Sunday 2 May 2010

Week 33 - Saturday

Only five Premiership games took place on Saturday, but they involved 3 of the 4 teams with a double week. Looking at people's teams it appears the majority have done the right thing & loaded up with a minimum of 8 double gamers, many (like myself) going with 11. It's already paying off.

Man City ended Aston Villa's Champions League hopes with a 3-1 victory at Eastlands. Carew actually put Villa ahead, but the game swung with a Tevez penalty & Adebaor sandwiching Carew hitting the bar to put City 2-1 up.

Craig Bellamy wrapped the points up late on, which was a real killer for me as I had dropped him an hour before the deadline to bring Etherington in. A massive 24 points for him, Fulop looked shaky but returned a decent 9.5 for a cost of 1.6, while Zabaleta & Adam Johnson returned their value.

Spurs managed to keep their nerve by scrapping a 1-0 win over Bolton thanks to a Tom Huddlestone screamer. Bale was outstanding once again with 21 points, while Gomes & the other Spurs defenders all earned excellent points but Modric, Pavlyuchenko & Defoe were a complete waste of time.

Wednesday night now becomes one of the biggest games Tottenham have faced in my 27 years as a fan - a chance for a place in the Champions League. Win & we are there, draw & we need to beat Burnley on the last day of the season, lose & it's out of our hands unless West Ham do us a favour against City. I am very nervous.

Stoke played out a pretty uneventful 0-0 with Everton, with the only real talking point a disallowed goal from Jagielka. I was furious to see Danny Collins on the bench after picking him to cover the Stoke clean sheet - he's played pretty much every game this season, but was suddenly dropped for Wilkinson. Typically Stoke kept a clean sheet, great points for 1 point Begovic & other defenders...add my annoyance to the Bellamy decision & I had a rotten fantasy football day.

In the other games, Birmingham beat already relegated Burnley 2-1 & already relegated Portsmouth beat Wolves 3-1. Had Portsmouth not had the 9 points deducted they would now be 3rd from bottom on goal difference & I'd say that's accurate - they have not been the worst side in the league, Burnley & Hull have been.

I end Saturday on a poor 70.5 points with Smalling, Dempsey & my whole team to play again, so there is still a chance of a good week but many others have already broken 100 - I'm down to 318th. Huge games today - Chelsea at Liverpool & Man Utd at Sunderland, while Fulham also complete the double week teams 1st round of fixtures.

I forgot to remind you all that Week 33 is the Final of The AM Challenge, which involves the following teams:-

Welcome to Man City (S11) 
Simply Da Best 
Juan Sebastian Veron 
pk all stars 
Rizal Plate F.C. 
‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^› 
Shock The Monkey 
chuggington 
iceman_tsc 
Remedial Spastics 
Steve Bob FC *** 
No Longer Defending Chaffs 
INDIA © 
FC Skwarek 
No Name FC 
gamatoilrefinery 
TM yang 1 
VANDE MATARAM 
Kop Kings (BB) 
CF Aimarcia 
Unintended XI 

Good luck to all!

In terms of the barndoor, a quick look at the fixtures for the final weekend (which is the final of The Blog Cup)

Sunday, 9 May 2010
Arsenal v Fulham, 16:00
Aston Villa v Blackburn, 16:00
Bolton v Birmingham, 16:00
Burnley v Tottenham, 16:00
Chelsea v Wigan, 16:00
Everton v Portsmouth, 16:00
Hull v Liverpool, 16:00
Man Utd v Stoke, 16:00
West Ham v Man City, 16:00
Wolverhampton v Sunderland, 16:00

Teams love to put a show on at home for the last day of the season, so I'll be looking at Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton & Man Utd, with Spurs, Liverpool & Man City also tempting with decent away games.

I actually missed the barndoor AGAIN, so most of my current team are bought at full price:
Fulop

Bale  Smalling  Yobo

Valencia  Jones  A.Johnson  Malouda

Van Persie  Tevez  Anichibe

The final day falls just a couple of days before the Europa Cup final, so I expect to see a Fulham reserve team travel to Arsenal. Van Persie could/should have a field day if Wenger decides to give the fans something to celebrate, Tevez is at his old club (although I may switch him to Bellamy), Anichibe has been getting some playing time & faces Pompey.

Malouda & Valencia will be flying forward for Chelsea & Man Utd, Johnson is on set pieces for City, as is Jones for Wolves with Jarvis out. Bale is Bale, Smalling should play for Fulham, Yobo will continue for Everton & Fulop will stay.

I really want Lampard, so I may need to to make some changes to find them money. It would be handy if he had a poor day today to force value towards 19-20. Lots of other changes will occur, but that's how it is for now.

How are you getting on? Who do you have left? Any barndoor ideas?

Cheers,
AM

19 comments:

CFCBOSS said...

today is the biggest game of the season, chelsea needs to win, liverpool should be exhausted cause they played 120 minutes, but this is anfield.
BD' i think must-have is van persie, i also picked up yobo, steinsson, carew back again and my hunch, well logical thinking is jussi in goal.
i would love to get either drog or lamps, but damn they'r expensive, i even think drog is better value cause he want's to be the biggest goalscorer of the season. i'm thinking dropping tevez and to squeeze in drog, also nani might be worth a look, maybe has a good day :)

Anonymous said...

