Monday 26 October 2009

Week 9 Update


I wrote on here last week...
"...despite all this, I have a funny feeling that Benitez could find something to cause a bit of an upset on Sunday, especially if he can get Torres back & the crowd behind them. Whatever happens, it's sure to be an absolute cracker...I can't wait!
Turns out this was the only prediction I got right in Week 9.

Apologies for the lack of posts over the past 2 days. I always wait for the points to come in on a Saturday/ Sunday before I can really analyse the day, so with Yahoo failing to update for any games yet there's not a lot I can say. I was also very hungover yesterday...

I do know I had a very bad week. 1 goal (Drogs) & no clean sheets means I'm set for a 60 point week at best. I'm obviously annoyed I didn't move for Lampard this week after tipping him twice, furious I dropped Petrov & RvP, angry I spent money on Given when Myhill would've been the better option for half the price, really annoyed that Darren Bent failed to score the week I pick him after scoring 9 in 9 previously & just plain pissed off that Spurs fell to a late defeat to Stoke after hammering them for the previous 87 minutes. Not a good weekend too celebrate my birthday!

As I've said I'll write a proper post once the points are in, but the one positive is the barndoor has now been open for an extended period meaning we all have more time to decide what to do. I'm positive West Ham v Aston Villa will count as an extra game in Week 10 so I'm getting in a couple of Hammers & a couple of Villains. I'd love to get Lampard in, but spending £19m on a player away from home in a double week is not sensible.

In goal I'm probably going to go back to spending the bare minimum on a keeper as I've recently been burnt by Foster/Given when Myhill would've been the far better choice. I may also stick a United player in my team, though there's no rush to do this as none of their player's value will be going up. I'm also wondering if it's time to jump off the Fabregas bandwagon? I'll probably keep him for the Spurs game as he tends to play very well against us and unfortunately I could see it being a long afternoon for my boys.

So that's it for now - hopefully Yahoo will get the points up today & I can write a proper post & reveal my current barndoor team, so keep checking back later today. I'll get injury news up too.

Remember if you haven't had the chance to join a Blog League yet the final 6th league is open, 80 spaces left. I will not be starting the new AM Challenge Cup competition until the group is full, so it may be a couple of weeks yet.

Group ID: 23246
Password: yahoo


Finally, thanks for the great comments/posts/quick chat in my absence the last few days, it really makes the blog unique as people can still stop by & ask for advice 24-7. We broke all records for blog hits on Saturday - over 3000 visitors...not a bad birthday present for me - I'm very proud it's become so popular so quickly, it makes it all worth it!

Cheers,
AM 

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those having Lampard for week 9 will definitely jump far ranking.

Rgds.
Ajani

Anonymous said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AM!!!!

OS said...

HRod was the top pick - just outscoring Lamps.
Can't belive that after all the umming and ahhing, I dropped MPet for Bullard and Jummy didn't even make the bench... I'm really starting to hate Hull this season (except for Myhill who's done quite well). RVP firmed up his status as my nemesis - goal and assist just after I drop him. v. pleased with Kranj & also with Lamps.
OS

MU4ever said...

hi.. i'm new here..
just wanted to say that this blog is awesome..
wish i'd discovered it earlier..
well, hope i can gain a lot from it starting next week..
and by the way, happy birthday AM.. :)

Anonymous said...

Between you and the guys over at http://fantasyepl.blogspot.com/
the fantasist cant be getting too many hits over on yahoo...but then he tipped Jenas for this week (ie the only spot in the spurs team other than CB that isnt NAILED down at the moment), Happy Birthday mate, wished id listened RE: Lamps, thought it was too much of a gamble. thought wrong

Anonymous said...

don't be too hard on y/self A.M. i've noticed in the past when i'm hard on me'self, my selections just get worse. pleased bily didn't play as most others team around me had him.. i was gonna buy him to mark them up...but when the inj doubt news came thru i risked it. alhough swp does'nt start...but hopefully still scored more than bily. my other negative was should have taken crouch instead of keane...was he playing on sat..i listened on radio and he was just anonymous apart from the 1 shot . on the plus side seb larsson did the biz for me, as did saha vs a bolton def who not kept a clean sheet all season...so have bought anelka for next wk. only double i like so far is diamante...as villa have 2 tricky away games.

Hinrik said...

Next weekend team:

Myhill
Vermaelen Heitinga O´Shea(gamble)
Lampard Fabregas Ballack Kightly
Drogba Diamanti Ebanks-Blake

I´m not counting on the A. Villa and W. Ham-game, although I have Diamanti. I´m thinking about Lampard and Fabs as long term investments.

GTR 34 said...

First of all happy belated birthday AM

Second - this was my worst week on FF for 2 years.

Myhill, Drogba and Crouch did alright for me, and I kept Billy, as I was ok with taking a 0 should he have not played. Afterall I got him for 4.71.

Fabs and Giggs didn't come up with the goods.

Vermaelen, Heitinga and Richards conceded hat loads of goals so no CS too.

