Week 21 - Tuesday

Only one game in the Premiership last night, but what a let down it was for those of us who jumped on the Chelsea Double-Week-Wagon.

Burnley & Hull (even away) were 2 games the majority of us expected Chelsea to run riot in, at least 1 clean sheet & 2 comfortable wins with plenty of points along the way. Unfortunately, after their 1-1 draw with Hull last night I'm left feeling very disappointed.

I didn't see the game last night but from what I've read Hull were worthy of the point, & it's another unexpected twist in what continues to be an unpredictable Premier League season. The only certainty appears to be that Didier Drogba will keep on scoring.

I had 4 Chelsea players - Cech, Ivanovic, Lampard & Anelka. The 4 of them cost me roughly £10.50m, £9.41m, £18.69m & £15.51m...well over half of my entire budget. They did okay for me on Saturday,  but last night they combined to contribute just 14 additional points to my weekly total, leaving me on 98 with 5 players (Baird, Duff, O'Hara, Utaka & Zamora) to play tonight.

My barndoor team currently looks like this: Given, Garrido, Shawcross, Bale, Whitehead, Etherington. Petrov, N'Zogbia, Kalinic, Tevez, Adebayor

So a big concentration of triple gamers. I want Rodallega in for certain, possibly Lee & Steinsson too, while I'm unsure over Adebayor Petrov, Whitehead & Garrido. There will still be plenty of tinkering before deadline, & I'm hoping for some random drops in player values after Fulham v Portsmouth tonight (see Tevez dropping by over 1.00 after Monday's game).

Quickly, before I round off my post, some injury news from football365.com

Obviously, we wouldn't exactly bet our mortgage on it happening, but Owen Hargreaves could make his comeback - of a sorts - when Manchester United take on AC Milan in the Champions League later this month.

Hargreaves - remember him? Midfielder, combative, quite good - is finally back in training, though the Mirror says that he is only 'alternating between working with the first team and the reserves'.

Nonetheless, Sir Alex Ferguson has reportedly craftily dangled the carrot of a CL return in front of Hargreaves by promising to include him in the squad to face Milan 'if he complete a full week's training'.

"I would like to seem him make the squad for the Champions League fixtures against AC Milan, but we won't rush him," said Ferguson.

"We are being patient with the rehabilitation following his knee operations and he is alternating his training with the reserve and first-team squads, working for two days and then resting a day.

"It's a matter of him regaining his confidence and, when he is able to train every day, that will be the moment for him to return to match play."

Arsenal's Nicklas Bendtner says he hopes his injury problems this season are over but, disappointingly, he hasn't declared himself fit again to start this Sunday's game at Chelsea. Because that's the sort of information this column needs, not waffle about a spell on the sidelines being the equivalent of "hell".

Fortunately, The Independent is more obliging. The newspaper has revealed that Arsene Wenger 'hopes to be able to recall Croatia striker Eduardo and France midfielder Abou Diaby from injury for the trip to Chelsea'.

This just couldn't be better timed...Wayne Bridge is set to make his first-team comeback this weekend for Manchester City.

'Bridge has recovered from the knee injury which has kept him out since the 2-1 home win over his former club Chelsea on December 5,' reports The Sun. 'Bridge, 29, went to Eastlands to see his team-mates ahead of Sunday's victory over Portsmouth. He has not asked for any extra time off and is expected in training today.'

But bad news for Fulham: Andrew Johnson will undergo an exploratory knee operation to discover whether he requires further surgery which could rule him out for the rest of the season.

The news is a further blow for Fulham manager Roy Hodgson who already has forwards Clint Dempsey and Zoltan Gera suffering with knee complaints. USA international Dempsey has knee ligament damage while Hungarian Gera took a blow to his knee in training on Tuesday.

Johnson's injury comes at a bad time for Fulham, as Hodgson allowed Diomansy Kamara to join Celtic on loan believing Johnson was progressing well from his injury.

Bad news for Gera owners, he's out of tonight's game & bad news for those of us who picked up Garrido on the barndoor - Wayne Bridge is set to return this weekend so his place is surely at risk.

Let me know how you're all getting on after last night's game. Who have you got left tonight...and most importantly, how is your barndoor team looking?

My Player Picks post will be up tomorrow!

Cheers,
AM