FantasyYIRMA GW 2 Review

HEROES OF THE WEEK:

£7.0m will get you quite a good player in midfield in this seasons FPL – You could have a Mata, a Ramsey or even a Geordie Winegum – all players that regularly chip in with goals and assists and wonderful, valuable, delicious fantasy football points.

£7.0m is A LOT of money however for a FPL defender. So much so that there’s only one defender in the game that costs that much this season, namely Marcos Alonso. Following the shellacking that he and his mates received at home to the mighty Burnley, you’d be forgiven for congratulating  yourself for not wasting money on him. If you had succumbed to temptation you probably told yourself that you’d be wise to bench him for GameWeek Two as the good ship Chelsea listed and keeled into Wembley Port, seemingly sunk below the waterline with the media full of stories of ‘Mutiny On The (Stamford) Bridge’.

Wise? Let me tell you about wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. Wisdom is knowing that a tomato is a fruit but you should never put one in a fruit salad.

72, 380 of you ditched Alonso for this GameWeek. The only wisdom you lot have are DVD’s of Norman Wisdom.

For the second GameWeek running the top scoring players are all defenders. Following hot on the heels of Marcos Alonso is Eric Bailly (who incidentally is definitely NOT a relation to 1980’s United custodian Gary Bailey, no matter how many times I tell people in the pub that he is). In fact you really needed to be backing Jose Mourinho and his charges for the first two GameWeeks as they have smashed in eight goals without reply with the midfield of Pogba and Mkhytarian running rampant. Mind you it was just West Ham and Swansea…with Leicester, Stoke, Everton, Southampton and Palace to come. How’s THAT for a kind fixture list, eh Jose? Jose? Oh, NOW you’re quiet.

Joining Alonso and Bailly in this weeks Defenders Hall Of Fame is Jacob Harry Maguire (aka ‘Harry’ Maguire) of Leicester City who now has a goal, an assist and a clean sheet in his first two games of the season and who looks to be a real find. I’m not saying that he’s a big lad, but the residents of Leicester didn’t bat an eyelid at yesterdays solar eclipse as Harry has been blocking out the sun ever since his arrival. (I could make the same gag about Hull but they haven’t seen sunshine since 1928)

As it’s still early days in the season we’re all looking for ‘green shoots’ that may indicate who our next shrewd transfer should be. Well look no further than the ‘little pea’ himself, Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez who is proving once more that he’s a deadlier pea-shooter than Dennis The Menace. Two shots on target, two goals. He’d make the hardest FPL heart go all mushy with stats like that. I’ll stop the pea puns now before you all go green with envy.

I’d also like to commend Riyad Mahrez for his sterling efforts this season despite putting in a transfer request. Three assists in his opening two games despite wanting out of the club. It’s called professionalism, maturity, gratitude and character. ISN’T THAT RIGHT PHILIPPE COUTINHO???? (I don’t care, I really don’t. The little poxbottle).

Two new names have popped up on the FPL radar this week with the goalscoring feats of Mooy and Jese catching the eye. Now both these players are new to me and the pronunciation of both their names is proving to be a challenge. Mooy seems to be how you’d describe an overly vocal cow, while Jese sounds like the noise you make when you sneeze. Mind you, if they keep generating FPL points at the rate they are, I’ll call them whatever they want me to call them, including ‘Daddy’.

Finally a chance to pat myself on the back again as I remind you of my Season Preview piece where I advised you to avoid Premium Goalkeepers in favour of those playing behind somewhat porous defences where they can make some saves. Come on down Jack Butland! Six saves for two points, a clean sheet for six points and three bonus points on top of all that. An eleven point haul compared to Courtois who was beaten by his own man and Lloris who was beaten at his near post. That’s a handy £0.5m better off spent elsewhere. (I also specifically tipped Ben Foster who has yet to concede a goal this season – the only thing I’ve got right so far *weeps*)

VILLAINS OF THE WEEK:

Marko Arnautovic is Austrian, and clearly the first villain to ever come out of that country, right? Oh…never mind. Moving on swiftly I have some sympathy for him in that he was clearly clattered, and it probably hurt, but if you’re going to get retribution you need to be far, far, far smarter than he was. I’m not saying his actions were obvious but if he picked up his opponent and body-slammed him through a table it would have been just as obvious. A score of -2 points and a suspension until the middle of September meaning a nice little break at the end of the summer. Marvellous.

