Gameweek 10 Season 2012/2013

Gameweek 10 Fantasy Football

Afternoon folks, it will be evening when I post this though… mainly because I lied with my ‘afternoon’ greeting at the start of the sentence.

GAMEWEEK 9 REVIEW OF NEW YORK COSMOS

Shitbags… worst week of season, staistically 50% behind everyone else, or maybe it’s 33% - The average was 45 points and I got 30 points, so I think I did 33% worse than the average. So I’ve dropped 5 places and now stand 88 points off the top, which is a drop of 24 points further off the top.

Got the captain right? Nope, Cazorla got me 3 bonus points, three other players on the New Cork Cosmo’s team could have got me more.

Got the keeper right? Nope, Jaaskelainen would have got me an extra 3 points.

Got my subs decisions right? Meh, they all got only 2 points each… but since 5 players in my first 11 got only one point. That means I would have jumped 3 places in the BOTNB league table.

LAST WEEK’S TEAM

THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS

… the highest scorer of each gameweek in our league is invited to share a few insights into what got them so many points… last week’s highest scorer was Tom O' Mahony with Crystal Mind Palace who got 67 points, which for context was about 40% of the average score which was 45. * (I need a better way of figuring and wording that, any ideas) And well inside the top 65,000 players in the world.

I wasn't able to contact him (there a lot of Tom O'Mahony's on facebook) but here is the team he had last week...

 

TRANSFERS

Hmmn, I had a bit of bad luck (on a selfish level, it is a lot worse for the person involved) when Wilson got a very bad ankle injury (I believe it broke) in his first week in my squad. But I don’t know what I want to do this week, I was thinking about the Mata/Hazard swap but apparently Mata is carrying an injury and doubtful to play (https://twitter.com/chelseafc/status/264357484305739776 ). I am also turing of Fletcher, or more specifically the Sunderland team in general, and was htinking of bringing Cisse in, but I think I’ll err with making no transfers this week, and keep it to have two next week. 

THIS GAMEWEEK COMING UP, WHERE’S THE DRAMA?

Also because of the Champions league next week, and the exertions of some teams in the League Cup, it’s hard to rely on anything. I can see West Ham ‘nobbling’ Man City [assuming the Mancs will be keeping a flame forgetting out of the group next week], and Chelsea did play a lot of their key players. RVP playing against his old team might be a bit of a dampener what with them trying to tie up champions league qualification. I would not expect a clean sheet there or indeed anywhere other than perhaps Sunderland and Spurs at home.

THIS WEEK’S SELECTION

Berbatov broke a rib last week and while he played on, I wonder will he just get rested as Everton wouldn’t be afraid to ‘rough’ him up; while I did bemoan Flether earlier I will play him as a home game against Villa could be a good place to knock in a few.

What with Wilson being injured, and Swansea taking on Chelsea, it was eay to decide to rest Williams. Ergo there’s my outfield picked. Since I’m going with Collins and Nolan anway, I’ll put all my chips on a West Ham grinding out a result, so I’ll put Jaaskelainen in goal.

 

Here’s the screenshot.

GOING FORWARD / WHO YOU LOOKING AT RONAN?

AMACH!

“Possibly Williams, possibly Fletcher.” is a direct quote from my blog last week. And it stays the same here.

ISTEACH!

Depending on Man City and Chelsea’s results in next Champions league fixtures, it could have an impact on their domestic priorities.

MY CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN

There a few options and as it stands I am going with Morrison at home to Southampton, mainly for differential reasons but I have Fletcher as my vice captain and I possibly will swap them later.

CAPTAIN’S CORNER

Darragh McHenry is the new titular Captain, and feck it he knows his s-h-i-t! Socks are being pulled up in BOTNB HQ.

OK, so I was one of those guys who failed to follow his own advice last week and appropriately got punted in the groin for my foolishness. The season is already showing a similar pattern to 2011/2012 as RVP looks set to reach almost ‘auto-captaincy’ with his continued impressive returns.

This week appears to be no different as Nostradamus, Mystic Meg and those fine clairvoyant chaps who talk to me from TV3 every night can see that Van Persie will bag a couple against his former club. Alas, I won’t be captaining him. I’ll start with the intangible and work towards the nerdier side of things.

We’ve never seen van Persie play against a former club (save summer friendlies) so we’re unsure as to whether he’ll step it up and play hard or his affection for his former club and manager will cause his effort to decrease. Wenger’s midweek comments asking fans to respect van Persie for moving clubs for non-financial reasons (his decline of Manchester City’s offer) shows the continued respect between the two.

My main contender to van Persie for the armband is Gareth Bale. Whilst Bale is a midfielder, his 25.6 minutes per attempt on goal passes out Van Persie’s 27.4 min per attempt. Furthermore, they are almost equal with regards to touches in the penalty area (47 to 46) and Bale has a higher accuracy per attempt, standing at 48.3% compared to the Dutch man’s 46.2%.

Where the stats really open up discussion is the teams they will be playing this weekend. Wigan have conceded 16 goals so far this term (ranked 16th) while Arsenal have let in just 6 (ranking 1st)….IT’S THE STEVE BOULD EFFECT PEOPLE! It’s extremely close between the two to be fair but I’m taking a slight lean on Papa Bale.

Other contenders this week should revolve around Sheik Man Citeh, Chelski and eh ‘The’ Liverpool. Suarez as per usual, leads the stat index in just above every area, except the unimportant column of goals scored. Still, his 99 penalty area touches are a whopping 29 more than any player this season.

Mata and Hazard seem to chop and change and the former seems to have the edge at the moment, though his 120 minutes midweek in the 5-4 sensible soccer-esq encounter against United make me worry as to how long he’ll last. Hazard looked very sharp upon his entrance and I actually prefer him for this gameweek.

Finally, City have West Ham, allowing Tevez to join Van Persie in the ‘going back to his old club’ routine. The Ajax must win game on Tuesday indicates that Mancini may want to save his best two strikers for the champions league, and Aguero and Tevez appear to be those two. Dzeko would be a seriously cheeky punt but he could offer huge returns going by recent form.

Other differentials include Berbatov (home to Everton), Holt (home to Stoke), Taarabt (home to Reading) and Cazo…..Cazor…sigh…Cazorla. Like I said last week, Santi’s away positioning is dramatically higher up the pitch playing away from home. Judging by Cleverly’s inability to pass (ref: Chelsea 28/10/2012) he could mop up a bit of loose ball. A major factor against him is the lack of finishing from the Gunners non-pineapple headed strikers (I tend to reserve special criticism for Gervinho).

Top 5 choices of the week are:

1. Bale

2. RVP

3. Berbatov

4. Defoe (5 goals again? It could happen.)

5. Dzeko

Good Luck!