A Day In The Life....
14:15 - Kick girlfriend out of the house so the lads can come round for Soccer Saturday. Dream team are in (Le Tiss, Merse, Phil T, Charlie Nich); What can go wrong?
14:30 - Team sheets are in, everyone but Nasri starts for my XI, and that includes Aguero. Guilty that I stated my fear that he could be rested in my update post? Yes. Bothered that he isn't and I have him? Hell no. Spurs' line-up looks good, Jarvis doesn't start = bonus.
15:45 - Everything going ok. Aguero has scored, Spurs aren't losing but sound dodgy, as do Arsenal, Liverpool are behind. This game is alright I suppose.
16:45 - Delight, Aguero hat-trick, 2 assists for Silva, 1 for Nasri, 2 clean sheets for Arse defenders, Spurs win from nowhere, Liverpool lose and my arrogant 'Pool fan mate shuts-up for 5 minutes about how it's "our year", I'm in dreamland, text my Wolves fan mate a picture of Adebayor, he cries, I laugh a lot. This game is freakin' awesome.
17:30 - Points come in, I'm on 85, up 11,000 places and in to the top 9,000, overtake most people in my private league, beers flowing, loving life. RvP did nothing, disappointing, but who cares? Bolton is a tough place to go, Rooney & Hernandez won't do much. On train to London for mate's birthday in rapturous glee.
18:00 - Get to London, f**k it, 0-3 to United after 30 minutes, Hernandez & Rooney in the goals, all that hard work is going out the window. This game can be rough, and I blame everyone.
18:01 - Drink...
19:30 - 0-5 United, 2 for Hernandez, Rooney hat-trick, good to have De Gea for 20 points but not having Wayne hurts... down to 20,000th in the space of 2 hours. Mates I gave grief to earlier are now 30 points ahead of me. I hate them and this game.
19:31 - Oh well, Spurs won
19:32 - Drink...
00:44 - Home late. Drunk. Angry Girlfriend. I tell her I want to write a blog post and watch Match Of The Day.
00:45 - Sofa-bed tonight.
105 points never felt so shit, but the ups and downs is why we love the game! Would I change anything? Probably not. Will my girlfriend change me? Almost certainly, but I'll confirm in the morning :)
How was your day?
40 comments:
doing terrible.. surely.. ROONaldo will not keep this up.?! since all the people ahead of me all have him and dzeko ..
sure this can't keep going on.. if not.. i will have to buy him.. or else i am F*CKED!
147.5 with taarabt to go so happy and not on the sofa! :)
I forgot to save my team. 3 players didn't start. Was going to make 8 changes. Fortunate to have Aguero but other than that pretty horrible.
I saw someone post that Aguero didn't play much during the international break but got greedy and didn't want to lose the discount on Dzeko. Mo Rules ignored on that, and it bit me. I did well outside of this though RVP really killed me. Szcesny, Rooney, Gibbs and Silva were major help today. Cabaye/SWP/Riise/Kasami left to go.
Enjoy the sofa bed.
That's what fantasy football does to us Nik! Perfectly summarised.
Anybody else been having an issue with the Manchester United players today? Sometimes they have their correct scores and sometimes they have no points.. Also Hernandez and Rooney's prices rose to 14 and 26 respectively and now they're back to what they were pre-match??
-sold dgg last min, for lindegard.. dem!
-bought dzeko over aguero.. double dem!
-gain late points with rooney, a.young n ando..
-david silva never disappoint me..
-new hope for arsenal defence.. arsene bring on santos nexy game yeah!!
overall: another day in YFF, :-/
shud hve been 6 goals point this week (aguero n rooney).. :-(
i think you drink too much...heheheh
Hahahaha good stuff mate !
same points completely different feeling. i didn't have kun and was cursing following the popular opinion that he'd be rested and that dzeko would start.
And then my boy rooney comes up and makes it all better.
A very poor 77 points with Rooney DDG and Silva.
Still have Riise, SWP, Brunt and Ruiz, so maybe can salvage something.
Phew, didn't even mention swapping Aguero for Brunt at 11.57am yesterday.....d'oh.
108 points with taarabt to go.
i had big games from rooney, aguero, de gea and that is it. mertesacker and stearman did ok and the rest were appalling. nasri, dzeko, young, smalling and benayoun were disappointments. i knew that smalling could have been rotated from the jeremy and neal blog, but i had no time on friday afternoon, after having read it, to make changes.
surprisingly i am going to keep almost my whole team. stearman is at home to QPR, just benayoun i will replace.
