Week 12 - My Team
Schwarzer
Vermaelen Heitinga Alexander
Dunn Bullard Duff Dempsey Geovanni
Zamora Drogba
Despite being burnt by going with Friedel in the last double week, I still went for Schwarzer, grabbing him at just under £9m on the barndoor. I may have gone for Myhill had he been confirmed as fit, but the doubt means the only other option was Robinson & Blackburn (2 away games) have only won once away from home in 8 months. No thanks!
In defence I decided to hang on to Vermaelen & Alexander. Dropping them for 1 double-week would've been crazy after all the good they've done for me. I hope people have dropped Verm as he's due a goal & as I said to some of the guys on the chatroom last night, I've never seen a defender so natural in front of goal! Alexander is held at £5.7m playing at home, in midfield & always has a chance of a penalty. Heitinga was never my first choice but I preferred him over Nelsen & Givet. I would've loved a Fulham defender but they all ended up out of my price range.
In midfield I'll have a familiar line-up to many of you with the 4 DGers: Dunn (always does well for me), Bullard, Dempsey & Duff. Duff may not play both games, but he'll get at least 90 mins (probably at home to Blackburn) & at £10m he's good value in a home game.
My final spot is a gamble...Geovanni. He may not even play from the start vs West Ham, but if he does he takes penalties, takes free kicks (although he'll now share them with Bullard) & is capable of that little bit of magic, so he could pay off. He could also flop of course, but I preferred him to Roberts due to the 2 home games. However, I may regret choosing him ahead of Eduardo. I'll mentioned I was sad to lose O'Hara as I had him at £2.5m discount, but I'd be happy to pick him up again at around £7m-£8 once his run of fixtures improves.
Finally, up front I decided to hang on to Drogba & get Zamora in. BobbyZ is in great form & was a no brainer at under £8m. Drogba is only due to miss one game & then has upto 8 games before he's off to the African Nations...that's almost quarter of the season, so in my opinion it would be crazy to drop him at 10.66 just because he's missing one week. One big reason O'Hara had to go was because I was keeping Drogs, meaning I needed a double gamer to make up for him missing a game.
So that's it, 3-5-2, 8 double gamers (4 Fulham, 2 Hull, 1 Blackburn, 1 Everton) with Vermaelen, Alexander & Drogba filling the final 3 spots. Hopefully it'll be enough to get through Blog Cup Round 2!
I imagine people will have very similar teams this week - I'd be interested to hear your teams & find out who you're thinking of picking up on the barndoor? For me it'll be Man City & Man Utd players...
Cheers,
AM
22 comments:
Despite my ramblings on the chat, here is my final team:
Probbo
Vermaelen - Givet - Paintsil
Fabregas - Hunt - Dunn - Dempsey
Drogba - Eduardo - Zamora
7 DGers, a crock, and 3 legends (otherwise known as arsenal players)
don't think i'm hedging my bets with the DGers because a lot of people have them so i'm just keeping up with the Jones', but i AM hedging my bets with Arsenal. they keep conceding (and scoring) but i'm backing them against a team with some creative players to keep a clean sheet and win. because of the players they are up against, there will be plenty of blocks, SOTs, tackles etc
Good luck all
This is the first time I have not changed my team at all on matchday:
Schwarzer
Paintsil - Givet - Ricketts
Dunn - Bullard - Dempsey - Cole - Duff
Zamora - Eduardo
Good luck everyone, hopefully the DG gamble will pay off :)
J
I did a ceazy crazy thing and dropped Drogs last night, knowing full well that he'll be back next week.
I have no particular reason behind it, other than i think he's gonna go off the boil for a few weeks, and with a few cheap midfielders around at the moment, i think when i drop some of my double game midfield, i'll actually be able to afford to buy him back at full price if neccassary later on.
I really wanted Arshavin this week, but with so many conflicting reports and predicted line-ups i've seen, i decided not to risk him, but i've stuck with Fabregas.
The only change to my defense has been Givet.
Up front i've gone with 2 strikers i think will do well this week, both single gamers, but i didn't fancy any DG striker.
My midfield is a risk due to my appart lack of DG players in comparison to most teams this week.
And i stuck with Given in goal, cos Chucho is gonna score a hat trick against Fulham later :P
My team...
Given
Verm, Alexander, Givet
Fabregas, Bullard, Cole, Dunn, Dempsey
Benitez, Eduardo
Feel free to call me names for dropping Drogba, i deserve everything i get.
Good luck guys!
Schwarzernegger
Verminator/Paintsi/Zayatte
Dunn/Duff/The Bull/Ohara/Demps
Drogbeast/Roberts
Early barn door thoughts: Given (his price went up over $1 after the deadline to 8.90!! :( ), Bellamy, Joe Cole (for the price, despite the match-up). Also thinking Andy Reid...or H-Rod.
Sam Allardyce will miss the next 3 matches (starting tomorrow vs. Bolton) for an angioplasty. AM Neil McDonald will be filling Big Sam's shoes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/b/blackburn_rovers/8371989.stm
I was already anticipating chewing all my fingernails off with Robbo in goal. Now I'll be probably be waking up in a cold sweat
@Bradley
I wasn't planning on picking Sam Allardyce for my fantasy team anyway, so it doesn't bother me!
