Fantasy Premier League

Mon Feb 04 05:46AM by Jeremy

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Well, that was a roller coaster.

There may be weekends like this where the goals fly in after 80mins and change the outcome of matches, but I haven't been involved (fantasy) in anything like this. 

I had Sagna in the early match and he assisted on K2's first goal (more on that later).  Then the main slate of games rolls around and I see in the team sheets that Oster is on the bench for Reading after showing so well against Chelsea. I had a hunch that he wouldn't play two matches so close together as he's just recovering from yet another injury, but I went with him anyway and it didn't pay off.  Palacios gets through the Wigan/WHU match without a booking, but without really doing much of anything.  Anelka and Larsson score for me.  However, Derby equalize, depriving Kelly of any points.  And finally, rounding out the early Saturday matches, Tevez equalizes for ManU with the last kick of the match.

Not bad... but Neal says that it's a Dawson's OG!  No!  But Yahoo! says it's Tevez's goal.  Phew.  I needed that.

So we turn to the late show - Sun @ Liv.  Nothing happening in the first half but the hoped for Torres goal finally comes on the hour.  We're rolling now.  But then after having two penalty claims against them waived away LIV are awarded a spot kick themselves.  Gerrard... on other teams in our private group to take... He hits it well but Gordon guess right.  He gets a hand to it...  but can't stop the shot!  Sigh.  The fitting end to an up and down Saturday.  All I have to do now is navigate Sunday.  NUF/MID and FUL/AST... shouldn't be too many goals.  I should finally be able to get through the weekend on the up.

Schwarzer my keeper.  NUF haven't scored in three matches.  So of course they take the lead - Owen from Emre.  There goes his win, his clean sheet and Huth's clean sheet.  Huth is booked for dissent after the goal.  Wow -- that's a 17 point swing!  Okay off to play pick-up in the pouring rain.  One last check of the MatchCast before heading out... HUTH SCORES!  That's 10pts for the good team (me!) plus 3 back for Schwarzer and negative points for Given who is on the team I'm most closely chasing.  Feeling good.  All I have to do is weather FUL/AST as the teams above me have... 

Jummy.

Bullard was on my team until late Friday night when I made my big trade -- Duff/Ballack/Bullard for Oster/Palacios/Larsson.  So far, thanks to Larsson, it was the right move(s).   But two kicks of the ball later, a beautiful assist to Simon Davies and a match-winning, set-piece goal on 86 minutes, and I get pulled back to the crowd for the week and in the 4-spot with the same ground to make up.  An up and down weekend ending with that stomach punch of a performance.  What happened to Villa?  Were they just depleted by injury and suspension (just Young and Gabby, I guess) or was Fulham driven by their new signings and the home crowd?  Or is it just that Jummy is back?  He did wonders for Wigan and started his Fulham career like a house on fire.  And now he's taking kicks and getting forward, even for a lowly side like Fulham, Jummy is going to be a player to have on your team.

Speaking of players you should have on your team - I told you I would get back to this - K2 has been a complete stud since the holiday matches.  Six weeks with his poorer returns being three 15pt weeks!  We looked at Ars' schedule through January and saw that they had some easier matches - NUF, FUL, BRM, etc. - but he's been carrying that team.  And doing it relatively quietly. We at the blog certainly missed the bandwagon.  I blame that on his price tag, though we all jumped on the Elk, so we must have had money to spend.  Whatever the reason, shout out to our favorite man mountain.  And kudos to the 10% of you who have picked him up on your fantasy teams.

More to say about the weekend, but my notes are all the way in the other room (yes, sometimes we have notes) and I'm too lazy to get up off the couch.  Hopefully we can broach some of the topics in our blog rountable.  But for now, how was your weekend?

And until next,

The Manager 

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