Week 22 - My Team
Hutton Bale Shawcross Steinsson
N'Zogbia Etherington Lee
Tevez Rodallega Adebayor
Yes - as you can see, I've gone back on everything I stand for & gone with Adebayor. But before you hunt me down & beat me with baseball bats, please let me explain...
I found I'd settled on a team last night with Benitez as my 3rd striker, but I had £4.3m left in the bank. That meant I could get Adebayor, and when you look at the facts - 3 games vs 2 games, 7 goals vs 2 goals, average of 8 points vs average of 5 points....it made sense to get him in as Benitez's replacement.In goals it was a no brainer to go with Given, I had Shawcross + Bale on big discounts & I really wanted Steinsson in as he's been bombing forward & scoring well for Bolton since Coyle arrived.
You may question my lack of Man City defenders, but there's great uncertainly over who will start so I played it safe...plus I have Given to cover the clean sheet. My final choice was one between Whitehead or Hutton & I've gone for Hutton because of the chance of a clean sheet in both his games. That means 4-3-3.
In midfield I read a few reports this yesterday that Adam Johnson will start on the left wing and Wright Philips on the right, so I decided to drop Petrov & keep a pretty solid 3 of Etherington, N'Zogbia & Lee. No place for Taylor, in the end I decided Lee + £6m to spend elsewhere was more sensible - lets hope it turns out that way; I do really rate what I've seen of Lee so far so I'm hopeful he'll have a really good week.
Upfront I've already described the Adebayor decision, while Tevez & Rodallega will probably be in everyone's team this week so no real need to explain my reasoning there. I'm hoping for goals galore from these 3.
So that's my team, 9 triple gamers + 2 very cheap attacking fullbacks with 2 games each, potentially 31 games!! I'd like to hear if you feel I've made the right choices and of course, please let me know what you settled on.
Good luck to everyone in Week 22, especially those in the 3rd Round of The AM Challenge!!!
Cheers,
AM
p.s. One of the blog regulars Jimmy has built a very handy Yahoo Fantasy Football Toolbar, which links to this blog, the main site, injuries & P2P channels to watch games online. Thanks very much to him for all his work, you can download it here http://YahooFantasyFootball.
73 comments:
We have 9 same players .
Hutton+Shawcros Vs Zabaleta+Caldwell
Hope all return good points
Adebayor for a 30+ week
Good luck
AM! DICK! NOOOOOOOO! Okay, great week t pick him, Dick to score atleast 2 goals, good luck!
Given
Bale, Hutton, Bridge
Lee, N'Zog, Eth, Whitehed
Rooney, Tevez, HRod
I have Vieira, could this be decision of the season. :)
Maxi
i woke up with 10 mins till deadline and realised i had not done my team. ARGGGGGGHHHHHHH
franticly, i rush around and picked
Given
Vermaelen(6.01), Bale(2.65), figueroa
O'hara(8.24), Duff(13.39), N'zogbia, McCarthy
Kalinic(2.36), Tevez(15.03), Rodallega
I like it because none of the big game player(drogba, fabregas, gerrard, lampard, rooney) have particularly good match ups. I just hope Wigan(who i like) man city(who i hate) and Portsmouth(who i support) do well
And heres hoping my favourite team Arsenal win both their games this week. Hey, i can dream.....
Given
Hutton Bale Cahill
Duff N'Zogbia Etherington McCarthy
Rodallega Tevez Tuncay
currently in 450 for yahoo but I reckon Cahill will have to do something special (which he certainly can) for me to move further up. Let's hope Drogs has 2 days off and picks up a measly 20 points
S. Given
Bale Baird Scharner Higginbotham
Modric N'Zogbia Taylor
Tuncay Rooney Drogba
Really wanted Shawcross instead of Higginbottom but overall happy with this team which is not relying too much on triple gamers.
