How did the first day treat everyone? Yeah, I had Yobo and his -1 but I'll take that if Cesc is gonna pile up 22 on his own
I only had three players in action today (four if my automatic substitution is used tomorrow) so I have little to report. Upson scored and kept a clean sheet, Pienaar got an assist and was the best of a very bad bunch and Agbonlahor was disappointing. I was not expecting that much from him early on because of his disrupted pre-season following the Under-21 Championship but I was expecting more from Aston Villa in general. It is early days and I have a few injury doubts for tomorrow so fingers crossed.
This is ugly ... and next week is going to get uglier. But it's much more fun coming from behind and charging down the stretch. Fortunately it's a long season.
A mixed bag for the Saturns this week. Howard and the Chelsea pair failed to keep clean sheets (Howard spectacularly), Milijas, Milner and Eagles drew blanks in midfield. The only successes were Liam Lawrence and Robin Van Persie. I still have Ferdinand, Johnson and Torres to play tomorrow so I'm hoping this can get me a failry sold high 30s at least for GW1. Unfortunately a few teams are off to a flier in the Dust League though.
Well it turns out I used two automatic substitutions today. Gomes conceded a goal and O'Shea had a clean sheet but was used centrally so I lost out on his crossing today. Gerrrard, my captain, coverted a penalty but Fletcher missed a sitter and Nani was taken off after 45 minutes which hurt my points. Keane and McFadden did little which compounded the issue.
Tough first week for me. Crouch and Owen don't start and I should of gave the arm band to Given I guess. Just made the first in-season transfer. Are we only updating the "Updated DUST rosters" thread in google docs?
I think that will suffice. The whole point is to easily see what players are on teams. Good transfer, btw. Even with all the injuries Brum were decent and McLeish will want them to concede as few as possible and see if McFadden, Larsson and Benitez can create some magic.
Was a good week. I wished I had picked this same team in my yahoo league. Anyone else not able to get on the FPL site right now?
Well last week's decision to hand the captain's armband to John Terry was a poor one but selecting Glen Johnson as captain tonight was a managerial master-stroke.
Let me tell you there is nothing more frustrating than seeing your opponent's team full of 2's and then a captain in the 30s! United screwed my team, lost an assist from Evra on the Carrick penno miss and Rooney... well, Rooney is an idiot. Yellow cards really piss me off in this game. I can take conceded goals by my defenders but it's so annoying having points thrown away for yellows, especially when it's your captain. Still a decent week for me, 33 points thanks to Lennon and the so far stellar Hart
Minutes played Team: 15; 90, 0, 0, 90; 80, 9, 0, 0; 80, 90 Subs: 0, 0, 0, 0 Both my defenders conceded but I lucky made up points from Gerard (C), Keane and McFadden. Not a good week.
Some interesting stats from GW2 regarding captain choices (in order of highest to lowest score for the GW): Southside Saturns - Johnson - 36 pts - 60% of total Dynamo Teso - Gerrard - 22 pts - 47% Shoreham Town Wolves - Kuyt - 22 pts - 58% Zhirkov On My Back - Rooney - 2 pts - 6% FC St Pauli - Drogba - 8 pts - 30% FC Reading 09 - Lampard - 20 pts - 77% FC Weymouth - Crouch - 2 pts - 11% Valley FC - Berbatov - 2 pts - 14% So half of us had our captains bail us out, as they should do might I add! Three of us got a whopping ONE point from our captains before the "bonus". I was lucky enough to cobble 10 players together for the light week, so despite Rooney being a vagina I managed a decent scoreThe other unfortunates got screwedSt Pauli was the only outlier, with Drogba doing decent enough but not really carrying the team. After a monster first week for Scott, I was glad to see Drogba fail to hit the net after the match turned out in Chelsea's favor anyway.
I just hope I can keep up my 100% transfers-scoring-goals rate (Bassong in week 1, Palacios in week 2).
Gameweek 3 FC Weymouth 5-4-1 GK: Given (MC) At home vs Wolves should be another clean sheet for Shay. Back 4: Collins (SU) - Lescott (EV) - Carr (BI) - Dunne (MC) - Corluka (TH) Good starts at home for Collins, Carr, and Dunne. Should be a clean sheet or two. Not sure if Lescott will start at Burnley but hopefully Moyes comes to his senses and plays him. Corluka has to go to West Ham but Tottenham have been playing awesome. Midfield: Delap (SC) - Murphy (FU) - Arshavin *C* (AR) - Benayoun (LI) Delap hopefully will prove to be a decent pick up with a game against Birmingham. Murphy has a tough game against Chelsea but it's at home and I really don't have a choice with the injury. I'm looking for Arshavin to have a HUGE week being my captains choice. He's playing Portsmouth at home so it shouldn't be a problem. No choice but to start Yossi. Hopefully Rafa gives him the nod at outside mid. Strikers: Owen (MU) Owen hasn't played 90 minutes yet and I don't expect him too. My forwards are really bad right now with Crouch not starting and Robinho hurt. Hopefully the situation changes. Subs: GK Fulop (SU) - F Crouch (TH) - F Robinho (MC) - M Malbranque (SU) 3 out of 4 are hurt. Hopefully my starting 11 can get it done.