Stuck in the US where they only show 1 game per week on TV, so usually have no trouble avoiding the couch...especially with the time difference, that one game is in the morning, so no beer involved, unfortunately, and no mates to watch with. Well, 1 mate, my 8 month old son. Gotta get him into football early. ;)
Currently on 84 with 3 players to go (Riise, SWP and Cabaye). So, the potential is there to break 100...maybe...
just 53 points and odemwingie is still bold enough to miss a pk
Once again I am disappointed to have made the wrong last minute changes...
Dzeko over Aguero (had him at a discount and without doubt over starting would have kept; I have to listen to my gut better)
RVP over Rooney (Had him last week and panicked that RVP would have a good game and Bolton would prove a stiff test at home. I was really wrong)
But Hernandez saved me with 29. I could have had Rooney, Aguero, Hernandez which would have made for a quality fantasy week with little other assistance needed.
DeGea's 7 or 8 saves and CS was a blessing.
Silva is always dependable.
Young was a disappointment at the price I paid.
Benayoun did nothing but I know he was on the field and in the starting line-up.
Obertan was a filler
Good info on Santos so I went with Mertesacker.
Gibbs was a lock for me all week.
Smalling news I did not hear otherwise I would have had a defender like Riise or Richards.
I am on 94 points and can only hope that with Barton gone the Obertan will be more involved offensively to score me at least 6 points to reach 100 for the week.
Well the week ends up letting me know that my gut once again is right and over-thinking is wrong.
Well i had De Gea with Gibbs, Martesacker and Micah Richards. With David silva in midfield and Rooney and Aguero doing well for me. Only dissapointment was Dzeko and Ashley Young. 144.50 altogether this week. Pretty happy :)
Is it wise to go with Mertesacker/ Santos/ Gibbs as a back line next week? Arsenal away at Blackburn?
It's a strange year so far. If you look at all the top teams on YFF, they ALL have 9 or 10 Manchester United/City players with 1 or 2 fillers. That's it. And they ALL have huge scores, with the top team averaging over 140 per week.
It seems that there is little skill in picking teams this year. If we had all just done the same, we would all have 500+ points right now.
Surely this can't continue for the whole season, can it? Looking at next week's fixtures, ManU v Chelsea is a tougher match up, and there will be fatigue from CL, but overall, the first 4 weeks have been very 'La Liga'-like.
I compared to last year. My AM.Blog team is doing very badly, but my non AM.Blog team isn't doing too bad. That team has 387.5 pts with Cabaye to go. Last year at this time, I finished week 4 with 396 pts. Almost identical. But, last year I was at 1966, this year just under 14000.
If this continues, the blog posts will become really short: Pick Manchester. End of story.
Hopefully the other teams will pick up some steam, but even after all the trades, Arsenal still looked like Arse(nal), and I'm kicking myself for adding Arteta + RvP at the last minute, when I could have had Rooney and/or Hernandez.
Arteta killed me this week. But I like sticking with him at Rovers next week . . . the only worry is will Wenger?
Lol Nik! Love this style of post! Alas not doing so well Fantasy wise! I feel for you kwijibo. All my picks didnt work out this week too as I have none of Aguero, Rooney or Hernandez and after bowing out early of Hans' league I think I'll be taking early exit from AM's too. On the bright side I'm still mainting my average of 80 pts/ week which I try to achieve at the very minimum for every single week game. I'm sure with more internationals, CLs, etc and injuries coming into place, things will ease. It won't just be about loading up on Manchesters players. :P
@kwyjibo .. Sure this will end , ManU and ManC will not hammer every team , Rooney and Aguero will not score three goals every week , its like how Chelsea started very strong last year then flop . i dont think both Manchester team will flop like Chelsea last year but i think they will slow down ... other teams should DEFEND when they play them , and both Manchester clubs will draw/Lose when they play away sooner or later ( i hope for the fun of EPL )
not bad, and wifey pissed of as usual. #LOL
@Eldwin and Kavedas - thanks for the reassurance. I guess I was just a bit frustrated, because for me the most fun in YFF is the process of picking a team. The research, the analysis, I learned so much about so many players I didn't know about before. Doing well from week to week was secondary to the process.
And now, for the first 4 weeks, the best process became, pick Manchester and ignore everybody else.
I'm still having great fun, just amazed at the high scores so far. I was hoping to better my personal best from last season of 920 overall, and when I saw my score was almost identical to last season at this point, but a good 12000 places lower, it was a bit of a shock!
test
Those who read here often know that I am not only new to the game but also new to the sport.
Since my knowledge of the sport remains limited, I must rely heavy on information from articles, post,tweets, and pretty much anywhere I can get it..plus watching as many games as possible.
To the point:
This past week I dropped Aguero for Hernandez. My call!!! I figured the 2 something discount was worth the risk and would pick him back up regardless of his performance.
DDG: I had at a great discount but with all the "talk" of several of my players like Nasri not playing combined with the news of DDG also sitting I just could not risk it.
