Fantasy Football 2011-10-28

Game week 10

barcaRONAN’s last game week Score – 30 // Average Score on site – 36

Highest Haul – 6 // Lowest Haul – 1 // Average Score Per Player 2.7

Accrued Score – 385

Place in my own fecking league – 62, down 7 Places

Points Off the top - 106

*****

State Of Play

Remember the pictures of Alex Ferguson chewing gum at weekend watching united go 5 and then 6 down; 3-1 was a bad enough score but at least they were coming back from 3-0 down ergo slight improvement (like barcaRONAN fortune’s so far) and then pow pow pow they feck up and it’s awful again; like my team selection last week. WTF, I’ve only 30 points from last week. We all know the Manchester Derby was an aberration but Chelsea/QPR and Liverpool/Norwich threw a few cats among the pigeons, indeed even Wolves conceding two and dragging two back was almost against their run so far this season.

*****

Vindication

Nothing to mention, it’s just been a bad week. The closest I get to vindication is schmindication.

*****

D’oh

Errah, everything, I anticipated a Man City shut out, by that I meant 0-0 or a sneaky 1-0 to win, as opposed to 6-1. Fecking hell, and Rooney didn’t get the assist or goal!

Here’s the screenshot of my team from last game week.

*****

Questions / Hunch / Drama / Dramatic Narrative this game week before Sky Have Spotted it.

Mick McCarthy called Wolves fans “fuc*ing idiots”, but Alex Ferguson called his players that following their implosion last week. SO will they launch right back onto tracks, they play at Goodison Park this weekend, so could Rooney end up coming home to roost?

*****

Transfers/Theory

First of all I want to throw a bit of “fu…c….k YOU” to Alan Hutton for injuring Shane Long, for both Irish reasons and the fact that he’s my 15^th man.

Maybe the lack of success is just numbing me; or it’s the fact I write this Friday afternoon/evening every week but I keep just hitting a wall, feels like I’m just covering holes in the squad.

Okay, 2 transfers this week, and I was bigging up this idea “ I think I’m gonna ship Rooney out next week, and bring in either RVP, Sturridge or Torres, and with a few shekels saved bring VDV too.” last week

But cos of realising Johnson just has to go at the back and I want to replace Long, I have brought in Bassong as I identified last week, and I’ll bring in Bendter too; the not-as-great-as-he-thinks Dane, has three home games in next four, he’s a guaranteed starter and I just need a break.

It leaves me with a million and a few pence in the bank

*****

Selection

Same plan as usual playing all my players who are at home and adding in Rooney, Aghbonlar and Arteta. Nothing clever there, Houlhan set as 1^st sub. Mata as captain and barcaRONAN debutante Bendter as vice captain.

My Team this week

*****

Keeping An Eye On

Cleverly might come in next week, I doubt he’ll play at Everton since he’s just coming back from injury etc and Houlahan just isn’t really doing it for me. And Torres.

*****

Captain's Corner with Phergal

City @home to wolves. Massive potential for goals here. A second string city team put 5 past them in the carling cup mid week. The danger here as always with City, is rotation, especially with a big Champs league match against Villarreal next week. Balotelli and Aguero were rested in the Carling cup so look likely for starts. I wouldn't be too confident of minutes, but against wolves, they shouldn't need too much to grab a goal or two.

Spurs @Home to QPR. QPR shipped 6 in their last away match against Fulham, although got an unlikely 1-0 win against Chelsea last week in a bad tempered game. Spurs should be good for a few here. VDV is on amazing form; if you have him, captain him. Failing that, Adebayor is a good shout.

Everton@home to United. Look for United to bounce back and make a statement here after last weeks drubbing to City. Rooney and Nani look good.

Chelsea @home to Arsenal. Arsenal are looking a bit better now, but you'd expect a Chelsea win with Arsenal still nervy at the back.  Torres is back from suspension and scored a brace against Genk in his absence. I fancy him for a goal or two here, and with a mere 2.8% ownership, could be a massive differential. I like in form Sturridge here too.

Fantasy Football 2011-10-21

Game week 8

barcaRONAN’s last game week Score – 45 // Average Score on site – 34

Highest Haul – 11 // Lowest Haul – 1 // Average Score Per Player 4.1

Accrued Score – 355 (inc gameweek 1 score)

Place in my own fecking league – 55, up 10 Places

Points Off the top

State Of Play

I feel like a spin-doctor working for an ailing administration but here’s this week’s silver lining! Only 13 managers of the 54 ahead of me in the Back Of The Net Boy league did better than me. So at least I’m going up my own league.

It’s probably a reflection on my priorities when I spend more thinking about good lines for this blog than good defensive lines in the game (see what I did there?). My biggest disappointment this week was that James Richardson in his intro to Football Weekly Extra used the same Manchurian Candidate reference/gag I had come up with, it’s only the second or third time I’ve heard him do a joke/pun that I thought of too; he really is one of my favourite presenters/broadcasters. Anyway I better take this smoke pipe away from his ass eh? You can hear it, in his intro to the podcast http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/audio/2011/oct/20/football-weekly-extra-manchester-derby

So Manchester United’s line up at Anfield really shook things up: Nani, Rooney and Hernandez were all on the bench; a less reported thing was that the Man United bench contained ZERO defenders, which I wouldn’t do even in Football Manager. So people who captained Rooney must have been pissed off when he came on pitch and did nothing except collect a singular point.

