Fantasy Football 2011-12-16

Game week 16

barcaRONAN’s last game week Score – 30

Average Score on site – 50

Highest Haul: 7 –Van Persie (who was also my captain, so that became 14)

Lowest Haul: (-3) – Clichy

 

Average Score Per Player 2.7

Accrued Score – 637

Place in my own fecking league – 70, down 11 places

Points Off the top – 214 (20 points dis-improvement – [what’s the correct word?])

State Of Play

Due to me minding my language around my son I’m gonna say through gritted teeth, “Oh deary me” ála Mrs Doubtfire, but in my head I’m ranting and seething more like Robin Williams did in his insane cocaine years. I was gonna go on A World According To Garp thing, but in truth I can’t really remember the build up to the ending, so he might actually have done something horrific himself. Anyway this is the kind of rambling writing that wins me no awards, back to incisive writing about my thoughts on a game that wins me no points. I really have done bad since I started this blog, I used to be a condendah.

So while the previous game week was my best in months, but sure as night follows day, this week was one of my worst. Jeez. Left (back), right (back) and centre (back), I was left down, as well as midfield etc etc. Other than Van Persie, (and even he had a poor week by his exacting standards) and to a lesser degree Walters, no one contributed.

Vindication

Nothing

D’oh

Everything that isn’t covered in the Vindication section, crushing. If it wasn’t for the fact I’ve been listening to documentaries about country and western music for last few hours, I’d feel worse.

Screenshot of my team from last game week.

Questions / Hunch / Drama / Dramatic Narrative this game week before Sky have spotted it.

I realise I consistently have gone astray from the title of this subsection. SO will try and steer back and more pertinent to my team, I can’t solve all these problems in one week, will limit myself to 2

PROBLEM

Bendtner – They always say when a new manager comes in you should make sure you catch the manager’s attention, but not like this you knobhead - http://www.football365.com/news/21554/7380617/Bendtner-And-Cattermole-Are-Bailed-After-Arrest

Now while a part of me sees Sunderland becoming a solid team very quickly with winter flaking in the crosses for the Dane to take those chances, I just can’t see it happening right now. The wildcard in Jan is ahead of us though.

SOLUTION

Sturridge in, baffling to see they are only .6 apart in price. What with Anelka gone, Drogba leaving soon for African Cup of Nations, and the natural urge for English players who have not cemented their place in the Euro squad. 

PROBLEM

My goalkeepers, without noticing I’ve kind of painted myself into a corner with two, what I’d call, handy second choice of keepers,

SOLUTION

Immediately Vorm looks great buy, but will hold my wick in that department

PROBLEM

My Man City defenders, both woefully underperforming, Clichy in particular, both need to go, but to be fair there are no notably performing defender this season (the Newcastle bubble seems to have burst)

 

SOLUTION

On my poking about, I see Man Utd have a new defender option at 4.5 million in a fella called Ezekiel Fryers, now while that’s a character name you’d except in something like Oz or Sons Of Anarchy; he’ll have do a little bit more than that. But my actual solution is explained a little further down.

Transfers/Theory/Selection

DO you look at your squad and think to yourself, “how is this adding up to 100 Million!”, I have only two what I’d call high cost players (RVP and Bale) and the rest are mid to cheap ones. I certainly have back the wrong horse with all of them (perhaps excluding  Walters, who at 6.3 is bubbling away under the whole)

Due to needing to shave a few quid here and there, I swapped VDV for Bale; simple decision really, over Christmas rush, VDV is unlikely to play all the games, and once again while admitting my blind spots Bale is out performing VDV.

Have swapped Sturridge for Bendtner and have decided to lose Clichy and bring in Jagielka (Norwich, Swansea at Home, then Sunderland and WBA away); Everton have a pretty sweet few fixtures coming up and hopefully they could manage maybe 3 clean sheets from next 5?

