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Fantasy Football GW37: Nothing but BONUS points!!
Nothing but BONUS points!!
GW37 Is done and dusted and we have only one week left.
As usual we take a look at the bonus points allocated by the Official game.
Do you agree / disagree??
Who was overlooked? Who got Bonus points and left you scratching your head thinking …How??
Tweet us your thoughts @FantasyYIRMA
In the Tuesday night games Santi Cazorla had the sort of game FPL managers remember for years with the Spaniard managing all FOUR assists in Arsenal’s 4-1 win which sees Wigan relegated only days after their magnificent FA Cup win.
Despite this Podolski’s 2 goals trumphed Santi’s 4 assists with the German striker getting the 3pt bonus allocation.
Mancini didn’t win anything for 12 months and as such was sacked. Harsh? Certainly in my opinion. Without him City had a decent 2-0 win against Reading with Aguero and Dzeko getting the goals. Special mention to Reading keeper who not for the first time this season came out of the game with double figure number of saves.
Silva takes the maximum 3pts with Auguero not far behind on 2.
Lampard got the maximum bonus for Chelsea against Villa and fair play to him for breaking the Chelsea goalscoring record. Fantastic goal record that many top forwards would be proud of!
Dempsey took the maximum for Spurs in their match up against Stoke with Adebayor receiving 2, to be completely fair this could have been swapped around and no one would have questioned it in my opinion.
Mirallas continued his great form for Everton and gets the max bonus allocation.
Suarez who?? Sturridge has really stepped up in the absence of the feisty Uruguayan and takes home 3 bonus points to sit nicely with his 3 goals against Fulham.
Howson and Snodgrass share the spoils with 3 bonus points each for Norwich in their 4-0 rout against WBA.
On a memorable day at Old Trafford, match winner Rio Ferdinand takes the 3 bonus points as Manchester United gave Sir Alex a great send off with a 2-1 win against Swansea.
Elsewhere Adam Johnson and Gouffran took the maximum spoils for Sunderland and Newcastle respectively.
*R
| 11 May 12:45 | Aston Villa |  |
1 – 2 |  |
Chelsea |
| 12 May 13:30 | Stoke City |  |
1 – 2 |  |
Tottenham |
| 12 May 15:00 | Everton |  |
2 – 0 |  |
West Ham |
| 12 May 15:00 | Fulham |  |
1 – 3 |  |
Liverpool |
| 12 May 15:00 | Norwich |  |
4 – 0 |  |
West Brom |
| 12 May 15:00 | QPR |  |
1 – 2 |  |
Newcastle |
| 12 May 15:00 | Sunderland |  |
1 – 1 |  |
Southampton |
| 12 May 16:00 | Man Utd |  |
2 – 1 |  |
Swansea |
|
|||||
| 14 May 19:45 | Arsenal |  |
4 – 1 |  |
Wigan |
|
Bonus
Santi Cazorla (2)
Podolski (3)
|
|||||
| 14 May 20:00 | Reading |  |
0 – 2 |  |
Man City |
Guest Post: Current Yirma Champion reflects on season so far.
Thanks to current Yirma champion Tom for providing his insight into the season so far. Tom finished in the top 250 last season (Out of over 2.7m players) We are already contemplating copying his team 😉
First of all, an apology for my reply to a question raised in my previous post. I believe I advised the unfortunate user to watch out for Cazorla and Giroud of Arsenal, only for me to go and start with Podolski on opening day.
It’s an interesting time as after only 3 weeks we’ll see a massive differentiation of wildcard use. Some will have played it, some will be playing it right now in this two week window, whilst others attempt to hold their nerve and save it for a rainy (or, as the case may be, snowed off) day. There is no correct strategy here but whichever direction you go in, ensure you have a mixture of the players in form mixed with those who may be creeping under the radar with excellent fixtures coming up.
I’d imagine the likes of Michu, Hazard and Tevez will have found their way into just about every team by now so I won’t mention them. Any player who has scored a goal thus far will have been brought into the limelight so the likes of Nolan, Fellaini, Piennar, Fletcher, etc) will also be making their way into squads, but what about those who haven’t fired yet?
An obvious example of an underperforming team is Tottenham. I haven’t given up on them yet and with Adebayor surely pushing for a start this weekend, things will improve. Dempsey may or may not prove to be a hindrance but I believe there are goals here if you are brave enough to pick a Spurs attacking player.
