Monday 22 August 2011

Week 2 So Far

Saturday must go down as the worst fantasy day I have had since I started playing this game 8 years ago. It started with Wes Brown's -4 as Newcastle grabbed a 1-0 victory at the Stadium of Light and went steeply downhill from there. For me and for many others it was the 2nd disappointing weekend in a row.

It's no coincidence that the generally low scoring continues as we've had just 3 home wins from 9 games so far in Week 2. Combine that with the 1 home win from 9 games in Week 1 and it's easy to believe there's a trend developing. I'm still convinced the correct long-term strategy is to bank on home players, it's just taking a while to get going this season

Everton v QPR is a fine example of the unexpected away win, and it was the real killer for my fantasy team this weekend. It was a frustrating game to watch as Everton never had any fluidity to their play, and although they were probably unlucky to lose, they certainly didn't deserve to win the game either.

Leighton Baines was my most costly acquisition for a return of just 1.5 points. It could've been so different had his superb free-kick been an inch lower to crash off the underside of the bar and over the line, but it wasn't to be. Tim Cahill also missed one of the easiest chances of his career; 4 yards out, pretty much an open goal, on his trusted head, but somehow wide. Special mention to Jermaine Beckford for having such a bad first touch for 70 minutes that Moyes took him off for a midfielder, leaving no strikers on the pitch.

Another foolish decision I made was to go with N'Zogbia over Bent as Villa ran out comfortable 3-1 winners at Ewood Park. As I mentioned in my team post, Bent has always harmed me in YFF, scoring goals when I don't pick him and scoring 0 when I do, and this week was no exception. Gabby & Heskey were also in the goals, and Blackburn look like they're in for a real struggle this term.

A severely weakened Arsenal side were slightly unlucky to lose to Liverpool after a cruel own goal broke their resistance when (deservedly) down to 10 men. I saw Sky awarded the man of the match to Jose Enrique, who was good, but the stand-out player for me was Thomas Vermaelen, who put in one of the most accomplished central defensive performances I've seen for a while. Szczesny also looked solid and if you could put Gary Cahill or Jagielka next to Verm I think things would improve very quickly.

Wolves continued their impressive start to the season with a fine win over a tired Fulham side and there was some real intensity/quality on show at Molineux with Jarvis, Hunt & O'Hara supplying Doyle & Fletcher. They sat atop the table for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon and if they keep up this form they'll remain far away from the relegation battle.

Chelsea were less impressive but sneaked past West Brom. Hodgson's men have run Man Utd & Chelsea very close already and with Long & Odemwingie upfront I think they'll be fine this season. Fernando Torres proved a complete waste of a pick as he found himself isolated once again and was replaced by Drogba after an hour. If someone could explain how Chelsea are going to keep Torres, Drogba, Lukaku, Sturridge, Anelka, Malouda, Kalou and now Mata happy competing for 3 starting spots, I'd love to hear it.

Norwich were seconds away from victory but had to settle for a point against Stoke after a 94th minute equaliser and Swansea were held to a goalless draw at home to Wigan, who had a penalty saved by the excellent Vorm. From what I've seen of these two promoted sides they both look to play football the right way, but I worry whether they'll be able to score enough goals.

Manchester City completed Sunday's action with a hard fought 3-2 win at Bolton, finishing the weekend as they started it, top of the league. I have the outstanding David Silva (and also maybe Jussi) to thank for dragging me past my worst ever weekly total yesterday as his 18 points move me on to 40 points for the week. There was a fine goal from Barry, another goal for Dzeko and glimpses of class from Aguero. Bolton also looked decent, with Klasnic adding another superb finish to his two goals last weekend.

So that's it so far and for me it's been shocking. I'm sitting 40,000th overall which is the worst start I've ever had - by far! Week 2 ends with Man Utd v Spurs tonight and I have De Gea, although obviously real life rules over fantasy, so I would be happy with a negative score if it meant Spurs take a point or three from Old Trafford. I won't be holding my breath though.

How have things gone for you?

Cheers,
AM

48 comments:

Adrian Cheng said...

Left 3 MU players (Rooney, Young, DeGea) and have total of 5 points. So far its been depressing.. :(

Anonymous said...

i bet everyone has the same bad luck this week nik. almost no cs from every team we hope for. but, 36 weeks to go !

Chikuera [AM.Blog]

rimot said...

it was horrible on Saturday but my City player finally came through for me once again with dzeko and silva in my squad... that just barely nudged me above the 100 points mark~

HPT said...

next time if you decided not to take Bent, pls tell us so i can pick it up :)

Gingerman said...

