With no days break between gameweeks, there was again barely any time to decide what to do. Added on top of that I had to get the head-to-head league table up-to-date, where amazingly this deep into the season, four men could still come first. Anyway, as I had two free transfers to make I decided to revert back to a team similar to the one I more or less started the season with. Back in came Sheffield United's John Lundstram at the back as he was fit again, and also I bought Aston Villa's John McGinn back in. I already had John Egan from the Blades but as they showed against Chelsea they have clean sheet potential regardless of who their opponent is. Villa are stuck in a dogfight but with them needing wins to stay up they will be shooting as much as possible and McGinn likes to have a pop at goal anyway. Out went Joel Ward as Crystal Palace had been frustrating me recently with the amount of goals that they were conceding. In addition to Ward, I sold Wolves' Adama Traore, as that miss on Sunday was unforgivable and I actually have no idea of when Nuno will start or bench him regardless, so I decided to rid myself of the headache. Delvin was my opponent and he had been in good form since the restart I must say, so I had to be careful.
I had no one featuring in the gameweeks first match as Chelsea beat Norwich 1-0. I left Todd Cantwell on the bench so with him non-contribution it did not affect me. So to Wednesday and first up there were three games, and two of them were necessary for me. Burnley and Wolves drew 1-1 at Turf Moor and there was an early injury for Charlie Taylor so I knew only one point was coming from him. Burnley got the draw in injury time due to another shocking decision for handball against Conor Coady. I state once again the handball rule should never have been tampered with, there will soon be three penalties given every game at this rate. Spurs triumphed 3-1 at Newcastle, as Harry Kane scored twice. The second coming right at the end as he stole all three bonus points. England's captain has scored 4 times in 6 games since II transferred him in for Sergio Aguero, and as only 10.8% of owners currently have him, I have been more than satisfied with that return. Imagine how much he would get if Jose let him take up positions further up the pitch, you know where strikers usually place themselves...
The last game on Wednesday saw Liverpool literally hand Arsenal a win, and when I say literally, I mean literally! Liverpool had 24 shots and 69% possession. But Liverpool also made two huge errors...Arsenal had two shots on target from those mistakes and Arsenal won 2-1. 'Complex Simplicity' was also an album by the lovely Teedra Moses, because believe me I have no idea how Liverpool lost this game. You cannot afford however to make those kind of errors at this level and not expect to be punished. The fact that they have been indifferent since the restart shows the reason why I decided not to give one of the three Liverpool players I own the captaincy. Sadio Mane had given Liverpool the lead from an Andy Robertson assist, and despite the Merseysiders losing, the both of those players still got themselves bonus points. If only they could trade those in for the Reds to get 100 points, 'sigh'.
Thursday, saw Everton draw with 1-1 Aston Villa at Goodison Park, but there was no John McGinn contribution. A cruel late goal denying Villa the three points. Leicester beat Sheffield United 2-0 at the King Power Stadium. There was no goal for Jamie Vardy, but he did assist the second goal that was very well taken by Demarai Gray, Vardy had hit the post at the start of the second half and I thought no extra points would come from in until that reprieve at the end. In the latter games the VAR played a huge part in Manchester United's win at Crystal Palace, but I had taken Joel Ward out, so I was not as annoyed as I would have been. In the game that did matter for me, Southampton drew 1-1 with Brighton at St Mary's. After getting feedback from E-Man from the 'One Up Front' Podcast about my FPL blogs, he asked me "why don't I captain Danny Ings?" So this week I thought why not and did just that. Ings thought he had contributed to Southampton taking the lead as his shot was saved by Mat Ryan, it then hit the bar and went in off of Tariq Lamptey. Ings was offside however, a superb call by the lineswoman Sian Massey, she really is good at her job. It was looking like one of those days for Ings, as his shot in the second half crashed off of the post. He did finally get his goal later on, when he was put through by Nathan Redmond and he kept his composure to get his 20th league goal of the campaign. A very important goal for me as I scraped a 2-point win over Delv, but there are only two gameweeks left to try and get the highest score, we shall see how things unfold.
@DubulDee
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