FTW Liverpool!

~Newbie

CFCBOSS said...

great stuff from gerrard :D but i think chelsea deserve's the lead, anelka had a good chance, lamps shot form edge of the box and once again NO PENALTY, should've been!
come on chelsea, lampard to score second!

Anonymous said...

WTF liverpool....
u should not play bpl again...
no fighthing spirit at all...
u give chelsea an easy ride...

CFCBOSS said...

damn i'm good, looks like trophy is coming, can't see wigan threathing it at bridge, what a joy! :)
drogba should score today or at bridge, to win golden boot :D

Anonymous said...

^ instead of blaming Liverpool, why no blame the ref?
kalou should be off. high boot(yellow) followed with a dive(yellow).

gerrard to chelsea, anyone?

~Newbie

Anonymous said...

ever since RA had his left foot into the EPL, the title belongs to the mega rich. Unless Uefa does something(or FA for the matter), the mega rich clubs will always have a critical edge over the rest. likewise, i clearly hope Liverpool become one of those(with the RIGHT investment no more mickey mouse owners) . starting to build the stadium will surely be a priority now. Once the stadium is built, we will return in big style(with ample money to spend). till then... well. next season, i think the contenders are Chelsea, ManU and ManC.
~Newbie

Anonymous said...

Lovely day for me my only single gamer Lampard scored and I have him at 19 for next week, but paramount to that is that Chelsea won!!! Oh and did anyone find it the least bit irritating that Fletcher made it into team of the year and Lampard didn't, nonetheless great day and the spring championship of poker starts today so maybe I can ship 6 figures today. :)
Saitofall

CFCBOSS said...

@ saitofall
i agree, valencia or fletcher's place should defenetly be malouda or lamps for sure, at least one of them, but congratulations to all of us chelsea fans, big step towards to title :)

Anonymous said...

The RED what? Gerrard, you better wear PINK!

Anonymous said...

http://www.uefa.com/uefa/aboutuefa/organisation/executivecommittee/news/newsid=1467652.html

"From 2012/13, the Club Financial Control Panel's main task for the following three years will be to carry out compliance audits that are currently done by the UEFA administration, in making sure the clubs adhere to all club licensing requirements as per the financial fair play regulations"

which means within 2 years, clubs wanting to play in Europe will have to spend wisely(wages/transfers/etc). not an easy task.

~Newbie

Doctor Teeth said...

Sitting on 95 points with 10 players to go in the DG. Disappointed with only 0.5 phantom points for Dempsey but at least happy that I didn't select Gera (as many other managers did).

Not sure if I'll be able to sleep between now and Wednesday's kick-off...

Anonymous said...

Kellz in place of rafa !
CL / EPL / EL .... all trophies assured.

Anonymous said...

I second that. No bigger expert here than Kellz.

C****khoor

Anonymous said...

http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/moneygame.pdf

fellow v-managers, have a look at this. see if your club is in real danger. Plenty of clubs are living beyond their means. some that we now know of(that are clubs in danger due wages contribution) are- pompey,hull, birm, west ham,burnley(however will survive well in C'ship due parachut payments),wolves and wigan. some not in danger, but not really able to spend- Liverpool, A villa, everton, blackburn(in danger or not?), bolton,fulham, S'land and stoke. Only 5 clubs with the power to spend- ManU , chelsea, arsenal(but you-know...),ManC and Spurs.
~Newbie

Anonymous said...

tbh, Rafa should stay. Well, Liverpool's not in a good condition at the moment( financially), that's true, but how many managers are well know to work in these situation with vast european knowledge? as for replacements, the only one i can think of is LoudMouthJM. but he isn't known to work in these sort of environment. So i'll stick with rafa. certainly AW is a prudent manager, but his squad's wages had been more than Liverpool's . in the Fourth phase of EPL aka 'RA era' , Rafa must be our choice.
~Newbie

Anonymous said...

AM..

honestly speak...dont realize that im still in the final of AM Challenge last week...

n of coz i will be eliminated in w33..low points so far...haha...just realize it at the very final stage..

TM yang 1

Anonymous said...

Line up for week 38:

Fulop
Jagielka S.Campbell D. Ayala
AJ, Jones, lampard, Mokoena
Tevez, Bellamy, Anichebe

how does this line look?

Unknown said...

Here is my probable lineup for the last week

Fulop
Bale, Yobo, Elokobi
A.Johnson, Malouda, Nani, Walcott
Carew, Crouch, Van Persie

Since Fulham are in the final of the Europa league so they should be resting some players, thinking Van Persie and Walcott might do well against them. City and Spurs players coz they are both fighting it out for that last 4th place. Carew, Malouda and Nani has been quite on good form lately.

Elokobi as a filler and Yobo as Everton faces relegated Portsmouth and they should also be resting players as they face Chelsea in the Final of the FA Cup.

Ofcourse, this is not my final team. Just BD most of the players to save up.

Post a Comment