After a pretty shitty saterday I sit at 50.50 with Roo en DDG to go. Was a bit gutted to see the Aguero goal cancelled yesterday as i have both him and Richards. To me there wasnt a foul and Richards shoulda have another assist en Aguero a goal. Being from Belgium I really enjoyed Vermaelen's performance. He had Carroll in his pocket all game long. In fact I believe Carroll still is in that pocket somewhere.

mrtwig said...

Petrov and Davies were superb against a strong Man City side and I hope to keep them...
Wolves looked good on highlights so I'd like to start working with them more - maybe after this weekend...
Didn't have Baines until Sat am but went for him by dropping Rooney for Sinclair...hoping that doesn't backfire even worse than it seems to have already...
Didn't have Torres either but won't pick him even if he start scoring because for some reason even before he joined Chelsea he hasn't been great for about 2 years...i can imagine being annoyed if I had!!
Horrible 48 points, like you Nik in "worst start ever" 35,000ish zone - only DDG and Young can save me now (I don't think they will...)
Enrique at Liverpool might become a must have player this year...missed BD but gone full price on him...

DDG
Enrique
Riise (1 more week to prove he is YFF star I think he should be...)
Richards (loves to get forward and I thought should have had more points this week!)

Young (best I have seen so far this year but scared of his rotating)
Tiote (filler)
Petrov
Silva (all over the place)

Suarez (why was he sub?)
Aguero (2 from bench when I don't have him, nothing when starting when I do!!)
Davies (like his bustling style)

Anonymous said...

56 with just De Gea to go. hoping not to fall too far from the top.
for next week i'm looking @
DDG
AGGER RANGEL BOSINGWA IVANOVIC
SILVA MOSES A.YOUNG
SUAREZ AGUERO LONG

FinnSam said...

So I guess my 60,5 points with DDG and Smalling still to play, isn´t as awful as I thought? Strange week, got double figures from Silva, Malouda and Suarez but negative from both Brown and Torres.

For week 3 I´m finally going to get ride of Torres, so as he will propably score a hattrick everybody should pick him up.

Scott said...

Through the first two weeks, I've splashed north of 80million on RvP, BFAY, Carroll, Baines and Torres for a paltry return of 13 (!!!) points. My early strategy has been to rely on a group of players priced 5-7 to enable 3 premium purchases each week....mmmmmmm, yeah, not so much.

DT

kwyjibo said...

Yeah, it's bad so far. Was around 40,000, but managed to get to 31,823rd place currently. It won't last, though, since I have no one in the match tonight.

On a positive note, thanks to Man City, I pulled myself up to 53 points for the week. On a negative note, that's it for me since I made my biggest mistake ever, offloading ManU + Spurs players to load up with Everton. Now Everton is dead to me...

With Gibbs out, even though Wes Brown had a horrible game, do you think he is worth holding on to as a cheap filler given that they are up against Swansea next?

bengoh91 said...

43 points so far with Rooney and DDG to go today.

I guess many had a poor first two weeks as the usual suspects are just not performing. Everyone should just stop for a moment and calm down. There's still 36 weeks to go! I'm sure things will improve as we go along.

Cheers
bengoh91

KRB said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ken M. said...

A 60 point week so far with only A. Young to go.
Most of my changes seemed to make little or no difference. Moved Pennant to Cahill..guess that was a good one? The biggest mistake (if I had to pick one) was not keeping Dzeko and choosing Carroll instead. Not often do I drop a player who scored 19.5 in a week while holding him at 7+ for a player who scored 4 who cost 12+. My net loss was only 10 points 14/4 but should have held him for at least one more week for sure. Had a strong feeling about Hennessey and failed to act on that also.

A very humbling week to say the least.

Sonic Rover said...

So far I have 50.5 points with Rooney and Smalling left to go.

Rumor has it Torres is a striker, and all he managed in 60 minutes was to drawn 1 foul and commit 2. It's my own fault really because he's burned me that way before. If I ever pick Torres again, have me committed because clearly I'll have lost my mind.

At least I picked up Jarvis and Stearman, which lessened the damage done by Brown, Osman, and Torres.

D said...

Well played to those who hung on to De Gea - looks like he managed 9 saves with the clean sheet win today - should return a very handy 31 pts!!!

Plus, gotta love VDV getting 5 SOTs, shooting from all angles...

Zuccarello said...

Drop Young for VdV next week?

greginho said...

well de gea, dzeko, young, smalling and rooney saved my butt. i finished with 104.5 points and moved up 38,100 spots to 17,220th.

i also got points from bosingwa. ben watson's missed penalty, ramsay's own goal and ageuro missing two sitters were my biggest disappointments.

for next week, i had already dropped young for malouda and rooney for suarez, but i decided i would rather have van der vaart instead of malouda and i picked back up rooney. i also dropped watson for silva, bosingwa for rangel (swansea). dzeko and aguero stay too.

