To Know The Game: The Story So Far (Part 2)

The guys over at To Know The Game have provided Yirma with their look at the Premier League season so far.

After a look at their top three summer signings on Friday, here’s their take on the season’s three biggest surprises.

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3 BIG SURPRISES

 

QPR in last place: All those signings and bottom of the table! 2 points from a possible 21! A team comprising of Cesar (GK), Park Ji-Sung, Zamora, Anton Ferdinand, Granero, Nelson, Wright-Phillips, Faurlin, Fabio, Bosingwa, Hoillet, Cisse, Taarabt should do much better. They might have played Spurs, Chelsea and City in the first 7 games but they have also played West Ham, WBA, Swansea and Norwich. QPR fans should be worried as the next 6 fixtures see them play Arsenal, United and Everton.

Hopefully the team can gel together and climb to a mid-table position; such is the talent that is available to the club. However, Mark Hughes is the same manager who spent over £250 million at Man City without much success so let’s see how the next 3 months turn out for him.

Defensive issues in Manchester: United’s troubles were somewhat expected as Ferdinand and Vidic are worn down with age and injuries and Smalling and Jones are not yet ready. That being said, it’s not just the fault of the defenders; with a lack of a decent defensive minded midfield player and no first choice goal-keeper – Man U’s back line does not inspire much confidence. The attitude seems to be of the Brazilian teams of old: we’ll score more than you! Worked @Newcastle; not so vs Spurs.

Man City on the other hand had a rock solid defence… till last year. So far this year, Joe Hart is still amongst the best goalies in the league but just 1 clean sheet in 11 matches (EPL, UEFA CL and Capital One Cup) is a big issue. Their only clean sheet came last week at home to Sunderland; which hopefully will give them some confidence after the international break.

Criticized last year for being too defensive; Mancini seems to have become more attacking but at a cost. At the moment selling De Jong looks like a wrong decision but City fans are hopeful that Garcia, Rodwell, Toure and Barry will help shut out their opponents in future matches.

Role reversal on Merseyside: An 8 point gap in just 7 games. One club in 4th place the other in 14th – you could be forgiven for thinking that Liverpool are winning the race (they’re not) BUT with over seven months to go, is this the year Everton will cement their place over their Mersyside rivals or can Liverpool restore the status quo and finish ahead of Everton?

Liverpool are the club in transition with unproven players in the EPL (Borini, Sahin) and a host of youngsters coming through (Sterling, Suso, Shelvey) while Everton have a stable solid squad with a few minor tweaks (Mirallas, Naismith). The respective starts by both clubs seems to indicate that Everton will finish in front of Liverpool in consecutive seasons.

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For more great articles like this one visit the guys at toknowthegame.com, whilst you can follow them on Twitter at @toknowthegame.

To Know The Game: The Story So Far (Part 1)

With Yirma off on an international break, we thought it was a good time to let our friends over at To Know The Game take over for a few days and present you with their review of the Premier League season so far.

Over the weekend we’ll see what the guys rate as the three biggest surprises we’ve seen in the 2012/13 season, whilst they’ll also rate the title contenders and the runners and riders in the battle for fourth place.

First up though, here’s a look at who TKTG regard as the three most impressive summer signings in the opening months of the season. Enjoy!

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With 7 weeks gone is it too early to make a judgment on players and teams? Well, it may be too soon but that’s not stopping us at TKTG from using this international break to take stock of what we’ve seen in the EPL thus far. The next few months are going to be quite hectic for English clubs, which will see the fortunes of some change while others have probably set their tone for the rest of the season. In this piece, we look at the 3 signings that we feel have made the most impact, followed by our take on the big surprises of the season so far  and we wrap things up with an analysis of the race for 4th place and the battle for the Premiership title.

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TOP 3 SIGNINGS

Robin van Persie: He scores when he wants!! He scores when he wants!! – RvP at Arsenal or RvP at Man United – the chant remains the same. Look away Arsenal fans but van Persie has been a success at United. 7 goals and 2 assists so far (EPL and UEFA CL) backs up his impressive start to the season. Things will only get better once United learn to play to his strengths and he gels with his teammates – and make no mistake, RvP WILL gel with Kagawa and Rooney. Their only issue might be if Rooney is OK with RvP as the main striker. However, as we have already covered – Rooney is quite liking his midfield role. RVP for the Golden Boot? You bet.

