Career Meet the Maguires

[URz]

Meet the Maguires - A Slab Head Brothers Challenge Attempt

So I have decided to pause my Double Trouble career with Breel Embolo and Isaac Success to try this crazy single season challenge from @Foxy (details here).

Transfers

I made minimal signings beyond the obligatory LaurenceM. A couple of centre backs to cover the loss of HarryM and a right back where Leicester seem weak ... plus my secret weapon!

 

No transfers out in the summer window as the squad is quite small and I anticipated needing most of them during the season.

I also overloaded the coaching staff with Attacking coaches and put the Maguire brothers on Attack Attack training! Attempts to get them to retrain for the striker position failed miserably 😭 They both seemed to accept this new training

Unfortunately one of my other signings rather overdid the training 😠

 

Cunning Plan

Spoiler

Thinking outside of the box on how to approach this challenge, I decided that the obvious tactic of 2 up front (the Maguires) probably wouldn’t win enough. So what about adding a 3rd striker into the mix? Especially since 4-3-3 is one of my go-to tactics.

The 3rd striker would be need to a Defensive Forward to support the Maguires. I tried Vardy in this role in preseason but he just took every opportunity himself and the brothers didn’t get a look in.

So Vardy was shipped off to the reserves for the season (too popular to risk transferring out!) and I found fhe best Defensive Forward that matched my criteria and Leicester’s meagre budget

 

Results (August and September)

 

Challenge Results

Spoiler

 

So 16 + (6 x 1) + (5 x 5) = 47

 

Since discovering Vibe, I’m spending way too much time back on FMM18 so I’m hoping to complete the season today 🙄

 

[Nucleus]

Wow what a start! 😳

[URz]

1 minute ago, Nucleus said:

Wow what a start! 😳

Getting Burton in the cup helped and Leicester had quite a gentle set of opening league games to be fair. But still pleased 😁

[FuddledFox]

Interesting take on the challenge by going with the 3 up top but it looks to be working so far.

Good luck mate.

[Nucleus]

2 minutes ago, URz said:

Getting Burton in the cup helped and Leicester had quite a gentle set of opening league games to be fair. But still pleased 😁

I believe you’re the first to attempt this on the OME too, it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. All the best

[URz]

Thanks @Foxy and @Nucleus. 

[URz]

October and November

Could the mighty Maguires continue as they’d started?

The board seemed pleased so far - and they liked my surprise signing 😍   Plus Harry gets POTM

 

Results

Some tougher games but we don’t embarass ourselves

Still unbeaten in the league...but starting to build up the number of draws.

 

Challenge Results

Spoiler

So score so far: 32 + (10 x 1) + (8 x 5) = 82

3 more from Laurence 😎

 

I should probably be doing other things with my time but this is just a very enjoyable challenge and I’m determined to complete it today!

[URz]

December and January

I haven’t played in the Premiership for a while now and I had forgotten how brutal these 2 months are. At least it isn’t the season Leicester made it into Europe 😜

No additioans to the squad during January.

Results

We didn’t start too well

But then steadied the ship (and Laurence scored again!)

 

Out of the Carabao Cup on penalties 😭

And then a bizarre match. Must have been interesting for a neutral

Just what we need - going to a replay in the FA cup (but Laurence did score so not all bad!)

Through to the next round after ET

Liverpool’s players must have been even more knackered than mine. No shots on target 

A nice 4th round cup tie and both brothers score 

 

So somehow we made it through to the end of January without major injuries. The fixture list looks a lot more relaxed going forward

 

Challenge Results

Spoiler

And the brothers have been ever-present

Score so far: 56 + (21 x 1) + (15 x 5) = 152  😎

 

So we made it past the banana skin months of December and January uninjured and with a healthy score. The only cloud on the horizon is Harry who has started doing this several times a week 😡

 

[Nucleus]

Well you’re going to blow everyone out the water 😳

[URz]

6 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

Well you’re going to blow everyone out the water 😳

Fingers crossed they keep going. Or more precisely that Laurence keeps going. 😍

[URz]

February to May (end of season)

So after the fixture nightmare of December and January, it is only about the same number of games until the end of the season. So here is the concluding episode of my Slab Head Brothers challenge with the Maguire brothers.

Harry has spent the whole time whining about being too good for Leicester and even put in a transfer request at one point (refused!). If only the news feed had a filter to ignore individual players 😜

Results

Some great early results (but where’s Laurence’s goals?)

To be honest, didn’t expect this

But kinda expected this!

...and Laurence is back!

Great cup win

 

Whatever I said during the half time team talk, I must never say again! 😡

 

We ended up losing the league on goal difference 😐

 

So how did the players look at the end of the season?

Spoiler

And he was joint top scorer in the league (albeit with quite a low total)

Awards

 

And his brother

Rightly recognised for his achievements this year

 

And not forgetting our 3rd striker who made this all possible by playing the perfect support role

 

Challenge Results

Spoiler

Total score: 82 + (31 x 1) + (20 x 5) = 213  😎😎

So my out-of-the-box idea seems to have paid off. The score breakdown above shows that this challenge is all about Laurence so my tactic of playing him in the middle of a front 3 gives him the best chance to use his limited striking skills.

 

Thanks to @Foxy for creating such a wierd and wonderful challenge and to @Nucleus for encouragement throughout.........now I suppose I need to get back to all the other things I should have been doing today 😉

Thanks for reading.

 

Edited September 26, 2018 by URz

[Nucleus]

Fantastic score mate, well done 

[Ashez]

The three up top concept crossed my mind but I decided to have fun with the ISF idea instead, I obviously expected the three up top idea to work a lot better but I had no idea it could be this effective! Oddly enough since 2014 a 433 has been my tactic of choice so any other year I'd have done that but this year I'm more of a 4321 guy. 

Anyway I'm waffling, fantastic approach and score mate!

[URz]

36 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

Fantastic score mate, well done 

Thanks. It was good to have your encouragement during the day.

8 minutes ago, Ashez said:

The three up top concept crossed my mind but I decided to have fun with the ISF idea instead, I obviously expected the three up top idea to work a lot better but I had no idea it could be this effective! Oddly enough since 2014 a 433 has been my tactic of choice so any other year I'd have done that but this year I'm more of a 4321 guy. 

Anyway I'm waffling, fantastic approach and score mate!

 433 😎 

[FuddledFox]

Awesome score mate, enjoy being top of the leaderboard.

[Nucleus]

3 minutes ago, Foxy said:

Awesome score mate, enjoy being top of the leaderboard.

*cough cough* OME leaderboard *cough* 😝

[Woody]

14 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

*cough cough* OME leaderboard *cough* 😝

Here here!!!

Im still keeping that seat warm for ya Nuke 😉

[PriZe]

BOOM now thats a score👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 Well done mate!

[URz]

3 hours ago, Foxy said:

Awesome score mate, enjoy being top of the leaderboard.

3 hours ago, Nucleus said:

*cough cough* OME leaderboard *cough* 😝

Thanks guys. Never been top of a leaderboard before 😎 - even an OME one 😉

2 hours ago, PriZe said:

BOOM now thats a score👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 Well done mate!

Thanks PriZe. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts😁