Official Small Rocks League Thread 2006-2007

Before the mad rush begins...

Yellowcake draftee Chimbonda has been reacquired at the cut-rate fee of 5.2. Reading defender Shorey has been sent packing.

Cost me 4 pts.

 

Wow Hal, that was quick. I check a couple hours ago to see if Baptista was available, but nothing. Now I see he is available and gone.

Tevez is available at 9.0 and Mascherano at 6.5 for those interested.

 

Aviators Board of Directors announce the following player moves, all completed within the free transfer wildcard we used earlier in this gameweek!

OUT:
Heinze Defender Manchestrer United 6.8
Finnan Defender Liverpool 7.3
Sidwell Midfielder Reading 6.0
Carsley Midfielder Everton 5.5
King Forward Watford 6.5

IN:
Baines Defender Wigan 4.4
Shorey Defender Reading 4.0
Mascherano Midfielder West Ham United 6.5
Baptista Midfielder Arsenal 9.0
Tevez Forward West Ham United 9.0

Sidwell, Heinze, and Carsley came in with phase one of the free transfer wildcard. We thank them for their services. It was hard to give up King.
We know all five of the players will be acquired by our competition and when they play the Aviators, they'll have an edge to their play.

Aviators' Latest Roster. Marked in BOLD are the only FOUR (4) players remaining from THIS YEAR'S DRAFT!!!!

Pos. Name Team** Cost**
F Rooney Manchester United 11.4
F Tevez West Ham Utd. 9
F Drogba Chelsea 10.5
M Baptista Arsenal 9.0
M Downing Middlesbrough 7.5
M Mascherano West Ham Utd. 6.5
M Convey Reading 5.4
M Davis Portsmough 5.6
D Campbell Portsmouth 5.3
D Baines Wigan 4.4
D Shorey Reading 4.0
D Silvestre Manchester United 7.0
D Dunne Manchester City 5.0
GK Hahnemann Reading 4.0
GK Howard Everton 5.0
Total Payroll 99.6

Post-transfer window anaylsis:

Striker force: OUT - Yakubu and King, IN - Drogba and Tevez
Out are proven talents, in are more promising talents along with more squad rotation worries. How soon will Tevez become a starter for Pardew? Who sits? The hot Zamora or their big hoss Harewood? The success of this trade hinges on Tevez. I expect Drogba, even with rotation, to get similar points to Yakubu.

Midfield: OUT: Robben, Gamst-Pedersen, Cattermole; IN: Baptista, Mascherano, and Davis (POR). This is a big gamble - Robben, without Duff, should get more starts this season; Gamst-Pederson is off to a horrific start, but he could easily regain last year's form. Catermole was a short term youngster signing which had promise, but was not expected to be a regular starter. Baptista needs to quickly earn a starting spot with Arsenal to make this trade a winner. Also, Mascherano needs to force out Mullins or another West Ham starter and become a regular. How long will that take to happen, if it happens. Aviators will need some patience, something they've shown little of in past seasons and by the evidence of how many of their drafted players are still on the team after GW 3. Davis is the sleeper and perhaps the best value with Portsmouth's and his hot start - certainly beter than Cattermole.

Defense: Phase I of the transfer wildcard madness was intended to get Drogba and strengthen the defense. Now, to get these unproven and unsettled new transfers into the Premiership, Aviators had to reverse itself and drop the high priced defense. Luckily, there were some good inexpensive defender values available. OUT: Chambers and Lee and then Heinze, one of the acquisitions was dropped; IN: Dunne, Baines, and Shorey, servicable defenders all, who should bring in some points as subs until the new arrivals get settled and work their way into the starting line-ups.

GK: Major upgrade from Myhre (who is not starting) to Howard who is starting for one of the early hot teams. Now Aviators has two 1st choice keepers.

Overall, it's just too soon to tell if this wholesale transfer madness will pay-off. One thing I'm certain of, is that there are lots of other managers looking over their squads to swoop for some of my quality cast-offs. I will be shocked, SHOCKED, I say, if Heinze, King, Finnan, and Robben aren't picked up by other teams. Let the musical chairs begin!!

The Guardian had this exclusive report on how the Aviators Board was able to swoop for Tevez, Baptista, and Mascherano when all the other Small Rocks teams were in near final discussions with those players:

"Well", Sir Grandpa Hal said, "I sort of blame it on the dogs and my son Andrew's sleep over party. The dogs would bark and awaken me or the noise from the 6 high school senior's and their up all night party would wake me. Once awakened, I got in the habit of checking to see if the players' work permits were approved and had been added to the rosters. I remembered that last year, new signings didn't always wait until the 11 PM player valuation update, so I just checked frequently and got lucky this morning as being the first to notice that the players were now available. Time will tell whether it was good luck or bad luck! Aviators has also hired a Portuguese translator to go along with their French translator."

"A few other fortituous things that contributed to the success of this swoop:
1) Ralph was getting ready for his wedding and wasn't paying his normal close attention.
2) The players seemed to get added to the database before the West Coast USA players were awake.
3) The early Sunday morning surprise also caught that notorious player snather, Mark, still asleep.
4) Michel, who seems to know when all these things are to happen, was traveling on a holiday."

