My opponent this week was a member of my own family in my cousin Clement. Unless he was to make some changes then we had very different teams before the deadline, so I really did not know what to expect. Would the Friday deadline catch him out or would he be on point? I had two free transfers available and I had already decided from quite early on to bring in Aston Villa's Ollie Watkins for Rhian Brewster (Sheffield United). Also I was going to sell Wilfried Zaha despite his brilliant last game and get in Wolves' Pedro Neto. I wanted to see if I could sneak in a cheaper player than Zaha that could grab me some points. This was as Crystal Palace had Spurs and then after that they had Liverpool, and of course I do not start anyone against my club. At £5.7m I saw great potential in Neto who had already amassed over 50 points thus far. Very late on I had an idea. I started to play with different ways to get Kevin De Bruyne into my team. Manchester City had the derby with Manchester United, but it was the game after that I was thinking of. City's midweek game was against West Brom at home, and I was looking ahead to this game as being a chance to grab some real points. This would coincide with the fact that Liverpool are playing against Spurs in gameweek 13 and as I have stated I do not start players against us. Therefore there was a window here to sell Heung-min Son and get in a premier replacement. If I was to let go of Zaha along with that then it would leave me with £4.9m and I could then squeeze in the man I had to start the season West Ham's Tomas Soucek. A man I speak to regularly about FPL Rian (Milito) was missing, so I had a brief discussion with Khurram (K) and Darren (D-Man) and I ended up going with my first option of Neto and Watkins. As always after making changes you fear the worst. When Friday's deadline went I saw that Clement did not make any transfers, I am not sure whether this was planned or he missed the deadline. Nevertheless things would be interesting as he had some players who had really been accumulating points.
Friday's game was between Leeds and West Ham. I needed the Hammers to score as Clement had Leeds' Stuart Dallas in his defence. As well as that I needed Patrick Bamford to have a quiet game. So you guessed it, not even six minutes were on the clock and Bamford raced through and was brought down by Lukasz Fabianski. Mateusz Klich scored the penalty that had to be retaken as Fabianski was off his line when he saved the initial one. Despite the Bamford 'fantasy' assist, I got off lightly as West Ham came back to win 2-1, which lost Dallas a point. However West Ham's equaliser came from Tomas Soucek, who of course I passed up on bringing in, I was really kicking myself.
I sought redemption on Saturday as my new players clashed, as Wolves played Aston Villa in a Midlands derby. Before that game things already did not look good, as we found out early on that Diogo Jota was out injured, the time frame was not yet known at the time, but the form he has been in this was a huge blow. Both of us owned him, so we would now get points off of our benches. The Wolves-Villa game looked set for a goalless draw, but then John McGinn burst into the box and won a penalty. Ollie Watkins missed his last penalty, but I believed he would still take this one, but captain Jack Grealish gave the responsibility to substitute Anwar El Ghazi, who dispatched it with ease. I was vexed, my two new men (Neto & Watkins) had combined for four points and a man I passed up on got nine by himself, this is true FPL life. Newcastle next beat West Brom 2-1, but neither of us had players in that game. The third game was a bore draw in the Manchester derby that ended goalless, i fact bore draw is doing the game justice, it was a worthy contender for worst game in the last five years to be truthful. Last up on Saturday; Everton were at home against Chelsea. Clement had two men playing here. One of them Dominic Calvert-Lewin won a first half penalty that Gylfi Sigurdsson put away calmly. This goal took away any what would have been yet another clean sheet for Edouard Mendy, so it was not all bad news. Calvert-Lewin almost won another penalty in the second half, but luckily he was offside once VAR had a look at things. Good anyway, Calvert-Lewin does my head in, he is getting far too many points. Clement had a 10 point lead, but he had more players that had already played. It was nowhere the lead I faced last week, but overall six points from three players was not cutting it and I needed another 'Sunday service' to get through.
The first game on Sunday was at St Mary's as Southampton entertained Sheffield United, but unfortunately for Chris Wilder it was far from entertaining as it went from a drama to a horror story. The Blades ares still without a win this season as they were toppled 3-0. No assist for James Ward-Prowse for me this time around, whose points I got as Jota was out. The Saints thankfully got the clean I needed, so doubling up at the back worked, there were no bonus points however for Alex McCarthy in goal (as he had nothing to do!) or Kyle Walker-Peters. Second up was my local team Crystal Palace at home to title-chasing Spurs. Kane and Son combined for Spurs to take the lead. A long range shot by Kane should have been saved by Vicente Guaita despite there being a nasty wind. Guaita redeemed himself in the second half nonetheless with a brilliant save from a Kane free-kick to deny Jose Mourinho's men the three points as it finished 1-1. Kane was to get all three bonus points so all was good. Clement had captained Son, so whether he did anything or not I would have got half the points anyhow, but it was to be only the assist for the Korean.
The 4.30pm contest saw Liverpool travel down to south west London to face Fulham. Anyone expecting a battering were left disappointed as Fulham looked a real threat on the counter. I am not joking when I say Ademola Lookman and Ivan Cavaleiro looked like Neymar and Kylian Mbappe in the first half at times as they troubled Liverpool's high line. Liverpool could have been put away in the first half, they were not however and managed to salvage a point as Mo Salah scored a second half penalty. Salah did his best to miss it, as he drove the ball straight at Alphonse Areola, but it still found the net. Salah was my captain so I was obviously pleased, but it should have been more as earlier on he drove wide after a quick turn in the first half. Liverpool badly missed Jota, but they played poorly anyway, especially in the first period.
The gameweek's action ended with a double header. Arsenal at home to Burnley and Leicester hosting Brighton. Tariq Lamptey picked up a late injury so was out for Brighton and this was bad for Clement (l myself had left him on the bench anyway). This meant the only man left for Clement was Arsenal's Kieran Tierney. i had a decent lead now so therefore the Scotsman had to outscore the man I took the captaincy off of at the 11th hour, Leicester's Jamie Vardy. Any slim chance my opponent had were put to bed in the first half. Leicester were to blow Brighton away 3-0 and to my annoyance Vardy assisted twice and sandwiched a goal between them. There was a hint of fortune about the first assist as the ball hit him before James Maddison passed it into the corner of the net. There was no doubt about the second assist as he found Maddison again who produced a world class finish. Vardy's goal was a typical well timed run. Vardy's goal was made by James Justin who if he has been auditioning for my team thus far is doing a great job. Whilst Leicester were laying the smackdown, though it would not have mattered anyway Clement almost got a goal from Tierney in the other game, but Nick Pope who had a brilliant game made a low save. Burnley won the game 1-0 through an own goal by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. So now you people that were complaining about him not finding the net...are you happy now? I mean you never said what end it had to be at did you!
So a week that started in frustration ended with another big Sunday, as that is where 60 of my 66 points came. I have now surpassed 800 points, the quickest I have ever got there since playing FPL. I am top of 11 of 13 traditional scoring leagues and after my third straight - head-to-head win I am still in 5th place. I am also now in the top 3,000 in England as well as the top 12,000 in the world. Gameweek 13 sees me play Milito and as I will be benching my Spurs players I hope Liverpool give them a good beating otherwise I could be in for a defeat. Even as I write this I am confused at whether I should take a points hit or not.
@DubulDee
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