Gameweek 26

Well that was a bit more like it!! After a poor showing in GW24, you certainly bounced back in GW25, an average score of 74 points, and some new contenders for the Evie Dove Foundation League £1k prize fund!!

‘Siuuuu you later’ maintained their lead at the top of the league on 1635 points, however the chasing pack is closing in with both ‘Hotel? Thiago’ and the famously insouciant ‘Studley Constable FC’ both banging out an impressive non-chip GW score of 107 points to put themselves right in contention.

In other news, as expected it was a big week for the Free Hit chip, with 15 of you going for broke in this massive Double GW, and as we feared ‘Gylos Galacticos’ previous leading score of 101 points was absolutely blown out of the water courtesy of a massive Wednesday night for Liverpool and Arsenal, with ‘R’s Ez dub’ Free Hitting a MASSIVE 130 points, with Van Dijk (24), Alexander Arnold (13), Odergaard (11), Martinelli (26) and captain Saka (30) all ‘chipping’ in! Very well done ‘R’s Ez dub’ that is a score that will take some beating!! Notable mentions also for ‘Sambuca Boys’ on 119 points, and ‘Nemos Wonky Fins’ on 108 points, both fantastic hauls, but sadly not quite enough to put you in contention for the £125 prize!

Ten of you hit the Wildcard button, and ‘Maltby’s Marvels’ on 117 points were agonisingly close to snatching the best GW score currently held by ‘K.E.T.H UTD’ on 118 ……so close ‘Maltby’s’ if only you’d gone heavier on the Red side of Merseyside rather than the Blue with both Coleman and Iwobi letting you down as Everton slide further towards the Championship. Even more impressive was ‘Real Sosobad’ running up 114 points without a chip in sight, and likewise ‘Gros Mismanagement’ on 113 points, with Vice Captain Martinelli praying for Captain Nketiah to not step off the bench, but alas……. he did!

And that’s not all in captain news……….in an incredible turn of events, we now have a tie on 115 points for the best Triple Captain GW score……step forward ‘MBF’ who showboated their way to the top of the pile with a team featuring only 10 players on the pitch, plus Neco Williams contributing zero points!!! Triple Captain Saka (45), Martinelli (26), Salah (11), and White (13) more than made the difference! Congratulations ‘MBF’, I’ll sit tight on working out what we do in the event of a tie for the £125 prize until nearer the end of the season – meanwhile I think 115 points is very beatable – over 50 teams in our league have yet to throw their hat into the ring – you have your target everyone! Hard lines too ‘Atletico Bermondsey’ – Triple Captain Nunez might have been a very different story but for an injury and our old friend VAR, better luck next time!

As for the rest of you, 37 of you stayed loyal to Haaland, 32 of you capitalised on 30 points from Saka (or 45 in the case of the aforementioned ‘MBF’), and 31 of you benefited from Salah sneaking a goal in right at the end of the GW. However a special hats off to ‘Spirit of ‘58’ the only team to captain Zinchenko for 36 points, and top trumps to both ‘Hotel Thiago’ and ‘Gabriel All Stars’ the only teams brave enough to captain Martinelli in a week when we all thought Trossard might replace him, and the gamble paid off handsomely with the Brazilian delivering a massive 52 points despite a yellow card and a disallowed goal!!

And finally……the ‘Redmen’ surge continues………buoyed by the success of GW24, ‘Redmen’ followed up by once again doing absolutely nothing, and notched a very impressive 82 points, which saw them catapult into third from bottom……….what a charge……….watch for more inaction next week…..it’s all hotting up as we approach the final third of the season!

The deadline for GW 26 is 11:00 on Saturday morning, have a good one everyone, and all the best from all of us at the Evie Dove Foundation.