Back Of The Net Boy Gameweek 24

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due to me not gettign my ass in gear and writing a blog before I got my son for the weekend, all of this week's blog is a Captain's Corner Special, courtesy of The Pherg

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so it's do or die time, huge double gameweek this weekend with villa, blackpool, fulham, liverpool, man u and wigan all playing two matches. many will be tempted to use the wildcard to pack their side with as many doublers as possible.

i've managed to squeeze 9 doublers in my side this week with only a four point hit so am saving my wildcard for GW 27 to get a jump on my league rivals. i reckon a lot will have used their wildcards this weekend and i can hit them hard gw 27 when there's not only a bunch of more doublers, but even a triple from birmingham!! has a triple gameweek happened before? let us know.

so my advice is save your wc if at all possible.

if you are intent on using it, man u is the obvious target (@home to birmingham, away to blackpool) and anyone that's still playing the game seriously will have the full quota of 3 this week. you'll want a defender, vidic is the best choice, rafael of course is on a red, rio and evra your next targets. i assume everyone reading this has nani in their squad and for a striker, rotation is a possible issue, i went for berba, lots will be gambling on rooney aswell. my ideal preference would be nani and two defenders if you can manage it.

next nicest choice would be fulham (@hom to stoke, away to pool) and liverpool (away to wolves, @home to fulham). torres will see a lot of transfer action this weekend, how many times has he burned us tho? dempsey and hangeland are good picks for fulham.

all the other doublers aren't that appetising tbh, adam and campbell from blackpool maybe but the fixtures are poor: @home to sunderland and man u so don't go too mad.

newly transferred bent looks like a great pick for villa (@hom to city, away to wig), proven consistent premier league goalscorer now will be getting excellent service from the like of young and downing.

so captain picks? mine is hovering between nani and torres. the dilemma here is nani is very much a "safe" captain choice that the vast majority of serious players will be captaining so if he does well you won't be making much ground. someone like torres who is quite capable of scoring 2/3 goals in a game if he's feeling good is a massive differential that could see you catapulted up your leagues. but how many times have we been burned by him? do we want to go through that pain again? so much pain.

other picks would be bonus points machine adam, vidic/evra/rio for united, or even a singler if you really want a gamble: RVP or tevez.

good luck!!!

Fantasy Football Preview Week 23

Fantasy Football Preview Week 23

Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, it’s been nearly a month and 5 gameweeks since the last blog and we’ll tear into this one right now.

State Of Play

I’m 32^nd, a derisory 102 points off the top. I genuinely can’t work out where the points differentials are coming from. Maybe a surge will hit soon but I can’t see it to be honest. But onward “ever forward” is Len Rovers motto. I got 21 points more than the average last week, but still so did everyone in the top half of our league. Number one spot was recently taken over by Cian Walsh with his team One Horse Race, which the Back Of The Net Boy league clearly isn’t.

Vindication

Nowt to be referring to since so much time has past since the last blog.

D’oh

D’oh

Hunch / Drama / Dramatic Narrative before Sky Have Spotted it

Okay there’s a lot of derbies this weekend, and as usual ‘form goes out the window’. Sunderland must be gunning for revenge from their drubbing at St James Park, and Newcastle look like they’ll be toothless without Andy Carroll and Shola Ameobi. I’ve been saying for a while that Craig Gordan is the man to look out for and I think he comes in this week. However I intend to play my wild card soon, so I might wait till then.

Birmingham and Aston Villa looks like it’ll be low scoring, but I’m tempted by David Bentley. He has form with Derby Drama (remember his equalizer in the 4-4 draw for Spurs against his former club Arsenal). I wouldn’t touch an Aston Villa player for love nor  money at moment.

 

And the Merseyside Derby, hmmmn, what can happen there. A torres hatrick?  Liverpool to lose 4-0? Equally plausible.

Obviously most eyes will be at White Hart Lane for the visit by Man United. I don’t expect either team to keep a clean sheet. So I’ll be rotating Vidic out, and let’s look at Berbatov eh? Returning to his old haunting ground. He’s in the best version of his form ever (exquisitely up and down!).

Santa Cruz returning to Blackburn, Shaun Wright Phillips reuniting with Mark Hughes (I reckon he’ll be first teamer from the off)

To catch up on the leaders I need to start picking players that aren’t on other teams ahead of (duh)

Transfers

Got .3 million, and will be using wildcard nextweek, so will focus on that next week. I’m selling Torres (who knows what’ll happen in that match) and bringing Dzecho in. Logically I should bring Tevez in (Man City play at home to Wolves), but since so many people have Tevez I need to start bringing in differentials.

Theory/Selection

As I said I don’t fancy Vidic keeping a clean sheet, and Carroll is injured, I only need to make one decision so I will drop Baird, since Fulham are playing away. “Pretty unimaginative reasons” you say? “Guilty”, says I. Will make Vidic my 1^st choice sub.

Re: Keepers, Hart all the fuppin way.

Re: Captain, I’m going with Bent. He’s still waiting to make one huge impact since he’s come back from injury. A brace or hatrick to get revenge at Newcastle would make quite an impact. Also cos he’s at home.  I may change to VDV or Nasri though, if I lose my bottle.

 Adendum - fukc it, i've no faith in any of my defenders other than Bardsley. Might end up putting Vidic in at expense of skyrtel.

My Team this week

 

Keeping An Eye On

Gordon, Bentley, Robbie Keane (he’s only 4.8 what a tasty 3^rd price striker, but it’s all based on him moving somewhere)

Captains Corner with Phergal

No doubles this week folks, so the choices are a bit more varied again.

Best fixture for captains this week looks to be city at home to wolves. Wolves will still be on a high though after their last league win against Chelsea and facing the formidable firepower of city may well park the bus. I still expect a 2-0 ish score for city tho. Tevez is the obvious choice. I’m taking a biggish gamble this week and bringing dzeko in. I may well captain him too. Big physical target supported by the machine tevez sounds good, although latest speculation seem to have him starting on the bench and perhaps coming in later.

Chelsea at home to Blackburn is usually a safe bet, but Chelsea still haven’t given us anything to be confident about, and reports have drogba on the bench and possibly malouda too. Lampard could be a nice bet here then.

Sunderland Newcastle looks to be a firecracker of a game after the last one finished 5-1 in newcastles favour. Anything is possible in this one, but expect lots of goals. nolan for Newcastle maybe or barton.

Other nice fixtures for captains are arsenal away to west ham, fab and nasri are good bets, and man u (Rooney, berb and nani) away to tottenham .