It’s a tricky one with the Goalkeepers, they are opposing each other and I’m sure they’ll both be busy with set pieces and whatnot, so I’m gonna go with Hennessey, I don’t see a clean sheet for either but what with Stoke’s bad form after Europe League matches (even though they didn’t play their strongest strongest team on Thurs, I believe. Maybe I should research that, errah). Suppose since Begovic isn’t starting a lot these days, it makes the decision a little easier.

Regarding Captain, I anticipate the Many City v Arsenal game to be very high octane, maybe the memory of both club’s more recent matches with Chelsea makes me think goals, as opposed to defensive masterclass performances. But I will veer towards Bale at home, since they are clearly playing a weaker team, and perhaps O’Neill hasn’t really sorted them out yet, and I also have Bassong in my team. Put all my eggs in one basket etc etc.

My Team this week

Keeping An Eye On

Everton’s defenders and on the same tip Chelsea’s ones. Also high functioning/low-cost midfielders who play every game (Larsson perhaps).­

Captain's Corner with Phergal

[NB Back Of The Net Boy is not responsible for Captain’s Corner spelling, grammar and basic text layout]

Pretty difficult one this week with RVP away to City. I still wouldn't bet against him though and no doubt he'll still be captained by many.

City @home to Arsenal - Arsenal have been tightening up defensively and City finally got beaten in the premier league so this mightn't be as one sided as people think. As I said, RVP is still a reasonable choice and the usual candidates on the City side, Aguero, Silva and Balotelli.

Man United away to QPR - United somewhat answered critics last week with 4 goals against Wolves, but come on, it's Wolves. I see United to win again comfortably though. Nani and Rooney both impressing last weekend and will have seen their ownership start to rise again. Not sure about picking your captain based on one good performance again Wolves though.

Newcastle @home to Swansea  - Ba has turned into the bargain buy of the season, he's in amazing form. Swansea is definitely no gimme fixture though, but he's as likely to score as anyone this weekend and is fond of getting more than one.

Chelsea away to Wigan - Great win for Chelsea last weekend and badly needed. Will their slump be over now? Who knows but confidence is massively boosted and Wigan won't be looking forward to this one. Sturridge turned assister last weekend, setting up Meireles and winning a penalty duly converted by Lampard who has publicly expressed his puzzlement at starting matches on the bench. Mata had a great second half and dominated the midfield, you have a feeling he'll be putting up a big score soon.

Gamble picks - Yakubu @home to West Brom, why not. Ramsey. Shit, i've jinxed it now haven't I?

Fantasy Football 2011-12-9

Game week 15

barcaRONAN’s last game week Score – 77

Average Score on site – 53

Highest Haul – 15 – Huth, Jones and Van Persie

Lowest Haul – 1 – Begovic, Ben Arfa, Bendtner, Van Der Vaart 

Average Score Per Player 7

Accrued Score – 607

Place in my own fecking league – 68, up twelve places

Points Off the top – 193 (13 points improvement)

State Of Play

Wahey, best week in a long while for me, 77 point haul for me. An average of 7 points per player, and with 3 of my team getting 15 points it implies I’m somewhat building back on the right tracks. Then again one of those players was RVP, so that hardly counts as insight.

On a wider BOTNB community level, the big news from the week was one of the crew getting engaged, so I wanna throw warmest thoughts towards Pat, but I will warn you about something. This league is in it’s 8th year, no married man has ever won the BOTNB league…

Vindication

As I said three players got good hauls with 60 points between them…

D’oh

… (yep you guessed it) but the other 8 got 17 between them. I have a few gripes and the main one is with the save button on the site. As  you can see from the screen shot on last week’s blog, I had Hennessey set to be my keeper, who got a good 9 point haul. Those 8 points could end up crucial.

Screenshot of my team from last game week.

Questions / Hunch / Drama / Dramatic Narrative this game week before Sky have spotted it.