Cohen had a mediocre game to round off my midfield, and Tevez still failed to find the back of the net.

I just knew Lamps would score, but couldn't fit him in the team as the money was spent on Fabs and Giggs.

Who could have believed Arsenal would get pegged back like that? Who can believe the lack of CS points at the moment?

Nothing is as predictable in the FF world as last season. There are real surprises in store every week.

However, this makes the FF much more exciting, and the competition more even.

Oh, how I wish RVN and Ronaldo were still in the EPL.

Anonymous said...

What was ur point total GTR 34?

JT

chris m said...

AH! The week that this could have been. Anyone who reads my posts knows of my tribulations over the Rooney/Torres hunch, knows that I wussed out, and dropped them, then only to end up with them when low and behold, the next morning I forgot to hit the save key.

If only Rooney had done anything, 6.5 lousy pts. I would have been the hero of the week, except for anyone who had both Lamps and HRod.

As it was I had 83 pts with 0 from swine flued Dunn, and Blini-a 0 most of us took. I have a feeling we all took hits this week. I just checked our leader, SteveBob FC and he posted a paltry 76.5.

Now the topic du jour becomes the reality of the West Ham/Villa double. And whether to load up with them. I have a tentative scheme that doesn't give up many discounts with Friedel, Dunne, Diamanti, Milner, and Agbonlahor who seem the best of the bunch. Will not know to pull the trigger until the final minute. And then again, I will probably be to drunk to remember.

chris m

Anonymous said...

The one that caught the first spot had Rodallega, Lampard and Petrov. He didn't have Heitinga, by the way.
I guess I had a better week than most of the people here. SteveBob got 4 points less than I did, AM got 66 (sorry, happy birthday by the way...). 80.5p is fairly average, so was last weekend, and that annoys me. I want my 100+ points a week streak again!
I dropped about 60 places overall, and now I'm 1809th. I need to improve - fast.
ManC are lousy again, and Given is paying the price. I'm sticking with him, because there are no options beside him - Jensen, Myhill, Simonsen and the others can turn out well or badly, in an away match at least I know Given will make saves. Vermaelen, without CS, returned his value yet again.
I picked Bassong over Richards, and every time I'm choosing between them I'm going with the wrong one. So I got O'Shea - home to poor B'Burn. Heitinga worries me. He played as CB yesterday, and that's not where I thought he would play. Everton are not playing well, and I'll consider his spot during the following weeks.
Fab turned out bad, but I can't drop him when he's facing Spurs. Bily will return and stay, KPB is still in for some reason - I hope he'll have a better match home to Wigan. I got Rosicky instead of Geovanni, but I can't decide about it yet.
Drogba and RvP were fantastic, Crouch got a lot of phantom points, for the first time I think. He was good, but he's out, because Diamanti is still a better choice.

SF

Maxer said...

got 64.5pts this week.. not my lowest this season (got 56.5 in week3).. but quite sad my hunches r.johnson and bent both got negative.. moko too.. with sonko and bily both didn't play..

myhill is my favourite gk from now on :p.. with drogba as my all-time points collector.. dropped rvp for this week to even my team strengths.. hopefully it wont bite me..

anyway my current bd team..

myhill
verm, mears, sonko
fab, arsh, bily, giggs
drog, hotrod, diamanti

sonko and giggs is still unconfirm.. might still drop them.. anyway, where the hell is sonko last saturday?

Maxer..

Anonymous said...

Yeah, firstly Happy Birthday AM - hope the hangover is wearing off :-)

Did better than I expected this week - HRod really saved me - and have reached a lifetime high of 41st in the world, so well pleased.

I'm with you in that they must put the West Ham v Villa game in for next week, so leaning heavily towards Villa players with a couple of Hammers thrown in for luck. Tricky situation 'cause Everton desperately need a win next Saturday and I feel bad backing against them, but Villa have become one of our bogey teams and I can see a high scoring game. As for the midweek game anything could happen, I'm just hoping neither team radically rotates their squad.

On another topic, isn't it typical that they've decided to televise the Barnsley v Man U game tomorrow night even though there are three all Premiership games being played.

Paphos Toffee

masterP said...

points are in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fidan said...

I'm so pissed off with Yahoo this weekend. Not only they were late 24h with the points, but then they come with an outrageous calculation. Benitez of B'ham scored negative pts (-0.5)...Can someone pleeeease explain to me what has a man got to do to get some pts from Yahoo...!!! Just take a glance at this commentary from SkySports.com

SOT+CW=4pts
"Brilliant save from Gordon as Birmingham turn up the heat. Great first touch from Benitez and his snap shot forces the Sunderland keeper to tip behind at full stretch."

CW=1pt
"Benitez threatens again. He twists and turns to make a yard and a low shot flicks off Turner and dribbles past the post. Gordon was worried for a minute."

CW=1pt
"Benitez slipped in behind and his low cross only needed a touch. As it is Birmingham settle for a corner"

SC=1pt
"Benitez crosses for Bowyer. He ends up facing away from goal and can only head to a retreating Sunderland midfielder."