As a Villa fan I tend to stay away from what inevitably turns to disappointment, but signs of life have surfaced and the team outclassed Newcastle last time out and were held to a draw only by a rocket from Ben Arfa. I’m not sure I’d advocate shelling out on Bent or Bentake up top just yet, but there are certainly goals to be had with a fantastic upcoming schedule.
On similar lines, Dimitar Berbatov poses some interesting questions. It’s another wait and see but if he can get regular games and dictate play surely he’s in line for a great season. Cisse and Ba didn’t become terrible players overnight and should pick up last season’s goalscoring exploits very soon, whilst Danny Graham must be given a little faith despite being completely overshadowed by his midfield so far.
And what about Robin Van Persie? A player plucked from obscurity and thrust into the Premier League spotlight. Well, not quite. I don’t believe in ‘must have’ players in this game, especially at his extreme price when we don’t know how he fits into plans when Rooney comes back and Champions League rotation kicks in. Saying all that, I have him slotted neatly in my team and it would be hard to recommend against him for anyone with a wildcard this week. For those without, I wouldn’t break the rest of my team just to have him no matter what he does against Wigan this weekend. After that fixtures stiffen up and rotation is right around the corner.
I’ve avoided the wildcard this week despite some obvious flaws in my squad. The first bullet point in my last post argued that you should pick players who will play. So naturally I stuck De Gea in goal. Ryan Bennett was an unfortunate pick as he was replaced by newly signed Bassong at Norwich after the GW1 window shut, whilst my GW3 signing Ashley Williams has now been left at the heart of a completely shattered defensive unit. Apart from that I was extremely fortunate to start with Tevez, Hazard and Michu which meant that I wasn’t chasing bandwagons and had the pleasure of seeing other teams panicking to transfer them in. For those yet to wildcard, I salute you, and I hope we will be able to keep up and make our move later in the season? This is where the men are sorted from the boys.
There’s a draft coming from that bloody window!!!
Closing time: The frantic ending to the transfer window
The music has stopped, the bouncers are putting chairs on the tables and there are football managers staggering around and looking for whatever they can get their hands on.
Alright, maybe that is a bit extreme, but the last few hours of the transfer window can often have the feel of a local nightclub with a questionable reputation. Virtually everyone is available if you’ve got the right moves, but you might pick up somebody you’ll regret in the morning.
Ever since the introduction of summer and winter transfer windows, it is the closure of both rather than the opening which always makes big news.
Sky television have turned the bi-annual event into a frantic soap opera all of their own, as men and women in a TV studio shout to reporters stationed in car parks full of expectant youngsters, all of whom are waiting to hear the news that a tireless midfielder from Feyenoord has passed his medical and completed his season-long loan. Cue the cheers.
The quality of these pantomimes have been on a steady decline since 1st September 2008, the day that the city of Manchester welcomed Robinho and Dimitar Berbatov to their two Premier League football clubs amidst the kind of against-the-clock drama that Jack Bauer usually monopolises.
The fact that now, two-and-a-half years after Robinho last kicked a ball for Manchester City, his unwitting co-star Berbatov surely stands on the verge of leaving Manchester United wouldn’t even have been considered back then. Both players, at £30m plus the rest, were going to be superstars for their new clubs, regardless of what anybody thought.
Berbatov’s performances at United can be debated over until all involved are blue in the face, but it would take a really convincing argument to state that he was worth the money that United shelled out on him back then, whilst it might take a hypnotist to convince you that Liverpool were right to spend a similar amount two-and-a-half years later on Andy Carroll, another who could be on the move again this week.
Yet at the time it was all about the thrill of spending. The clubs were operating against the clock and wanted to make their move, Liverpool in particular following their windfall from the Fernando Torres sale to Chelsea.
Were they not operating against the clock the club would not have shelled out the cash that they did on Carroll. The player was a confirmed target, but the Reds were happy to wait until the summer for him to get in their taxi. The offer they got for Torres sped up a manic process.
And that is what the final few hours of the transfer window are. Manic.
Clubs blinded by the thrill of the chase and the money involved make huge moves, and they are often false ones. QPR stayed up by the narrowest of margins last season after spending big in each window, almost creating new teams as they did so and removing the character and team spirit which had got them to the Premier League in the first place.
Staging the end of the window after the first matches of the league season doesn’t exactly help matters either, and can lead to players refusing to play for their clubs in a bid to force through moves as seen in the cases of Luka Modric and Clint Dempsey.
One of those got his transfer, and the other one will eventually. Players know that if they flirt with moves for long enough they’ll get what and who they want.
Maybe ultimately that’s what everyone desires.