Santi Cazorla: The best import of the season! Hazard who? While Hazard has certainly been impressive; Santi brings a whole new dimension to the game – he can attack; he tracks back; he has great positional play; shoots with his left; shoots with his right – and all that with a smile on his face. Arsenal fans are already calling him their favourite Spanish player ever….move over Arteta and Cesc – Santi is awesome!

Michu: while there was a case for both Kone (Wigan) and Fletcher (Sunderland); we at TKTG felt Michu is more deserving of this spot. Not only does he have the skill but his reading of the game is excellent – he is an “intelligent” footballer. The new Tim Cahill? Even most supporters of the top 4 clubs would want him in their team and that is a testament to his immense talent and massive potential.

Honorable mention: While not a  new signing; Raheem Sterling at Liverpool looks like an exciting youngster. Quick, fast, direct he will hopefully continue to do better. He already has 6 starts in the league and could form an exciting partnership with Suarez and Borini.

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For more great articles like this one visit the guys at toknowthegame.com, whilst you can follow them on Twitter at @toknowthegame.

GW7 – THE REVIEW! (by @Shots_on_target for FantasyYirma)

Many thanks to @shots_on_target for another great article – you can read more at http://www.shotsontarget.co.uk/

check it out!!

@fantasyyirma


Chelsea delivered what you would expect of them in this fixture.  I had them down beforehand for 9 SOT which would lead to 3 goals.  Ivanovic does what Ivanovic does though, with a searing effort and they score 4 .Lots of players impressed in Blue, Mata, Hazard, Oscar and Torres plenty involved, and Lampard to a lesser extent.  Despite Mata’s 2 assists (expect Transfers in this week) the love is still spread out between as many as 4 players in this team.   Norwich put up a good enough fight.  I predicted they’d have 2.4 SoT, they had 2 and managed a goal from that.  Holt put in a good performance and he looks like he’ll be back amongst the goals soon enough.

Swansea should feel hard done by not to have won this one with a massive number of opportunities to score with Ki and Moore most involved, Moore in just 50 minutes mustering 3 SoT.  Ki continues to look like he could actually be the new Steven Gerrard, and not just the Korean one.  Michu only had the one shot on target and looked to be the least involved in actual goal threat of the Swansea front line.  The Royals didn’t really do enough to warrant 2 goals.  Karacan might be worth a gander but overall this lot are fantasy no-no’s.  Pogrebnyak included.


Martinez was quoted after the match saying that Wigan looked like creating something every time they got into the final third – creating shots off target maybe.  That they scored 2 here was fortunate from a pure numbers point of view.  Kone and Di Santo though are clearly the focal point of Wigan’s attack and they seem to know where the net is, with both favouring shots in the penalty box.  I don’t think Kone is worth £1m more than Di Santo though.  Everton had the better chances to win this game with Pienaar the main creator and Jelavic and Mirallas benefactors of those.  Osman and Baines were busy too, but where was Fellaini?  No shots at all, and only one key pass matching Neville’s output.  Oh dear.

Not quite the dominant display that I expected from the Baggies with my Select XI “secret weapon” pick Lukaku on the bench again.  Your eyes are drawn to the midfield trio of Gera, Morrison and Mulumbu for West Brom, with them pretty much equalling each other in attacking performance, indeed, with them all grabbing goals, and Morrison adding 3 key passes and an assist to top the bunch.  In comparison, the “strikers” Long, Odemwingie, Lukaku and Rosenberg all did little.  For Rangers, Granero deserved his goal, will have to keep an eye on him, as well as Taarabt.  The Algerian has so much fantasy promise but can be so frustrating too.

