Gameweeks 8 & 9

Due to some circumstances beyond my control (namely being up the walls in work and the fact i was slightly lazy) i put my hands up for not keeping everyone up to date in the exciting world of my fantasy football team.
Game weeks 8 & 9 brought mixed fortunes which neither pleased nor dis-pleased.
Following my humiliation in gameweek 7 (35 points) i decided to take drastic action for gameweek 8 and incur a 4 point penalty for making an extra transfer. As 2 of my starting 11 were out for the gameweek i decided to ship them out and bring in some new faces. The 2 to go were Drogba (virus) and Sagna (injured). In their places i brought in the greatest player Chelsea never signed in Carlos Tevez and Nemanja Vidic (one of the best defenders in the game but a tad expensive at 7.1 million).
I elected to make Tevez my captain whch paid off with 2 goals and 3 bonus points bringing in a whopping 24 points by himself. Vidic didnt fare as well only managing a solitary point for conceding 2 goals.
Alongside him in the heart of defence Chris Samba only went and got himself sent off. -2 points. Thanks Chris. All in all I finished GW8 with 50 points but it should have been so much better!

Gameweek 9 was a different kettle of fish with a few sticky fixtures to make it a bit more complicated.
The first order of business was to reinstall Drogba as captain which meant saying goodbye to little Carlos, this however brought its own problems. As Tevez was only valued at 10.3 million and i only had 0.6 in the bank, Drogba at 13.1 million was out of reach. Another 4 points had to be sacrificed. I decided after much deliberation (about 3 minutes really because the children wanted their breakfasts) that Vidic would go also. Replaced by Evertons Phil Jagielka. In a complete reversal of GW8 my new defender bagged me a healthy 5 points courtesy of 3 bonus points while my captain only managed 4. (To clear up any confusion, captains score double points)
Player of the week from Useless Team FC was split between two defensive legends.
First Liam Ridgewell of Birmingham for an altogether smashing haul of 13 points for a goal, a clean sheet and 1 bonus point.
Point of note, a score of anything over 3 or 4 points for any defensive player is usually something to bring out the champagne and cigars for. So 13 is truly outstanding.
A worthy mention also goes to my goalkeeper, Joe Hart, who, having had a defender in front of him sent off before a ball had hardly been kicked, had to hold the Arsenal battering ram at bay for 85 minutes. Although 3 goals were conceded he still managed 1 bonus point plus a penalty save bringing his GW9 score to a satisfactory 7.
So, I finished GW9 with 53 points but dropped 1 place in the 3rd Annual Dictatorship Cup leaving me in 8th place.
Who knows what wonders Gameweek 10 will hold?   

Gameweek 7 - Part 2

My team is useless. Useless Team FC are living up to their name. In spite of my clever dealings in the transfer market i only managed a paltry 35 points this week. The only two shining lights among my charges were Didier Drogba for his goal against Arsenal and the superb Michael Essien for his 3 bonus points bringing his tally for the week to 6. Worthy mentions also go to Nani and Malouda for a respectable midfield clean sheet earning 3 points each.
While i can have no gripe with Sagna only getting 1 point as Drogba scored against him, the rest deserve nothing but extra training. In the rain.
My transfer dealings came to nothing to be honest. Chris Samba earned 2 for Blackburn as did Darren Bent (my unsung hero from last season) for Sunderland.
As for my predictions. The less said the better. Except for Blackpool putting Liverpool to the sword. I'm so happy i got that one wrong!
Being a Chelsea fan the weekend worked out pretty well for me but the sweetest part was knowing that when we beat Arsenal it gave me bragging rights over my brother, the Arsenal fan. At least until Dec 26th.

I'm off to rethink my strategy over the International break.

Gameweek 7 - Part 1

With this being the last gameweek for a fortnight and two transfers to use I'll have to make sure my decisions count. I'm 90% certain I know what I'm going to do. Konchesky is definitely out as hes injured and I have a superb replacement lined up to join the ranks of Useless Team FC.
The other change I'm planning on making I will keep under my hat for now. I had this guy in my team for around 30 games last season and he didn't disappoint, which makes me wonder why I didn't go for him again this year.
Results wise this weekend I'm going to go for Wolves to beat Wigan, Birmingham and Everton to draw (Sorry Everton), Blackburn to surprise Stoke at the Britannia, an away win for Man Utd at Sunderland, Spurs to beat Villa, West Brom to continue winning and beat Bolton, I think Fulham are good for at least a point at West Ham, Man City to have a comfortable win at home to the Toon, Liverpool to beat Blackpool (even though it pains me to admit it), and the Mighty Mighty Blues of Chelsea to pick up 3 more points from Arsenal, with Drogba scoring 2.
Read again next week to see how wrong I got it!  

Gameweek 6

First off I would like to start by making a couple of corrections to last weeks entry. The first being that to my knowledge there is no Kevin Noan playing in the Premiership, this should have been Nolan (minus points for spelling).
The second is more important. That is because instead of finishing the week with 56 points i actually managed 61 (minus points for maths).
Unfortunately I had no luck matching that this week managing to hit only 47. Still seven above the weekly average nontheless. My main problem was Man City beating Chelsea. With three Chelsea players in my starting eleven i was caught. Especially as i had Florent Malouda as captain. (Why oh why didnt i go with Nani?)

Arsenal being whipped (HA HA) by West Brom didnt really help either although i did get an assist for Sagna to make up for the three goals conceded. Although it didnt help my score one bit, respect must be given to West Brom manager and former blues midfield legend Roberto Di Matteo. Hence the image above.

On the transfer front i didnt bother this week so fortunately i will now have two free transfers for Gameweek 7 to give me a boost before the international break. First on the list for his P45 is Liverpools Paul Konchesky. WHAT WAS I THINKING?????? even if he wasnt injured he'd be getting shown the door. The jury is still out on whether i should stick with Arsenals Chamakh. The only other options would be Ridgewell or Hangeland but i'm never going to get two fairly reliable defenders for as cheap as those two.
I'll have to ponder it for the rest of the week. Champions League shennanigans may force my hand......

Over all things didnt go too bad. From 2,181,343 players i now stand in 257,000 place. To put that in context thats a jump of 91,008 places since gameweek 5.

Gameweek 5

Antonio Valencias injury and doubts over Kevin Noans fitness combined with Jaaskalinen's suspension and the fact that Jagielka and Pienaar are playing dirt forced me to do the unthinkable this week and play my WILDCARD.
I spent Friday evening deliberating over it but on Saturday morning i went and done it.
I basically cleared out my team except for Bale, Malouda, Drogba and the living legend that is Michael Essien.
My gamble looked like it was in vain by Saturday evening with my new charges scoring a whopping 9 POINTS between them.
Sunday seperated the men from the boys with the Super Blues nailing 38 points between them and Nani adding an extra 5 finishing the week with a respectable 56.