Friday, February 8, 2013

Gameweek 26 Season 2012/2013



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Hello ladies and gentlemen... ok, let’s be honest… Hello gentlemen!

So I’ve decided to separate how New Cork Cosmos get on from Back Of The Net Boy activities and now I can report on both individually; at BOTNB HQ we had another good week. When you start podcasting and tweeting etc it’s a new step, obviously Darragh and I have tremendous support and feedback from our friends, who we met ye in ACTUAL PERSON before you joined our league/pages or else yer friends of friends, but now we’re starting to have 4th and 5th degree of seperation listeners/followers whatever you call it, it’s certainly lit a bushel under my arse-i-cles, so we have a lot of ideas about how to keep furthering our scope. As ever any feedback ye have is more than welcome and if you can help spreading the word, pages, tweets, podcasts and maybe reviewing us on iTunes etc, all very helpful.

But when we get to WCC stuff, things are a little less inspiring, I fluked a misleading high score due to my flukiness of vice captain coming in place of Remy. I heard an interesting line about Eamon De Valera, and how we should “forgive people’s natural mistakes”, and I think that was the fantasyfootballdeity did by taking care of on that front, all that helped me do a little bit better than all the leaders of the BOTNB league, but it feels like I didn’t earn it. (but I’ll take the points, don’t’ worry about that)

REVIEW OF NEW CORK COSMOS IN GAMEWEEK 25

So I’ve had two good game weeks in a row, third GM in a row that I haven’t dropped places and in fact ga..gai… gained (what is that word, I haven’t said it in months) points on those ahead of me. Now Fellaini got about 40% of my points, and there were just enough bonus points, assists, clean sheets and goal ammassed by his NCC teammates to scrape a slightly better than good score together.

WHAT’S THE POINTS?

Points scored last week                       - 75 Points
Average points scored in that week      - 44 points
Points off the top                                 - 282 points, closer by 14 points to top spot.
Position in BOTNB League                - 52nd (9 places higher up the table, 2 places of
                                                                being back on the first page!)


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… Gameweek 25’s highest scorer had a 85 point haul from David Neville. What follows is his thoughts on what got him such an impressive haul...

Dear fellow fantasy football fans (and nerds, you know who you are, Darragh),

Well well, in the middle of an admittedly poor showing from me this year I am humbled and honoured to be writing this piece as this gameweek’s top scorer (yippee), although it was a close call with a good few people with scores not far off my total of 85. A lot of us did well this week due to 4 of the “POWER 5” midfielders doing the business as well as plenty of clean sheets being available, going against this season’s trend and also my penchant for Goals Galore coupons (Swansea…grrrr). I took a 4 point hit this week, bringing in El (wundergoal) Kün for Džeko which didn’t work out too well (-2 overall) but I’m still confident that it will pay off in the coming weeks as I figure the little Argie will be my main differential from those around me. The main and obvious reason for my little bit extra this week was Mr. Screech himself being handed the armband ahead of a few other good options and duly bagging twice against the indefensible Villains. My decision to stick with Benteke, for now anyway, then topped me up nicely. Looking forward to next week I only have 2 players (at the time of writing anyway) playing twice but in year’s past I’ve usually been let down by investing too heavily in double gameweeks so meh to that. It’s not as if I’m in a title race anyway. That fact is as sure as the HT/FT result in a Turkish 2nd division game these days. I’ll go back to my mid-table mediocrity now.

Yours in virtual sport,

D


Screenshot of David’s team from GM25, I’d like to point out that he also only had 3 players from the dreamteam, kudos sahr.



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TRANSFERS

I actually did something I rarely do and made a transfer Sunday night, Wilshere was pointed to the exit and I brought in Sissoko. So in that respect, I should probably just leave my team at that, but I must admit I have a trigger finger at moment. A lot of the things I was thinking of was dealt in the podcast, but it mainly was trying to decide if it was worth losing 8 points and Walcott to bring in Suarez (double game week etc) and a cheap midfielder, but our captain, @darraghFPL,  pointed out I could just sneak Lampard & Sturridge and that really is a fascinating idea.

But I think, I’ll just keep with what I got, (1) to spend 4 points is one thing, 8 seems a bridge too far especially since getting in an attacking Liverpool player would be at the expense of a good Davies performance at Anfield. (2) I'm kind of happy already with what I got.

KEEPING AN EYE ON

Samba & Caesar at QPR, Wilson at Stoke… and the Real/Utd result at midweek, I am considering that gettign rid of RVP will be neccesary for me to make any real gains on my peers, since the fact we all have him is just frankly boring. And RVP/Walters out would get me Lampard & Aguero in. Even as I type that I think I might do that tonight when I get home from pub if I’m feeling brave.