 

Arg on the Argies. I think I reloaded that West Ham page 100 times this weekend, and in sneaks the Navy Seal to abduct the Argentines an hour before I wake up.

Now comes the question as to where Tevez is really going to play. When I saw him on Boca he played a withdrawn striker role, tending to the left. If they play true to form they'll play him with two other strikers, which pushes Etherington even further down the depth chart and puts a few limits on Bowyer also.

Thanks to vegas2u, http://www.SmallRocksLeague.com is updated. He's had the hardest week of the season.

 

Missed the earlier posts, thus the references to Tevez, etc. So the West Coast group was only partly asleep, the part that was interested in making moves, and partly awake, only partly, but suffering from the "Henry" syndrome. Once you have Henry you have real trouble making big moves 'cause all you money is tied up in him.

Could not have missed Hal's transfer post by much. When I looked Baptista had 9 transfers in.

 

My apologies for so many moves that I've made that update woefully obsolete!

 

Wow... That is a deadly looking team you have there Hal... Forward/Midfield are extremely dangerous....

 

Aviators Board of Directors announce one more squad adjustment under the free transfer wildcard this week: Heinze passed his fitness test, so the Aviators re-acquire Heinze and release Silvestre to start building up a little in the bank.

OUT:
Silvestre Defender Manchestrer United 7.0

IN:
Heinze Defender Manchester United 6.8

Aviators' Latest Roster. Marked in Italics are the only FOUR (4) players remaining from THIS YEAR'S DRAFT!!!! The lastest acquistion is marked in BOLD.

Pos. Name Team** Cost**
F Rooney Manchester United 11.4
F Tevez West Ham Utd. 9
F Drogba Chelsea 10.5
M Baptista Arsenal 9.0
M Downing Middlesbrough 7.5
M Mascherano West Ham Utd. 6.5
M Convey Reading 5.4
M Davis Portsmough 5.6
D Campbell Portsmouth 5.3
D Baines Wigan 4.4
D Shorey Reading 4.0
D Heinze Manchester United 6.8
D Dunne Manchester City 5.0
GK Hahnemann Reading 4.0
GK Howard Everton 5.0
Total Payroll 99.6

In the bank: 0.2

 

You guys are tough to keep track of. Now Kopite has his groove on as well as Hal.

This wildcard thing is a great idea, especially for leagues like these.

 

Do you think Mascherano will be a good fantasy player? I heard he is a Makelele type defensive midfielder and that doesn't translate to a lot of fantasy points.

 

Ssshhh.

 

Back to playing soccer. Thank goodness. These International breaks wear me out.

 

The week of missed penalties. Friedal, high scorer of the week. Wonder if he can get a bonus out of this?

 

If Lamps gets taken off penalties now that he's done a WorldCup, I'm toast!

Look at the Americans saving Fulham's bacon, and then there's Friedel. Three penalty misses in that match!

Arsenal have to start Rosicky. He came on and things started happening, including shots at the goal rather than passes to the guy tending goal (Fabregas, goddammit!). I have to think the reason they don't start Rosicky is to keep Hleb, a ball-keeper, in there while the new back line settles.

Boateng looks crocked, if you see how his knee locked up on that red card challenge. Every time that happens it means Borough lose out the rest of the season.

 

The entirety of the FPL game is at nearly 900,000 managers. It didn't reach that level until after Christmas last season. A lot of people keep joining as the year goes on, so this could hit 1.5 million this season.

Updates to http://smallrocksleague.com/ as bonuses get added.

 

Starting up my own Wild Card week, a few free transfers.

Out:
Vaz Te F BW
Gray D BR 4.7

In:
Mwaruwari F PO
Richards D MC 4.5

 

Out: Wheater D MI 3.4
In: Sommeil D SU 3.4

 

Go Reading!

Hal get 21 points from his Reading Crew. Already sent one packing though so its not Love that makes this team work.

Also get 7 points from 2 subs.

All in all not a bad Monday.

 

Hey Hey, Aaron Lennon's back in training. Apparently he's even too fast for injury to catch him. In other OMGZZZOMG-sky-is-falling side of the news, Ballack looked awfully good on that PK today in the CL--is Frankie retired from spotkick duties? If so that's 30 points off his annual total.

Rosters and scores are updated at http://smallrocksleague.com, including a few transfers not posted here. Also there's a new entry for 'Transfer Penalty,' which replaces the pain-inna-butt tracking of values and bank amounts.

 

I don't understand your new Transfer Penalty?

For Aviators you list 20, yet my team sheet shows 1 this week and 2 for the season. The wildcard transfers incurred no penalty and don't even reflect on the team page. Aviators has lost zero points this season (I know it's early ) for transfer fees.

 

The Transfer Penalty is just the difference between the sum of your weekly scores and your total as shown in the league table, which should shake out to be the amount you've spent on transfers. Aaand, it's screwed up.

Okay, it's fixed now.

 

Who would have bet that by this point in the season, Hal and Michel would be the only two managers not to have paid transfer penalities yet?