[FM20] Karim of the Crop: Surpassing Dixie

[ShaunG95]

Karim Adeyemi

Karim Adeyemi is an 18-year-old German forward who currently plays for RB Salzburg in Austria. He has been on loan at Salzburg's feeder club FC Liefering (they essentially act as Salzburg's B team, in a similar format to Spain and Holland's reserve squads where they cannot be promoted to the top tier of the Austrian Bundesliga) for the past two seasons, during the earlier stages of the 2019/20 campaign, he mustered up 9 goals and 8 assists in 14 domestic appearances for Liefering. Adeyemi's raw pace, ability to beat his man and versatility across the front line has seen the Munich-born starlet linked to some of European football's elite clubs in more recent times. Since March 2020, however, he has returned to RB Salzburg and has been involved with the first team. During this time, he has contributed 3 assists in 5 goals, thriving in a LW role during his appearance against Sturm Graz in which he assisted twice, a shot on goal that Patson Daka dispatched and later a pass into Hee-Chan Hwang to round out a 5-1 win for Salzburg.

In the realm of Football Manager, in one of the most recent updates, Karim Adeyemi saw his potential ability raised. Without delving into the intricacies of the upgrade that he received, as I know not everyone wants to know the 'beneath the bonnet' bits of FM shall we say, to liken this upgrade in terms of player comparisons - he could become either as good as Vincent Aboubakar in his prime or reach the lofty heights of a prime Gonzalo Higuain or Robert Lewandowski. This is dependent on the potential ability roll players of this ilk receive whenever you start a new save. Obviously, we all would prefer a roll on the higher end, especially when it is a player we actively want to sign.

What does this career entail?

I will sign Adeyemi for my boyhood Everton in my first season, regardless of how much I have to pay. My ultimate goal with this save is to develop Adeyemi into an elite striker, that is a given and an absolute requisite for him to achieve my ultimate goal. I want him to win golden boots, I want him to win Champions League trophies and I want him to win the Ballon D'Or. But what is the most difficult thing I ideally want him to achieve? I want him to break Dixie Dean's long-standing goalscoring record in the top-flight of English football or old First Division as it was when Dixie Dean accomplished the feat of 60 league goals in a domestic campaign. This occurred in the 1927-28 season where this record was set in 39 games. Adeyemi will have one less game per season to do this.

If Adeyemi is to topple this record, he must first break Mo Salah's record of 32 goals in the modern 38 Premier League game campaign as well as Alan Shearer and Andy Cole's record of 34 goals in a 42 game Premier League campaign. Even so, neither of these are necessarily easy to break.

Along the way, I hope I can manage to break Gareth Barry's appearance record of 653 in the Premier League also but this is extremely unlikely as he would have to appear 37 times (on average) over the course of an 18 year career in the Premier League (assuming that he retired at the age of 35). If I do break this with another player though, I will update.

Is he actually any good on the game?

So here we are, at the very start of the game. On the surface, he looks very average in terms of using him as a starting striker in the Premier League but given his age, his off the ball movement, combined with his pace, flair and determination will be extremely meta for the game engine. Do I anticipate that he will score most of the chances created for him or the chances he creates for himself? Probably not, not in the first season at least. 

How will I maximise his goalscoring?

I am adding two managers to the game, I managing Everton and Germany as separate managers. Therefore, he will be starting for Everton and Germany at the very start of the game and be assigned to take penalties for both club and country. In retrospect, I could also make him the free-kick taker for club and country but I believe this will likely be overkill as I want Adeyemi's development to be optimised but also for club and country to be winning silverware. If a Toni Kroos can take an excellent 90th minute free-kick that could influence a game in Germany's favour then yes, he will be taking that free-kick. However, given the attacking intensity I hope to apply with club and country, I have no doubt he will score a lot of goals regardless, from open play and from the penalty spot. 

And so, it begins...

Ignore that we signed him for £24m, the initial fee was £7m with £17m spread out over the course of the next three seasons. Given how high Adeyemi's seal is (as you can see from the potential ability rating), this is actually a really good fee for him. You can sign him from the very start of the game as RB Salzburg can recall him from his FC Liefering loan, therefore any club can poach him immediately without honoring his loan contract.

The calm before the storm...

In the next update, I will detail how Adeyemi progressed over the course of the first season. I don't anticipate him coming remotely close to Dixie Dean's record in his first season with us but if he scores a third of the 60 goal tally, I will be impressed.

Edited June 18, 2020 by ShaunG95

[ShaunG95]

2019/20 Attribute Progress

As you can see here, his finishing improved by 3 as well as his technique and composure. Overall, his development was excellent. I played him as an advanced forward for club and country and focused his training on his shooting. He was also being mentored by Rodrigo Palacio for the entirety of the campaign as he is a model citizen and I believe he has an ideal personality to impact Adeyemi and his development in the long-term. He also managed to develop the 'moves into channels' trait thanks to Palacio's mentoring as well as an increase in his determination attribute.

How many did he score?

He was surprisingly excellent! Many times over the course of the season, I was left scratching my head - how on earth was he scoring so many? His finishing, although not great in attribute terms, was really really consistent. He scored our very first domestic goal in the save and ended up on 26 goals, with only three of those being penalties! This meant that he picked up the golden boot award in his FIRST season, it was utterly absurd considering how inferior in quality he is to Harry Kane. Mason Greenwood did rather well too, mind. 

