Sunday 24 October 2010

Week 9 - Saturday

Unfortunately Week 9 is turning in to one of my poorest of the season, mainly due to the usually excellent Bale & Drogba. They returned a measly 9.5 points for a cost of £37m, which I don't need to tell you is really really bad.

Luckily the other £49m playing for me yesterday picked up a further 63.5 points to push me to a total of 73 so far, leaving me with £14m Nani to go today. If he can pick up his value of 14 points I'll get close to 90 for the week which I'd take after yesterday, but it still won't be great in comparison to other managers who had the man in the photo above (more on him later).

It started OK - Van Der Vaart grabbed a goal in the lunch-time kick-off and although Bale didn't do much I wasn't worried with all the Chelsea players I had to come. I was also satisfied with a draw against Everton after the midweek exploits Spurs had endured in Milan. Baines' free-kick was outstanding.

On to the 3pm's as Chelsea ran out 2-0 winners vs Wolves (who played well), with Bosingwa & Zhirkov returning more than double their cost (16 & 10) and Malouda chipping in with a goal for 14 points. I've already mentioned Drogba - he had chances but didn't look sharp after his illness so in retrospect is was an error spending so much on him. However, on another day he would've scored 30 points in a game like this so I can have no regrets and it won't stop me picking him again when I feel I need to.

In this week's player picks post I predicted wins for West Brom and Birmingham, and this turned out to be the case. Di Matteo's team inspired by Chris Brunt came from behind (after a Carson own goal) to beat Fulham and Birmingham had too much for Blackpool at St Andrews, claiming a 2-0 win. That clean sheet turned out to be the week's big turning point, as Ben Foster returned a quite magnificent 23.5 points, one of the main reasons my week is going to turn out to be a bad one. Congratulations if you had him, Brum defenders, Larsson or Zigic - great points all round.

Lots of us missed out on the Foster points as we took the Kirkland risk (mainly to accommodate Drogba, d'oh!) so at least he didn't go negative - not that zero points helps much. Another predictable results, Wigan 1 Bolton 1, good points for Rodallega, Elmander & Holden. Sunderland were lucky to take all 3 points over Aston Villa, a Dunne own goal the difference despite a second-half battering from Villa.

The final game of the day saw West Ham put in a quite pathetic performance in front of their home fans in a deserved 2-1 defeat to Newcastle. Obinna proved a waste of time but Barton, Nolan & Carroll were back in the points after a few quiet weeks.

So that was Saturday - we have Stoke v Man Utd (where I could do with a Nani hat-trick), Liverpool v Blackburn & Man City vs Arsenal today. I can see myself being outside the Top 1000 by the end of it (currently 740th).

I missed the barndoor but I have this on my Week 10 team page at the moment:

Kirkland, Bosingwa, Boateng, Bale, Adam, Nani, Malouda, Van Der Vaart, Fabregas, Chamakh, Carroll

You'll notice Drogba is gone at the moment as I'm thinking £23m for a tricky away game at Blackburn is too much. My defence & midfield are immense but one of Malouda or Bale are probably going to have to go too so I can get a playing keeper in.

If Malouda goes I'll bring someone like Holden or Barton in and upgrade Kirkland to Fabinaski (who faces rock bottom West Ham at home). If Bale goes (and he has a very tough game at Old Trafford) I'd perhaps swap him for Salcido at home to Wigan which would again allow Fabianski in. Or I might just take the Kirkland zero (assuming Al-Habsi comes back) and keep it how it is, not sure yet.

That's it - please let me know how you've done and who you have left to play today. Who came in on the barndoor?

Cheers,
AM

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

KNOOOCK EM OUT CUP FINAL

ToffeeDave's XI   VS AM-FC


http://www.ffchallenge.moonfruit.com/#

Hans_India

Anonymous said...

Hi Nik & AMers,

What a great saturday for me. Lucky to have Foster this week. His performance was great & so far I'm picking-up 82pts..

My team for week10 atm:
Foster
Salcido Zhirkov Bosingwa
Adam VDV Silva Brunt(BD) Barton(BD)
Tevez Kalou(BD)

I may upgrade Silva to Nani/Fab4 & Foster to Fabianski, depending on their performance tonight. Still thinking whether to keep Zhirkov or not as Chelsea might have a tricky game, away to Ewood Park. Any suggestion guys?

Thanks,
MySL

donut said...