Now if he sat...I could live with MY decision, but he played and the reason for this post is this...
How did EVERYONE know this ????
It appeared that 90% of the people who had him, kept him. Was this because they felt the risk was worth the discount or...
Is there something, in between the lines, of posted articles and team information that I am missing???
Where did I go wrong?
ken m.
sometimes it can be also not seeing every post. this year,i have less time to sit and read all of the articles and comments for two blogs, so i miss some of the panic. here on AM's blog there is a collective spirit that leads to a lot of teams picking the same players. i have had dzeko since week 1, he was my second pick behind de gea, i had young since week 1, except for one week i dropped him for van der vaart, i have had rooney since week 2, i have had aguero since week 2, so i am not rotating as many players and i am also breaking a sin, by having 2 city strikers, but for the week dzeko did not play, ageuro went off and the 2 weeks that aquero did ok, dzeko went off. i knew smalling might get rotated but had no time to change, but what if i had and he had played. i think
Ken - I'm not 100% sure whether you're asking about Aguero and DDG. For Aguero, it was pure luck, I decided he may get 30 mins off the bench but Mancini unexpectedly started him, and the rest is history.
As for DDG - I saw the rumours posted by others on the blog and in the chat room on Saturday morning regarding him possibly being rested (essentially dropped) and I simply couldn't see it happening. Why? Well Alex Ferguson is one of the best man manager's about - what would it do for DDG's confidence if he isn't trusted to handle Bolton, with Lindegaard (more-or-less a rookie himself) preferred instead? Also, he had stated on Friday on the Man Utd Official Site that although he thought Bolton would "target" DDG, he believed he was up to the challenge. For me it appears journalists from other publications (those stating he would be dropped) were adding 2 + 2 and getting 5, it just didn't make sense.
As an aside, even if I was concerned with the very slim chance that he would be dropped, I have him @5.7m and seeing as Fergie spent £20m on him he will be given time to prove himself, so will be United's number 1 for the majority of the season. I didn't want to give up the chance of having him as a season keeper for that discount.
Hope this helps, I'm sure others will have their own reasons.
Cheers
Re DDG, I heard all the rumours regarding Man U's keeper, but came to the conclusion that there was no foundation to them, plus Fergie had stated that it would be difficult to change his team after there performance against Arsenal.
Re Aguero, many of us dropped him, his internationals, travelling, Tevez starting seemed to point to him not starting. I UPGRADED him to Brunt and scored a big fat lampard....I mean zero.
I only was using Aguero as a (non-influenced) decision to prove I do have a little spine...
I learned early that ALL decisions are mine..of course. I somehow felt that I was missing something that was obvious to others.
Maybe trying to hard to keep up with those who are still miles ahead of me. I will attempt to keep my focus on what I have learned and then put only those thoughts into play and let things fall as they will.
Thanks everyone...
@greginho
Agree with the "collective spirit" but that is somewhat normal. Great minds and all....
I did however read the last part of your post several times and it just made my head hurt.
Think I need to spin the wheel or buy a vowel but it just blew past me like so many other things these days...
Good luck and thank you again...
Ken - keep it up, I find you entertaining. I hope others do too.
I try to look back on my picks, and if I think I had a good reason for them, then I don't beat myself up, regardless of how they work out. The few times I've not been happy with myself were when I went for someone based on the 'sheep' factor, ie. lots of others are doing it, so I'll do it against my better judgement. Barn door picks are the big culprit here, when you swap someone out at discount to squeeze someone in because they just scored heavily.
Picks like RVP and Arteta didn't seem like bad ones this week, but obviously I'm glad I resisted them - my thinking was that Arsenal have sometimes struggled at home against supposed weak teams, and it was hard to see how the new players would work out. I did risk Benayoun, but that seemed more worth it given his low cost.
As to keeping De Gea and Aguero - I felt both were worth it at the price and this early in the season I didn't want to give up on discounts, especially on cheap players. I didn't get on well last year when trying to change people based on match-ups, not bothering about discounts, so I am probably going too far the other way this time - although at the moment this is a good strategy. The key thing will be deciding the right time to change people like Rooney (current discount 8-ish).
@Ken M--
I agree with Guy. When I retrospectively analyze my selections with the benefit of hindsight, the question I ask myself is "was that choice logical?"
If the answer is yes, then poor results are simply a product of chance/bad luck. Arteta, Walcott, and RVP are good examples--it was logical to expect decent returns from them this week, but in spite of that they failed to produce. No one would have predicted that between the three of them they would generate a grand total of 2 points against Swansea (although now that the game is in the books I'm sure someone will hop on this blog to say that they could smell it coming).
If the answer is no, then I did something stupid, like foolishly clinging to a discount on a player with an unfavorable match-up, choosing a player I admire in real life who is not productive in YFF, or lustfully chasing last week's returns.