Thats 7pts POSITIVE. And I didn't even see the match and things like PI or tackles...arrrrgh

And he had only 3FC...Now THAT sucks...!!! I know I shouldn't be bitching about some lousy pts anyway, after my other picks didn't really work out. But being around top200 it REALLY matters. Thnx God my Lamps pick worked out...!!!

Good luck

Anonymous said...

Any idea how Jensen gets docked 2 points for a loss when the score was tied when he came out injured?

greginho said...

happy b-day AM.
dread and despair have taken me. 45 points my lowest total in a long, long time. i had 10 players play, so that wasn't the problem.
given, heit., verm., and carlisle not doing the defensive duties for me.

my stellar midfield fell apart. boateng and geovanni, the kings of phantom points, face off against each other and must have just tried not to give me any points. bily was my only non player. the gems of my midfield, cesc and giggs, were soooooo bad, fantasy wise. cesc played great, moved the ball around, almost scored, could have 3 assist, but came up 3.5 points. as bad as that looks, giggs did worse, i only watched the 2nd half and he was everywhere, especially in the last 20 minutes. him and rooney, took turns trying to set each other up, almost scoring, which should have counted, as a shot on target. he took the corners, free kicks. i thought i would get at least 10 points from him, but it came up as 1 cross and 1 tackle committed. that seems so wrong, i wish they could edit this. did anyone else, think that his total was correct. not that 9 points would help out, that much, but it would make me feel better.

my forwards, were good and bad. drogba and bent. i should have listened to AM's predicted curse and stayed away.

i am not going to chuck my whole team, i am going to do what i did to get to 20th in the league before, this week.

Anonymous said...

Penny got docked 2 pts. as well. Is this the rule for GK substitutions or a mistake?

Michael said...

Its a rule BTG... :(

I got 85 points!... PHEW... I thought i was gonna drop below 70.. :)

ALSO!! EVERYONE!! READ THIS PROPERLY!! :)
Im gonna be Villa heavy this week... reading this blog has kinda stopped me from picking my hunches (no offence AM ).

So here's my team -

Friedel
Verma/Heiti/Dunne/Warnock
Billy/Milner/Young/O'Hara
Diamanti/Gabby

I've not saved changes yet only because of the fact that I'm on the verge of dropping Cesc.

Any comments/suggestion are welcome :)

Cheers!
Michael

Fidan said...

Suggestion!!! Just come back on Wednesday night and let us now how did it turn out for you ;)...!!!

Good Luck and...YNWA ;) (I have 4 Villa and 2 WHam players myself, and I'm about to sell Fabs,Lamps,Wilk,HRod,KPB all at HUGE discounts, but no "save the changes" just yet...!!!)

Bradley said...

57.0 points. Ugh. (Thanks Darren Bent for that -0.5.) Sadly, I've set a new low. My horror show weeks thus far have been 3, 6, and 9, which doesn't bode well for Blog Cup round 2 (AM, I don't suppose I could talk you into moving it to a week not a multiple of 3? ;) ). I thought it was a bad week for a lot of people, but nearly everyone in Blog League 2 has higher scores. Sigh...

I agree AM. Since the PL seems to have morphed into the Eredivisie when I wasn't looking, GKs have joined defenders as not worth the expense except maybe for weeks with extra good match ups (or extra bad matchups for all the cheap GKs). Alas, cheap GKs are in short supply.

There's a certain class of sports fan here in the US that reflexively bashes soccer as always having no scoring or winding up draws. (I've pointed out that's not true in the PL and that scoring isn't much higher in American football but just appears that way from the scoring inflation (6-8 pts per TD, 3 pts per FG), all to no avail.) And here we are bemoaning the near impossibility of picking up CS points (or at least picking a keeper who doesn't get shelled).

Awaiting Carling Cup injury news...

Anonymous said...

Relieved to have 83.5, although 60.5 came from the front line. I would say that it was great to see Verm get 6 from a draw, but everyone else owns him. Losing faith in Heitinga??

Bojan said...

First things first:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! YOU ARE GREAT, and thx for all that you are doing for us...

and now recap week 9:

happy with 75 points... 160 overall

btw, my worst ever score was 29 points last year(Andy Johnson and CR7 got red cards)

my greatest mistake was Given... I've had Cech all week, and then I decided to put Given in because everybody have him so my loss, if he does good as espected, would be smaller. When i've puuted Given that meant that Micah is getting out, so Mears came in - cost 15,50 points

Tevez was my hunch this week for third place in attack(Diamanti and Drogba), so Martin Petrov in last midfield space was "all eggs in same basket" so I've putt Milner. If I've gone for Petrov, Crouch would be my third stiker - cost 16,50 points

My last 6 weeks was flawless so this one mediocre week didn't do the damage.

Week 10 is ahead of us, and it is going to be big one...

Enjoy this great game, and stay beautiful!!!!

Ban said...

some late wishing to AM

Happy Birthday

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