Career Foxy Takes on the Liverpool Front Three Challenge Again

[FuddledFox]

 Foxy Takes on the Liverpool Front Three Challenge

I fancied a nice quick one season challenge before the VWC starts and this one from @Rob caught my eye. 

I blitzed through most of the season yesterday and then the rest this evening so with no messing about this is how my attempt went.

Transfers 

As much as I like Origi in the game I had no need for him in this save as even if the front three had injuries he wouldn’t play as I would just play two or one of them up front to try and maximise there goal and assists returns.

One player that doesn’t show for some reason is Loveren who went out in a P/X.

 

Despite Liverpoool’s quality squad there is a few weaknesses based on how I wanted to play and just in squad depth most notably at FB so I brought in a back up LB and RB in Smith and Rui who were both real bargains at the price. Loveren was part of the Koulibaly deal as with GD a factor in this challenge I thought I would strengthen the back line as well.

Golovin is a bit of a favourite of mine this year so he joined to add some creativity to a midfield which is solid, physical and functional but lacks some creativity. Moriba came to add numbers in case of injury but due to being at Barca B the fitness bug kicked in and he was never above 50% condition so I sent him back after a month.

 

Tactic

I went with a tried and tested tactic that I used a lot in my Augusta H2H with @Ian. The aim is to be solid at the back which is important with the GD but the front three not only get plenty of goals but the midfield behind them don’t steal too many goals or assists.

That was the theory anyway.

 

Competitions

The tactic worked a treat and it was one of my most successful seasons ever in terms of the fact that I didn’t lose a game in any competition. There was a few draws thrown in but that is to be expected.

Spoiler

So in terms of league points for the challenge I got.

League Points: 104 + Goal Difference: 71 = 175 points

The Front Three

All three lads played there part with Firmino and Salah providing the bulk of the goals and then Mane being my main source of assists.

The team scored 163 goals in all competitions of which 118 came from the front three which isn’t a bad % of the teams goals but it would have been nice of Mane had got a few more but then it’s hard to argue with his 39 assists.

Firminio was my top points scorer with then Mane’s assists making him more productive than Salah.

That gives me a challenge score of...

361 points

Whether that is enough to get me top spot on the leaderboard only time will tell.

EDIT: I gave this another 3 goes and the results can be found here.

Thanks for reading.

[smoggy90]

Great score mate! Will hopefully post mine tonight.

Great assist total from Mane too, assists were fairly even between mane and Salah on mine. 
Awesome players which makes it a fun challenge.

[gunnersaur]

Great score man that will be a very tough score to beat 

[Rob]

Fantastic score Mr Fox. Well done! And thanks for having a crack too.

[broodje kip]

What a great score Foxy. Well done

[BatiGoal]

TAA not good enough to make your starting 11? 

Great score, so manager's always right. 

[Kanegan]

I agree, great score. 

[Titjes]

Great score @Foxy 😉

[billy2shots]

Nice effort there Foxy. It’s going to take something pretty special to top that. 

[FuddledFox]

@smoggy90 I am interested to see what score you get as I was halfway through my attempt when you posted your half season update and you were ahead of my score by 6 points.

@gunnersaur thanks, I’m happy with my score but I think someone could come along and get more from the front three than I did and beat it.

@Rob it was a fun challenge and I enjoyed playing it so thanks for its creation.

@BatiGoal TAA played 34 times and was my third highest assister so he did well but he can’t play twice a week very often as he gets tired so he was in and out of the side which is why he only played half the matches that season.

@Lord Danish @Kanegan @Titjes thanks lads 

@billy2shots Cheers, records are there to be beaten so hopefully a few more people will have a go at this challenge.

 

[danovic78]

Great effort, I might even lower myself to have a go at this horrible challenge 😄

One thing that bothers me on this years' version is how overpowered the TM seem to be. In pretty much every league 90% of teams play with a TM and he will always score a header no matter how good my defense is or his lack of TM attributes. I know Firmino has a poor heading trait when you look at his coach report and I think his heading is around 13? This might be just on the OME where I play but he was outstanding on this save but seemingly isn't set up to play that role? Just an observation.

[Ian]

Yes I remember this tactic and another one of yours with four up top. It worked very well again here. Well done.

[FuddledFox]

10 hours ago, danovic78 said:

This might be just on the OME where I play but he was outstanding on this save but seemingly isn't set up to play that role?

He didn’t actually play TM for me but I must have changed the tactic back to that from a two up top when one of them didn’t play and he went to a TM by default. I do agree that the TM role is very OP this year as I AvR had a lot of success with it although with players with much better aerial than Firmino has.

21 minutes ago, Ian said:

Yes I remember this tactic and another one of yours with four up top. It worked very well again here. Well done.