GW3: Southside Saturns Howard (EV) Confidence in the Everton defence has to have taken a knock after last week but I have to stick with my number 1 away to Burnley. Bosingwa(CH), Terry(CH), Ferdinand(MU), Johnson(LI) I know Ferdinand won't play but there's no harm in sticking him in. The Chelsea boys are away to Fulham which I rate as a 50/50 chance of a clean sheet. Johnson has a home game against Villa which is, again, a 50/50 in my eyes. Another killer week from Glen would be appreciated even though he's not captain. Lawrence(SC), Cattermole(SU), Milner(AV), Hunt(HC) Milner is the biggest name in the mifield but has a very tricky game. The other three are playing fairly weak teams so I'm hoping at least one of them can chip in with a goal or assist and get a clean sheet or two for the TESCO cup. Torres(LI), Van Persie(AR)(C) Torres has AV at home which brings a decent chance of a goal. RVP is at home to Portsmouth and, given Arsenal's 'all guns blazing' start to the season, I'm hoping he'll run amok with the Portsmouth defence and get a couple of goals/assists, so he gets the arm band. Subs:Milijas(WW), Doyle(WW), Bramble(WI) Milijas should come in but is away to Man City so 2 points is all I can expect. Doyle's injured and I can't see Man Utd drawing a blank for the second week in a row.
Stupid captainship screwing me over for the second gameweek in a row. Fabregas gets me a whopping 2 pts (with the bonus) in his 45 mins of action while last week's captain Rooney goes crazy against Wigan. Still, everyone except Cesc did well and I figure about 40 pts for today with 5 still to play tomorrow
I took the plunge and used my wildcard extremely early this season, making 4 changes. The main reason was because Kuzzkzckzckzak was simply destroying my team value. While Fabregas is my only player to have gained the .2 necessary to increase my team value by .1, he is also facing a fitness test on his hamstring. Odds are he will be out for some time and his value will plummet. OUT: Kuszczak - G - MU - 4.8 IN: Hennessy - G - WW - 4.0 As I said, the worst last name in the Premier League was costing me too much. Hennessy is the cheapest option at keeper to go along with my other 4.0 Hart, who has been doing a great job thus far. I haven't fully analyzed each players' full fixtures but I hope they don't both face strong opponents on the same day too often. I'll switch to a rotation format at keeper, although Hart has the #1 shirt for Team Zhirkov and I hope he won't be giving it up anytime soon. OUT: Wilson - D - PO - 4.0 IN: Stearman - D - WW - 4.0 Pompey look the worst team in the league. I will probably need my subs in the coming weeks so I needed someone cheap. Stearman didn't start the first game but has played 90 mins in the last two matches. I'm unsure about this one but Wolves seem to have a fairly "easy" run coming up and I'm hoping they can keep conceding to a minimum. OUT: Belhadj - M - PO - 5.0 IN: Ferguson - M - BI - 5.0 Haven't seen Brum play yet but McLeish seems to be sticking to his grind it out style to try and keep them up. Ferguson has been a bonus magnet in the early going despite no goals or assists - which won't be plentiful but hopefully he'll chip in with something in the coming weeks. OUT: Jerome - F - BI - 4.5 IN: Keogh - F - WW - 4.6 I saw Wolves today and they looked decent enough away against a strong City side. Keogh cracked one of the bar. If he scored then I wouldn't have gotten him since I have terrible luck with picking players who score a couple... they always seem to go completely dry. Again, I just need a cheap player that will be playing 60+ mins regularly, since Birmingham have a lot of quantity but not so much quality up front... and Jerome has an ankle knock which sealed his place on the next train out of town. In the bank: 0.7 Gives me some wiggle room. Hopefully this will allow me to save a free transfer for when I need 2 in a gameweek. The first few weeks have seen me retroactively attempting to sort my bench players out. I didn't want to keep doing this in case I needed to make changes to my more important players. Is it a gamble? Yes. Will it probably blow up in my face? Yes. Am I crazy for picking up THREE Wolves players? Probably. Yup, that's it. I have no saving grace to add here at the end
I ********ing hate you Tim Howard! I stick you in at the expense of Myhill (who is in the star team this week) and this is how you repay me!
Yeah, Everton must be pissing off a lot of fantasy players. I could have broken 70 pts this gameweek if Yobo and Cahill were worth anything. Why did Saha take the penalty? I'd have thought Cahill would be among the candidatesNot complaining too much though, I think I scored a 65 this week
Well, I'm probably in the worst shape out of everyone. I can only hope that Lescott goes to Man City since Moyes doesn't seem like he wants to play him right now. Crouch hasn't started and Murphy was subbed off because of an ankle injury. Tough start to the season hopefully I can rebound!