tworanville after a pass from Bruno Fernandes, he takes it first time, edge of the box on his left foot and doubles our lead! Mitoma makes it 2-1 with one of those really fun “AI dribbles through the whole team like they’re standing still” goals, very fun. Rashford sets Hojlund through and he makes it 3-1. Game over. Deserved win. Would’ve like the clean sheet but sometimes you shit yourself. Such is life! #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

We begin our Champions League campaign! First time this career, not sure how much I’ve played with the league format either. Could be interesting. First game up is against Leverkusen who play a 3 at the back, but I don’t think it’ll quite be like facing Wolves. Very attacking lineup so we might be hiding under the covers a lot during this one. Bruno gives us the lead around the 10 minute mark! Great start to being back in the Champions League. New signing Prestianni gets a start as we have to rotate the squad more now, and he sets Fernandes through to finish past the keeper. However, the jubilation is short lived as Leverkusen get one back. 3 defenders at fault, Arnau allowed the run, De Ligt didn’t track it and Martinez failed to put in the tackle. All that hard work undone! They play a very hard pressing game, which makes things very difficult. Issue is, we intend to play that way. That’s the style we set up, yet we never can actually do it? We sit back so much. No urgency. Irritating. Anyway! Second half, Prestianni gets a wonderful chance in front of goal but aims for the logo on the goalies shirt instead. Ffs! 75th minute though and he’s very much made up for it, shooting from a tight angle to put us back in front! After the miss earlier, i absolutely did not think he’d score that one but im happy he proved me wrong! Leverkusen get two really good chances to level the game, Boniface smacks the post initially and then Lammens goes full Patrick Star to stop a second chance late in the game. 2-1 win back in the CL, lets go! #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Aston Villa up next in the Premier League! Their play style is “Standard” so I guess there’s no distinctive, unique way of playing it’s just Tesco own brand football let’s go! Antony revenge game is once again on the cards. Rashford gets our first chance, with a bobbling ball in the box (way too many b’s, not a problem I’ve ever had), but he ends up smacking Martinez with the volley. Took it on the chin well fair play. Nothing else of note massively in that half besides that. That’s Standard football for you! Into the second half, Vranckx has a run from his CDM slot all the way into the right side of the box but fires wide, mainly because his shooting stance was to imitate being shot at the same time. Bold strategy. Villa get the breakthrough via Ollie Watkins in the 78th minute. Man used a Max Repel and the defenders vanished. Irritating. Not a game we should be losing. No worries though! Rutter pulls us out of the gutter (not sure pronunciation makes that work but it’s fine) and makes it 1-1 late on, before Nusa makes it Twosa with one of the last kicks of the game! Wasn’t even a kick, corner came in, header didn’t go goalwards but across the area, Nusa heads it into the ground and Martinez can’t stop it! 2-1 United, have that. #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Manchester Derby version 1937284 of the last two years. We’ve scored 9 in two games, and conceded 1. How will we ruin that today? Well, we’ve conceded early so that’s phenomenal. Martinez gets dispossessed by Haaland, quick one-two between himself and De Bruyne, and he hits it first time, on the turn, left footed curl straight into the far left top corner. Impossible shot. So irritating to be dispossessed so easily all the time. We struggle so much to get the ball back but the AI can do it like taking candy from a baby. Oh well. Zirkzee tries to fight back but his equalising goal gets ruled out for offside. We keep pushing! And we get a result! Bruno Fernandes lobs the ball over the defensive line, Zirkzee collects and scores! We are back. Even more back now, as he gets his second! 2-1 United, come on that’s more like it. Short lasted joy though, typical! Haaland gets another goal to equalise with a header from a corner. Splits both defenders to get the ball, splits the keeper and defender on the goal line to score. So typical. Feel like we’ve been a bit robbed but that’s fine. We never have any ability to score from corners, it’s impossible. AI seem to be set piece specialists. 2-2 final score, oh well. Not very happy but we didn’t lose I guess lmao. Onto the next! #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Matchday 2 against the Boro, but are they as mid as they say? They are newly promoted, we are title holders. Nuclear bomb vs coughing baby. This theoretically should be a walk on the Riverside. Bruno Fernandes gets through on a counter attack, gets massively held back for a good chunk of his run, seems unfair, and then gets his shot off with the worst technique I’ve ever seen. A lot of pressure, still 0-0. Duranville gets through in a similar fashion but hits the Calfreezy technique and misses again. Thankfully he gets his shot together and fires us ahead before the break. I was about to be furious if we went into the half without a goal but no need now! Zirkzee hits a first time shot on his left foot and doubles our lead before getting subbed off for Wheatley and an academy player, John Black, gets his debut. And my how he starts it off! Onto the pitch as a 16 year old for the first time with Manchester United, bags an assist in 5 minutes! Slicing ball to Duranville who curls past the keeper for 3. Now to top it off, the icing on the cake, Black Forest Gateau, John Black gets a debut goal! Shoots from close range, smacks the keeper, gets the rebound and smashes that one home! 4-0 United, debut goal and assist for the youngster. And then immediately gets his loan deal go through after the game haha. Great timing. We also signed a keeper from the academy, not cos we wanted him but just to keep him in the game cycle and not just release from the academy. I’ve accepted double digit offers and he’s turned them all down. Might just cut him. Just leaveeeeee. #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Season 2 of the Premier League is upon us! Ipswich, Middlesborough and Leicester make the move up to the big leagues for this season. As for today, it’s Manchester United vs Wolves, clash of the titans, biggest rivalry in football, etc. They like to play a 3 at the back formation, which usually means there’s not only big gaps between the back line, but also there’s usually acres between the defenders and midfielders. Hopefully we can punish that! Irankunda does exactly that 5 minutes in to kick off the new campaign! Cant ask for a better start. Or you can but probably won’t get it. Or you might and I’m just waffling. Fork found in kitchen. Anyway. Last seasons leading goalscorer Marcus Rashford doubles our lead, before Irankunda has a chance get our third of the half but decides to pass to the keeper, what a selfless guy! Rashford steals the chance to add the third, before our captain Bruno Fernandes gets the 4th of the first half. Came out all guns blazing today! Wolves get one back after the half after some infuriating defending. Nothing we did worked. Shoe on the other foot, they want to tackle us, they tackle us. We want to tackle them, but nothing happens. I’d just like a bit of balance in this game. Anyway, Duranville gets a 5th so have your BS pity goal. Domination. Kill Confirmed? Idk. Lovely start to the season nonetheless. And as for the Garnacho/Amad situation, I might just sell him too. Maybe how it should go. We’ll see. #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