I used this set up in some of the more defensive challenges iirc as it’s very well balanced but maybe too much so for this challenge 🙄

[danovic78]

11 hours ago, Foxy said:

He didn’t actually play TM for me but I must have changed the tactic back to that from a two up top when one of them didn’t play and he went to a TM by default. I do agree that the TM role is very OP this year as I AvR had a lot of success with it although with players with much better aerial than Firmino has.

Oh right, that makes sense. This is very similar to my preferred formation for this challenge so have to see how well it does on the ole' OME.

[FuddledFox]

More Attempts 

This challenge has managed to get under my skin the last week and I have grown determined to do mush better than my first attempt.

I probably went into my first attempt a bit quickly and with out enough thought which resulted in a score of 361 which was ok but then it got blown out the water by @smoggy90 before @billy2shots and @BatiGoal moved the bar up further and finally @Ian absolutely blitzed there scores.

My reason for trying again wasn’t to try and beat anyone particularly but instead to post the absolute best score that I can do. If I feel I have given this challenge my best shot and still don’t beat the lads above that is ok with me so long as I know I have it everything I had.

With that in mind I have done some tests and then played the full challenge no less than three times since Sunday!

I won’t be submitting my 2nd and 3rd attempts for the leaderboard as I set myself the goal of at least 400pts and I only managed 390 to start with and then did worse on my 3rd attempt and got 376 points. 

This is the breakdown of those attempts if anyone is interested.

Spoiler

2nd Attempt

3rd Attempt

I knew I could do better and break 400pts so I took what I learnt in these two attempts and my first and put it all into a 4th and final go at this challenge.

The 4th and Final Attempt

I was ready to give up after my 3rd attempt as I was getting very frustrated but as I said this got under my skin and I knew I had a 400+ score in me I just needed a combination of the right tactic, the right players and that little bit of luck.

This was the culmination of my tactic testing and it hurts my eyes to look at it as at least to me it is ugly as fuck but if it gets me the results then all good.

This was also my primary first XI although with so many games they rarely played together.

 

I cleared out some deadwood mostly to get rid of them more than because I needed the money.

Spoiler

My main aim was to improve my attacking options and make sure I had another could of IWB to back up Robertson and TAA which both Jorge and Baldock did well especially as they didn’t cost too much.

Golovin is a great AP but he can’t play every game so Toornstra was a cheap back up for that position along with the mids Liverpool already have.

Zaha and Fraser are both creative wingers who aren’t out and out goal scorers but  do get a few as well as assists.

In terms of results it went well with just two lost games and only two draws all season although that was two losses more than my first attempt. 

The aim of my tactic was to get as many goals as I could especially in the league for the GD and with over 200 goals scored it certainly did that. My worry with only one CB was that we would concede a lot as well which would bring the GD down but only 50 put past us in 67 games is more than acceptable.
 

My 3rd attempt was harmed by a lack of GD so with this 4th try I wanted to get my GD as high as possible by scoring as many goals as I could which is risky as with 1 atb we could concede as well but with only 20 conceded I was surprised how solid we were considering my formation.

I wanted to keep the GD as close to my points tally as possible or even better. In the end it was 4 worse than out league points but that will suit me as I scored over half the points I needed just from our league performance.

 

112 league points + 108 GD = 220 points

It all came down to the front three then and an ideal situation would be at least another 200 or more points from there goals and assists.

In my three previous attempts the front 3 were pretty consistent with there points totals being 186, 188 and then 179 so I needed the same level of performance or better and I would get my 400+ points.

The lads didn’t let me down as I managed to keep them relatively fit through the season with Salah and Mane missing two games and Firmino missing three although expect for early on they never played the full 90 unless we had a full week off after which didn’t happen often.

The combination of playing Mane and Salah as strikers and then Firmino just behind paid off as they got a combined 194 points. I was worried that too many goals were going to others so for example Origi scored 26 goals mostly in cup games and as a sub but the overall plan of scoring as many as possible seemed to pay off.

 

Spoiler

220 Team Points + 194 Player Points = 414 challenge points

It’s taken me four attempts and I’m still well behind Ian’s score but I gave this my absolute best and I’m very pleased with this total.

It’s easy with these challenges to focus on what someone else has done and scored but the main thing is that if you have done your absolute best and squeezed the most out of your tactic and players then that is the main thing and of course have fun and I did both with this.

I could improve on this total of course as others have scored more points but I set out with the aim of breaking 400 points and I did that so I think I can finally lay this challenge to rest.

Thanks for reading.
 

[smoggy90]

Great effort Foxy, will see if I can break 400 myself at some point but Ian’s effort may be unbeatable!

[Ian]

Nicely done.

I like the look of the system and another different way to go. I’ve tested on and off since the weekend and I’ve came to the conclusion that Mané is the most important player in this challenge. He seems to be a bit hit or miss in my systems anyway but if he starts well he seems to fly.

