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.
Rant of a Rebel 