First game, first trophy opportunity of the year. Won’t lie though, not all that fussed. Would be nice to win, sure. Especially beating City, also nice. But Community Shield is very eh. So I’ll sim it and see how it goes, might jump in, might not. We’ve got the dual Martinez lineup going on, let’s go! Zirkzee puts us up 1-0 and we carry that into the half despite having 26% possession lmao which is a bit crazy. Reminds me of the FA Cup final irl a couple years ago when we beat City. Good times. Not been many of them. Anyway! Zirkzee doubles our lead after the halftime break, and adds a third for his hattrick later on! First trophy of the year signed, sealed, delivered. The most irrelevant one but it’s something! After the game we got a loan offer for Garnacho, which if we’d have got before the Amad offer, we might have taken but now we’re a bit stuck ffs. Oh well. Such is life! Onto the first game of the league season! #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

As we build up to the start of the season with the Community Shield, we have a lot of admin to do! Firstly looking at the board’s targets, I mean they seem fairly reasonable given we won the league. Securing UCL football should be a minimum, but I think that with winning the FA Cup and getting to the UCL final is very tough, given we didn’t have European football when we won the league which is really helpful for fatigue and squad depth. First order of business was to look at the expiring contracts and loanees. Everyone with less than a year left did get resigned, even if it’s just to facilitate a sale. We also recalled some loans and sold a bunch of players. We are scouting through our academy so we don’t have a need for a bunch of 63 rated 22 year olds. Now for transfers, this will get controversial. I’m unsure about mixing irl feelings with in game things. Sancho was on the reserves the whole last season and never touched the field. Now he’s gone and good riddance (shoutout Green Day). Annoying that it’s to a rival but it’s life, nobody abroad wanted him. Now though, we also sold Amad and kept Garnacho, which goes against the irl stuff because Garnacho was a pain irl and I’m glad he left, and Amad is great. We have a lot of wingers and plenty that can move to CAM in a pinch, so one of them had to go, and Garnacho played well off the bench while Amad was injured for a while and didn’t have highs like I’d hoped. Hopefully he shines at Inter. We also sold Maguire to Spurs, not an ideal to another PL team but he’s one where he’s 33 odd and has about that in pace. We’re improving at CB, he wasn’t playing. Appreciate his efforts for United. Dalot is another one from irl, he’s not all that great but in game was playing well. I didn’t think the offer would be accepted but it was, so we signed Artau Martinez to replace him. We also signed a backup RB at the same time to develop. Up next is the community shield and then things really kick up a gear. #FC25 #ManchesterUnited

Let’s take a little stroll down the league table and some of the stats shall we? So, first up, Manchester United. Champions once again. Been a while! Goals conceded was similar to the others, we just put 8 past Palace for example so goals scored was sky high. Arsenal came 2nd again! Oh no! Anyway. Arsenal and Liverpool were fighting 1-2 for most of the season but the chasing pack came back swinging. Newcastle were league leaders into the final stretch but ended up 6th, nearly our fate too! Spurs were 13th and made the comeback to 7th which was a good recovery. Bournemouth started the season fighting for the top 6th but had a massive fall off and ended the season in 11th, with Casemiro and Malacia seemingly not up to much good. Wolves very narrowly escaped relegation, instead going to Forest, Leeds (another shame) and Norwich. Norwich incidentally broke the record for the least points recorded in a single season! 10 points on the year. They managed to win a game somehow still lmao. Marcus Rashford ended the year with the most goals scored with 26 and it definitely could’ve been more. And we take up over half of the assists board with Zirkzee and Nusa tied with 13 across the season. Lammens somehow ended up with the most clean sheets after the horror start we had. We’ll take that! 19 goals and 13 assists for Zirkzee is a crazy season, and so he was given the Player of the Year for our team! Wheatley had a high score since he made so few appearances but bagged two against Palace! That’s all for this one, on to Season 2! #FC25 #ManchesterUnited