Mind you it took Marko a full 32 minutes to accumulate that total of -2, whereas it only took Michy Batshuayi 11 minutes to rack up his total of -1. Coming on as a sub at Wembley, heading into your own net and denting the 2 x Goal, 3 x Bonus Point and 1 x Clean Sheet total of Marcos Alonso? THE MONSTER.

Speaking of Wembley it’s time we talked about hoodoo’s and voodoo’s and the like. Harry Kane never scores in August. Spurs never win at Wembley (apart from when they do but that doesn’t count apparently). Combine the two and only the truly foolhardy (and me) would pick Harry Kane at the start of this season. However despite his double 1 point haul to start this season I’m backing Harry to turn it around at home to Burnley next Sunday. I mean Burnley have no chance travelling south to London against a top six team, right? RIGHT?

Finally we have the ex-Spurs right back Kyle Walker (who has been cloned and replaced at Spurs by a player called Kyle Walker-Peters, which is frankly just weird). Kyle has never struck me as being the sharpest tool in the box but to get ‘conned’ into a red card by a 14 year old Everton striker takes some doing. Mind you if you thought that Calvert-Lewin’s sh*thousing was good, he was shown up by the master Sergio Kun*ahem* Aguero who snided Morgan Schneiderlin into a red card with a dive, pirouette, triple salchow and fake death after the Frenchman had the temerity to win the ball. Minus points all around and jolly good entertainment on a Monday evening, unless you happened to be daft enough to captain either of those players.

 

 

 

FantasyYIRMA GW 1 Review

You spent weeks and weeks tweaking, adjusting and polishing that Game Week One team. You drafted and re-drafted to the point that your energy bills doubled with all the drafts. You poured over pre-season results, the formations used by Frank De Boer and Eddie Howe and you repeatedly rang Phil Coutinho’s ma to find out what state of mind the little snake, sorry, mercurial magician was in ahead of the season opener (and now there’s a restraining order to be dealt with).

It was all worth it right? No, me neither.

There’s a special place in hell for those #smugYIRMA pillocks proclaiming to all within earshot that it was OBVIOUS that Hegazi was the buy of the summer. That’s a crock for two reasons:

1. Who? Even the FPL site doesn’t have a picture of him next to his bloody name
2. You dishonoured the memory of Gareth McAuley. His position was still warm for Christ sake. (He is dead, isn’t he?)

The fact that the two highest scoring players in the week were two defenders, when goals were raining like nuclear warheads over Pyongyang next week (probably) just shows that we’re all puppets on the string of this vocation (It’s not a game. Never call it a game). I mean having to face your missus across the breakfast table as she drones on and on about how Ben Davies was such an obvious pick because ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and score as many points as Danny’ or some such babble…honestly, I’m a shell of a man this morning.

Then we have the Kane v Lukaku debate, and there was a clear winner. I admit that in 23 of my first 24 drafts I had the big Belgian front and centre in my team, but then I remembered the finish to last season for Harry Kane so I lost my nerve and drafted him in. I’m now down a bottle of Jameson and my revolver is nicely polished and my children are looking at me funny, but they don’t understand. THEY JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND.

Still, at least some of my Preview shouts were on the money. Ben Foster because Pulis. Mane and Salah because, well, DUH. Burnley – oh aye, I tipped Burnley. Well, I tipped the Irish midfield of Burnley, not the superhero that is ‘Big’ Sam Vokes. I’m reliably informed that his name on his birth certificate actually is ‘Big’ Sam Vokes. Sam is his middle name. Remarkable.

I also tipped that lad for United that I refuse to try and spell. Well, if you insist. It’s Mikcyityhyryiyan. Yeah, that’s it. If you could all just ignore the fact that I also tipped Newcastle defenders, Leicester defenders and Cecil Fibreglass then that would be just swell.