It's a 9 month season, and if you make logical decisions week in and week out you will ultimately do well. The hares will win in any given week, but the turtles will win the season.
@David S said: "It's a 9 month season, and if you make logical decisions week in and week out you will ultimately do well. The hares will win in any given week, but the turtles will win the season."
Well said! That reminds me when I was looking at the top 10 teams last season, and analyzing their picks. What I found is that, only on rare occasions did they score one of the top scores for the week. It's more about maintaining an average than scoring the highest score.
Moreover, only a handful or two of teams averaged over 100pts per week, so you don't even necessarily have to make back your points for the week to do well.
The averages are way off so far this year, thanks to the two Manchesters, but that will, hopefully, level off soon and come back to normalcy.
Great post Nik! Hope things get patched up. Sofabed gets old after a while.
I took the advise of the Manchester Evening News and left out Aguero. The mistake was somewhat cushioned by replacing him with Hernandez. Spurs' win made the weekend though.
In regards to the De Gea fiasco there's also something else Ken should understand. Sir Alex Ferguson is the king of mind games, casting doubt upon De Gea and implying that he'd find the Bolton game a tough one would only spur him on to do well! As said before the press probably misinterpreted Fergies intentions.
He's a very powerful figure in the game and a lot of people suggest that he has influence over referees and gets favourable decisions. Thinking about it the franchise that is Manchester United would suffer if they started drastically losing games!
I'm sure these people are wrong though..
157.5 this week actully considered replacing degea aguero and Rooney!
Suarez has not been performing fantasy wise and I barn doored him outfit hernandez before his price increased dramatically!
Have ash young at full price dunno who to replace him with if at all??
@kwyjibo, obviously EPL matches aren't going to be front and center in the States on CFB & NFL weekends, so pony up the extra $5-10/month for the premium sports package on your cable/satellite provider and get FSC, they show pretty much all the games outside of the 1-2 ESPN ones. And you'll also get all the ESPN's, Fox Sports networks as well as NFL and MLB networks, Speed (racing) channel, even the ones I never watch such as golf and tennis networks too.
But as for the silly comment(s) implying that taking mostly Manchester players is beneath a "real" fantasy player or something, well... that's just absurd. I mean, what is the end result? Are you an Arsenal fan too, care more about playing pretty than actually winning?? Because if you want to score points, yeah... why WOULDN'T you be loading up on Manchester players when both the teams are averaging a 4-1 win every week. I mean at this point, if you don't have DDG, Silva, Aguero & Rooney I have to question your fantasy knowledge in the first place. Oh, I get why you couldn't pick up the latter now that he'd cost ya a quarter of your roster salary, but you should have barndoored him by now anyway, weeks ago.
I make no apologies for picking Manchester players, and reaping the benefits as a result of it. You remind me of me early last season, heading into week 1, trying to load up on all the bargains while they're cheap and then putting up miserable first week scores as a result of it. So I did what any smart fantasy footballer would do, scrapped my yahoo roster, used my PL.com wildcard, and loaded up on regular stud Manchester & London players instead. Don't try and outsmart yourself, pick what works, no shame in the obvious.
@Theseus, I think some of your comments are quite harsh. Of course props to you for making the major shuffle and things worked out. I believe people like kwijibo and myself are doing the same too. Personally I dropped Aguero and Dzeko due to the rotation news. I can't risk another week of 0 while playing the catch up game. As for Rooney, who would've though Reebok Stadium is the place where they'd go on rampage? I'm sure if I asked you pre-game who'd score hattricks, you wouldn't have picked both Aguero and Rooney?
What I think kwijibo is trying to state is that he makes the effort of analyzing different players week in week out to judge how they would perform in different matchups. If both Manchester teams go on rampage for the rest of the season, those who had the big scorers on their rosters would pretty much be shaking their legs throughout the season. I guess the purpose of fantasy football is for you to pick a roster every week in accordance to the match ups rather than having one roster the whole season isn't it? :)
Anyway, like I mentioned earlier, with upcoming international matches, etc and injuries kicking in, things will probably change from there on. And I'm still a strong believer of an average of 80 per week and 160 on double game week is enough to secure at least a top 3k finish. Ideally you'd want a 100% return on the funds you spend, but over the years I learn that it's almost impractical, if not impossible. Right now the average chart is skewed, but I'm going giving up just yet! :)
116 points- first time over 100 this year. Need to do this every week for a while to catch up with everyone else.
@Eldwin - Yes, you understood exactly what I was trying to say, thank you!
I didn't understand why people comment it's wrong picking upp city and united players . Guys at zs point zy r good enough to earn +100 pt if zy start go down u can change them zs is it no scientific approach just take ze real situation.
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