Looks like the WAGS of the two Manchester clubs will be able to follow the goings on in the Rovers Return for rest of the season as their hubbies will be away on Wednesday nights for Europa League (even though Mrs Giggs,  Ferdinand and Rooney might be more worried cos of that). The two clubs are, stepping away from the spin and whatnot about their exits from the champions league, wounded. The players in both clubs have the mindsets of winners and will surely be hungry to get onto the field and show the world what’s what (other than Tevez obviously!). Looking to Old Trafford first, Vidic is a huge loss; as they teased out on fantasy football scout podcast, there is a school of thought that due to his loss for the rest of season United will have even less chance of keeping clean sheets so will need to attack more, and what with Hernadez’s injury, Fergie’s seemingly permanent lack of faith in Berbatov and the occasional pushing of Wayne into midfield this all adds up to Welbeck getting a LOT of game time and they have a nice run of winnable fixtures.

Moving across to the bluer part of the city, it’s not like the wagon has skidded off the road but they will surely be a mild hangover at least from the exit from the big boys league. They visit Chelsea, who are been a powerhouse of football in the last week, I am looking forward to this game as an observer.

Also how quickly will Martin O’Neill turn Sunderland around, while he was never a negative manager, he will shore it up at the back before anything. He made the lumbering seemingly ineffectual Emile Heskey shine when he had him in the past, so perhaps he’ll do the same with Bendter. But he is listed as having a knock, but surely any player trying to impress a new manager will do what it takes to get on the team sheet. It’ll certainly be interesting to see if he makes any wholesale changes.

Transfers/Theory/Selection

As I said the signs point to attacking United, so Welbeck in and Agbonlahor out. While he’s been good for Villa this season, he seems to have gone off the boil and they have 3 tough fixtures in the next six.

Not very happy with my team this week, but then again I have been in previous weeks and ended up disappointed so at least this way my expectations are lowered. I don’t like having defenders who are playing against midfielders who are also in my team (Huth versus VDV/Bassong versus Walters) but to be honest, I just to have suck it up in this instance; because I don’t have any obvious plan B even if I used my wildcard right now.

Am really looking and relooking and relooking at bringing Long in at the expense of Bendtner, and I might end up doing it when I get home tonight!

To be honest this is a hotch potch of a selection this week, I regret leaving it this late in the week to do, but it’s the kind of regret I can live with.

My Team this week

Keeping An Eye On

Sunderland and their new regime, and Chelsea’s resolve, an a certain Spaniard in their works

Captain's Corner with Phergal

[NB Back Of The Net Boy is not responsible for Captain’s Corner spelling, grammar and basic text layout]

Interesting times on the champs league then, both Manchester teams crashing out in the group stages, one somewhat expectedly, and one a major upset. This could be good news for Fantasy managers though, as both teams will be sure to put out their strongest teams for the second half of the premiership, hopefully making less selection headaches for us.

Man United @home to Wolves - United are in a state of disarray, no two ways about it. They've been struggling on all fronts recently and are scraping 1 nils here and there, their early season free scoring a bit of a memory now. Add to that it looks like Vidic is out for the rest of the season. There's not much to signal you to pick a player for a captain's armband, even against Wolves. Cue a Rooney hattrick. Go on then, captain him.

Arsenal@home to Everton - He's the default option now, you'd want a seriously tasty fixture or display of form from someone else not to pick Reliant Robin. Home to Everton, game on.

Chelsea@home to City - Chelsea ended a bad period with a great win against Valencia in the Champions league to get them to the next stage. Drogba scored twice and looks to have earned a few starts in the coming weeks instead of Torres. I think he's a great differential this weekend, i can't check his ownership in work but i'll bet it's around the 2% figure. I can see Mata exploding soon as well, but perhaps not in this fixture. I can see lots of goals here, Chelsea's defence is still very much in trouble and City don't seem too fond of clean sheets recently, preferring to outscore the opposition (hey phergal, isn't this the objective of every team in a match?) with goals. Aguero for City.

Gamble picks? Larrson against Blackburn, purely because i just brought him back into my own team after foolishly dropping him for Ramsey. Shit, i've jinxed it now haven't I?

Fantasy Football 2011-12-2

Game week 13

barcaRONAN’s last game week Score – 39

Average Score on site – 41

Highest Haul – 10 - Kompany

Lowest Haul – 0 -Van Der Vaart

Average Score Per Player 3.3

Accrued Score – 500

Place in my own fecking league – 80, same as last week

Points Off the top – 206.