Thanks AM for your continued hard work!!

No particular reason for Foster or Carson to be more or less attractive, well done to the Foster choosers, bad luck to Carson fans - personally I am just happy that Kirk scored as he would if not playing so no worries!!

BD currently this with 4.95 left...

Fabianski
Bale Bos Rio
Vdv Adam Brunt Silva Cesc
Chamakh Carroll

Waiting on Silva's performance (if he plays) before deciding on next move. Quite fancy Nani/Nasri/Odemwinge (will he be back)/Morrison/Adebayor(again how will he get on today)...

75 points this week so far with Nani and Silva to go so hoping to get around 90 but who knows!!

Anonymous said...

A poor 68 points so far with just kompany and nani left. Would be very lucky to hit 100. I went for nani over malouda as could not fit in both with drogs in the side. Hopefully nani will repay me today.

bengoh91

Anonymous said...

Thanks AM and all the contributors to this Blog. It is the best!!!

Broke into the top 1000 this week, ranked 749 at the moment. Sitting with 92.50 with Nani, Silva and Boateng to go.

BD team at the moment

Foster
Boateng Zhirkov Bosingwa
VDV Brunt Fabs Malouda Nani
Cham Obinna

3.7 left to spend

Will probably bin Obinna :-)

Dave L

Anonymous said...

Pls, who saw Fulham's match? How good was Dembele's movement? I'd like to switch Caroll(bd), like someone said his first touch is poor, is second is a foul.Also after Brunt, i think the next option in Westbrom midfield is J. Thomas, he plays and scores better than Morrison.

Ebi

Anonymous said...

How about Schwartzer for wk10? Rodallega's shots are mostly tame. Some keepers scored big in wk9 and it could repeat in wk10.

Birty said...

101.5 with Foster.

Looking to sneak in Nani, Walcott and Malouda for next week but that may mean Kirkland and I really want to keep Foster and his discount through the double week that's coming up.

Ken said...

Finally stayed with my gut feeling this week and invested in Cech as keeper and stayed off the Bale wagon. 96.5 points with Boateng, Nani, Chamakh, and Squillaci still to play. My best week by far unless some negitive points get in there. Not bad I understand as a first year rookie. I give all credit to AM and the people who take time to put it down in writing. Thanks...

JUELZ said...

LOAD UP ON ARSENAL PLAYERS NOW IN CASE PRICES RAISE UP THEY HAVE A NICE STRETCH COMING UP DEFINITELY FABZ AND ARSHAVIN

Anonymous said...

Chicarito is going to take over soon he's always in the right place for goals i'm glad i signed him this week

Pop Thy Collar said...

The Kirkland/Drogba killed me this week. 7 points for a £24m stellar forward with a easy home game?!

Zhirkov/Bosingwa paid off big time.

Anonymous said...

I'm not taking your GK pick advise ever again. LOL. First time I do and my keeper performs horribly.

J0J0

Mike said...

I had an extremely good week.

Kirkland- 0

Zhirkov- 10, Coleman -3, Bosingwa 16,

Nani- 10, Nasri- 17.5, Brunt- 16.5, Nolan 13.5

Drogba- 7, Berb- 2, Hernandez- 24

114 points total....

Hernandez, Nasri, and brunt played huge this weekend so say the least, as did Zhirkov and Bosingwa. I will prob drop Drogba next week, I just feel 22 pts is way to expensive for a player who is on a team where pretty much everyone can score.

Anonymous said...

Frankly nobody took Nik's advice on Kirkland, most people picked Kirkland to enable them fit in Drogba.

Anonymous said...

BD stands for what?

Yanou said...

112 this week, not bad at all thanks to Ridgewell and Foster

@Juelz & AM :
Thanks for the tips, did some early savings this week allowing me to set this week 10 team
(market price 117,5, and 1,37 left in the bank)

Fabianski
Boateng Bosingwa Zhirkov
Nani Malouda Cesc VDV Adam
Carroll Hernandez

Left out the superstar strikers, this weekend showed us why... : )

Looking forward to this weeks player picks, noticed some rather big variations in pricing.

Anonymous said...

BD- BARN DOOR, PICKING PLAYERS BEFORE THERE'S A CHANGE IN VALUE AS A RESULT OF THEIR PERFORMANCE IN ON GOING MATCHES, MY UNDERSTANDING.

Anonymous said...

