GAME ON!!!!!!!……we are back with a bang, and of course as ever in Fantasy Football, there is elation, there is disappointment, and there is………. ‘Redmenii’………
Firstly a big thank you to you all for signing up, thanks to your generosity we have raised over £3000 for the Evie Dove Foundation, which will allow us to sponsor at least one of our ‘heroes’ to go on and make a huge difference to many sick children and their families. I’ll keep you updated on where the money goes.
On to the football, let’s start with the elation – a cracking start for ‘Dom’s Dynamos’ with 96 points, powered by Haaland, Isak, Bowen, Maddison and Saka, closely followed by ‘Pigslayers’ (90 points), and ‘Gylo’s Galacticos’ and ‘The Kante Twins’ (89 points).
Well played all, you’ve laid down a few markers there – we are off and running for the big overall prize of £200, also the £50 prize for the winner of August, and of course for the top gameweek prize of £75……….. 96 points is the target to beat (it will get beaten by the way – sorry ‘Dom’!)
As for the £75 Zero Transfers prize, also known as ‘The Clattenburg Trophy’, we willl start to see this week who is throwing their hat into the ring, and who isn’t. Every team will get their first free transfer this week- if you don’t use it, you remain in with a chance, If you make a transfer, you rule yourself out (but of course remain in contention for all other prizes). By the way, substitutions i.e. where you switch around players in your 15 man squad, are absolutely fine to do and still remain in the running for ‘The Clattenburg Trophy’. You can also change your captain and vice captain every week. If you have any questions just message me, I’ll be happy to help!
Talking of captains, last week Haaland was the most popular choice…………160 of you were on the man from Norway (out of a total of of 215 teams in our league). Saka, Watkins, and Wilson also featured, and a big well done to the three smart teams that opted for Isak, bagging 26 points, the same as his Scandinavian counterpart.
In other captain news, a remarkable 11 teams threw caution to the wind and played the ‘Triple Captain Chip’………..this multiplies the points awarded to your captain by three (rather than by two, which is the normal upgrade for captaincy).
Four teams went for Triple Captain Haaland – ‘Kante Touch This’, ‘Golden Pickles’, ‘Triple Beam REAM!’, and ‘Hythe Ballers‘, well done to each of you – that’s a very tidy 39 points in the bag (and commiserations ‘Hythe Ballers’, you went a long way towards wiping out any upside gained with Isak and Saka’s 23 points rooted firmly on your bench, that hurts on any week let alone Gameweek One)!!
Amazingly four teams also went for an Arsenal midfielder as their Triple Captain…….no not Saka, that would be too obvious………’holly’,’Tommy’s Hotspurs’ and then two teams with differing levels of self esteem – ‘Worthless United’ and ‘The winners’ all went for Martin Odergaard (eh?) as triple captain…??
What did you know that we didn’t??????
6 points suggests maybe not quite so much as you thought!!??
Completing the set ‘Lana Del Rey’ and ‘vulcan bombers’ went for Triple Captain Watkins, a bold move that did not quite pay off – 15 points in total……………..sadly ‘Lana’ gave that back in spades with Leno & Isaks 25 points in reserve…… however not as big a tale of woe as our old friend (and new friend to many of you newbies to the league) ‘Redmenii’……………..Fresh from recruiting ‘banned until January 2024’ Ivan Toney into his team, our lovable Liverpool fanatic went big on Triple Captain Trent Alexander Arnold, who would surely fire in a hatful of assists against a Chelsea side bereft of holding midfielders, pre Caicedo and Lavia…………. the result………..3 points…..that’s 1 point multiplied by 3………..culminating in ‘Redmenii’ taking familiar residence at 215th place in the league!! ‘Beat Pimenta Utd’ you must be made up with that!!
Rounding up the Captain news – can someone let ‘Henman Hillbilly’s’ and ‘Sky Blue Army’ know that Harry Kane now plays for Bayern Munich?……..you can captain him all you like but he still won’t score any points!! Luckily for the ‘Hillbilly’s’, they had Onana as vice captain, notching an impressive 18 points despite desperately doing all he could to clothesline Kalajdzic…………. not such good news for ‘Sky Blue’, vice captain Steele, who behaved impeccably by comparison, but only delivered a paltry return of 4 points………..sometimes Fantasy Football is just not fair!!!
Three Bench Boosts also featured in GW1, this chip means all the points on your bench count towards your overall score……….., ‘Only Kruls n Horses’ added in a reasonable extra bonus of 11 points, and ‘Ansah’ an extra 7. However ‘Petr Cech Yourself’ did not fare quite so well, only getting 3 additional points, suffering from Pep Roulette and a Jesus injury…….at least that chip is dealt with and you can focus on your starting eleven from here on in ‘Petr’……..!
As for the football it was pretty much as you were……a comfortable win for Man City, a slightly uncomfortable win for Arsenal (can we already award the assist of the season to Martinelli?), Newcastle came flying out of the traps, Man Utd huffed and puffed, Chelsea and Liverpool cancelled each other out in the quest for the minor places, Everton will be in the relegation mix, Guardiola got annoyed that they have television cameras at Premier League football matches, and Roy Hodgson got involved in a scuffle….will he never grow up?! Oh, and the three promoted teams all got firmly put in their place, which particularly took its toll on Luton manager Rob Edwards, who ended up squeaking like a poor man’s Sean Dyche…..that’s the start of a very long season I fear!!
Gameweek 2 will be here before we know it, your deadline for any changes is 18:15 on Friday 18th August.
Good luck everyone and all the best from all of us at the Evie Dove Foundation.
