Welcome to the GW23 REVIEW – NO SURPRISES
It has been an incredible GW, packed full of action, entertainment, goals, and incidents; but when you think about, it’s pretty much followed the ‘norm’, there hasn’t really been anything that has stunned or shocked – in short, there has been no alarms and NO SURPRISES.
WHAT? You may be vocalising!
Please don’t shout, let me explain and then decide for yourself.
The GW started on Tuesday with a crash, bang, wallop and the MASSIVE news that reverberated through FPL – Harry Kane was out injured until March.
SURPRISED?
Hardly! We’ve been here before. He has an ankle injury EVERY year! Ironically it always happens on a SUNDAY SUNDAY (hang on, that’s a different GW Review)!!
Kane’s perennial ankle injuries: –
- SUN 18th Sept 2016 (49 days)
- SUN 12th March 2017 (27 days)
- SUN 11th March 2018 (21 days)
- SUN 13th Jan 2019 (42 days?)
Unsurprisingly this created pandemonium. Queue the mass exodus! Within only one hour of the news breaking, 175,000 people had shipped out Kane, within 24 hours that had soared to half a million!! By the end of the GW over a million people had dumped him.
STAT OF THE DAY: Pre-injury, Kane was owned by 78% of FFUKers, he’s now owned by 4%!
The Kane saga, coupled with the Alexander-Arnold injury (ahem) and Son departure meant there were over 1,500,000 (one and a half million) more transfers made this GW when compared to GW22.
Now onto the actual footy…
It all started with Wolves vs Leicester. I was mildly surprised that Doherty (1) was benched, but my overriding emotion was one of annoyance!!
It didn’t really matter; the enthralling game was all about Jota (19) who snaffled a hat-trick!
His form and FPL scoring was excellent before his 4 game absence, so the guy has form, coupled with the fact that Wolves have scored more winning goals in the 90th minute or later that any other side hardly made it surprising!!
Is Jota the next bandwagon?
Palace gave Liverpool both a scare and ‘run for their money’, but then again they always do. They’re becoming their bogey team! It came as NO SURPRISE though that Liverpool came out winners, NO SURPRISE that Salah (15) was again their star man and NO SURPRISE we saw another customary ‘dive’, ‘fall’, (call it what you will) from him.
Man Utd won AGAIN, the obvious and usual protagonists – Pogba (8) and Rashford (8) serving up the points.
Man City won AGAIN, the obvious and usual protagonists – Sane (12) and Sterling (10) serving up the points.
See, I told you – no alarms and NO SURPRISES!! I cut and paste the last sentence only needing to change 3 words & 2 numbers!!
I won’t go into details on the other matches, there are – NO SURPRISES – you know the score(s)!
In my opinion, FFUK is on a precipice. It is in danger of becoming pedestrian. There, I said it!
Most teams are becoming too similar, which makes it hard to rise or fall significantly.
It was a high scoring GW – for MOST FFUKers!
Top, top Dog and comfortably the overall highest FPL point’s scorer is Salah (177). 92% of us own him and the vast majority captain him every week – where is the excitement in that??!!
The next two most ‘in-form’ (Index) players right now are the aforementioned Rashford (7.7) and Pogba (10.3) – they are owned by 88% & 82% of FFUKers respectively.
I think we need a few more ‘shifts’ or ‘awakenings’ to stir things up!
Ironically, Man City players are currently the tangible differentials!
Sincere apologies for the sudden and negative ‘turn’. I’m probably subconsciously ‘licking my wounds’ over my decision to bring in Digne (-1) and Llorente (0) for a HIT (-4). They both scored, but in their own goals, which explains their miserable scores! Woe is me!!
Before I continue, I want to briefly talk about Llorente…
With Kane out, I thought he was the obvious choice… the answer. Whoever plays upfront for Spurs will get ample chances and score a plentiful number of goals, right?
WRONG!!
I should have followed the ‘majority’, who migrated from Kane to Firmino (8) or Aguero (5) – I already owned Jiminez (5) and Rashford (8) who were the other popular ‘go-to’s’. But oh no, I went for Llorente (0). BAH!!
I knew I was in trouble when they lined-up! There he was, standing next to a well groomed bunch of contemporaries, they looked honed, sharp, alert and up for it. He looked like he’d just got out of bed! Hair everywhere, and I’m sure I saw ‘sleepy-dust’ in his eyes!! If he was a horse, he would have been ‘put down’ at half time, he was awful.
As JPC (82nd) would say…
Spurs’ injury crisis deepens. With Alli (9) now out injured, Llorente’s importance has increased. He stays, for now…
In terms of the FFUK League, Lawrence Sprigings (1st) remains at the summit. He’s 40 points above Mark Storrar (2nd), that’s some gap; so until he has a ‘nightmare’ GW, he’ll be there for the foreseeable future!
Mark swapped places with (a previous Champ) Nick Johns (3rd).
Neil Stewart (4th) and John Harper (5th) complete the top 5.
Only two people made it into the nineties this GW*
Top scorer was Patrick Downey (105th) who played his Wildcard to great effect! He managed to score 93 points despite having that ‘useless shite’ Llorente in his team!
Next highest scorer with 90 was Josh Kelly (88th).
Needless to say, both these guys captained Salah!
Lowest scorer was Michael Colohan (229th) with a measly 15 points. He’s dead-last and hasn’t made a transfer all season! What a waste of a tenner!! Adds to the pot though I suppose!
*Now there was a third player who made it into the nineties. Top scored in fact!
Paul Browne (223rd) scored an eye watering 94 points!
That is before Hits.
Trouble is, he went -72 (you read that correctly, minus seventy-two) to get there, leaving a net score of 22 points!
He doesn’t care though as The Conts League doesn’t care!
Are we surprised by this supercilious and reckless approach?
NOPE!
He is metaphorically milking the Conts League rule book like a cow – HITS DON’T COUNT.
Since GW15 he has adopted this gung-ho approach to remain a ‘Cont’.
He has made 83 transfers in nine GW’s, which amasses to minus 296 points!
Daron Russell (24th) did something similar last season, but he implemented this ‘tactic’ with only a handful of GWs remaining.
Paul is therefore safe for another week.
In this Double Eviction Week, two weren’t.
Those who bottom scored and therefore evicted are – Tom Page-Chatton (75th) and Sam Blake (29th) with 59 & 60 points respectively.
Tom doesn’t have Salah, which explains a lot, Sam does and captained him – the rest of his team let him down!
Welcome to The Conts scrapheap guys! You have now been removed from the CONTS MINI LEAGUE
My son, Theo ‘Harry Houdini’ Allen (140th) remains. I might encourage him to take a leaf out of Paul’s book!
So, having read the above, do you agree? NO SURPRISES this GW… see!!
What I am most surprised at, is our very own Pete Cronin’s (38th) resurgence!
He had a dreadful start, dropping to 125th (page three for those with dyscalculia) at one point.
Slowly, steadily, silently he has climbed the league. He was fourth highest scorer in November and is currently the highest scorer in January and well on course, with one GW remaining for the Manager of the Month prize.
Go Pete!!
Finally. A word for Petr Cech.
With all the kafuffle, his announcement of retiring at the end of the season seems to have largely gone unnoticed.
An FPL and Premier league LEGEND.
FA & League Cup action (yawn) awaits before the next GW…
Stu
FFUK 