THIS WEEK’S SELECTION

My regret of the season will be bringing that Wisdom fella in, I just didn’t check that he was coming to cover injuries rather than on form alone. I am benching him, even though he has a DGM, as I fear he might just play 20 mins in one of the games, he’s my number 14, with O’Brien away at Villa sitting to his right. My first choice outfield substitute is Remy, but apparently he might play. Darragh suggested not playing Fellaini but I think that UTD might just have one eye on the Real game next week, and if anyone can make use of that attention deficit it could be our friend Fellani.

Here’s the screenshot.



MY CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN

Here’s the thing, will I go with redemption or revelation… Right now Walters has my C, he’s not a shirker and will keep working as hard as he does and maybe his recent poor form will break at home to Reading… and my V is with Sissoko for his trip to Spurs, he could fare well there too.

Logic says Michu though, because of the DGM, I might go with that later.

CAPTAIN’S CORNER with @darraghFPL

Phew, after the senseless speculatations of gameweek 24, my revisit to the status quo of fantasy football picks returned results, despite Giroud (I’ve repeatedly mispronounced his name on the Podcast, sorry Olivier) failing to build on his recent run of form. Everton continue to prove they’re a fantasy factory for fledgling form (-1 alliteration point) as Anichebe chipped in with 11 points. That’s a point per every £0.25 million, ka-ching! And if all this wasn’t enough, its time for another double gameweek featuring the miserly Swans and the inconsistent Reds of Merseyside.

It’s with Liverpool I’ll start the breakdown. Aside from Gerrard, the main two protagonists for the armband this week are the newly forged striking partnership of Suarez and Sturridge. The body poppin’, bitin’ divin’ duo seemed to have clicked instantly but one misconception that has arisen of late is that Suarez has had to sit deeper to accommodate the new arrival. Of the four games they’ve played together, the Uruguayan has maintained a higher average pitch position in all but GW24, which was the away draw at Arsenal. As it has been the case all year, Suarez is strong the stat department. His penalty area touches (40-23), chances created (11-2) and crosses completed (7-1) are all favorable but its here where parity begins arise. They duo have the same number of attempts on goal (16) but then Sturridge beings to show his potential and value. He has a higher minutes per attempt (17.6mins - 23.7mins) and higher percentage of involvement in team goals (33.3% - 20%). In perhaps the least sophisticated but most pertinent stat, he has also bagged one more goal than ‘El Pistolero’ and comes in at £3 million cheaper. I’m body popping as I type.

Moving onto Liverpool’s twin fixture counterparts, another recent teammate comparison of late is Michu v De Guzman. Despite holding a higher average pitch position in all of the last six fixtures, De Guzman holds the edge over Michu in every a number of key categories. His ICT threat index rating is 50 points higher and he is almost twice as involved in Swansea’s attacking moves, receiving 160 passes in the opponents half and 62 in the final third, ahead of Michu’s 102 and 56 but there is a sway in the power dynamic as the Canadian trails in penalty area touches significantly (26-6). Michu has failed to score in his last six games but as I mentioned in earlier blogs, he has something in his favour. Earlier this season, he maintained an unsustainably high shot to goal conversion rate, peaking at 57.8% while the mean for midfielders in the Premier League stood roughly around the 22% range. As predicted, this slowly began to regress to the average, eventually bottoming out at his current rate of 18.1%. However, he has seen a complete reversal in recent weeks, peppering 15 shots on goal, hitting the target 11 times but failing to convert once. Like I said before, these types of stats inevitably either regress of progress to the mean and I expect Michu to begin this climb back during the double gameweek.

Outside of the doublers, there are strong fixtures for Chelski, United and the predictably unpredictable Villains. As I mentioned on the podcast this week, I’m sending out buckets of love for Frank Lampard. His 6 goals in 7 games coupled with his 3.7 shots per game show strong signs of potential against a Wigan side that’ve shipped 12 goals in 5 games. Lampard is sitting deeper than usual, playing just above Ramires and behind the three pronged attack of Mata, Oscar and the returning Hazard but his penchant for a long ranger and his place on spot kicks ensures he’s a more than palpable differential for those chasing template midfields this week.

Just before I sign off, Rooney has never scored against his former club and Benteke has netted five times in his last five. Normally, I’d scribble four paragraphs of waffle highlighting the likely hood of Rooney decapitating Fellaini and Benteke grabbing a brace against an awful West Ham defense but I’m going with a gut feeling for the first time since the ‘Torres’ affair. I fancy the resurrection of form for the Scouseman to continue and to finally break his duck against his boyhood club. Furthermore, I’m going to back the opposing striker in the Villa/West Ham fixture. Andy Carroll’s first goal since November coupled with Aston Villa’s porous defense should enable the Hammers to heap more pressure on Lambert. Me backing the likes of Rooney, Carroll, Sturridge & Lampard? Times are a changin’…



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