Week 23 - Sunday

I know we're still waiting for the majority of Wigan/Tottenham player points to be updated, but knowing Yahoo we may have to wait until the midweek game for this to happen so I thought I'd proceed with my Sunday review anyway.

I'll start by saying that considering I only had 2 players, it was a very good day for me thanks to the man pictured above (& Spurs' result...)

We'll begin at Villa Park, where the home side ran out 5-2 winners vs Burnley, despite not playing particularly well bar a crazy 15 minutes in the 2nd half.

Goals & great points for Ashley Young, Gabby & Heskey plus 3 assists for Milner meant it was a good day to own Villa players, in particular Stewart Downing, who I recommended in my Week 23 Player Picks & wrote this in My Team post

Stewart Downing. He has to score eventually & won't get many better chances than Burnley at home, so I hope having someone slightly different could pay off.

Boy did it pay off! 2 goals at a cost of £9m, returning triple his value with 27.5 points, the week's top scoring single gamer. In reply for Burnley were Fletcher & Paterson, with good points for Eagles too.

I refuse to analyse Man City v Liverpool; it was one of the poorest matches I've ever seen, so we'll move on to Ewood Park where Blackburn picked up a surprisingly simple 3-0 win over Bolton. Fantastic points for Paul Robinson, Kalinic (returning over 5 times his value) & Givet; nothing of note from Bolton.

Fulham continued their mini revival despite falling behind to a Chris Baird OG (he still returned 6.5 points without a clean sheet!) as Birmingham unsurprisingly start to falter. Zamora continued his good form & Duff weighed in again. Disappointment for Shorey owners, with only a point to his name. Not a lot for Birmingham, although McFadden almost broke 10 points.

In the final game of the afternoon Spurs travelled to Wigan to attempt to play a game of football on a pitch that would barely pass as farm land. How the Premier League can allow Wigan to ground share with a rugby team is beyond me, but Premier League football should not be played on a surface like that.

Anyway, Spurs had to dig deep, got lucky with a clearly offside goal from Defoe before half-time, but in the end fully deserved their victory. Forgotten man Roman Pavlyuchenko scored a brace off the bench & even though Wigan will argue about the first goal I can't see how they can argue with the result - Spurs had 58% possession and 13 attempts to Wigan's 6.

So the race for the 4th Champions League spot hots up, with 4 teams now within 1 point of each other!

Like many of you, I had Gareth Bale, so was delighted with his assist for the Defoe goal, his clean sheet, his successful crosses, corners won & passes intercepted...as we know the points aren't in, but I'll guess he'll be in for between 12-14 points.

I currently sit on 84 points (1164th), but with Bale's estimated points to come that would leave me on 96 points for the week with Evra, Upson, Fletcher, Parker, Valencia, Cole & Rooney still to play on Wednesday. It could be a very good week & I have fingers crossed that I'll end it in the Top 1000.

My current barndoor team is still a complete work in progress: Jaaskalainen (could move to Jensen to free up more cash), Bale (staying), Hutton (staying), Skrtel (probably staying), Zhirkov (possibly going), Walcott (going), Eagles (probably staying), Fabregas (could move to Gerrard), Bendtner (probably staying), Fletcher (probably going), Drogba (@ £22m).

With the team above I still have £7m in the bank & I'm still considering Jensen, O'Hara, Torres, Gerrard, Larsson, Kuyt & Defoe to name but a few. I'm also seriously considering going without Drogba @ £22m - this week has shown me that even if he scores 2 goals, at that price I can spend the cash elsewhere & have a more balanced & productive team.

If he went, I could have Fabregas & Gerrard, or Fabregas & Torres, or Fabregas, Gerrard & Defoe...there are plenty of options. These aren't decision I need to rush into however, as prices of Week 24 players are unlikely to fluctuate much before deadline, even after the midweek game between Man U & West Ham.

That rounds up Sunday - please let me know how you're getting on, who you have left midweek & how your Week 24 Team is shaping up.

Cheers,
AM