Sunderland did their best to stem the Champion’s attacking talents but Kolorav’s goal so early probably undone them.  Kolorav was pretty brilliant for a defender and with Mancini’s tactical plans allowing such freedom for the fullback it’s a shame for fantasy manager’s that there is so much rotation in that position.  No-one in particular dominated City’s attacking chances though, with Tevez not even getting a shot on target, although Aguero was a real force when he came on..  Conversely, all of the Black Cats play is through Steven Fletcher and he’s already shown he doesn’t need a great amount of opportunity to score. This is why he should be considered a fantasy target when the fixtures line-up.  Not because he “always scores”, but because he’s the focal point of a team’s attack and one of the most proven finishers at this level.

Giroud put up a great display in this game against difficult opponents to boot.  This performance netted the Frenchman the top F.SCORE from Day One of GW7.  Podolski also had his best game in England and Walcott impressed greatly in a 35 min sub appearance.  Cazorla’s goal was from his only shot of the game to hit the target, and he does seem prone to shoot from range – but you have to shoot to score.  This was a good performance from Arsenal and West Ham weren’t given a great deal of chances.   When they did though, they got them in the box, which is an indicator of  Allardyce’s style of play.  Andy Carroll was busy on his full return from injury creating most of the chances.  His relationship with Nolan looks to be a good one.

Pretty even-stevens at St.Mary’s between two of the season’s most attack-minded clubs outside the big boys, with both sides posting very similar number shot totals.  A lack of genuine quality finishing summed up both teams, with Lambert and Rodallega particular guilty of missing the target when given a chance.  Lallana was the most creative player for the hosts, whilst Richardson off the bench to replace Kacaniklic looked lively for Fulham who dearly missed the class of Berbatov.

A dominant attacking display by Tottenham against a Villa side yet to find their rhythm under Lambert.  Spurs did not really make their dominance count though, with a lot of wasted efforts, particular from Defoe on his 30th birthday, whose place you’d imagine is now under real threat from Adebayor.  Aaron Lennon continued to rack up key passes and bagged a goal too, something he doesn’t do often enough.  Gareth Bale continues to provide a real threat from midfield and was unlucky today hitting the post in the final 10 minutes.  Surprisingly, Clint Dempsey playing in the support role behind Defoe did not get a shot off all game, you’d hope he could feed off Adebayor better than Defoe in future.


The Stoke players came out and did exactly what their manager wanted them to do, defend like hell, and go home with a point.  Liverpool fans and owners of Suarez in particular should not feel downhearted; this was never going to be an easy game.   After Arsenal, Stoke have conceded the fewest shots on target in the Premiership this season in a run of fixtures which included games against Chelsea, City and Arsenal.  Liverpool did get plenty of possession and chances of course, with Suarez being the main threat again.   Stoke really didn’t muster enough of an attacking threat to deserve further mention.

This was a really dominant display by United in both attack and defence and they were fully deserving of a three goal victory.  Rooney played a free role in midfield and was a force to be reckoned with, both in a creative sense and with his shooting.  His lack of shots in the box though does reflect his deeper role and the goals may not be so forthcoming this year as in seasons past.  Van Persie had a quite game by his standards and owners of the £13.5m striker should start to worry how the fluidity in United’s attack is going to impact on his goal threat.  For Newcastle, Demba Ba remains the chief threat, with the lion’s share of the Magpies limited chances.

TOM CLEVERLEY GOAL – FLUKE OR FINESSE

So was it a sublime finish from Tom Cleverley today for Manchester United against Newcastle – or did he overhit a ball intended for the head of RVP???

 

Lets see your comments below!!

 

GW7: NOTHING BUT BONUS POINTS

 

06 Oct 12:45 Man City Man City 3 – 0 Sunderland Sunderland
06 Oct 15:00 Chelsea Chelsea 4 – 1 Norwich Norwich
Bonus
Ivanovic
Hazard (2)
Torres (3)
06 Oct 15:00 Swansea Swansea 2 – 2 Reading Reading
Bonus
Routledge (3)
Bonus
Hunt
Pogrebnyak (2)
06 Oct 15:00 West Brom West Brom 3 – 2 QPR QPR
Bonus
Morrison (2)
Gera (3)
Bonus
Taarabt
06 Oct 15:00 Wigan Wigan 2 – 2 Everton Everton
Bonus