My team is
Given
Bale,G.Cahill,G.Caldwell
S.Larsson,O Hara,N Zgobia,Etherington
Tevez,Rodalegga,Kalinic
Stable team i guess, MTaylor who i have hold on for a week i dropped before deadline...hope i wont regret...
If Adebayor dont score well this week, he is official a Dick to AM and everyone :)
I'm a little surprised not to have seen more discussion about Drogba this week, or see him in too many teams. He's still on fire after returning from the ACN and has a GREAT scoring record against Arsenal (something like 7 in his last 5 games against them, and 11 in 12 overall). It hasn't seemed to matter the opposition this year, he keeps banging them in. SO over 2 games, you would expect at least one big score, maybe 2, no? I guess it was the $18 (preupdate) price that deterred people?? I gambled on the Drog, hope it pans out.
Good luck all...
I've got a pretty similar team to yours with 9 same players. The only difference is I have Petrov and Vermaelen for Shawcross and Steinsson
AM
we only share 4 players so this will be a chance for me to get some points back. do to the fact that teams with 3 games are not fantasy football powerhouses, it will be hard to have teams that looked stacked.
robinson
vermaelen, nelsen, bale
cesc, duff, nzogbia, petrov, muamba
tevez, rodelega
i only had 5 double gamers last week and had 4th highest score in blog league one, so i am repeating the strategy with my untouchables, untouched. i originally had mccarthy and kevin daivies, but chickened out for muamba and rodelega. it is a better pick, but got rid of my only two hunches this week. nzogbia and mccarthy. i have a feeling that davies, sidibe or tuncay is going to outscore rodelega, but it is hard to figure out which one, so i took the easy way out. muamba is my first filler since december.
Yahoo has a wrong schedule again for week 23.
There's also Man.Utd - West Ham on Tuesday the 23rd so it's a double week for these two.
True that MU & Hammers have 2 games next FF week?? If so, need to look at some big $$ BD's today.. Rooney & VDS? at huge premiums !!
My team for this week
Given
Hutton/R.Johnson/Shorey
Seb Larsson/Bowyer/McCarthy/Etherington
Drogba(10.76)/Tevez/Rodallega
Have faith in Birmingham.
And Drogba, it's time to pay the piper!!!
Good luck to all.
Once again going against conventional wisdom I have totally ignored it being a 3 game week, and am probably the only person here who doesn't have Tevez or Hrod. Two of my picks are hunches I can almost guarantee no one has and should cement my status as a certified lunatic. I have:
Gordon
Verm Bale Terry
Duff O;Hara Modric Rosicky
Rooney Drogs Bendtner.
Yes, John Terry and Bendtner. I am guessing that Terry will be absolutely out of his mind, taking his frustration out on the pitch, and throwing himself and head at every cross hit into the box. I am figuring him for a goal or two this week. Unless he runs totally amok and kills someone and gets a red card.
Bendtner is fit, clamoring for a start, the Gunners don't have a striker, at 6.7 perhaps a steal. We shall see. Keep on eye on him on th BD
That said, if anyone has read this far. Can someone who is at the games keep track of the chants that great Bridge and Terry today. I think it is going to be over the top and hilarous. BTW " John Terry always cheating" is lame and doesn't work. There will be better.
cheers all
VDS
Verm/Caldwell/Shawcross
N'zog/McCarthy/Wilshere/Whitehead/Ether
Rooney/Tevez
guess I'm the odd one again without Hrod.. and with Wilshere :)
My team :
Given
Cahill Toure Caldwell
Etherington Lee McCarthy Muamba
Tevez Rodallega Moses
zero left ...
Wuyetz
After a lot of tinkering, I finally settled for:
Given
Bale, Boyce, Shawcross, Mancienne
MTay, Lee, Etherington
Tevez, Fuller, Rodallega
I really hope my team scores really big this TG-week. I have now moved to top 5000. Yeah! I know that's nothing compared to where most visitors to this blog site are but I didn't discover the site until quite late in the season...
Kudos to AM but he now has a serious contender in Kukuski FC as the season goes down to the wire!!!