State Of Play

Remember all my talk of rebirth last week? Well it’s very déjà vu now isn’t it? I’ve been losing faith in my selections, but I keep coming back to the fact that I have reasoned them out and they just aren’t working out. But someone else has said something similar to me… "We have been using a lot of players but we have to make choices based on coherence, decision making, and based on the best players”. Step on up Andre Villas-Boas.

Vindication

Rather than saying nothing every week, I will use this space to teach you how to say nothing in different languages; ‘Nichts’ is the German for nothing. Over the course of the season, I might also move in the philosophy of nothing.

D’oh

I didn’t even field a full team, due to injuries and Jones and Drenthe not even making the subs bench. Kompany scored nearly 25% of my points. That shizzle just won’t fizzle.

Screenshot of my team from last game week.

Questions / Hunch / Drama / Dramatic Narrative this game week before Sky have spotted it.

Wowzers, Villa have a very very bad run for next 6 games, Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea are all on the agenda. So bye bye Given from barcaRONAN.

Sunderland’s new manager might be installed by the time I post this, and to be fair to whoever takes over (it’s looks like Martin O’Neill) will have a favourable opening run of fixtures, what that will mean for Bendtner will be interesting. He did wonders with Emile Heskey eh?

Two teams who are in strange types of reeling; Man Utd, who got caught with a stunner on Wed; and Chelsea who’ve been slugged over and over recently, are in a position to ‘fight back like an animal in a corner’ kinda thing. The Chelsea visit to Newcastle could be interesting, will Ben Arfa light up the pitch? Or will John Terry just have a few words with him...

Transfers/Theory/Selection

  

I think I’ve left too much faith in both my keepers, Given goes this week, probably Begovic next week. I’m bringing in Hennessy’s from Wolves in, they are at home hosting Sunderland this week, so I’ll play him there and he’ll be syncing in and out with my other keeper for next few weeks. Also letting little Wes of Norwich leaves the Ro Camp, so I can bring in Ben Arfa, Newcastle have a lovely run of fixtures as of next week but he may nick a few points against Chelsea this week.

By virtue of playing a Wolves keeper (Hennessy) and Man Utd Defender (Jones), I’m benching my two strikers who could score against them (Aghbonlahor and Bendtner). Also benching Huth, as Stoke’s defending has been slacker and slacker and if any team the premiership can eat up the game Stoke play it’s Everton.

I’m gonna captain RVP, as well, Wigan are no great shakes at the moment and you mightn’t have heard, but he’s in good form.

My Team this week

Keeping An Eye On

Wolves, and more importantly the new Sunderland era.

Captain's Corner with Phergal

[NB Back Of The Net Boy is not responsible for Captain’s Corner spelling, grammar and basic text layout]

Man City @Home to Norwich - Aguero came off the bench during the week so looks set for start. Balotelli looks more likely to start alongside him the Dzeko. Both great captaincy choices. Silva as usual is a decent safety option.

Arsenal away to Wigan - RVP finally turned up short last week after an incredible 5 matches on the trot with double figure scores. Rotation is very much an issue with a tired Arsenal side now and i wouldn't be surprised with RVP being rested or coming off the bench. Make sure you pick your vice captain well. Nice opportunity to make a big captaincy score here with a differential pick other than RVP in any of the other fixtures, as most will be captaining the Dutchman. Not for the faint of heart though.

Tottenham @home to Bolton - Nice home fixture for a Spurs side in flying form in the premiership, Europa loss not withstanding. Latest reports say VDV will start so is an excellent pick along with Adebayor.

Newcastle@home to Chelsea - Mata finally got a big haul last week in a Chelsea side in disarray. Torres is dropped for Drogba. I don't see many goals in this to be honest. 0-0.

Man United away to Villa - I like Hernandez here. Rooney should be returning to a front slot as well. Both great picks.

Gamble pick - Ryan Taylor, clean sheet and some bonus points in the 0-0 against Chelsea. You heard it here first.