Mind you, none of my preview shouts were anywhere near as prescient as the FantasyYIRMA Huddersfield Preview piece which I read and then promptly ignored like an idiot. Mounie – He’ll have a cult following if he keeps that form going. He’ll be a real unifying force *ahem*

A hat-tip this week to the genius at Sky Sports who decided that the Arsenal v Leicester match should be played on a Friday night. I’m a fan of Friday Night Football…as long as there isn’t a Monday Night Football that same weekend. That’s just too bloody long to be sweating over your fantasy football team. I mean, that could lead to hospitalisation due to severe dehydration.

Another fan of Friday Night Football is Jamie Vardy, and why wouldn’t he be? He has a new clause in his contract that Craig Shakespeare inserted which states that for each league goal he gets a crate of Blue WKD, and when you score two before 10pm on a Friday night….CARNAGE. Now THAT’S how you motivate your players.

Finally we have the 21st Century version of Chas & Dave, namely Alli and Eriksen, aka Chris & Dele. Now the original Chas and Dave wrote the famous anthem ‘Snooker Loopy’ when these isles were enthralled by the antics of Higgins, Davis, Taylor et al, mainly because there was sod all else to watch. Well with Chris & Dele, we could have a new anthem ‘Fantasy Football Loopy’ – which you may well be if you don’t have either / or Alli or Eriksen on your team. I don’t think it would be hard to get Dele Alli into a recording studio. You’d just need to tell him that it’s where a daft new handshake is being created. Personally I can’t wait for their album.

Anyway, I’m now off to dream of a midfield of Alli, Eriksen, Mane and Salah.

Until next week…

 

 

FantasyYIRMA 2017/2018 Season Preview

Well thank Christ THAT’S over…I have a particular kind of hate for a non-tournament summer. It drives a man to do some strange, terrible things. I even found myself cheering on the bloody egg-chasers in New Zealand for crying out loud, and the less said about Wimbledon, the better (at least that’s what my legal advisors told me to say…)

Anyway, we’re now on the verge of being BACK…and BACK WITH A BLOODY GREAT BIG BANG. Thirty eight glorious Gameweeks stretch out ahead of us like a glistening oasis at the edge of the barren football-free desert, offering hope, inspiration and undoubted paranoia, rage and despair, but you wouldn’t swap it for anything, right?

As ever at the beginning of August there are so many questions. Therefore many of us are walking around looking like Donald Trump when he’s asked to take a seat in the corner of the Oval Office. Perplexed isn’t the word. Fear not dear friends, for I am here to predict with 100% accuracy* the next nine glorious months of Fantasy Football action, so that you can emerge next May, blinking in the sunlight you haven’t seen since, well, now, victorious and giving it large to all your ‘friends’ whom you vanquished.

If you’re ready, we shall now begin…

This season, as with every season, a cheap goalkeeper shall rack up a points total that would make a common Peter Cech blush. Those of you that invested in a ‘Premium’ keeper will once more look like a ‘Premium’ Pillock. Let me make this easy for those of you that are hard of thinking…Goalkeepers score points for making saves, so you actually want your goalkeeper to be playing behind a defence that has more holes in it than Augusta, assuming he’s not Artur Boruc and can actually save shots. Mind you  Your expensive options will often face a minimum of shots, but will concede a single goal from a set-piece and will have you shouting ‘TWO, TWO, ONE, TWO’ more often than the sound engineer at a Rolling Stones gig.

This season the Budgie hero (Budget/Cheap/Cheep, geddit?) will be Ben Foster, because Pulis. Always Pulis.

When it comes to defenders, you want all the Chelsea lads along with the ultra-attacking full-backs and James Milner with his penalties, but that will leave you with a midfield and attack made up solely of Huddersfield and Brighton players you’ve never heard of, so this is where you need to start going to your local German budget supermarket for the next few weeks and get used to picking up a bargain. Trust me, when you go in for cheap beans and come out with a 96-piece ratchet set and a trampoline for less than the price of an M&S Souffle, you’ll be ready.