BD- BARN DOOR, PICKING PLAYERS BEFORE THERE'S A CHANGE IN VALUE AS A RESULT OF THEIR PERFORMANCE IN ON GOING MATCHES, MY UNDERSTANDING.

Anonymous said...

Fabianski ,Chicarito may not be good picks since everyone is picking them up.

Anonymous said...

Lowly 87 for wk9
Wk10Prep

Fabianski
Kompany Boateng Bosingwa
VdV Nani Adam Fab Nasri
Caroll Chicharito

4.27 left, Chicharito will possibly go for Odemwingie, waiting for player picks and weekend team news

Cheers. Ebi

Anonymous said...

With some prices dropping I can put T2D (The 2 Disappointments) together again, having a team like this :

Fabianski

Bosingwa Boateng Jacobsen Zhirkov

VDV Malouda Mikel

Tevez Drogba Di Santo

Assistant Manager said...

J0J0 - Can I ask who you picked in goal? I ask because from the 5 keepers I recommended only Green "performed horribly" with -1.5, and the GK second in my list was Foster, who scored 23.5. As anon said, Kirkland was only in there as an enabler to get Drogba or other top priced players, nobody really wanted Kirkland, the guy averages -13 for gods sake.

greginho said...

mixed week to get to 100.5.
the drogba/ bale money that i had i used to spread around to cesc, tevez and nani, didn't work as i got 19.5 points. i had double digits from ben foster, silva, van der vaart, and nani, as well as boateng and carr chipping in with 9.5.
i moved up 320 spots to 305th, so i am happy. i finally moved up to the top 10 in the blog league II with an 8th spot and a 7th spot in chatroom regulars league.
lots of twists and turns this week and the barndoor activity will be furious. arsenal came out good with a team superior to them, man city, so maybe, this is there year. as long as the schedule makers only make them play chelsea one more time. maybe with a healthy van persie arsenal can get the monkey of chelsea of there backs. i brought in squilacci, nasri, and hernandez for tevez

Kellz said...

A very positive 97pts with the majority coming from Zhirkov, Bos, Silva, Malouda, and Brunt. Seems to be on the higher side of the average pts for the week. Anytime you hit close to 100 you have to count that as a positive week.

That being said, big disappointments from Carson, although he had no ability to stop that own goal, it was just one of those times the ball comes off the post and hits the keeper awkwardly, Drogba, who seemed lethargic in front of goal probably due to his illness, Obinna, who had lots of time on the ball but couldn't get anything going for himself, and Bale who really should have scored, and had a couple of great through balls that should have been converted to goals.

My team atm:

Fabianski
Bale, Bosingwa (new season keeper?), Boateng
Malouda, Nasri, VDV, Silva
Torres, "Little Pea", Chamakh

Still have Zhirkov, Brunt, and Carrol as my team is unsaved, will probably hold until I can see confirmation of Chicharito starting, or if I want to downgrade some one else to keep Brunt.

Hope everyone enjoyed the week! This coming from a very happy Liverpool fan with 3pts and Torres goal! Only up from here!

Bradley said...

110 points. Consider me thrilled. For a change I picked the right keeper. Foster, Bosingwa, Van der Vaart, and Brunt were stand-outs, and the higher-than-expected phantoms from Nani and Boateng were also most welcome.

My BD team thus far:

Fabianski
Salcido Bosingwa Boateng
Adam Van der Vaart Brunt Nani Nasri
Carroll Hernández

Obviously it's not going to stay that way. I dropped Drogba to finance the BDing, and I have 14.75 left over. :) I'm not sure I'll hold on to Chicharito, but I figured I might as well grab him just in case. Adam's status of course depends on forthcoming ankle news updates.

gman26 said...

Back-to-back 100 point weeks. A few weeks I was around 10,000 overall. Now at 2,675. thanks to Silva and sticking with Nasri and Malouda.

Would you stay with Torres for awhile? Got his goal this weekend. thinking of jumping off the Nando train.

greginho said...

liverpool are not a road team and score a lot less goals away from home.

Gavin said...

115 points for the week without any Birmingham players, Malouda, or Brunt. Very happy with the gamble on Hernandez and Elmander up top. Wish I had gone with Foster instead of Carson, but I can't complain with my week. Hopefully I can keep climbing the rankings. Almost into the top 2000 now after a horrible start to the season.

Good luck going forward, everyone.

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