[Kanegan]

Great effort. I will have a second go myself as well. 

[BatiGoal]

Great score, Fox. I think scoring 400+ for this challenge is excellent. I also re-played this but couldn't beat my PB. Maybe after the VWC again. 

[Rob]

11 hours ago, Ian said:

Nicely done.

I like the look of the system and another different way to go. I’ve tested on and off since the weekend and I’ve came to the conclusion that Mané is the most important player in this challenge. He seems to be a bit hit or miss in my systems anyway but if he starts well he seems to fly.

I’d also say that I think Bobby is criminally undergraded in this version, again. 

Wonderful score Mr Fox. 

[FuddledFox]

12 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Great effort Foxy, will see if I can break 400 myself at some point but Ian’s effort may be unbeatable!

I definitely think 400 is the very attainable in this challenge and with the right system and some luck far more so hopefully you will smash in another great score on your 2nd attempt.

11 hours ago, Ian said:

Nicely done.

I like the look of the system and another different way to go. I’ve tested on and off since the weekend and I’ve came to the conclusion that Mané is the most important player in this challenge. He seems to be a bit hit or miss in my systems anyway but if he starts well he seems to fly.

I tend to agree with Mane as he is good for both goals and assists but I also agree with @Rob that Bobby is as important simply because he is so versatile and seems to perform just as well wherever he plays.

6 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Great score, Fox. I think scoring 400+ for this challenge is excellent. I also re-played this but couldn't beat my PB. Maybe after the VWC again. 

Not going to lie i was definitely eyeing up yours and Billy’s score as I was getting nearer the end of the season but it wasn’t quite to be unfortunately.

6 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Great effort. I will have a second go myself as well. 

I look forward to seeing your next attempt.

13 minutes ago, Rob said:

I’d also say that I think Bobby is criminally undergraded in this version, again. 

Wonderful score Mr Fox. 

Cheers Rob.

[Woody]

Cracking score mate.

[BatiGoal]

4 hours ago, Foxy said:

Not going to lie i was definitely eyeing up yours and Billy’s score as I was getting nearer the end of the season but it wasn’t quite to be unfortunately.

There's a few things I looked at to improve my formation and score but none of them seemed to work, at least not to get a higher score:

1. Create more chances

• I suppose this did work on and off but hard to tell due to the injuries my APs endured. I went from BBM-AP-BBM to AP-BBM-AP. I might have to change the BBM tho, see my next point. 

2. Shift assists/gls to Front Three

• The BBM still got too many goals for my liking so I'll try to keep him away from the goal and go with a regular CM or BWM. 

3. Big scorelines more consistently

• Easy answer - still too many 1-0's and 2-0's, so better players? the only area I think I could improve upon is midfield. Defence and Attack is top lvl already. Difficult answer - squad rotation, but then need much better squad depth, and possibly a tweak in the shape or mentality somewhere. Haven't found it yet. 

4. Better exploit opponent's weaknesses

• Works, but I'm too lazy to have to check opponents multiple times during a match. 

So I guess there's areas we could improve but it's easier said than done. 

Regarding your formation, @Foxy does turning IFs into Wingers or APs change the balance too much? In theory, I'd love to see APs on the flanks and less attack-minded players thru the center. But unfortunately it doesn't always work that way in FMM. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by BatiGoal

[FuddledFox]

3 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Regarding your formation, @Foxy does turning IFs into Wingers or APs change the balance too much? In theory, I'd love to see APs on the flanks and less attack-minded players thru the center. But unfortunately it doesn't always work that way in FMM. 

I never really get on with wide APs tbh so I haven’t tried them in this set up.

I used wingers on my first three attempts and didn’t find they contributed enough to the challenge as they didn’t get many goals for the GD and the assists were ok but nothing spectacular that made any difference to the front three.

My whole theory was simply to overwhelm teams in the middle and the more goals I scored the better for the GD and that my front three would be heavily involved with it. Along with that theory I used direct passing to simply keep the ball getting into the box as often as possible and it paid off in terms of team goals and GD but I still think there is a lot more that can be gotten out of the front 3 as @Ian has proven.

[BatiGoal]

12 hours ago, Foxy said:

I used wingers on my first three attempts and didn’t find they contributed enough to the challenge as they didn’t get many goals for the GD and the assists were ok but nothing spectacular that made any difference to the front three.

Not sure what others think about this but I've found, especially this year, that Wingers from ML/R or even WBs are much more effective than Wingers playing in AML/R. 

12 hours ago, Foxy said:

My whole theory was simply to overwhelm teams in the middle and the more goals I scored the better for the GD and that my front three would be heavily involved with it.

I'm tweaking my 2-2-1-5 to try and attempt just this. It's looking nice beating Bayern 7-0 in August but as usual the consistency remains an issue.