GW16: Kane, Salah, hurrah… Whatever will be will be…

The weekend is barely over and yet already the next game week Brighton and Hove Albions into view. The game weeks come thick and fast this time of year, and who else encapsulates those two attributes better than Mike Pollard, manager of The Unconsoled. Not surprisingly Mike didn’t let me down, and filed his report by return of post…

This game week saw a return to form for Spurs and the continued success of Mo Salah in front of goal.  As a result, the high point scorers in Fray Bentos had Salah or Kane in their teams, usually as captain.  Top scorer, Andy Dawkins, had both players and amassed an impressive 75 points, but risks running seriously foul of the Trades Description Act with his team “Bottom by Christmas”.

Well done to Thomas Ashman, whose Benchwarmers retained top spot with 67 points (Kane and Salah).  An honourable mention for Alison Breakwell’s Raised by Wolves, who bagged the second highest points tally of 72, thanks to Kane and Ottamendi.  As if Man City don’t have enough goal scorers in their side, Ottamendi now has 5 goals and is the 2^nd equal rated defender, points-wise.

Morata shows off how many goals he’s scored lately.

But plenty of the current hot picks failed to deliver for their managers – notably Morata, Aguero, DeBruyne and Lukaku.  GW15 saw many of those teams slide down the table, including my own Unconsoled – that’s real commitment to the name, Andy Dawkins!  My score was not helped by Morata, RIcharlison and Abraham missing golden chances to score when clean through on goal.

On to the actual matches, 3 cracking derbies on paper produced only a few goals and two shock results – Chelsea losing to WHU and Everton getting a draw at Anfield.  The verbal fireworks between managers was also muted, although Mourinho managed to get in a nice pre-match dig when he accused the City players of diving.  Jose had obviously forgotten about Ashley Young in his team, but he was proved more or less correct when Walker and Jesus showed off their diving skills.  Despite that, Man City probably deserved to win and the PL title race looks over already.

Group photo from latest Premier League Managers convention.

The manager merry-go-round is working overtime, but I enjoy having characters like Roy Hodgson and Sam Allardyce back in the PL.  I’d like to see more managers who resemble their teams in some way.  Arsenal and Arsene lead the way, of course, although they’re sometimes known as Wenger’s Whingers.  We’ve got Klopp at the Kop, and I look forward to the arrival of Jurgen’s brother Klippety.  Man Utd are known as the Red Devils – not, as you might think, a reflection of their attacking play, but a tribute to the bright red face of Sralex Ferguson caught in mid rant.  I just looked up the English translation of “Guardiola”, hoping it meant something like enormous sense of entitlement, or stupid money, but apparently it means “booth”, as in ticket booth, although Man City did have a player called Tommy Booth in the 70s…….

Anyway, Roy Hodgson was very disappointed he didn’t get to see Santa at the North Pole this Xmas – he just couldn’t get past Iceland.  Which brings us to the World Cup draw and the chance to see which unexpected minnow England can lose to this summer.  Having been recently beaten by Australia in cricket and rugby league, it would be nice if we could get some revenge in the most important sport worldwide.

Poor sod.

Australia beat Syria to qualify for the World Cup finals, and Syria had to play their home match in Malaysia due to their domestic “troubles”.  The USA will not be in Russia this summer, having been knocked out by Trinidad and Tobago.  This meant a sacking for the wonderfully named US coach, Bruce Arena.  If he’d taken them to a World Cup final, just imagine what the new national stadium could have been called!  The World Cup will probably be won by one of the usual suspects, but we’re bound to have some shock results along the way.  One reporter tried to explain how football actually works at the 1998 world Cup: “Norway beat Brazil, who beat Chile, who drew with Italy, who beat Norway.  Therefore, clearly Norway are a much better side than Norway”.

GW7: Aguero injury a car crash for the Unconsoled

Sorry for the delay in this weeks round up folks, I was out last Friday with Sergio Aguero and it all got a bit messy, he should never have asked me to drive.

Someone else who had a shocker was Mike Pollard and The Unconsoled, dropping to 8th, with just 39 points. Mike opted to keep Aguero in his team, which is either a remarkable show of faith or perhaps Mike is just trapped under something heavy and can’t get to a computer. Sat next to Sergio on Mike’s bench was big Fellaini, who’s 16 points were as wasted as they were surprising.

Alvaro Morata of Chelsea walks off after being subbed

Dilettante Donkeys scored 63, and went top, although it didn’t all go Dono’s way what with Triple Captain Lukaku scoring a relatively meagre 18 (6×3) and his leaving of Doucoure’s 10 points on the bench. Like many others Donovan also saw Morata limp off for a prolonged stay on the physio’s bench, so interesting to see which way our league leader jumps this week.

