Gameweek 22

And we are back……..normally the interludes are painful international breaks……but I have to say that I always enjoy this one…..In my view FA Cup 3rd round is one of the best weekends of the football season……..and as much as I loved watching Palace beat City in the final last year, I equally loved seeing them lose out to Macclesfield on Saturday……that can only happen in the FA Cup!

Anyway back to the prem and the Evie Dove League…….at the top of the league mainstays Warthog Dukes and Tymon for Stoppages were joined by Stone Cross FC a team whose previous claim to fame was the Bench 41 pointer of gameweek 9, good to see you join the party.

In the January stakes, we have a worthy leader Delap Dance……….. well done getting that team name through the moderators, followed by The Hairy Mumpers and Donald’s Trump. Meanwhile sitting on their shoulder December winner Jossy’s Giants run of form continues………. rumour has it that the Assistant Manager has had a big role to play here!

As for the chips, you were all pretty frugal……..two Wildcards, one Bench Boost, three Triple Captains, and three Free Hits…..none of them troubling the leaderboard. It’s a sensible move to keep those Free Hits in particular in your back pocket……word is that the teams in the Carabao Cup Final, and the teams in the FA Cup semi-finals will have blank game weeks to look forward to on those weekends.

Onto Gameweek 22, the most popular transfers in are dominated by league leaders Arsenal in particular Gabriel and Rice, and of course Brentford’s Thiago who either goes on a run of being amazing or useless, nothing in between! Out the other way goes Foden, whose purple patch seems to have come to an end, Cunha before a tough Manchester derby, and surprisingly Ekitike despite the Burnley fixture. We also have some new options available to us, welcome back Conor Gallagher, likely to be a strong contender for defensive contributions, and of course those of you that had Semenyo in your team can benefit from having four Man City players until you make your next transfer…….at that point you will have to let one of them go.

And amazingly already in 2026, we’ve said goodbye to two managers. Maresca is back in Italy fishing with his father, whilst Amorim has headed home to sunny Portugal ……….and he looked absolutely delighted having been angling for the sack pretty much since he took over!

Just a few hours before the deadline so I’d better leave you to it…….if only we all had a hotline to Sir Alex Ferguson! Have a good gameweek everyone and all the best from all of us at the Evie Dove Foundation.