The Fantasist played it fast and loose with the noon
Saturday deadline to sneak in a couple of last-minute transfers at the weekend.

Confirmation of the West Ham v Manchester United teams came
at about five to, giving The Fantasist just enough time to bring in Fabio and
Antonio Valencia, bringing its United quotient up to four.

Although the reshuffle meant the last-minute removal of
David Silva (a goalscorer for City on Sunday), the cheaper Valencia matched
Silva's 11.5-point haul. Fabio, meanwhile, scored a disappointing three.

Thank goodness for Wayne Rooney, who rewarded those who
snapped

For reasons it won't bore you with, The Fantasist has only gone and missed the selection deadline.

And it's just about the worst week possible to drop such a clanger - this week's team features no fewer than SIX  non-playing, er, players. Over to you, DJ Campbell.

And that, friends, is why it really is a very good idea to make your changes a day or two ahead of the deadline.

The Fantasist will now ram a rusty screwdriver into its shins.

Good news for Arsenal fans and Fantasy owners on Thursday afternoon - Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott have been passed fit for the game against Blackburn on Saturday.

With the club out of Europe and the FA Cup, you can expect Arsene Wenger to pick his strongest possible side for the rest of Arsenal's Premier League games.

Cesc is obviously a strong Fantasy option when fit, and Walcott had been in excellent form before his injury. Expect both men to have a big impact over the rest of the season.

Another sorry week has left The Fastasist grateful for the respite
of the international break.

A spate of duff performances mean The Fantasist is now
floundering outside the leading 4,000 - pretty sobering stuff considering it
was bearing down on a top-1,500 position a few weeks back.

Plenty of bosses jumped all over Arsenal's Manuel Almunia,
then quickly wished they hadn't when he issued a chilling reminder of how he
got dropped in the first place.

His blunder for the second West Brom goal was classic Almunia,
and contributed to a pitiful score of minus-five.

Hardly any better were

Before we get to the weekly breakdown of how The Fantasist didn't take its own advice and paid the price with its weekend score, first some news on the members of the Fantasist Superleagues.

Boss FC, who have been leading the combined standings here for a while, have risen up to fifth in the overall table for the entire game. They are still a little way behind leaders Chengcheng's (141 points, to be precise), but there is still enough time for a late surge to the top of the table.

As well as that, second-placed Numero Uno have risen up to joint-28th overall, while Dragonbalz and Cincilatori

Welcome to the Fantasy Football chat. After last week's nightmare, The Fantasist is back, chastened, and determined to actually pick a team this week.

There are plenty of interesting selection issues, including Nemanja Vidic's suspension and injuries at Arsenal and Tottenham.

The chat starts at 3pm UK time.

It was a weird weekend in Fantasy, with only two Premier
League matches taking place (the third, between Manchester
City and Blackburn
is tonight).

Frustratingly, the West Ham v Wolves game was called off one
minute after the noon Saturday deadline, leaving managers in the lurch.

Points from rearranged games count towards the week when
they are played, so if your stars had their matches postponed, hard luck. What
it does mean is plenty of double weeks coming up.

Even for those managers who managed to fill their team with
players from the handful of active clubs, points were hard to come by.

As you may have seen from the heartbroken post on Saturday, The Fantasist missed the deadline for changing its team, and has been inconsolable ever since.

A weekend of fantastic sport which saw Birmingham beat Arsenal to the Carling Cup, England's rugby team beat France and the cricket team snatch a sensational tie with India was completely overshadowed by the six players retained in the team who did not play. The Fantasist wore a resigned expression of self-inflicted defeat much like those on the faces of Laurent Koscielny and Wojcich Szczesny did on Sunday.

Rather aptly, six was the same