Manchester City’s Sterling – High, West Ham’s Carroll – Low

Oct 18

Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 8 Review

Written by @NiallHawthorne

Since my last GW Review piece for this website after GW 7, I have held an ‘Editorial Meeting’ with FantasyYIRMA himself (when I say meeting I mean pints, food, more pints and a lot of laughs). One of my ‘takeaways’ from this meeting (no, it wasn’t a bag of cans…) was that I sometimes can be a bit too ‘political’ in my reviews. Well, that’s the nice way of putting it. What was actually said was ‘What about ye! Would ye mind not slagging off Donald Trump every bloody week for the love of God! There was a black van parked outside my wee gaff for a week with the words Cash Investments Assets (CIA) on it, and I swear I’m under bloody surveillance because of ye, ya wee barmpot’. (Ed: Verbatim)

I took this ‘feedback’ in the highly professional manner you would expect. I called FantasyYIRMA a fascist langer. However I do take his point on board, so there won’t be any slagging off of Trump this week.

This whole Brexit nonsense is dragging on though, aye? The best example of how Brexit is going to impact on everyone in the UK is what’s happening to the value of Sterling. It’s crashing in value and to be honest it needs a miracle to be worth anything in the future. Well as is often the case, football mocks real life so we had Sterling and Jesus teaming up to plunder a whopping 28 points together last Saturday. 15 points from Raheem, allied with 13 points from Gabriel as City ‘stoked’ the fires of optimism within the Etihad by smashing 7 past the Potters. Mind you, with Sane grabbing 10 points, De Bruyne scoring 9 points and David Silva scoring 7, those of us with any of those City players would have been left with a lingering feeling of ‘what might have been’. I mean I remember the week I TC’d Aguero a few years ago when City walloped Newcastle at home and he scored four and threw an assist in too. Now THAT’S what you call Fantasy Fotball Value For Money when a team spanks another.

The next two stars of GW 8 both have less than 10% ownership: Tammy Abraham scored two goals (well he scored one and then robbed one on the line to the utter, utter joy of his owners) to haul in 13 points. However he was a virtual certainty to score highly compared to Manolo Gabbiadini who bagged 2 goals and 3 bonus points for the 2% of FPL owners who kept faith with / forgot to bench the hirsuite Italian dreamboat. I’m not saying that the Southampton strikers are suffering from a lack of confidence, but Shane Long travelled home to Tipperary last week to play up front in a Junior B Hurling Challenge match between Gortnahoe and Ardfinnan, just to boost his confidence in front of goal. The final score was 6-25 to 4-18 and he failed to get on the scoresheet. Lordy.

Christian Eriksen is the exact opposite of what I expect when I think of a Danish man. I think of massive beards, Vikings and a red-nosed Peter Schmeichel yelling at me, but Eriksen is the exact opposite. He’s clean shaven, looks like he moisturises a lot, never seems to raise his voice, but is just as devastating as his ancestors. His 11 points this week made him the highest scoring FPL player so far this season. Understated but deadly, like 15 points of Carlsberg on a Friday night (other lagers are available for binge-drinking sessions)

Our last two stars of GW 8 are owned by a COMBINED 0.8% of FPL players, which just makes a mockery of this game and all who play it. Yes, even you. It’s easy to forget that Tom Cleverley is an England International who once played for Manchester United. It’s easy to forget that Tom Cleverley holds the record for touches by an England player in a competitive match (165 v San Marino, stop giggling). Hell, it’s easy to forget Tom Cleverley. Arsenal fans won’t though, as his late goal broke their hearts and allowed Troy Deeney to call them wusses, the cheeky scamp.

Naser Chadli made his first appearance of the season for Tony Pulis and grabbed 10 points with a goal and 3 BP’s at Leicester City. He can have his moments can Naser, but like my ability to chat up stunning women during my younger days, they are very few and far between.

Now we get to the Villians Of The Week, and in stark contrast to GW 7 when nobody dared to score negative points, we have a stonking SIX players whose GW 8 score would look bloody good to the amateur golfer during his Captain’s Medal round on a Saturday morning. Cesar Azpilicueta has had a rollercoaster ride over the last 3 GW’s, seeing him peak with 14 points in GW 6 and crash with -1 in GW 8. Less Hail Cesar, more Fail Cesar for a pricey player with a whopping 15% ownership. Ouch.

Now I’m not going to individually dissect each of the negative scoring players this week. Well, I would, but I got a nasty legal letter from Mark Hughes threatening to sue me if I dared to eviscerate each of his -1 scoring defenders, Messers Zouma, Cameron, Pieters and Martins Indi. I mean let’s be fair, whoever Man City play at the moment could easily get their pants pulled down and it just happened to be Stoke’s turn this week. That’s fair, right Mark? Ah sod it, life’s too short.

Stoke City’s defence is as effective as **** **** without ******. Each of their mothers **** **** ********* while Mark Hughes is partial to *** ***** ****** ***** every Saturday night. Ahh, that’s so much better. Glad I got that off my chest. No way FantasyYIRMA will edit that out. (Ed: I give up)

Finally we come to Andy Carroll, a man so stupid that he once sat down to watch Countdown, saw the opening credits and jumped out of his sofa screaming ‘I got the Conundrum! I got the Conundrum! It’s Countdown!’. Yeah, he’s special alright. To get booked twice, for the EXACT SAME FOUL, in less than two minutes….well, you can only imagine what his teammates were saying to him in the dressing room. Mind you, if they used words with more than one syllable, Andy probably didn’t understand it anyway, the big lolloping lummox.