Anonymous said...

DE GEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So what that we all had him. But 29 pts. And most off of saves from VDV who I also had+19.5. I was due to get lucky. 102 pts pulls me up from the pits.

As to what to do next week I don't have a clue. But today was redemption.

neil said...

who is BFAY
by the way thanks to degea and rooney

Anonymous said...

Neil

BFAY (Blog Favorite Ashley Young)

Anonymous said...

Finished the weekend with 54.5. De Gea and Young saved me. Otherwise low scores and some really bad luck. Three yellows (Moses, Woodgate and Wes Brown) and Walters blew the PK. Not a single goal in two weeks. How long can this go on?

Anonymous said...

BFAY (10) and DeGea (29) saved my week from being dismal. I had 44.50 before the Man U/Tottenham game. I had VDV and BFAY at one point before week two and I should have stuck with it because VDV scored more than three of my week 2 MF(s) combined.

My current team looks like this...

DeGea ( Arsenal have not proven that they can score on anyone much less Man U)

Brown (Cheap/Playing Swansea)
Gibbs (Cheap/Attacking back)
Smalling (Cheap/Attacking back)

VDV (dynamic player who scores positive points regardless of the competitor)
Silva (Best player to date on best team to date)
BFAY (Has made a quick transition to playing for Man U)
Taraabt (He has played well so far but I am wondering if it will turn into good fantasy points soon)

Aguero (looked good again. Cannot believe the goal was called back but I think he is a keeper)
Suarez (He will eventually play 90 minutes. Opponents should be leery when that happens)
Hernandez (I will wait until I see what the word is on his fitness but Welbeck's performance scares me. I do not know whether or not I will need to make a change)

I still have 3.33 left and time to make needed changes.

AdmiraLord Nelson said...

I forgot I had BDed Vorm and didnt get De Gea back in at 6.00 so now looks like I am fucked, at least I had him this week for his 29 points and still hold Rooney at 18 and BDed Nani at 20...Nani and Rooney will surely decimate Arsenal this week and De Gea prob wont even get a chance to make a save....

AdmiraLord Nelson said...

@stephen: Gibbs is outski broski.

Anonymous said...

Admiral appreciate the heads-up about Gibbs. I will have to look for and alternative that will yield me positive points.

Maya Rani said...

WEEK 2 SCORE UPDATED !!!

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

Hans_India

mrtwig said...

well done DDG - annoyed at Rooney to Baines switch but swapped out Brown as part of that deal so not such a disaster...

Stephen - gibbs out and having seen Wellbeck's 2nd half last night you are right to consider whether picking hernandez is right (that being said, he's the sort of guy who can come on with 20 mins to go and score 2!)

Next week...keep changing but so far...

DDG - prob for season now even though he can't catch the ball from shots or crosses Man U are awesome...

Brown - cheap v Swansea
Richards - played well both games so far
Enrique - should average 10 plus this season

Silva - best player I have seen this season
BFAY - 2nd best player next to Silva
Moses - 1 more chance v Swansea
Obertan - shite but filler to enable..

Suarez - can't help have him
Aguero - ditto, hopefully 30 mins from bench this week!
Rooney - dropped him but need him back, can't believe he won't score high v Arsenal...

FinnSam said...

Thanks to DDG and Smalling ended up with a decent 98 points with overall rank 4667.

Next week atm:

DDG
Smalling-Brown-Agger
Taarabt-Silva-Adam-Malouda-Obertan
Suarez-Aguero

There could be quite a few season keepers in DDG, Silva, Suarez and Kun. That worries me a bit, to tinker around with only a few players. But we´ll see.

Betting on Liverpool at home and would also love to get more Chelsea players in but Torres is shite, Lamps not as effective as a couple of years ago and Drogba not playing much. so Looks like I´m left with only Malouda. Still thinking of getting Roo instead of Adam, but would need to change something else aswell.

Obertan is an obvious filler.

Ken M. said...

From those of us who went shopping for another goal keeper this week knowing (if) De Gea did well we could always barn door him and for the most part not be hurt to much and (maybe) take that leap forward if he did play poorly.....

Son-Of-A-@!$%&^^%$#%&*&!!!!!

PROUDLY holding positions at............ 59/99,62/99,41/100, and 12/25 in my groups.

I repeat...

Son-Of-A- $@##*&&^#@%&&^%$#!!!!!!

Gingerman said...

Ended with 100 thx to Rooney and DDG. Moved almost 5000 places and im now ranked 1877th. And currently 3rd in YFF Blog league 9.

Anonymous said...

Ended up on 103 points thanks to De Gea and Van der Vaart.

Is Tom Cleverly likely to produce again?

