Arsenal’s Ozil, Spurs’ Kane and Manchester City’s Otamendi Shine in GW9

Oct 25

Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 9 Review

Written by @NiallHawthorne

There’s an expression in everyday life that ‘The cream will always rise to the top’, and that is actually true, for a myriad of dull scientific reasons (and if you know a scientific reason why this is not true, blow it out yer arse, this is a Fantasy Football blog…). However if the cream always does rise to the top, this is because the dross sinks to the bottom, which was demonstrated in spectacular fashion this weekend in the Premier League.

Harry Kane tops the leaderboard this week following his 2 goal, 1 assist public humiliation of Dejan Lovren at Wembley on Sunday afternoon. I’ve not seen a more embarrassing, turgid, life-sapping display on Sunday television since they tried to replace Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear with that T(otal) F(eckin) I(diot) Chris Evans and Joey from Friends. At least Jurgen Klopp was able to haul Dejan ashore after half an hour…it took the BBC weeks longer to do the same to Evans.

Following closely in second is Nicolas Otamendi who delivered a sensational 15 points to the 18% of FPL players who have him in their ranks. Think about that for a second. That’s pretty much 1 in 5 of all players have Nicolas Otamendi in their team. That’s like finding out that 1 in 5 of the general population believe that the moon landings in 1969 were real! LOL. (They were SO faked y’know, but that’s for another blog…)

Getting back to the dross on display last weekend, the shambles that is Everton Football Club presented some old FPL stalwarts from Arsenal to shine on Merseyside in the early Sunday kick-off. Seeing the likes of Ozil and Sanchez racking up double-digit scores made me all nostalgic and yearning for the days of yesteryear when a manager could go more than eight games without losing his job, reality TV stars who I’ve never heard of didn’t fall off the stage and Jose Mourinho was getting the tea for Sir Bobby of Robson. The fact that both have ownership figures below 2.3% shows how the mighty had fallen, and how fickle FPL owners are.

It doesn’t matter if Alexis had carried your miserable arse to glory for the past three seasons, as soon as he threw his toys out of his pram at The Emirates you dropped him like a hot snot. He’s a real person too y’know. How do you know he doesn’t log into the FPL website each Saturday morning to see that 2.2% of players own him, with a single, salty tear running down his face? You ungrateful b*stards.

Two of the more surprising heroes of the week were both from the South Coast as Bournemouth and Brighton headed north (some more north than others) to plunder cracking away wins and heap pressure on the heads of the managers of their vanquished foes. Glenn Murray deserves a huge nod of appreciation for proving that he’s still alive and kicking at 34 years of age with his two goals at The London Stadium – on that performance alone he’s statistically England’s second best striker right now. Heh. Junior Stanislas also caught the eye by scoring one and assisting one up in Stoke on a windy Saturday in October. Senior Stanislas would be very proud. I presume that’s his Da’s name, right?

Final hat-tips of the week go to the Chelsea due of Pedro and Batshuayi. The former has the most wonderous hair in the Premier League – it’s so thick and luxuriant I’m not sure it isn’t an actual helmet. Anyway, I digress, he scored a WHAMBOOZLER (that’s my word) and assisted another for 12 points. The latter also scored 12 points and has continued his quest to become the new ‘Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’ of the Premier League by bagging another couple off the bench, a teasing titillating FPL option for those of us looking for a ‘differential’ and annoyed that our blood pressure is too damn normal.

Four players make our Villain Of The Week section this week, but only because FantasyYIRMA told me this wasn’t a LFC blog and I couldn’t write 17,000 words on the Liverpool defence. Some people are so self-absorbed aren’t they? Anyway, Idrissa Gueye has been referred to as a poor man’s Ngolo Kante. After this weekend he could be considered to be a poor man’s Gareth Barry, and you never want to be a poor man’s Gareth Barry, especially when you consider Gareth Barry was once considered a poor man’s Steven Gerrard. So many poor men around, eh? I blame the Tories.
Federico Fernandez joins this ignominious list because…well because he battered the ball into his own net, innit?

That’s a quick way to negative points in this game. He’s joined on -1 points by a duo of Hornet defenders who thought that their teammate Richarlison needed some tough love. When you’re 2-1 up at Stamford Bridge and you decide that you can showboat by missing an open goal, some will think that you’re a bit cocky. He’s a young lad in his defence, but he’ll never learn unless he’s taught a lesson. How very noble of Holebas and Kiko Femenia to allow Chelsea to score another three goals and demonstrate to young Richarlison that the boring task of scoring open goals should be completed, no matter how ‘uncool’ he thinks it is.