Good luck to us all...
"Really wanted Shawcross instead of Higginbottom ..."
Hee hee, pleased I couldn't afford Shawcross now; Higgy hasn't scored since primary school, so could be a good pick for me.
No more CS for Given. Hull have scored. =(
bengoh91
Anyone know why Cahill isn't on the bench today? Is he injured?
- SK
AM I know you mean well by writing up this blog, but perhaps you should consider retiring. Your team selection is of such poor quality that you should quit with the little dignity that you have left.
No hard feelings, but YFF just isn't something you're very good at.
Crap selection AM
Anonymous posters back again (I wrote pesters accidentally which is more like it) - just ignore them AM. Your team is pretty good I'd say, and you'll probably get good points out of the week in the end. One player ill just before the game and one shock defeat couldn't be predicted, and other players did well. Why do people bother criticising you when a) they're not prepared to admit who they are and b) give no helpful insights of their own. I personally don't mind being criticised as long as it is constructive, but there's nothing helpful about snide comments.
Thanks Guy - I have a thicker skin nowdays mate, so I can ignore them. I've always said I can take constructive criticism; the ones above are probably from a 10 year old kid taking a 2 minute break from masturbating over Transformers to write a "witty" insult.
Yeah, Given was a big disappointment but I'll take 2 goals, 2 assists & a clean sheet with potentially another 22 players still to go this week - certainly not the worst selections ever & other people will have had worse weeks too, so I think I'll delay my retirement ;)
Cheers!
I don't see what's so horrible about AM's team selection, his team selection seems to match 6 to 9 players selected from YFF current top 10 teams.
Just because AM may not be good enough at YFF doesn't necessarily mean he should retire. I personally have not found a better blog on YFF, but that is not because AM's team selection is always good, but rather because of the comments made by many people. If you are only listening to one person's opinions you will only be as good as his insight can allow, but if you take other people's opinion into consideration, perhaps you will get better results than each of them. The point I am trying to make is that a blog's worth is not only in the bloggers but the commentators, and certainly I feel that if AM is off on his insight on a particular week, someone else will point out some great insight.
- SK
DG & TG week are different. look at total points obtained AT THE END. Not now. schwarzer taught me last week ;),more birds more luck.
~Newbie
Friday last minute decisions
Kept VDS i/o canning my discount and going for Givens
Dropped Skrtel & Modric both at discounts for TGers Higg & Ether frm Stoke
Kept Rooney though talk was he would be rested
Feel I'm going to regret Modric
Best thing happened so far is Given giving up 2 goal "no brainer" everone has him.
I agree. In many cases, doing bad on the first game followed by a great performance on the second is better than the other way around, mainly because the price may temporarily fall before skyrocketing a few days later. Good if you want to hold him.
- SK
Don't worry Am, with the help of you and other blogs I am now in the top 6,000; those two posts were probably written by the same person; just don't worry about them and continue writing this great blog
Disappointing display from wigan players...
Forgot, dopped Donavan and Elk to pick up K2
i/o of Tevez[everyone has him]
Best start ever for me
picked up valencia on the barndoor, he's pretty cheap.. hopefully he will continue to start. also grabbed vidic..
AM and others. The trolls from anonymous posters are starting to irk me. Is there someone here who could hack the posts, find out there IP and who they are, and if they are in the neighborhood I would gladly volunteer to seek them out and kick their fucking ass. People should accept the responsibility and consequences for what they post.
Back to AM, once again, this is the best EPL site on the web. Its to your credit and hard work.
And its not your fault, and I am relishing, that citeh sucked so badly against Hull today. Points haven't been posted yet, but probably 90% of the informed players here had both Given and Tevez. Citeh just didn't show up today. They sucked, they were totally out played and out hustled by Hull. They showed no heart. It is just a classic case that money can't buy you success.
On the other side of the coin was the Everton Liverpool derby. Its a miracle that someone wasn't maimed, they were killing each other, it was one of the most passionate games I have ever seen.
