WELCOME TO THE GW4 REVIEW – UNBELIEVABLE
Ey up FFUKers!
There’s really only one place to start this week – Liverpool’s 9-0 demolition of Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon. That score line didn’t break the Premier League record, so wasn’t quite unbelievable on its own.
But the fact that Mo Salah (3) didn’t pick up a single attacking return from those nine goals is truly unbelievable. According to @FPLEditor on Twitter, the odds of that outcome were in the region of 2.4 million to 1. Wish I’d stuck a fiver on it. Or even just 5p!
Despite plenty of eligible captain candidates this week (Jesus, Haaland, KDB, Kane, to name just a few) Salah was captained by 146 FFUKers, which was 64% of us. That meant 146 pissed-off managers, most of us watching in utter disbelief as the ball continued to hit the back of the net without his involvement. One FFUKer will be even more pissed-off than the rest of us – James Tucker triple-captained the EMF (Egyptian Mother FFUKer).
Other Liverpool assets obviously thrived though. Particularly Roni’s defensive triumvirate. Roni no doubt thought Liverpool’s rear-guard performances in the first three GWs were pretty unbelievable, but he went some way towards balancing the books in GW4 as Trent (17), VVD (12) and Robbo (9) returned 38 points between them. That strategy will do just fine over the course of the season. Especially if Salah continues to miss out on the points.
Luis Diaz (14) cemented a strong start to the season with his second and third goals and joined the Kings of the Gameweek team alongside Trent and VVD. But Bobby Firmino (22) was the star of the show with two goals, three assists and maximum bonus points to stand out as the top points scorer in GW4.
Haaland (17) was the pick of the non-Liverpool players this week after his first PL hat-trick in City’s 4-2 comeback win over Palace. The first of many hat-tricks I imagine. Think I picked the wrong week to wildcard and ditch him.
Brighton continued their strong start to the season and Gross (11) continued his hot streak with his third goal in four, as Brighton pissed on Leeds’ early season bonfire with a solid 1-0 win. Gross is currently the third top scorer in FPL and Brighton’s fixtures still look great for the next four weeks.
Sterling (15) grabbed two goals in Chelsea’s 2-1 win against Leicester, despite the Pensioners only having 10 men for more than 60 minutes after Gallagher (-2) saw red. Sterling‘s looking nailed on for starts and Chelsea’s fixtures look tantalising all the way to the world cup, so his ownership might well creep up from just 6%. Leicester on the other hand are now rock bottom of the table and could be in for a long season.
A Man U clean sheet was a pretty unbelievable concept just seven days ago, but after dropping Maguire (0) they’ve had back-to-back wins. If they’ve turned the corner then at £4.4 Dalot (11) could be excellent value.
Neves (11) made the Kings XI after Wolves vs Newcastle finished 1-1 on Sunday. Wolves initially looked a little better than in their previous three games, and after Neves scored another goal from outside the box they thought they’d got themselves into an unassailable 2-0 lead nine minutes from time. But a close-range finish from Jimenez (2) was chalked off after VAR review, before Saint-Maximin (9) restored parity with a goal of the season contender in the 90th minute. Wolves now join Leicester and Everton in the bottom three.
And in the last game of the week, Henderson (9) saved a Kane (10) penalty, but the “world class” striker still bagged a brace as Spurs’ won 2-0 away at Forest. Forest looked decent again though, and with their 18 summer signings (unbelievable!) are certainly backing themselves to stay up.
Elsewhere Odegaard (10) shone at the Emirates as the Gunners came back to win 2-1, with Gabriel (9) tucking away the winner after his earlier cock-up let Mitrovic (7) open the scoring.
Brentford drew 1-1 with Everton and the Toffees’ own version of EMF (Everton’s Miserable Fanbase) continue to be underwhelmed by results under Frank Lampard. Rumours of £25m plus Gallagher and Broja (0) in exchange for ‘Flash’ Gordon (6) sound unbelievable and are surely too good to be true.
And then there was the claret and blue derby – it sounded like a pretty miserable affair, but a 74th minute goal from Fornals (11) was enough to give West Ham their first points of the season, lifting them off the bottom and out of the relegation zone.
Focusing on FFUK, Jamie Cooper top scored in GW4 with 107 points and now tops the table, although he’s tied on points with Kevin Ryan and only one point clear of both Vikram Marwaha and David Moore. Jamie’s impressive score was despite him captaining Jesus (1) for a meagre 2 points – unbelievable!
It was tight at the bottom in the CONTS league, with last week’s GW Reviewer Harvey Smith managing just 44 points. However, Mark Turnbull could only muster 42 points and low-scored, meaning he was the victim of the CONTS guillotine this week. Tough luck Mark.
Right, that’s that FFUKers, but I’ll leave you with one thought. After a pretty horrible first four GWs I found it unbelievable that I’m only 50 something points off the top of the FFUK table. So if you’ve started badly like me, just remember it’s still very early days. And even better… the next GW starts tomorrow.
JDS – Rice Said Fred (146th)
FFUK 