You want to look at Newcastle but not for too long though because they get odd very easily and can punch you (or your horse) on the nose. However in Rafa Benitez they have a God amongst men who knows how to organise a defence better than anybody in history. You can keep your Italian Catenaccio masters, Rafa won the European Cup with Djimi Traore in defence. The case rests m’lud. Anyway, my point is that a Yedlin or Lascelles wouldn’t do you much harm, and if they turned over Spurs on the opening day I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. These magpies could be snaffling up shiny six point hauls all season long. TRUST ME.

My other defensive tip to watch is Leicester City under Craig Shakespeare who will be seeking to write a far better script for the start of this season than dear old Claudio Ranieri managed last time out. Danny Simpson’s your man. TRUST ME.

Now onto the midfield where Fantasy Football leagues are won and lost, and where, thanks to modern football tactics, you could easily play another four strikers behind your, err, strikers. Splendid. Speaking of splendid, you NEED Mane and Salah. Not ‘want’ or ‘prefer’ or ‘could’, you NEED them, like Piers Morgan NEEDS attention. They both play up-front for Liverpool, they’re both fecking dynamite and they’ll both haul in points like an Atlantic Trawler hauls in plastic bottles and lost surfers. TRUST ME.

Last season we all dined out on Alli, Eriksen, Sanchez and Hazard, but the Spurs lads won’t have a home game all season, Sanchez may not be in London for much longer (or will be sulking while he still is) and Hazard is broken. It’s time for new thinking. De Bruyne is an obvious temptation but Pep treats his players like his rotisserie chicken, with frequent rotation and basting (you should see the state of the Man City dressing room…), so that could be a very annoying £10m on the bench with far too much regularity. Someone in with a real shout of making a noise is The Voice judge Will.I.An who looks set to deputise for Hazard during his absence, and at £7m could be a frickin’ steal. Others to consider would be Zaha, Cecil Fibreglass (sorry, Cesc Fabregas) and possibly that Man United lad with the 300 point Scrabble name, who is either going to come good this season or be a flop forever. TRUST ME.

As for cheaper midfield reinforcements (or the lads you’re forced to buy and have no intention of playing until absolutely necessary) I point you towards Burnley. It’s up there. No, not there. Over a bit. Among the rolling dales and hills, with the weird grey hue over it. Aye, that’s the one. Some interesting recruitment by Sean Dyche over the past twelve months as he has subtely recruited, piece by piece, the Republic of Ireland midfield. Now you may laugh and mock and jeer (I wish you wouldn’t though as it hurts my feelings) but Robbie Brady can be a 21st century Ian Harte at set-pieces and Jon Walters is stronger than ever despite being 387 years of age. I once Captained Jon Walters when he scored his one and only senior hat-trick. Take THAT for a differential and smoke it…

Finally we get to where the action is, up front and centre. Now pay attention. This is where you’re going to spend, and spend big, and I’m not here to tell you not to. Instead I’m going to write a poem:

Harry Kane is homeless

Lukaku has nowhere to hide

Morata is untested

Jesus was supposed to have died

Aguero is being doubted

Lacazette is far too French

Costa is surplus to requirements

He’ll surely start on the bench

Defoe has gone down South

Benteke’s learning the Ajax way

Rooney can wear his pyjamas to work

Josh King is actually from Norway

Whoever you splurge on now

Will seal your fate this year

No matter who you pick you’ll be mocked

Everyone thinks it’s their year

So there you have it. No tips on who to pick up front because there are LOADS of players who could propel you to victory and it’s impossible to know which won’t. Plus I just wanted to write a poem.

We all know that this matters more than everything else, but in a couple of months the usual wastrels will have given up and a lot more of us will pretend we don’t care and ‘never check that bloody thing’ (despite racking up 98 points by ‘accident’).

All I can say now is to wish you well (as long as you finish behind me) and inform you that I shall be writing a weekly Gameweek summary for FantasyYIRMA where the heroes shall be raised up on impossibly high pedestals and the villains shall be ridiculed like a common White House Communications Director. Until then…just make your bloody mind up!

*100% accuracy with a +/- swing of 100%

** Niall Hawthorne should NOT be trusted. Ever.