I feel somewhat vindicated by not going all in for Citeh just because its a 3 game week. We'll see what happens in the run in, but there are players that just play hard all of the time-Rooney, Terry, Gerrard, it doesn't necessarily translate into YFF points but they bring it every game.
The snow storm of the century here in the states missed me by 50 miles to the south. So all is good. Especially if Drogba scores at least a brace tomorrow.
And again, hey anonymous, I call you out, you punk wimp wuss.
I find your blog very informational and provided very useful tool to selct my team. We are you supporter.
Hi AM ever since I started reading your post it has helped me lead in my little YFF league. Keep up the good work. This post provides very useful info. The guys who write this nasty stuff are just upset cause your blog helps some of us guys pick better teams, and get better numbers. Al From sunny Florida.
hmmm late reply here...
but i was gonna pick Wigan's Sharner(sp.) and N'Zog for the potential 3 gamers...
but they both have 4 yellow cards...
did anybody notice that? N'Zog got his fifth today.
I ended up with
Given
Hutton G.Caldwell Shorey
Bentley Ireland Wilshire Eth
Drogba Tevez Roldallega
"masturbating over Transformers" What happened to kids nowadays. I blame Eminem for this...
Well, I had better days than yesterday. I was really sick and couldn't watch the matches, while the BD work was very fast and not very calculated.
I'm not where AM got his second assist from, but my only goal and assist came from the brilliant Etherington. I had second thoughts about him before the deadline, but he proved me wrong for having them. N'Zogbia and Rodallega were big disappointments with both of them getting YCs, and Given will take 6 points away from me. Petrov was a risk, and so far not a risk worth making - he got off the bench on the 85th minute. The only bright spot about that is that ManCini was so angry with the loss, so he might make a mini-revolution in the squad and start with Petrov for the next match.
I count on Duff and Tevez to get me the phantom points, while Bale should do great with a CS and many crosses and corners won. Kalinic will probably again do no damage. RJohnson and Vermaelen might give me a reason to smile today.
On the BD I did only minor changes, as there are many other games still to play. I've swapped out Rodallega, N'Zogbia, Given and Petrov due to Wigan and ManC's tough schedual ahead. Instead I got Almunia, Milner, Valencia and CCole. I'm still worried about the latter two, as I'm not sure whether they'll start both of their games on week 23, but they both seem to have gotten their places back in the squads. Another move I'm considering is dropping Kalinic for Hutton, but it seems like the former has a much better match-up than the latter (Bolton vs @Arsenal). I'll appriciate any opinion.
I'm keeping Tevez, Duff, Etherington and of course Vermaelen and Bale, and waiting to see how RJohnson performs today - Brum has a good schedual ahead of them.
Almunia
Vermaelen Bale RJohnson
Duff Etherington Milner Valencia
Tevez Kalinic(/Hutton) CCole
Advices?
SF
@aK: Good news regarding YC suspension, since it is past January 1st, the 5 YC rule doesn't apply, thus a player is only suspended after 10 Yellow Cards accumulated. So N'Zog and Scharner are very safe.
Where are the points YAHOO?!?!?
Yet again they fail at the easy stuff?
Well AM ,all i can say is you are a legend and 99% of people on here are excellent with their posts, you will always get the Muppets .Feck dem
This is the best forum there is and its all down to you, Chin up and keep up da good work
Not often you will here a gooner say that about a spurs supporter ha ha
Cmon da Gunners
Uff anonymous kids, get back to writing 1stttt!!!!!!! on the 3rd comment of the fantasist's blog please.
This is a clearly successful blog, and a huge number of people's first port of call, including many people in the top 100 overall. It's a great read and takes alot of hard work and dedication to get up more informative posts than any other specialist fantasy football blog on the net.
Get a life.
My team for the week was a little different...