Di Santo
Kone (2)
Bonus
Pienaar (3)
06 Oct 17:30 West Ham West Ham 1 – 3 Arsenal Arsenal
07 Oct 13:30 Southampton Southampton 2 – 2 Fulham Fulham
Bonus
Fox
Fonte (3)
Bonus
Hughes (2)
07 Oct 15:00 Liverpool Liverpool 0 – 0 Stoke City Stoke City
Bonus
Wisdom (3)
Gerrard
Bonus
Begovic (2)
07 Oct 15:00 Tottenham Tottenham 2 – 0 Aston Villa Aston Villa
07 Oct 16:00 Newcastle Newcastle 0 – 3 Man Utd Man Utd

ANYONE WONDER WHAT DENILSON IS UP TO THESE DAYS??

Not bad – take a bow sunshine – take a bow.

WARNING: THIS VIDEO INCLUDES A VERY LONG PRONUNCIATION OF THE WORD ‘GOAL’

TIPS OUT FOR YIRMA: GW7

FY Tipster Challenge

Here within the Fantasy Yirma administration team, we like to pretend we have money. With that in mind we have devised a FY Tipster selection competition.

The loser from the Admin team at the end of the season will pay the £50 prize fund for the mini league!!

Here’s the current standings after 6:

FY Tipster GW7 Spend GW7 Return Total Spend (GW6) Total Return  Difference
@pedro_lamb £30  75 £210 £75.36 – £134.64
@mark_jones86 £30  19.09 £210 £55.42 – £154.58
@ryano83 £30  0 £210 £236.33 + £26.33

Rules

Each player must place 3 £10 bets (Monopoly) per gameweek. (SINGLES ONLY)

The bet can be on any individual result/market/outcome with the only proviso being that you must stipulate the odds at time of selection submission and it must be from the same odds provider.

In practice this means your 3 £10 bets can be across 3 fixtures or 3 markets within one match.

We challenge everyone to make 3 selections also and we will include this in our table. Make your selection in the comments below.

Get your tips out for Yirma!!!

Gameweek 6 tips:

@pedro_lamb

£10 Defoe first Goal scorer  7/2 LOST

£10 Nasri first Goal scorer 9/1 LOST

£10 MUFC  to win by 2 13/2 LOST

@mark_jones86

£10 Reading to win 16/5 LOST

£10 Arsenal to win 10/11 WIN £19.09

£10 Newcastle to win 3/1 LOST

@ryano83

£10 Southampton win 13/8 LOST

£10 QPR win 3/1 LOST

£10 Swansea win Evens LOST

GW7 NIFFTY League (Northern Ireland Fantasy Football through YIRMA)

here’s all the head to head games for the NIFFTY league this week.

Some good games!!

 

 

Gameweek 7

hotspurs v Norfolk & Hope Again
Boo Boys v TheNo1Gaz
Werder Beertent? v Ninja Kagawa
FC Bull Mtn. v Supreme Dream
Jamrock Rovers v The MLN’s
Sandy row yup yup 11 v CanIgetawhoopwhoop!
Bliff City v Yanchester UNited
TIPPY v Kagawa Allstars
Summer’s Shooters v Phil Dowd’s Shroud
Not A Chance v Team Webb
Philacio’s Delight v Carlsberg 11
Shin Pad Feeno v SRC1712
#FPL Tips & Advice v PortMagic
O’Lynn rigs this FC v Lamb County
Haven’t Got a Kalou v Cricklewood NW2
@ourweecountry v AP’s Bitter Revenge
@liambo9 v Luca’s Legends
Nico’s Newbies v Fall road hallions
Wilkos newco v Leave my arse alona

 

TOP 10 AS IT STANDS

 

+- # Team W D L + Pts
1 Ninja Kagawa 5 0 1 366 15
2 hotspurs 5 0 1 359 15
3 Haven’t Got a Kalou 5 0 1 356 15
4 Jamrock Rovers 5 0 1 333 15
5 Summer’s Shooters 5 0 1 270 15
6 Leave my arse alona 4 1 1 367 13
7 Phil Dowd’s Shroud 4 0 2 376 12
8 Kagawa Allstars 4 0 2 353 12
9 Cricklewood NW2 4 0 2 339 12
10 Wilkos newco 4 0 2 310 12

 

Gameweek 7 preview: Can Suarez repeat the trick?

