I began to gradually dial up the difficulty in Squad Battles to World Class, and I was starting to find fresh sheets. I discovered how to Madden 21 coins shield one-on-one scenarios, by pushing forwards outside and at least limit them to low percentage shots in the near post. These were all skills I knew I'd need to use online, in which the standard of play is generally much greater. I was able to get a 0-0 from an 88-rated squad with decent chemistry World Class difficulty, and I understood this was a breakthrough.

Obviously, while a 0-0 against a team featuring Mbappe and Messi is all well and good, I was not scoring in the opposite end of this field. By neutralising teams, I knew I'd improved defensively, but that I was essentially not able to score. At this point, I knew personnel was a issue, and that I'd need to overhaul my whole team. I had been getting to the point where I was feeling more confident about my ability to compete online, but with the greatest of respect, I understood Redmond wasn't going to reduce it.

I'd made a fair couple of diamonds and Packs just by playing the game now, but I had not been messing around with the Transfer Market too much. I knew I was going to need to market players in order to buy much better ones, and to my surprise I managed to construct a fairly decent team with not much money in any way. Obviously, I had been buying fundamental Gold cards rather than unfathomably expensive FUT Icons, however, things started to come together.

I knew I needed to stay with Kevin Trapp in goal since, while he's far from the best keeper in the game, I had been comfortable with him. So I began to work out of there, adding Bundesliga players into my defence, and eventually settling on a French theme. I replaced Redmond with Marcus Rashford, also stored up a Great Deal of money to buy mut coins madden 21 buy a basic version of Paul Pogba in midfield, who I enjoyed as a CDM. For some time I used Francis Coquelin together with him, but the aim would be to get N'Golo Kante in there.