Also to anyone playing the 'Official' fantasy football.
Official - Van der Vaart - 2 points
Silva - 10 points
Bent - 12 points

Yahoo! - Van der Vaart - 19.5 points
Silva - 18.5 points
Bent - 18.5 points

I know there is obviously different scoring systems but this is why I prefer Yahoo!

Louiniho said...

@fleeties - it was the shoot from anywhere I i think that got him so many points.
If I am wrong could some explain as to why he did so well scoring.

Thanks
LC

David S said...

Arsenal have confirmed Nasri's exit to City pending a physical:

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/terms-agreed-with-man-city-for-nasri

This could be detrimental to Silva's fantasy value due to sharing of the creative role and/or rotation risk.

David S said...

It also probably means that Arsenal haven't a prayer against Man U.

Ken M. said...

Well, here I go again...

Suarez has yet to make an appearance on my team. I have held him/dropped him/brought him back and currently hold him at a slight discount.

This being said he is the (main) player I have set aside to drop! WHY???

With him out the extra funds just make my team look that much the better..again that's me near the bottom of most every league I am in.

So, with all this in mind I am going to say that Bolton this week will be a wake up call for Liverpool who (in my opinion) is playing very well but still lacking..or searching for an identity. Bolton 3 Liverpool 1

Liverpool..at home!!!

ps..I am ready for my "verbal" beat down!

El Canon said...

Jumped up 11,765 spots thanks to DDG and VdV. Sitting at 8,531 overall and 22nd in Blog League 12.

Can't see myself making many changes unless I drop Baines.

Team for now:
DDG
Baines, Richards, Brown
VdV, Silva, Taarabt, Ramsey
Suarez, Aguero, Klasnic (Only change so far)

Could go with Davies for Klasnic or drop Baines and get a premier striker. Not sure yet.

Louiniho said...

Lets get on it. Heads on for this week.

I have been chopping and changing, but can't seem to fit in sessegnon. I think he will be huge this week. My team ATM is

De Gea
Vermaelen, Smalling, Senderos
Silva, BFAY, Delph, Ramsay
Rooney, Aguero, Suarez

I swapped brown out for senderos so I'm hoping that pays off. I think I haves team which should get over 100 points.

Please tell me what you think.

Thanks
LC

El Canon said...

Who else is thinking of BDing Adebayor this week? At that price, he seems like a steal.

greginho said...

when will they add nasri into the system. i can not wait to pick him up at $6. he will be a steal.

from chelsea fans, is there are any, is there any chance that mata would not play.

Unknown said...

Latest points: 104.50
Total points: 194.50
Overall rank: 2,735 +13,261

This is the highest position that I have ever had, so happy with my team, with the exception of Wes Brown.

PANGLIMACYBER .Inc said...

Hi guys!
Did anyone thinks Hernández will start this week? He seem fit vs Spur even just play for 10 minutes.But Welbeck was superb.It is a tough call.

My current team:

D. De Gea

C. Smalling / W. Brown / J. Bosingwa

T. Cahill / D. Silva / Ashley Young / B. Watson

S. Agüero / L. Suárez / J. Hernández ( if he play, if not will replace to Klasnic)

Lefover: 0.16 point

Anonymous said...

@Greginho
Nasri is in the system already, plays for Arsenalnal

Unknown said...

Looking for 2 midfielders to replace Moses and Taraabt, who are under performing. Any ideas in the same price range guys?

Brian said...

@Rick, I'm giving Taraabt and Moses one more week. They are both in the $6 range (basically filler prices for MF) and both have good matchups this week...against each other.

But as for MF's in their range. I like Ben Watson, but he's a little pricier at $9. Ryan Taylor on Newcastle is $6. Hoolahan on Norwich is $7. Anderson on ManU is $7 and they should crush Arsenal this week.

But like I said, they haven't gotten going yet and they are still positively contributing points to my team (more than I can say about Wes Brown). I'm expecting both to have solid games this week. And I like keeping both in my MF so I can afford to buy elsewhere (Saurez, Mouluda, VdV, etc)

Unknown said...

You make some good points there Brian and maybe it's worth keeping them for one more week to see how they fair.
I agree Man U should have no problems with Arsenal this week. Wes Brown was a big mistake, but not that many DF's to choose from in that price range.

Anonymous said...

Which should I drop IF I wanted Hernandez?

Aguero, Bent or Suarez...

Tough choice!

D said...

@ El Canon - IF Adebayor goes to Spurs on a loan, he will not be eligible to play against City. And even if it is a sale, they still might not let him play, as part of a "gentleman's agreement". I also doubt he's match-fit.

Still, one to watch for the future.

El Canon said...

@D I know. That's why I said I would barndoor him, picking him up after this weeks roster move deadline so I can have him for their trip to Molineux.

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