Gameweek 7 preview: Can Suarez repeat the trick?

Luis Suarez likes Norwich. Norwich doesn’t like Luis Suarez.

In fact, quite a few people don’t like Luis Suárez (£9.4m), but Fantasy managers shouldn’t be amongst them in the next few weeks as the Uruguayan ace looks to provide the goals which shoot Brendan Rodgers’ Reds up the Premier League.

Being Liverpool hasn’t always been too easy whilst they’ve had Suarez around, but Rodgers’ new philosophy is designed to get the best out of the Reds’ No. 7, with last Saturday’s hat-trick at Norwich proving that it is a philosophy which is beginning to click into gear.

Saturday’s treble was Suarez’s second successive hat-trick at Carrow Road, and if you’d backed him to repeat the trick against previously wounded opponents then you might like to see who Liverpool are welcoming to Anfield on Sunday afternoon.

Suarez scored twice against Stoke in the League Cup last season and then once more against the Potters in the FA Cup, helping the Reds towards the finals of both competitions and no doubt leaving Stoke sick of the sight of him.

They’ll be coming up against him on Sunday though, and even though Tony Pulis will no doubt be drumming plans of how to stop him into his defenders’ heads as we speak, Suarez will fancy his chances against an outfit he has shone against before.

Steven Gerrard (£9.4m) managed to get on the scoresheet alongside Suarez last Saturday, but perhaps better value can be found in his fellow midfielder Nuri Sahin (£6.7m), another who found the net at Carrow Road and a gifted playmaker who is only likely to see his influence on this Liverpool team grow the longer the season goes on. The Turk is good enough to warrant Real Madrid spending big money on him last summer, whilst Arsene Wenger was desperate to bring him to Arsenal before he chose Anfield. Three goals and two assists in his last two games hint at a lot more points to come.

Away from Liverpool, Chelsea are still likely to be most Fantasy manager’s focus groups for another weekend, with the re-emergence of one player in particular surely not going unnoticed.

Juan Mata (£8.8m) might be considered old news by some following the arrivals of Eden Hazard (£10.3m) and Oscar (£7.8m) in the summer, but the Spanish magician has started to work his magic in the past week, scoring four goals in his last three games and providing the assist for Fernando Torres (£9.9m) to find the net against Arsenal.

The Euro 2012 winner sparkled during his first season in England, but a gruelling summer both in Poland and the Ukraine and then at the Olympics affected his stock amongst Fantasy bosses at the beginning of this season. Currently only 4.3% of teams have him on their books, but that will only grow in the coming weeks.

The game of the weekend is surely Newcastle against Manchester United, which threatens to become a shootout between Demba Ba (£8.1m) and Robin van Persie (£13.5m) but could be settled by the skills of Hatem Ben Arfa (£7.9m). The Frenchman has either scored or assisted in each of Newcastle’s three games at St James’s Park (sorry Mike Ashley) this season.

Manchester City, Everton and Tottenham all have fixtures which will make their players popular with Fantasy bosses, but for our third player selection of the week we turn to an old Fantasy favourite – the player in the wrong position.

Arsenal’s Gervinho (£7.4m) may be listed as a midfielder but he certainly doesn’t play like one, and the in-form Ivorian will be looking to improve his record of five goals in his last five games when the Gunners go to West Ham.

It’s a short journey for them, but it could be a profitable one for you.

@Mark_Jones86

 

EMILE HESKEY ASSAULT COURSE WITH ROD HULL, EMU & GROTBAGS???

DID I JUST WRITE THAT HEADLINE OR HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD ?!?!?

Emile Heskey, Grotbags, Rod Hull in a top hat and Emu… basically all the components to make a fantastic video.

Can’t argue with that, you just can’t