Gameweek 3

51 points……..the highest ever Triple Captain single gameweek score of all time…….almost 0.5m teams in total put this cherished ‘once a season’ chip on Erling Haaland v Ipswich and 14 of them were in the Evie Dove League……hats off for being brave enough to go early and avoid the temptation of hanging on for a double gameweek somewhere later in the season…..too many of you to mention all of you, but shout outs to ‘Saka Spuds’ who made an early bid for the top gameweek score by securing a massive 114 points to leap into fifth place……. and to ‘Hardly Athletic’, ‘Stockport Messi’ and ‘Chicken Tika Mo Sala’ who powered into the top three places in the league, all powered by TC Haaland.

In the Haaland v Salah stakes, after two gameweeks they are level pegging with both players on 24 points (pre captaincy) overall…….23 teams in our league have all angles covered as they have found a way of squeezing both players into their squad of fifteen, albeit only ‘Tractor they/thems’ has found their way into the top ten in the league, proving that it’s not all about these two……… albeit if you have got them both I would strongly recommend captaining at least one of them, yes I’m talking to you ‘ArtetaBall’….however maybe GW3 is the week that your GW2 captain Isak, who is still in over 50% of squads worldwide despite firing a couple of blanks, will finally deliver the goods as Newcastle love a home game against Spurs, scoring ten goals in the same fixture over the last two seasons……

Meanwhile other lessons learned in GW2……’The Steeroids’ showed us the value of a well thought out Vice Captaincy pick……. Foden had the armband but did not feature meaning Cole Palmer stepped in as VC and delivered an almighty 34 points….what a finish and a nice link up with Wolverhampton loving Madueke too……..could it once again be the case that we will look back on the ice cold Manc’s early season price (£10.5m) and reminisce about how cheap he was early doors??…….

We also had an early contender for the team leaving the most points on the bench……..step forward ‘Fortuna4Life’ who let 25 points go begging with Joao Pedro (8), Smith Rowe (10), Gabriel (6), and Henderson (1) all confined to the cheap seats. Also spotted on the bench was early scorer Szmodics tucked away as the 15th member of ‘Rovers Delight’……six points squandered by leaving the former Rovers hero languishing……shame on you ‘Rovers’…..shame on you!

And already the early season revolt has begun…….two teams went big and showed complete disgust with the teams they has spent all summer selecting by rolling out the wildcard……both teams clearly regretted not choosing Haaland in GW1 with ‘Bowen Arrow’ and  ‘Decendo’ both getting him in…… the latter somehow finding a way to put him alongside Salah and Palmer in GW2 – impressive!! Could be a good move…..if you are just not happy with your team then why hang around a minute longer?!!!

That’s it for this week, and remember that GW3 will be followed by the dreaded ‘international break’, meaning two weeks where you have to stare at your score with no chance to influence it……so make it a good gameweek everyone!! Your deadline is 11:00 on Saturday morning.

Good luck everyone, and all the best from all of us at the Evie Dove Foundation