Chelsea are steaming away without any of the press bombarding that the two Manchester teams are getting; and for now the crisis, or is it just crisis mongering, has abated at the Emirates. RVP is stats wise in the form of his career, he hasn’t been injured since January, so maybe this the time to get Arsenal players in. But now I’ve jumped about 3 sections ahead.

Vindication

Will I tell you something, it’s a sign of how poorly my teams have been doing that I forgot that players get bonus points. Well last week Jonathan Walters got an 11-point haul, which included 3 bonus points. And his goalkeeping teammate kept his net unsullied, so that was another 6 points. And Kompany nicking a goal helped make some amends for him and Clichy’s lost clean sheet bonus.

D’oh

Basically everyone and everything I didn’t mention in previous passage. Fecking 6 players on my 11 getting 2 points or less. Abysmal.

Here’s the screenshot of my team from last game week.

Questions / Hunch / Drama / Dramatic Narrative this game week before Sky Have Spotted it.

So the Manchester derby eh? This might backfire, but I need to start making ‘differential’ decisions, I’m really sure that I’m making this decision with reason as opposed to wanton trying to be different, but I’m anticipating a shut out my Man City at Old Trafford, to park ”il Bus-ino”, or whatever Italians call it. BUUUT since Rooney is in good form, I’ll be playing him.

Transfers/Theory/Selection

It’s getting stat-tastic over at http://fantasy.premierleague.com/the-scout/ and there’s plenty to ponder, so much so I’m kinda of afraid of making decisions.

In a sense I’m not making any, as I’ve decided to make no transfers, as I feel I’m just rushing them and have no real agenda/endgame in mind. I will save it to have two free transfers next week and I explain my plan in the “Keeping An Eye On” section below.

Well Given at home to WBA vs Begovic away at Arsenal. As lazy American students say to teachers regarding arithmetic, “you do the math”.

I know playing QPR againt Chelsea seems a bit silly but (A) the cliché of players playing against  their old clubs raising their game might work for SWP and (B) since a lot of rivals have Chelsea defenders in their team, I get a kind of perverse double gain if he gets an assist or indeed a goal.

While Newcastle players are catching my eye at moment, casting those ocular organs a little further show that they have Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea in gameweek 11, 12  & 13.

My subs are a process of elimination, Players with tricky away fixtures basically, am humming and hawing about Long at Aston Villa or Walters at Stoke. They are both Irish so that takes away one of my favourite decision making techniques. Since Walters didn’t play midweek, I assume Pulis will play him at Emirates, and of course sorry since I’ve Given in goal I don’t’ want Long to score. Decision made. Easy.

I might tweak the order of subs, but then I, enigmatically, might not

Mata and Agbonlahor will be my captain and vice, but I’m not sure in which order.

My Team this week

Keeping An Eye On

Walker and Bassong at Spurs, very nice run of fixtures and both seem to be first teamer for next few weeks. And Dempsey at Fulham, but I wonder if the Europa League travails will drain him of his bursting-from-midfield-energy.

And I think I’m gonna ship Rooney out next week, and bring in either RVP, Sturridge or Torres, and with a few shekels saved bring VDV too. With that in mind… Let’s have a jolly good weekend chaps (sorry spent last 48 hours in London, so have been some of their lingo, what what)

Captain's Corner with Phergal

A frustrating weekend for many last week, lots of big names coming off the bench or not playing at all. Some nice fixtures captaincy wise this weekend, let's have a look.

Arsenal @home to Stoke - RVP is on form and looks a good bet here. Arsenal will be in good form after their last minute win against Marseille. Stoke also coming off a win in Europe although with little squad rotation going on, could be tired for this difficult match in the Emirates.

Man U vs. City - The biggie, should be a cracking match. The Charity shield served up 5 goals a few months ago, but i expect this to be a tighter affair with Mancini concentrating on defending more than open attacking football, maybe a goal or two in it. Aguero and Rooney are decent picks.

Chelsea@QPR - Chelsea are looking like title challengers again and will be looking for a comprehensive win. Drogba will be the focal point of attack again with 1 match left of Torres's suspension but has disappointed owners that got him in a few weeks ago. Sturridge is in great form and will looking to cement his place on the team. Lampard looks like a great differential pick here also.

Tottenham @Blackburn - I expect a convincing win for Spurs. VDV looks good, although he isn't guaranteed the full 90. Adebayor looks a safer bet.

Norwich@ Liverpool  - Suarez. That is all.

Gamble pick - Ward possibly in a striker role again with Fletcher out against Swansea?

