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Hello everybody, after all that waiting it's finally back, phew I was running out of things to talk about - luckily we'll have the World Cup next summer.
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This week's blog won't follow the usual format as there's nothing to really react to.
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Right, let’s get rid of all this (Ronan wipes all his never read notes to self
off his hard drive; puts never rethumbed notebooks in bin)… this year it’s
going to be all about this (Ronan taps roughly where his heart is [some of exes
could spit that he never knew where it was]) and this (Ronan taps the side of
his nose twice and then his temple once, to those who don’t know what that sign
means, it implies an innate insight).
Benjamin Franklin said that “only a fool
does the same thing and expect different results”, and a greater fool than I once
said “fool me once shame on me, shame on you… fool me and I won’t get fooledagain…”. 5 or 6 seasons ago I had two tremendously great seasons and I was not
spending that much actual time researching my decisions whereas the last 4
seasons (about when I started this blog) I’ve spent too much time
‘half-thinking’ about it if you will.
So with that in mind, my foolish decisions
over last few years have had to be tweaked my pre season for FPL has been
minimal, I haven’t checked any of the other blogs (not out of any snobbishness
or competitive streak, just that hiatus I was taking) and barely looked at the
Fantasy Football Scout site, just enough to get the gist of the opening
fixtures really. I got to sit down with @DarraghFPL for a coffee a few days ago
and that’s the first chat I had with anyone at all re this year.
So I will just go through my team/squad
selection, I know there’s a lot of clarifying sentences that are just redundant
of a FPL blog, since anyone reading it already has more than a passing interest
it might feel even patronising, but your squad for GM 1 this is the one
selection you can make to truly cover 2/3 weeks of line ups, so with that in
mind….
Goalkeepers
A simple decision, proven record, favourable
fixture, and an ok price - I start with Jaaskelainen, whose name you’d think
I’d have learned to spell by now. Since I wouldn’t be surprised if I played him
for the opening 5 fixtures, I decided to save a few squid for my Number 12 by
bringing in a potential points getter in GM 4&6 – step on up Allen McGregor
at Hull. If the Tiger’s opening fixtures go badly I have a plan B in bringing
in Vorm for GM 4. [Potential bite in arse, I hope McGregor will be their Number
1 keeper, he is squad number 1 for them and FFS site lists him as their number
one, but perhaps Steve Harper will squeeze ahead of him.
Defenders
For this decision I looked at fixtures,
then clubs, then defenders that seem like they will defo play (once again I know
that is a pretty redundant explanation), hopefully I can successfully shuffle
that deck of 5 with no transfers needed for a few GMs . I’m anticipating
midfield and one striker in particular might be in for chippy-choppy time in
the short term.
I’ve gone for O’Shea (Sunderland), McCauley
(WBA), Ivanovic (Chelsea), Lescott (Man City) and Coleman (Everton). The
perceived wisdom is that Lescott will be filling in as first choice CB while Nastastic is
out, the rest seem pretty nailed on. While I’m now middy influenced by home
games being better for selection in the 11 (I used to be obsessed with it) and
as you will see in my selection, the 4 defenders I will be using are all at
home this week, that is purely a coincidence.
Midfielders
I’ve gone for a selection of
Redemption – Downing at West Ham
Irish pride/green tinted glasses - Brady at
Hull
Hometown Hero, Bellamy at Cardiff [funnily
enough his opening two fixtures are both against clubs he played for before –
West Ham and Man City, the latter fixture in a home game for Cardiff and
perhaps that’s where there’ll be dramatic POSITIVE performance by the Craigster]
A proven big hitter - Hazard at Chelsea
(yes danger of him only getting 120 minutes or less, but fuck it – I can’t
decide on Man City midfield yet and Bale is INJURED at moment – the other big
money option was Walcott, and I’m not averse to bringing him in GM 2 or 3.
And finally a he-was-good-last-season-and-is-a-good-priced-midfielder-to-give-me-a-million-in-the-kitty-to-give-wriggle-room-for-transfers
- Snodgrass at Norwich, at home to Everton is good enough this week and
assuming Martinez is bringing in a gigantesque change in style, this will open
up the midfield space and perhaps Snodgrass will gain from their transitional
play (in both soccer parlance and in bedding in of a new system terms).
To backtrack a little, Everton’s expected new
style is one of the reasons I brought in Coleman - for his potential attacking
use than clean sheets; I would not be surprised if he is brought further up the
pitch, or indeed played as a wing back. The other players hovering under that
place in my squad are Taarabt (who knows what will happen there, but I am
certainly intrigued) and Miralles at Everton, who might also become more of an
attacking player with WigErton.
Forwards
I hovered for a few moments and decided to
go with RVP, mainly cos of the ‘he’ll only get too expensive if he does well’
theory. No need to even discuss him really, we all have processed that option
by now.
I’ve gone out slightly on a limb with
Soldado, yeah he’s in a new league (don’t know much about the lad etc etc) and
Spurs seems somewhat in disarray with BaleGate and also the new players being
brought in, could be as much as 3 new first XI players now and as ever that
takes a little bit of time to bed in, and if memory serves Spurs had an awful
start last season, but time as ever will tell. He’s got my vote anyway.
And then pretty much everyone’s punt; if hecan light up Turners Cross then he’ll do well at FPL, Anelka (am I right in
thinking, once he scores for WBA he’ll have scored for the most premier league
clubs with 6?)
So there we have it, 14 men, 3 of them
older than me, 3 slightly younger than me and then another 8 who probably
listen to post dubstep and don’t even remember AltaVista.
Here is my selection and I hope you all
have a good FPL weekend, but not as good as mine.
#mightchange
-
well like everyone on GM1 eve,
I might change everything (I even have kept tonight free to have time to change
it! But Rob Heffernan is having an official homecoming ceremony on Patrick
Street, so if I’m happy with my team, I’ll go to that.)
- but a
potential swap within my squad is Bellamy in at expense of MacCauley, but then
I’d have that trade off of points between a Cardiff scorer and a West Ham
keeper, hence the selection staying the way it is for now.
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