Given
Shorey, R Johnson, Bale
Whitehead, N'Zogbia, Duff, Etherington
Tevez, Benitez, Rodallega
Pretty rubbish day. saved by Eth and my 2 defenders. I'm not whining yet though with plenty of games still to go. By the way, i don't think i've ever had so many yellow cards in a day!
Doing a little planning ahead on the barn door, and i think when James's price drops later, which it has to, i will have the following team...
James
Hutton, Shorey, Bale, Evra
Bentley, Fabregas, Nani
Cole, Berbatov, Bendtner
The front 3 stay, Nani or Evra could go for Milner, and i'm happy with the rest at the moment!
Perhaps you should get a life, considering you're the one who spends a ludicrously disproportionate amount of time choosing your team.
what happened to good old 'going with your gut'?
No "Saturday" post from me yet, as Yahoo haven't updated the points. I'm off out for the day so I'll post tomorrow. Good luck if you have any players involved in today's games!.
P.S. I'm going to stop people from being able to post comments anonymously, you'll need to sign in to post from next week, and this will also allow me to track IPs so I can ban people who insult myself or other readers.
Cheers,
AM
Great Am...lets see if they are willing to put a name to the post
Can you not handle criticism AM?
You have to be really spineless to post unmotivated personal attacks as "Anonymous." We still wouldn't know who you are from a nickname. Being afraid of even that scant degree of accountability takes a special brand of chicken shit.
I'm not banning people who want to criticise - constructive criticism will only help me improve the blog. I'm making the people who insult put their name to their comments.
Congratulations, AM.
A sure sign of success on the Web is that immature wankers like our anonymous friend try vainly to chop you down.
Keep up the great work.
BtG
Ignore the negative Anons ....
On the BD, I'm looking at Man U and West H with a DG and Arsenal and Villa with SG good match ups.
Looking at having Roon, Val, Tompkins, C Cole and Verm, Arsh, BFAY and Luke Young.
What do you think??
anybody have any thoughts on ilan (west ham) down as a forward, plays midfield ?, came on at 77 mins and scored, could be a good pickup @ 6.25 for the upcoming dg wk
AM, keep up the good work. Ignore the anonymous tools. I agree with my fellow Floridian Al. Your blog has been the difference this season.
That being said....I am glad I kept Rooney and Drogs.
A bit off topic now...
I love reading AM's blog, and I usually post my comments here to get advices and help others as well. I just wanted to ask if there's a possibility of creating a profile in this site without actually creating a blog. I want to continue with the comments, but I won't be able to do it with AM canceling the anonymous posts.
Any help?
SF
nice move AM,
Bojan
damn you drogba!! you are going to wreck my season - or should that be my bad decisions regarding you! How do i have so many games with arshavin, yet didnt keep drogba at 10??
SF- create a gmail account on Google. you don't have to create a blog
yahoo taking forever to put points whats there problem realy?
AM is a human being like any one elsea so instead of disrespecting him coz of his opnions just try to critisize him with respect.
he did a good job to get us all here thru this blog and share our views and all the time he doesnt claim to be the best n thats he open up for any advice or opinion.
if u think u know better than him thats good for ur fantasy team and enjoy but dont try to show that u r perfect.
lets respect each and enjoy fantasy football its all about having fun.
all the best toall managers and thanks alot AM for a nice blog nad it has help me alot to improve on my team selection.
by super coach.
giggsyUnited - Thanks, I should've done it before but I figured it wasn't necessary.
AM - I think that's a good idea, I detest "anonimous" pests that don't have the cojones to display their name. Show yourselves cowards. Anyways AM - You are great at what you do and we all know that! Ignore those childish acts.
Also what is up with Yahoo! Fantasy Football not updating all the points, they updated the Everton-Liverpool points but what happened to the rest...ahhh, I don't want to complain but is there an explanation for their lackingness? Every single time!!!