Jumping to 2nd, perennial title chaser, Gary Chapman’s GFC (C) played their wildcard and reaped the benefits with a very useful 78 points. A strong 3 man defence returned 34 points, Richarlison chucked in 10 from midfield and a useful front two of Lukaku and Kane added another 25 between them, with Andy Carroll throwing in just the 1 point as he was mostly down the bookies and eating chips during his game.

Andy Dawkin’s blatantly lying Bottom By Christmas moved into third, thanks to another strong defencive unit, Doucoure in midfield, and Andy’s pin-up and Captain Harry Kane scoring 26 points (2×13).

Who needs Jesus? Mourinho resurrects Fellaini all by himself.

Top scorer of the week and leaping into 7th, was the previously unmentioned Lambeth Lightweights, marshalled by man about town and over-50s Batique champion Daniel Sandford-Smith. Key to Dan’s chart topping 88 was a whopping 51 points from his defence alone, incredibly featuring not one but two Arsenal players! Kev De Bruyne contributed 11 points courtesy of his match winning goal against Chelsea, and Jesus and Lukaku added another 17 between them.

Honourable mentions also to James Griffith and the underachievers (his lack of capitalisation, not mine – Ed) who displayed great use of the Triple Captain card to coax 39 points out of Harry Kane. And the third 80+ score of the week was inaugural Best Dressed Man of Fray Bentos frontrunner Pats Alcantara who’s Nice Boys scored a cool 80 points, catapulting them from their usual bottom spots to the heady heights of 30th. Nose bleed territory Pats and just 3 points behind a certain Matt O’Reilly in 29th, the tension in your gaff must be unbearable!

That’s it for this week. Always looking for volunteers to write a round-up, get in touch if you fancy a go, no standards too low.

GW6: Jesus Saves (himself for Europe)

After a successful trial for youngster Matt O’Reilly in Gameweek 4, this week we hand over the guest reins to a veritable Harry Redknapp of the writing game, John Chapman. When not tending to his estate, or dashing off a quick colour supplement for World Soccer, John tweets about Belgian footy on his Belgofoot account.

John writes: The call from the Fray Bentos boys came in after midnight. Would I like to cover Fantasy Premier League GW6 – no pay but great exposure? It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Man of the week was Chelsea’s Álvaro Morata – whom coach Antonio Conte sees as a prospective husband for his daughter. Morata weighed in with three goals and 17 points, just ahead of Manchester City’s Leroy Sané.

Sané’s selection for City caused much gnashing of teeth within the Fray Bentos faithful as he replaced the ever-popular Jesus. Never an easy task. It almost certainly led to Mike Pollard’s The Unconsoled being knocked off the top spot as not only did Mike see Jesus drop to the bench without any points but also suffer from Conte’s substitution of Marcos Alonso in the 59^th minute. (Ed: You must play 60 minutes to get points for a clean sheet).  The Twittersphere was immediately full of stories that Conte was participating in a high-stakes fantasy league and didn’t have Alonso in his squad.

All of this meant that Donovan Lambert’s Dilettante Donkeys went clear at the top, thanks to Morata, Romelu Lukaku (Ed: useful striker) and David Silva. When he’s not checking out Premier League form, Donovan has been known to complete the odd triathlon.

Elsewhere in the upper echelons, Paul Chapman’s Los Yobos and Thomas Ashman’s Bench Warmers FC swapped positions with the Yobos going third. Leaving the top five were Trevor Garrett’s Penfolds Patriots, as they also put too much faith in Jesus, to be replaced by (They Call Me) Mr Donkin’s Wellesley Wanderers (33 points from his City boys).

Top score of the week went to Jon Exon-Taylor’s The Midwives with 82 points, all scored on the Saturday. He managed to stay ahead of a handful of punters – including Mr. Donkin – on 80 points. Remarkably, The Midwives dropped a place to 17^th. No, I don’t understand either.

A bunch of teams climbed five places, while Mac McNicoll was the biggest faller as his Mo Salah Mo Problems boys dropped eight places to the 30^th spot. And yes, he loves Jesus too – to the extent of making him captain for the day.

There‘s always quite a bit of interest at the sharp end of the table. Scott Grierson’s Rosbroch FC started the day with a one-point lead over Alison Breakwell’s Raised by Wolves. It didn’t last as Scott’s men opened up a sizeable gap with a useful score of 74. Alison had to be content with 57 points, even after playing her wildcard. She also suffered when Conte pulled off Alonso. After the game, the Chelsea man was heard to say that, at Fiorentina, they only got an orange if they were substituted.