Career Fox Sake Where's The Strikers - One Season Strikerless

[FuddledFox]

Fox Sake Where's The Strikers - FF and Benfica Strikerless Challenge

I created the challenge so of course I had to post a score as well. More details on the challenge can be found in my OP.

I started this challenge a couple of weeks ago and have finally had the chance to finish and post the results. Since then we have seen some great scores posted and I' really pleased that this challenge seems to have really taken off over the last couple of weeks.

The Club

The club you pick is vital in any challenge but no more so than in a one season challenge where you need to get off to a flying start. I also need to enjoy what I'm doing and so I compromised with my club choice. I wanted to play in Portugal and so the logical choice was Benfica as they are probably the best squad in the country. This did mean that I took a chance of not doing so well in Europe but that was the compromise between enjoyment and posting a huge score. I could have gone for a huge Champions League challenging club like Real, Bayern, PSG or an English giant but I wanted to mange in Portugal so I was happy to take that hit to hopefully enjoy the save in a league I rarely play in. Portugal does have the advantage of two cup competitions and plenty of games if you get far into them.

The Players  

Transfers

I didn't do a huge amount of business in as Benfica had a number of players I wanted to use. Diego Tardelli was a mistake as I forgot my own rule about no players with green as striker so he was bought and then quickly loaned to AZ.

Spoiler

Tactics

I am in the process of writing a series of articles on strikerless football which will feature two of the tactics I tested in this challenge. The series should start very soon.

Competitions

We won the league fairly easily as would be expected only losing one league game all season although a few too many draws which cost us some challenge points.

As you may have guessed from my intro Europe didn't go great. We finished second to Atletico Madrid in our group and faced Man Utd in the first knockout stage losing 3.0 over the two legs. I did wonder if we would have been better finishing third in our group and going into the much more winnable Europa League.

We won the league cup.

In the final game of the season we took on Sporting in the FA Cup final. I was hoping to get some extra goal and assist points so went all out but it back fired as we lost 3-2. We did get two goal points and an assist point though.

Points

League: 85 points + 63 GD = 148

Mahrez: 22 goals + 13 assists = 35 points

Forsberg: 28 goals + 18 assists = 46 points

Krovinovic: 35 goals + 17 assists = 52 points

Total: 281 points

Proof

Spoiler

So a pretty average score in the end. Not the worst we have seen but far from the best. Would I change anything? I wouldn't use Mahrez again as he was a little fragile with injuries and lacking fitness but on the whole no not really, I enjoyed my season in Portugal and I got to manage three players I have never used before including Krovinovic who I love as a player despite 3 missed penalties during the season. I will probably give this another go at some point with one of the current European heavyweight teams. In fact I will be doing this challenge again for one of the articles in the series I have already mentioned.

Thank you for reading

P.S. Not many I admit but I did score some points this month @samhardy

 

[Nucleus]

Nicely done mate 

[Rob]

Great stuff. It’s a difficult challenge in a way, as I found that my tactic got found out fairly regularly. Perhaps moreso than any other tactic I have ever used. I’m looking forward to your guides, especially if you use one of the big boys and smash it.

[FuddledFox]

Just now, Rob2017 said:

I’m looking forward to your guides

Not sure it will be a guide as I leave them to the guys that can smash the game. It will just be kinda.....well........something......basically if you have read my articles before they will be something like that

[Rob]

Your score will SLB translates to a much better score if you choose a big boy like PSG. You’ll nail it with them.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Rob2017

[Cockers2505]

Good score mate, it's a difficult yet intreging challenge that I believe there will be many attempts at this, even attempting a couple of times 

[Ashez]

Decent attempt Foxy! 

[PriZe]

Not bad foxy!

[Titjes]

Well done @FuddledFox  

[danovic78]

Nicely played, didn't concede many like mine! Maybe playing strikerless is the best way to keep a tight defence?

Edited March 1, 2018 by danovic78

[FuddledFox]

5 hours ago, danovic78 said:

Nicely played, didn't concede many like mine! Maybe playing strikerless is the best way to keep a tight defence?

I think so because you can dominate the ball more, although it did less well for me at the back in week 2 of the VPL