Fantasy Football 2011-10-14

***** sorry about bad spelling and general writing, left this very late, and I have to go to work in 3 minutes*****

Game week 8

barcaRONAN’s last game week Score – 50 // Average Score on site – 44

Highest Haul – 12 // Lowest Haul – 1 // Average Score Per Player 4.5

Accrued Score – 310 (inc gameweek 1 score)

Place in my own fecking league – 65, up 2 Places

State Of Play

Jeez, 1/4 of the way through the season and I’m realistically out of contention on winning my own league, 87 points of the top, which is also 20% ahead of me. But who knows I might get ahead of the curve. Having had the international break to think about this, my ruminations have let me to the conclusion of hliuhlka49Pj;jhuyUHIUNVOPJhkjhlkjljk… yep just brain wobble. In a reductive way of putting it, I’m just picking the wrong horses. Am I putting to much stock in last season’s players/clubs who were impressive. I just don’t know, in managerial terms it’s like being Steve Bruce, there is no obvious mistake or reason things are going so unexcitedly.

Vindication

The Rooney and Agbonlahor is an expensive luxery, 20% of my budget did accrue me 45% of my points; so money provides success; ergo Man City will win the league (speaking of Man Ciry, interestingly .5% of the players of this game still have Tevez in their squad, which goes to show how many people have already abbandoned their teams I reckon)

D’oh

Wolves not pulling it together, Backing The Wrong Horse (For ever after I will refer to that as simply BWH)

Here’s the screenshot of my team from last game week

Questions / Hunch / Drama / Dramatic Narrative this game week before Sky Have Spotted it

So the Liverpool/Utd match dominates the gameweek, Rooney and Suarez in great form; both defences missing first choice players, having unfit players etc. There’s goals in this game, will it be 3-3 all; Echoing the greatest premier league game I’ve ever seen.

The bubbling under section of the season has kind of passed now, and people like Sturridge and Welbeck have really put their stamp on the season, with Torres out through suspenision and Hernadez out due to only returning from Mexico yesterday it’s probable he won’t be on bench. Two other United strikers to consider though are two very rested players in Berbatov and Owen, obviously the latter is unkileky to play 90 mins, but the fact it is at Anfield could be a great stage for a few goals.

Others, will Norwich claim 3 points at home?

Will the wheels come off the Newcastle momentum?

Arsenal have made most of this break to pull together something akin to a backbone? Ha ha ha aha hahhha ha.

Transfers/Theory/Selection

I’ve two transfers this week.

Hennessy fro Wolves is gone as my second keeper, they just aren’t keeping clean sheets so he’s pointless (no pun intended, he’s more POINTS[scored]LESS[than-I’d-expected]).. So I’ll bring in Begovic, he’s second top scorer in his position and cheap-ish, I know stoke seem to be getting hamstrung by Europa League travails, but he seems to have 5 good fixtures in next 8, and rotating him back and forth with Given should be successful

Also dropping O’Hara, essentially same reason as hennesey, and brining in Hoolahan, if Norwich come good, he could have good totals in 2 of next 3 gameweeks with favourable home fixtures.

selection: picked home players where possible and rooney.

My Team this week

Keeping An Eye On

Noone has really made me think of them, Bentner perhaps next week, however it’ll be hard to assess if he’ll bring his form from the internationals with him 10 days after.

Captain's Corner with Phergal

So the internationals are over (bring on Estonia) and we're back to the day to day (or weekend to weekend) business of picking our captain for the weekend. Let's take a look at the likely fixtures and candidates.

Liverpool vs. Man United - Usually goals to be had in this one. 3-1 to Liverpool in last year's corresponding fixture. So hard to predict these high tension games. Gerrard is back from a long injury, could be a nice differential pick this week, but at 11m he's just too expensive. I like Kuyt in this fixture, given his hat trick in this match last year. From United, i'd be a bit hesitant on captaining the Roo this week. His recent 3 match Euro ban and messy business with his father's betting scandal will no doubt be  hanging heavy on his head.

Man City vs. Villa - Striker disarray with City atm. Tevez won't play again if Mancini has his way. Aguero is nursing a minor injury and might be back in time for the clash but Mancini has said even if he is ready he might rest him. Balotelli also is coming off a back injury that kept him out of Italy's qualifiers, he may also be in contention for a start. Dzeko seems the only sure bet and will likely play the 90. Silva becomes more attractive this weekend then, especially if he has only one striker to support, he should be playing a little further up and will have less people to share the spoils with. He is still to register any massive haul, but has been consistently getting 6+ points week in week out. a safe bet.

Arsenal vs Sunderland - Bookies and various other FF sites are tipping the Arse for a big win here. I can't see where they're coming from tbh. Sunderland haven't been great, but Arsenal have been much worse. Capable of scoring a few, but still a shambles at the back. Ramsey looks like he's settling in to a Fabregas shaped hole (oo-er!) as predicted by yours truly at the start of the season, he looks a good bet here and RVP obviously if you are backing a few goals from Arsenal.

Wigan vs. Bolton - This has goals written all over it. Bolton have had they're worst start to a season in 457 years and are leaking goals. Both teams are desperate for a win, with them both considering the other as their biggest chance of getting one. Di santo looks a good bet here. Moses for a gamble. He's had so many shots on goal one has to go in sometimes.