Ladies and gentlemen please hold on to your pants – it’s the gameweek 24 review. Now breath a sigh of relief, as for most of us Gameweek 24 was a return to more some sensible scores following a rough January. This can be partly attributed to some more predictable results as Spurs beat Norwich, West Ham beat Villa, City beat Sunderland (just) and even United are starting to look like their old selves. It was good to see Leicester showing the form that’s put them at the top, while Arsenal and Chelsea played out bore draws v Southampton and Watford respectively. Boring boring Arsenal. Boring boring Chelsea. Still, at least Watford are doing well.
Oh yeah and West Brom drew with Swansea and Bournemouth won.
God, wasn’t January dull? I had myself panicking about virtually every player in my squad and there were no form players to replace them. I’m enjoying the fact that there’s enough going on now that one week everyone brings a player in (Firmino, Defoe, Arnie) and the next week everyone kicks them out. So should we bring Vardy back in? A number of people are transferring Ighalo out right now? Have they forgotten the points he got in gameweek 23. It’s a riot.
If you haven’t seen Vardy’s goal why not watch this video. Ranieri basically talks us through the goal like he’s telling a bedtime story so no need to see the real thing.
Yes, Vardy smashed back into our thinking this week with a whopper! Seriously though who’d have thought it. Vardy’s eleven goal record was immense but when his form dropped around Christmas I was thinking that the Vardy was over, that yes, he’d get a goal here and there but nothing like the level he had sustained for the first four months of the season. Well he’s back for good.
This is the Team of the Week:
We also saw returns this week from Ross Barkley (as Lukaku sat out), and Rooney and Anthony Martial are now doing what everyone expected them to do back in September. Tottenham’s result meant that there were decent points for Kane, Alli, Eriksen and the host of Spurs defenders, but a load of us captained Aguero instead because he is the best. We were all then robbed of bonus points accordingly so fair play to those bold enough to go for Kane as Captain. Beyond that there were clean sheets aplenty as Utd, City, Chelsea, Watford, Spurs, Arsenal, Southampton, West Ham and Leicester and Everton too prevented the opposition! Just the nine teams then. Plus Scott Dann got another cheeky goal.
Check out these player photos!
But how did this all affect the FFUK league? Let’s take a look.
Mark Turnbull (1st) remains firmly rooted at the top, that’ll be some six gameweeks now and while Mark hasn’t got an amazing score every week, he always does well and this week he again showed his caliber with 74 points extending his current lead to 16 points.
By contrast, Duncan Hannigan (17th) had a rotter. His 34 point total was eluded by all the players on everyone else’s scoresheets, Aguero, Mahrez and Toby his only sources of points. I feel for you Duncs.
32 teams in the Top Fifty all hit a score bracket between 60 and 80 points so before we look at some of this weeks big hitters let’s see how this heavily populated range fared.
Rich Harrison (3rd) had an impressive 71 point week despite giving Lukaku the captains’s armband. Rich didn’t lose faith in Vardy and was rewarded along with performances from Kane, Eriksen and Mahrez along with clean sheets from Cech, Sagna and Dier.
Marc Speer (18th) has been a bit of a bubbler this season, and has always been in or around the Top Ten. Marc was one of the few who owns Barkley and must have been loving his points last night adding to his returns from Aguero, Kane, Alli and Mahrez, plus three cleanies for a total of 76.
Likewise, Mark Tarbox (12th) also had a good week with 77 points though its odd to hear someone gloating about having Rooney these days. Yabah Turnbull (10th) returned to the Top Ten with 80 points with a maverick 4-4-2 formation which included no Aguero, Rooney or Kane but did have 4 defenders with points (inc. Dann) as well as Cech, Barkley and Vardy. Smooth.
Lester Deeble (7th) also reaffirmed his position this week with a decent 74 points but was somewhat held back by Sam Blake’s surge into the Top Ten. Sam Blake (6th) was 11th in the league last week, but it would have taken 37 points to jump those 5 league places in a single move. Not as easy as it sounds. Sam achieved his ascent with the benefit of the Bench Boost chip, hindered only by Charlie Austin’s absence against Arsenal. Nevertheless Sam earned 98 points courtesy of 4 clean sheets, the inclusion of Alli and Barkley, the Captain armband on Kane plus a host of others. A pretty good week then, and the highest in the FFUK league this gameweek.
Finally, a mention to Andy Craig (28th) who rose from 41st with his 91 points. Andy benefitted from 4/4 defensive players as well as Barkley, Alli, Kane as Captain and Enner Valencia’s assist. One to watch…
I have a feeling teams are getting tired or are going to get tired and I still can’t work out whether that means no goals cos of a lack of attacking energy, or lots of goals cos of defensive mistakes. Hmph. I probably won’t work this out before the weekend so will probably hedge my bets. If there was a Fantasy Football crystal ball it would be no fun at all now would it.
Until then, best of luck to everyone for the weekend, it’s tomorrow, woooooo!!!
PS. for anyone wanting to join in the FFUK End of Season knees up, please place your interest here
FFUK 