Welcome to the GW32 Review. We are firmly in the midst of the final RUN IN, thanks to The Pharcyde for the musical reminder. I decided against using their two of their other hits – Drop or Passing Me By (both arguably better tunes), which whilst more appropriate, may have ended up as an obituary to my own FPL team and I think I did that a few weeks back. Forget about me. The question is… Can you feel it? The excitement is almost unbearable. Another gameweek gone, one fewer left to make that run the top of the league. Now is the time. Actually in all reality it may be far too late but ignore all the pessimists… right now I feel like Mr Motivator, maybe its the weird luminous leotard I am wearing, but the snug fit really gives me the confidence to write, not sure if the rest of the passengers on this train agree 😉
Let us quickly run through the main talking points from the Premier League over the weekend before, more importantly, we see what effect all this has had on the FFUK League. It was another monstrous one with some eye watering scores to be found.
First up Spurs battered Watford. It was the very definition of a battering and the biggest surprise is that there weren’t more goals. Their 3 main midfield men all did the business, none more so than Son (19) with a brace, assist, clean sheet and of course the max bonus. In fact, he was the top scoring player this week. Not bad for someone who’s place is not assured and even less after Kane (1) returned from injury in the 2nd half. Two men who show no signs of slowing up are Alli (8) and Eriksen (6) who both kept their scores ticking along nicely.
There were some interesting results along the way but that’s not why I am here, you have all seen these for yourself, you may have even seen highlights of all the games if you were lucky. So let’s go straight to Monday Night Football. Arsenal – What more is there to say? We have seen this all before. Several years in a row. We all know Wenger needs to leave. The only surprise now is that one man can be that stubborn and the only people I hear backing Wenger nowadays are his ex players, many of whom can barely string a sentence together, but even some of them have come out voicing their anger/disapproval. The fact that Martin Keown continues to believe that Wenger is a modern manager with cutting edge techniques says more for his analysis and punditry. The players of course should shoulder the blame but the old saying that no-one is more important than the club clearly doesnt apply at Arsene-al. Back to the game in hand and Palace were brilliant, Big Sam continues to work his magic. A 3-0 defeat was the least they deserved with Townsend (14) and Zaha (11) running the show, nicely timed ahead of their double GW34.
Clean sheets for Palace and Spurs as discussed but they were not alone. Owners of any defensive assets from Boro, Burnley, Southampton, Wham and Man Utd were also rewarded. Plenty of points on offer then and this meant there was the perfect platform for some big scores, lets find out who these big scores belong to…
Nick Johns (1st) scored 57 points and is still the man to beat despite suffering a fairly average gameweek (the average was 56). But we have made contact and there is news of something very special coming your way very soon. Watch this space.
Elsewhere in the top 10 there were some big scores. 3 of which were in the 90s. Just a few points from the 100 club. Best of the bunch was Sean Griffin (4th) with 93 points via captain Lukaku (13 x 2), Alonso (8), Yoshida (9), King (8), Alli (8), Coutinho (8) and Costa (8). Well played Sean, the move to Dubai has clearly improved your fantasy prowess, we will be watching you closely as the season comes to a climax.
Next up in the top 10 was our very own Matt Reid (3rd) with another stonking gameweek score of 91 points. The man is on fire. Captain Aguero (9 x 2) was a solid enough start but Reidy could also call upon Gibson (8), King (9), Son (19), Alli (8) and Zlatan (12) – even his bench was on fire with Hennessey (7), Zaha (11) and Stephens (9) all scoring well, just a shame you played McAuley (1). It’s good to know even those at the top don’t get it right all the time.
The other man in the top 10 who I should discuss is Richard Green (9th) who managed 90 points with captain Zlatan (12 x 2) aided and abetted by Lukaku (13), Aguero (9), Zaha (11), Alli (8), Heaton (7), Sakho (6) and Davies (6). Well played Rich, hang in there!
However all of these performances pale into insignificance when we discover the top scoring FFUK manager this week. Congratulations to Kieran Webb (35th) who scored an amazing 114 points with the use of his Bench Boost chip. Whilst his Bench only accounted for 13 points his first team didn’t disappoint and his captain pick of Son (19 x 2) was truly inspired and in fact he was one of only two FFUKers to pick him. Points followed via Lukaku (13), Hazard (10), Sterling (9) and Yoshida (9). It really was something special and therefore a massive virtual round of applause is deserved. Moreover that is potentially a winning Best GW Score, however to win this prize Kieran will have to claim it. Andrew Roberts (36th) currently leads the way with 110 points back in GW21 but there are sure to be more opportunities to beat this in the weeks to come! Whats that? Who was the other genius who picked Son as his captain? The answer is The Phoenix, Scott Volker (45th) who managed 91 points with the help of his favourite South Korean.
However now it is time to spare a moment to consider those less fortunate at this pivotal time. In particular Chris Norman (44th) who, with just 46 points, is the lowest scorer on page 1 of the leaderboard. In other weeks this would not have been the worst score but there were plenty of popular players scoring big. Chris captained Barkley (5 x 2) and upon inspection of the rest of his squad the only other points scorers of note were Costa (8), Coutinho (8) and his Spurs defensive duo of Davies (6) and Vertonghen (6), I wont mention the 2 players on the bench that scored well either. Not ideal but not over yet Mr Norman!
Looking around at the rest of the rabble 2 familiar names popped up who have also underperformed. My old mucker Neil Stewart (19th) chose a bad weekend to take his eye off the ball and managed just 54 points. The only scorers of note for Neil were Lukaku (13), Alonso (8) and his captain Alli (8 x 2). What happened, were you too busy watching the Masters?
Finally the other man to mention is Mark Leatham (23rd) who could also only muster up a below average 54, I know how you feel welcome to the club, name badges below! Again with Alli (8 x 2) captain but just Lukaku (13) and Costa (8) turned up so Leafy’s squad was a sea of 1s and 2s. Not what any of us want to see.
So that is it once again, thanks for reading. Hope you are all set up for the run in. Massive news… We have just heard news of the forthcoming double gameweeks, once fully digested, we will of course be giving you all the info but in the meantime I will leave you with another Pharcyde classic just because the video (directed by none other than Spike Jonze) is so damn good, enjoy Drop
FFUK 