Only kidding. Hope he's ok
Drogba at 15.70
I wound up with
Robinson
Vermaelen/Givet/Heitinga
Fabregas/Dunn/Dempsey/Bullard/Etherington
Drogba/Kalou
which used up all 100 of my cash, the first time I've done that this season. I could've BDed better two weeks ago, but I had a different line-up in mind at the time.
I feel real bad about having Robbo in goal away twice with Big Sam off recuperating. Given the way the other GKs have fared so far, maybe he won't be any worse. One can always hope...
ended up with:
PRoblem
Verm,G.Alex,Givet
Fab,Dunn,O'Hara,Rodwell
Drog,Rooney,EdS
Who saw that upset of Sunderland over Arsenal? Sunderland is tough, but to be fair Arsenal could have done better to find the net.
Bullard was my top pick and hes obviously the penalty taker now. We'll see if he gets 2 goals since one slightly deflected off Cole.
Well Verm with no CS, Konchesky no CS, and a loss for Schwartz, anyone see how many saves he got?
Kellz, somebody named Brian called it yesterday in the comments and picked up Bent. That's a pretty great call.
Soccernet shows Schwarzer with 1 save.
I had Fletch and J.Cole(JC?) in my lineup at one point.
Anybody want to guess (quickly) if Adebayor's and Wright-Phillips' values will rise or fall? Both got around 8 pts each...i want to bring them in for next week...
26 points with Dunn, Roberts, Given and O'Hara left this weekend.
Pretty low, but not too bad in my league. One guy picked Zayatte which was a nice call. Arshavin and Venegoor started on the bench for me which hurt. I've picked up Valencia, da Costa, Fulop and Bellamy. Wes Brown anyone?
@Bean: great call, wish I put a bet on that game.
Went with Schwartz, Verm, Konchesky, Heiti, Dunn, Duff, Dempsey, Bullard, J.Cole, Drogba,and Roberts.
On 32.5pts with Heiti, Dunn, and Roberts left. Then hoping my 8 DG can make a big impact mid week.
rule of double gameweek: if you pick crap DG'ers, you will recieve crap points... twice.
Well anon, considering Zamora and Schwarzer's performance today I should, many of us should, be prepared to get crapped on again. In scanning the top teams, a lot of people made this play. -5.5 pts between them. Leaving me with 25 with only Dunn and O'Hara tomorrow.
I BD'ed Fulop. Sunderland looks solid. Also Bent in the Zamora slot though I may not keep him.
Heiti came thru huge with 11 pts. Rodwell had a last minute SOT for a corner, 4 pts I needed. The commentators here had Rodwell going to ManU for 20 million in January.
Was prepared to BD Eduardo but he looked lost.
Let's hope next week things return to normal, that there are no more injuries in the CL matches, and sanity returns to fantasy footie.
36 points... got up for 13 places(from 149 to 136) with Dunn, Roberts and Samba to go... i can't belive it
bd valencia bowyer johnson and skrtel birmingham looks good next week
P.S. I heard about rodwell during the game wowowowow I just don't see it.
45 points with PRobbo and T****y plus the DGers; was disappointed but looks like it'snot too bad.
only 14pts with my 3 forwards gave me -2.5 (zamora, eduardo, drog).. my hunch dempsey got 8 (which is highest for fulham.. so i'm ok with it), fab 4.5 and disapointment from verma with 0.5 pts.. even my filler baird got 3.5 which higher than him.. sigh..
anyway, still got givet, dunn and etherington tonight.. and the DGs on wednesday including myhill.. hope he plays..
zamora need to bounce back this wednesday.. hopefully he'll perform..
same like the last DG week.. all my friends in my private league also got bad points.. i only drop 1 places with somebody only manage 57pts as highest.. hmm.. i guess DGs is not like as it used to be huh..
anyway, cheersssss!!.. :p
Maxer
Below some thoughts on next week, mostly.
But first off, for context, this is my first season playing, so I hope I'm learning (and am trying to observe and get smarter). Everybody here is great, both wonderful conversation and generous advice. Thanks, it's fun and much appreciated. Good luck to all!
I'm also playing the ESPN fantasy game simultaneously, and thinking about the features of each game I prefer (captains in yahoo would be a nice add, so would having a larger squad with subs plus the 11 starters).
Also on my wishlist for the Y game is formation choices that would allow 1 man up front, so there's more flexibility on picking your team.
That said, there's no legit 6 man midfield formation, so my week 13 dream of a midfield with Bullard, Fletch, JoCole, O'Hara, Arshavin and Bily would still not be possible. Boo. That with Drogs up front is what I'd like to do based on both value & budget (I have most of them on the cheap). But I can't.
So I gave up on Arshavin and took Bellamy for the front. Agbonbon would be another option, but I like MC @ home to Hull more than Villa vs Spurs. Bellamy, whatever you think of him, has a lovely goal to game rate (not to mention SOTs to game) and he gets tons of fouls, corners, crosses, etc to bring in penny points that add up (he averages 10+ pts a game, best on the team).
Thoughts on other fantasy games or on those team selections?
I have kept up my typical style of mixing brilliant and crap picks. I had 4 zeros on the club Drogs (as expected), Eduardo, Ivanovic & Paintsil. The last 2 are proof that you cant always trust the Guardian squad sheets. I also had 4 in double digits: JoCole, Bullard, Alex, & Fletch.
With Schwz's -3, I'm at 53.50, which turns out to be pretty great compared to other scores I see.
O'hara & Etherington to go, plus my 3 DGs. I suppose I might have a shot of getting up to 100 this week.
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