We also boosted his goalscoring record for Germany by playing friendlies against San Marino, US Virgin Islands and Eritrea. However, he did have five goals in 5 appearances in European Championship Qualifying, so he was no slouch in that respect.

Golden Boot

The Retention of Hot Property...

His performances led to the vast majority of the elite clubs in European football willing to break the bank to sign him, however, I clocked this interest before the transfer window opened and signed him a new lucrative deal in order to avoid him becoming unsettled by the transfer rumours.

Edited June 18, 2020 by ShaunG95

[ShaunG95]

2020/21 Attribute Progress

Vast improvements once again, in fact he improved rapidly after we upgraded our training facilities which seems as though it was a godsend in his development. We managed to sign Lautaro Martinez who acted as his mentor (hence the determination increase) after Rodrigo Palacio's decline due to age. He also managed to pick up the 'tries tricks' trait from Mason Greenwood who was also in the mentoring group.

How many did he score?

He didn't disappoint again, I went into this season simply hoping for attribute improvements as well as better his goalscoring record from last season and he delivered with extreme potency. He had a few injuries which meant he missed more Premier League games than I would have liked but to score 31 was great output in that respect. He also emphatically lead us to a Champions League win, we had a comfortable run to the final admittedly but his performance in the final against Barcelona stole the show. I almost forgot but he also lead my Germany side to a Euro win too, scoring in the final of that too. Granted, he scores a lot of penalties for Germany.

Everton UCL Win

Move over, Messi, there is a new king in town.

Germany European Championship Win

Move over, Cristiano, there is a new Adonis.

European Golden Boy 

FIFA Best U21 Men's Player

Following in Joao Felix and Kylian Mbappe's footsteps respectively, Adeyemi picked up both awards with his stellar form across the calendar year. 

Can he keep up the goalscoring?

The tactic I use is a 4-3-1-2 with attacking wingers, made by Knap, it is a gegenpressing system and both strikers in this system score a lot of goals. I have no doubt that as Adeyemi's attribute increase, so will his goal output. I may well change to a formation with one striker later in the save, if he is not getting remotely close to Dixie Dean's record but I am hopeful that the next season will see him far eclipse his 31 league goal tally as he already has 17 in 14 in mid-January.

[ShaunG95]

A delve into the future...

So, on this save I am currently in 2023. I am detailing a lot of Adeyemi's accolades based on autosaves I have. I thought I'd just tease the sort of form he is in at the moment in 2023, I feel like this could be the closest he will get so far to Dixie's record. 6 in 3 in the Champions League and 12 in 6 in the Premier League, outrageous.

[karanhsingh]

Nice idea! He looks immense already 

[ShaunG95]

6 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Nice idea! He looks immense already 

Thank you! He's really something else, his development on the game is often very different to how he looks on my save - it is catered to the fact every game he has played has been as a striker. The AI will often play him as a winger because of his pace but managing Germany too has allowed me to make sure he is primarily a central goalscorer.

[ShaunG95]

2021/22 Attribute Progress

This screenshot is a bit later as I didn't have an autosave from the 2021/22 season unfortunately. As you can see, his finishing has improved by 2 which is massive, meaning his finishing has improved by 8 over the course of 3 years - a gigantic leap! Adeyemi's personality was also impacted by Lautaro Martinez as his personality changed to professional and he also transitioned from a wonderkid to an elite striker. I would say he is now world-class in terms of his attributes, for sure.

How many did he score?

He was absolutely absurd, scoring 36 in 34 from open play and 13 penalties on top of that to absolutely smash Mo Salah's record as well as Alan Shearer's and Andy Cole's. The penalties certainly helped but he broken their records without them. He also broke his own record set in the Champions League in the previous year (which Cristiano Ronaldo held with 17) with a 24 goal campaign. Of course, he won the golden boot in the Premier League and Champions League.

At international level, he was imperious in Germany's qualifying campaign for the World Cup - scoring 16 from open play and six from the spot. His international record is phenomenal as some of the quality of opposition is much poorer than the Premier League. Suffice to say, he became Germany's all-time leading goalscorer at the age of 20. I can't wait to see how many goals he actually scores in his career for Germany.

2nd UCL Win

He wasn't at his best in the final but two of our academy newgens rescued us thankfully.

Awards

I honestly don't think I've ever had a player this young be so dominant on an FM save, he was out of this world in this campaign and one can only hope that he will one day break that 60 goal domestic record. It was a shame he couldn't play in four Premier League games, as I have no doubt he'd have at least scored four more.

Considering he scored 79 in the calendar year, I will also now be hoping that he breaks Lionel Messi's record of 91 goals scored in a calendar year.

[karanhsingh]

This is just mental. What does your whole team look like now?

[ShaunG95]

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

This is just mental. What does your whole team look like now?

This is my usual starting eleven mate. Brooks, I've always been quite fond of as a player so I prefer starting him over Vinicius - he isn't quite as potent as Vinicius BUT he's a very good finisher. Fornals, Tonali and Bentancur have all NEVER played in midfield and specifically operate as natural full-backs, so the sheer passing ability on the pitch is unmatched really. Don't get me wrong, there has been times on this save where my balance has been -£80m because I've brought a lot of these players in over installments. I'm only really at a stage now where the finances are fine and I can possibly start looking to spend big on an Mbappe or someone like that.

I personally love Szoboszlai and Verschaeren on this edition of the game. Had them both in my first season training their passing and they are both Pirlo-esque in their own right now.