Career Foxy and the Goals per Game Challenge

[FuddledFox]

Foxy and the Goals per Game Challenge

I had to give this challenge a go as the concept is so simple, score as many goals as possible in a season to get as high a GpG ratio as possible, yet a score can be ruined in one or two bad games. That gives it the irritating addictive quality of always thinking you can do just a bit better similar to @Rob Liverpool Front 3 challenge.

More information on the challenge can be found in its OP.

Club Choice

With any challenge the choice of club is important and even more so on a one season challenge where you need to hit the ground running. With this challenge I felt that the league the club was in plays a part as well and also if they are in Europe or not.

I went through a few options and tactic tests but in the end I decided to enter the medieval world of Scottish football with Celtic because of the quality of the league coupled with there squad. 

Transfers

There wasn’t too much to do with the squad but I wanted to make sure I had plenty of strength in depth especially up front so I spend my entire budget on @Scratch favourite Adam Armstrong and Ivan Toney who if I remember correctly @Ian had some success with at Olympiakos.

Tactic

This was the basic shape but the instructions “under the hood” changed a bit over the season. The basic premise was to overwhelm teams with shear numbers in the box and with the league not containing much quality strikers I was confident that my one CB could cope with most things.

European Football

This is where things got counter intuitive as usually I would want to take my team as far as I can in Europe to maximise games and the achievement of taking a poorer team far in Europe. In this season though that could really hamper my GpG total as I wasn’t going to score many in the CL and maybe I could do well in the EL but it’s risky and it adds a lot of games and strain to the squad which in turn could effect my domestic performances.

With this in mind I scored as many goals as I could in my qualifying games whilst also making sure I was knocked out scoring lots of goals before the season got into full flow.

Domestic Football

Let’s not beat around the bush here, anyone can win the league with Celtic and my only disappointment was that I didn’t win all three trophies as I lost in the semi final or the FA Cup to Rangers in extra time.

Spoiler

 

What really matters was how many goals I could get in the season and there was some definite up’s and downs. 

Whatever I scored there are a few games that will annoy me as it’s all very well winning a match but it’s better to actually draw 3-3 or 4-4 in this challenge than to win 1-0.

Here is a selection of games that frustrated me and lessened my score although fortunately these results were few and far between. 

Spoiler

In many ways what caused more frustration was the lack of any huge hammerings given out during the season with 5 goals being the most I managed in any domestic match all season although I did that a few times.

A really good 7,8,9 or 10 goal haul would have made a huge difference though.

Spoiler

Going into the final match of the season I was looking good to beat the current high score of 3.58 GpG set by @Ian as Real Madrid. I was sitting on 3.61 GpG but the thing with this challis you can never be sure what you will get before the season has ended.

• If I scored less than 3 goals I would have finished below or equal to Ian’s total although still with a very good 3.5+ score.
• 3 goals or more and I would get a 3.6+ score.

 

The final match was against Rangers though who I had a good record against all season except for the most recent loss in the semi final which was also a game I only managed to score 2 goals in. I had beat them not long before that in the league though 4-2 and that would do nicely on this occasion as well.

 

Spoiler

The third goal was the best moment of the season as it meant I would at least get a 3.6 GpG score but that was improved just before full time as Leigh Griffiths made it 4-3.

In total we scored 188 goals during the season and considering how attacking I was in every game only conceded 69 although that says a lot for the quality of opponents more than it does my tactic.

 

That all works out as a score of 3.62 GpG which I am very happy with. I think it can be improved on and I’m sure it will be maybe even by me but it’s still a very good score.

 

Player Stats

Spoiler

I may give this another go at some point as I feel like I learnt a lot doing this attempt and I want to try another tactic and a different league.

Thanks for reading.

[Rob]

Brilliant score @Foxy

[Titjes]

Fantastic score @Foxy 😉

[Kanegan]

Fantastically done.

[Ian]

Nice season and score. Toney did pretty well too.

[BatiGoal]

It's actually not that easy to get a high GpG in your first season. Very good attempt, Fox. 

[Anthonylfc]

Well bloody done, What a score that is.

[broodje kip]

Great score @Foxy

[gunnersaur]

Brilliant man well done

[FuddledFox]

@Rob @Titjes @Kanegan @Ian @BatiGoal @Anthonylfc @broodje kip @gunnersaur

Thanks for the comments guys 

[Scratch]

Great job! And great that you used Armstrong as well, though I've found he's not as good this year. And yeah, I've found it harder to get really big wins this year, the team (or is the match engine) starts to take things easy once you have a good lead.

[FuddledFox]

2 hours ago, Scratch said:

Great job! And great that you used Armstrong as well, though I've found he's not as good this year. And yeah, I've found it harder to get really big wins this year, the team (or is the match engine) starts to take things easy once you have a good lead.

I guess because he seems to have settled out as a Champ player irl he doesn’t get that good growth he used to but he can still bang a few in Scotland. As for big wins I think they are still possible against really weak teams but the average Scottish teams were able to just about keep scores respectable by parking the bus.

[smoggy90]

Great score Foxy!

[Cockers2505]

Very nicely done Sir! a good score to set the Scene, one that will be tried and tried again to beat.