The player gets his move, the manager gets to experience the thrill of the chase, the fans get to watch the drama unfold. In the background, the agent counts his money.
All of them were in the dodgy nightclub in the first place, so they must have known that it would end like this.
No-one goes home early and alone on deadline day, after all.
Fantasy Yirma: Gameweek 1 preview
Gameweek 1 preview: The story of the Blues
By now you’ll have clocked it. There can’t really be a Fantasy player who hasn’t.
The 2012/13 season will kick-off with the European champions gracing us with a double Gameweek.
It can’t really get any better can it? You’ve got all those great Chelsea players to choose from and the chance to score double points with each and every one of them, and quadruple with your captain – be it Eden Hazard, Juan Mata or Ross Turnbull. The world is your expensive, Russian oil money-purchased oyster.
Yet is it that simple? Chelsea’s matches against first Wigan and then Reading certainly look winnable, but players should be mindful that the price for the Blues doubling up on Gameweek 1 is that they’ll miss out on Gameweek 3, when Roberto di Matteo’s side (if he’s still there by then) will have swanned off to Monaco to take on Atlético Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup.
So the question facing Fantasy bosses all summer has been whether or not to load up on Chelsea players for the first couple of Gameweeks or to stay away. The answer can be found in an annoying club song, because as far as this Gameweek is concerned – Blue is the colour.
Chelsea’s best players are all expensive enough for you to easily be able to find replacements once they miss out on playing in that third Gameweek, and so at least two and perhaps three of Di Matteo’s boys should be in your starting XI come the big kick-off on Saturday.
As for who those players are, well the Blues’ midfield can now be considered a minefield due to all the players that they have at their disposal in there, and whilst it’s tempting to go with the £9.5m pair of Hazard and Mata, perhaps the old stager Frank Lampard (£9.0m) could come up trumps at the start of yet another campaign.
The usual suspects at the back for Chelsea will feature heavily on plenty of Fantasy teamsheets, as will Fernando Torres (£10.0m), a strong captaincy choice at the start of a huge season personally.
As is the nature of the game, when one team has a double Gameweek then another must too, and its newly-promoted Reading who take the honours as 2012/13 kicks off.
They won’t be expected to take anything from Stamford Bridge next Wednesday, but their Saturday fixture at home to Stoke does offer the potential of a clean sheet for goalkeeper Adam Federici (£4.5m, and a useful substitute in your team) and the defenders. They are likely to start with a back four of Ian Harte, Alex Pearce (both £4.5m), Kaspars Gorkss and Chris Gunter (both £4.0m).
Further forward, the Russian Pavel Pogrebnyak (£5.0m) has proved popular due to his success at Fulham last season, whilst midfielder Danny Guthrie (£4.5m) is a good signing for the Royals and has a goal or two in him.
Elsewhere across the division as the big kick-off approaches, the potential for a stalemate between Newcastle and Tottenham should have you looking at nobody but goalkeepers and defenders from the pair, whilst wins are predicted for Arsenal and Liverpool as they start the season at home to Sunderland and away at West Brom respectively. Reds new boy Joe Allen (£5.5m) has proved a popular buy with one in four of Fantasy players selecting him.
Manchester City start the defence of their crown with what could be a goal-filled success at home to Southampton – Carlos Tevez, at £9.0m, looks even more of a steal after that Community Shield goal – whilst Manchester United can take advantage of Everton’s often slow start to the season when they go to Goodison Park on Monday night.
All eyes might be on Robin van Persie (£13.0m) there, but it is the return of Nemanja Vidic (£7.0m) which should have Fantasy bosses cheering.
Follow me on twitter @Mark_Jones86
See more of Mark’s posts at @FantasyYirma and https://fantasyyirma.wordpress.com/
To join the free Fantasy Yirma mini league on the official Premier League game follow this link. Remember Free to Play … £50 to the winner!! What’s to lose?? http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/15005/join/?autojoin-code=44397-15005
How much is David Platt???
The official Manchester City cameras were on hand during the pre-season tour to capture this unbelievable bicycle kick from non other than David Platt.
With Man City boss Mancini already trying to clear his deck of unwanted forwards, combined with the ones he wants to keep and the supposed interest in RVP… we worry how he will keep everyone happy now Platt is back on the scene.
Expected Fantasy price tag? David Platt – a bargain at £7m 😉
*R
@ryano83
To join the free Fantasy Yirma mini league on the official premier league game follow this link. Remember Free to Play … £50 to the winner!! What’s to lose?? http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/15005/join/?autojoin-code=44397-15005
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