@ marhawk re: Ilan - he might be worth picking up pre-update for that price. But with so many strikers now at his disposal, I am not sure what Zola will do each week. Diamanti was playing well, but did not even make the bench this week. Benni McCarthy started, but was replaced by Mido at half time, and then Ilan came on later and scored. What a selection mess. You have to think that Cole is the safest bet to start two next next YFF round, and the rest of them will fight for minutes. Guess we'll need to see who starts for the Hammers mid-week and how they all perform.
AM,
I say you the fucking best, you the fucking best
You the fucking best, you the fucking best
You the best I ever had, best I ever had
Best I ever had, best I ever had, I say you the fucking best!
@ giggsyunited:
Take a look at the top 10 players. They don't keep players even they got them on a discount. For example if they know Bale isn't going to have a chance at cleansheet they will sell him away even if they got him at 2.84.
And for people who kept Drogba during the African Nations Cup, you have lost tons of points.
My point is, keeping players is not an advisable tactic as discussed by many players here.
Anon....pretty sure I got the pattern down...I have been playing for 10 years and have finished in the top 3% each year. I picked Drogs up on the BD last week.
My point is, Thanks for the tip mate. I will keep it in mind....
@Dave
I agree with you. Too many strikers at West Ham to consider and I might probably stay away from them totally. Considering their extra match is away to Manchester United, I can't see West Ham strikers getting huge points.
Gary Cahill out for the season, blood clot in arm.
^to add what alex said, this link. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=738496&sec=england&cc=4716
p.s. damn, had him. this is certainly a cranky season. tough luck(esp. on a day DD did nothing much and had 2 goals). =)
~Newbie
I had Drogba during the Cup and and he missed three EPL games as a 10.6. I think i'll recoup those and then some (from the "tons of points" lost).
Remember a lot of us are in pools playing against a subset and use strategy to win those instead of concentrating on overall performance.
For example, We split our "league" pool ($$) into two halves (first half winners and second half winners, overall with us is just for bragging rights). Chances are definitely taken (and usually regretted) near the end of the first half of the season to try and pass the leaders screwing some of our overall standings. I think a lot of us are a little peeved that the "drop Drogs" didn't work out all that well. who knows, maybe he'll be injured for months after the next game but i'm glad i kept him now... and a few are wishing they had held on to him too (plenty of ~10-11 mil guys not producing each week).
i agree most of the leaders switch every week including myself (top 2000) but i do like to keep one or two throughout if possible and Drogs was (for now) a good bet...
i think the bitter anonymous person is morreypaul.
anyway... still waiting to see just how disastrous this week actually was....
shadowgex - lol I was thinking the same yesterday but noticed that he(morreypaul) is actually giving a lot of crap to the Fantasist as of late and surely he knows how great this blog is...specially considering how long he stood by the Fantasist jaja
yeah, at least AM doesn't call himself a guru
somebody left the barn door open.. nani anyone?
thank you for all your hard work, time and effort Mr. Assistant Manager
Nani's in my team...as consistent as he's been lately he appears to me more reliable than a lets say, Gerrard and MTay (point whise, I mean)...he's sure to bag a couple of goals pretty soon and I want to be with him to reap the benefits. Rooney is the one killing me as I don't have him and I'd have to sacrifice elsewhere, but if I do my team would look as follows...
D.James
Bale/Evra/Hutton
Nani/Etherington/Whitehead/Milner
Rooney/Kalinic/C.Cole
I kinda actually like it but as someone stated above, WestHam have so many forwards that it's difficult to avoid the fact that Carlton Cole may not even start...even though he has 2 chances. D. James is another but he does have an okay match-up...ah well, it's early and I have time to wait so I'll see.
did any1 hav zabaleta?? he got 2 points if im not mistaken then it changed to -.5??? wats goin on??
Hey AM and friends - What do guys think of Caldwell of wigan, I've noticed most of the highly ranked fantasy teams have him and I know nothing of him. Has good average point per game but yet I don't know who he is. Can anyone tell me where he fell from?
Caldwell fell from Celtic. Another victim of Mowbray's "new broom" approach.
Jeremy
Fantasy Premier League Blog
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