Season 2012/2013 Gameweek 1

Wahey, finally that pesky stoooopid Olympics is over, and those athletes with their “training” and “dedication” and that bullshit can feck off, and it’s back to the real world of competition with laptops and statistics. So this is the 7th year of our own little back of the net boy fantasy football league, and it’s grown year on year, last season it stretched to two pages!

A good start is half the battle and in fantasy football terms, of course that means our team names. We’ve got some crackers already, my own personal one New Cork Cosmos isn’t my best work but it holds its own; as ever there are a few names/references that I don’t get but I’ve got 8 months to work them out.

So before I look at the upcoming season, let’s look back at the last season…

For me last season was a series of kicks in the balls, as my blog got better in terms of wordplay and pithiness my team decisions just blah blah shittiness.

Trying to use elements of cognitive behavioral therapy I really am trying to look at the decisions I made in 2011/2012 seasons and work out WHY I made those decisions, and learn from those reasons. Sounds easy eh! Like someone desperate for the score as it gets later in the night in a bar, my idea of success was changing the closer we got to the end of the season. It went from winning the league, then to getting into top ten, then just getting to finish on the first page and finally just to have as few girls as possible do better than me.

Of all the things I read about Chairman Mao over the years, very little has stuck with me other than the phrase “constant revolution”; and times have changed while last year I was advocating defenders being more value than strikers you can read it here -http://backofthenetboy.blogspot.ie/2011/08/fantasy-footbal-season-20112012-preview.html

But this season I’m going to bump up in midfield and attackers and see how things fare over next few weeks. For instance will Reading be porous; will Chris Hughton and Paul Lambert be able to tie things down at Carrow Road and Villa Park quickly or will there be a bedding in process: I’m intrigued about Laudrup too, his debut season mixed Swansea’s second season syndrome could make things very difficult, but I willing them on (as you can see I have three of his squad in my one); and even at the big boy end of the table seems that it will be goals not clean sheets that will

As ever I read the joe.ie and fantasyfootball scout pages and I try to not just rehash their advice and suggestions. Here are some links just in case you don’t know them

www.joe.ie/football/fantasy-football-insider/still-havent-picked-your-fantasy-football-team-take-these-five-pieces-of-advice-0027636-1  and http://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/

So for this opening blog, I’ll talk ya through my team/squad selection

Goalkeepers

Cech and Jaaskelainen, pretty straightforward reasons. The latter is dirt cheap and will be playing for West Ham where I can only assume he will play most if not all the games and will take quite a few shots too. Cech, I basically brought in cos he has two games this week, and he’s always a sturdy choice, the Chelsea defence isn’t the fortress that it once was but over the next few weeks he’s as good a starting point at anyone, I’m looking towards Given and Mignolet though.

Defenders

I didn’t want to go with two defenders from any one club, so I’ve gone with varied line up, while the big money options of Vidic, Kompany, Cole, Vermalan etc are pedigree choices, I’ve went with low cost defenders Kolarov is my most expensive, seemingly Man City have been flirting with a 3 centre back, using Kolarov as a wing back, so hoping that continues it could mean clean sheets with him further up the pitch getting assists (hopefully) and he does take occasional free kicks too.

Williams at Swansea, as I said earlier second season syndrome could effect them and if so defence is usually where it crumbles first, but they have a very favourable set of opening fixtures so I’m going to hope they do well. By extension, Williams who was one of their stand out players last season has been brought in. Hangeland at Fulham, played every game of season in premier league last season; I really think Jol will lead the club to a very sturdy season this year, and if I can manage to pick a couple of defenders who have a sturdy season I’ll be happy. On that same tip, I’ve gone with Collins at West Ham, assuming they have a Boltonesque dynamic, it won’t be pretty but if he gets occasional headed goals from set pieces and they eek out the bore draws and whatnot. 

Finally Kaboul at spurs, perhaps AVB will hit the ground running with the Spurs squad (and I hope he does) and perhaps Kaboul will be a first choice player [Vertonghen looks tasty too]

But there ya go 3 defenders at 5, another at 5.5 and finally one at 6.

Midfielders

I’ve been playing more with these 5 squad places than the rest put together and my watchlist is jam-packed. Simply I put Mata in, as he has two games this week and I hope he plays both, the talk seems to be he will be the pivot this season which opens up the game to Torres and I’m buying it.

Sigurdsson was brilliant last season (half season) and has done well in pre season with Spurs, I can only assume the team will be built around him [it can’t be just money that he turned down Liverpool and went to Tottenham instead], especially now that Modric is gone (he is gone by now isn’t he?)/

I’ve brought in Guthrie, as he plays two games this week and he’s 4.5, i.e. cheap as chips. He will realistically be traded out by GW3. Nolan is also cheapish (6) and I’m pretty sure he will do well with West Ham this season, they also have a good opening run of fixtures so perhaps he’ll knock in a few goals for me. Nolan will the leader at West Ham, what he brings to the team is (to do an Alan Hansen and just say the keywords) is Experience. Responsibility. Leadership. (Alan shearer will probably say we don’t' know a lot about the lad)

 Finally I went with Michu, mainly cos I’ve read in two different articles that they think he could be the signing of the season, I am that easily led folks.

Santi Cazorla, Arteta, Walters, Nasri, Allen and Pienaar intrigue me too though…

Forwards

Have gone with Tevez (cheaper than Aguero by 2.5, and Balotelli has an eye complaint at the moment), as he is really getting talked up by the Man City camp and Torres, as well, he could possibly come good (FINALLY!!!) he has 180 minutes this gameweek to hit the onion bag a few times.

My final striker is Graham at Swansea, once again he had a fine season last year, hopefully he continues.  Ruiz at Fulham and Lukaku at West Brom were the other options for that final spot.

My team selection is as follows,

Next week’s blog will have more of a structure and hopefully the regular readers will start contributing to it too.