My opposition for gameweek 21 was my friend of 15 years Delvin. In the reverse fixture I was able to get the victory, but looking at his side, it looked a difficult task to do the double over him. This week as usual had me wracking my brain as what to do transfer-wise. In the end; I decided to make two transfers, meaning I was yet again taking a 4-point hit. The reason behind taking a deduction was that Liverpool were away at West Ham. I had two of the Hammers' defenders in my side, and of course I try to not start players when they play against the team I support. The issue here however was that one of my defence was Burnley's Jimmy Dunne and he has not started a Premier League game since September, so with Kyle Walker-Peters injured I was to get one of the West Ham players' points unless I took a 8-point hit. Harry Kane was out injured so I had prioritised transferring him out as midfielders and strikers are so valuable. In the end, out went Walker-Peters and in came John Stones at the back. Up front I decided to select Roberto Firmino for the injured Kane. Once the deadline had passed, I saw that Delvin had sold Arsenal's Emile Smith-Rowe for Ilkay Gundogan, a man who was in fine goalscoring form and who of course was a large reason behind me losing to D-Man in my last contest. Delv had also chose to give Gundogan the captaincy, so if his scoring streak continued I was in big trouble.
The first game of the weekend was at Goodison Park as Newcastle shocked many with a 2-0 win over Everton. Callum Wilson (£6.7m) scored both goals, a man who I had considered as I was selling Kane, but that would have left me with so much money left over, that I was not actually brave enough to do it. He has 10 league goals this season now, in a Newcastle team that barely have the ball, full credit to hm. In my eyes he has already literally justified the £20m they bought him for. The best thing to come out of this game however was that Dominic Calvert-Lewin failed to score, which was a huge blow for Delvin. Delv was not alone in his pain however as Calvert-Lewin in his second league start after injury was the most transferred in player this week. The first player to play for me this week was Pedro Neto, but he and Wolves came up short as they lost 1-0 at Crystal Palace via a fine strike by Eberechi Eze. Neto is a player i like seeing play, but there are cheaper alternatives doing more right now.
Also at 3pm; Manchester City were at home to Sheffield United. With the Blades being bottom and having scored the least amount of goals in the league, this was why I chose to double up on Manchester City players at the back as I already had Ederson in goal. The only league goal City have conceded since mid-December was a consolation for Chelsea when they beat them 3-1 at Stamford Bridge. A clean sheet was a shoo-in here, but Pep Guardiola was at it again, making a plethora of changes and this included resting John Stones. This meant the points hit made strictly so I would not get points from two West Ham players was all in vain...'thanks Pep!'. I was not the only one to suffer from his tinkering as Joao Cancelo who Delvin had was left out too for Kyle Walker, and Raheem Sterling another of Delv's men was on the bench also. City went on to win the game 1-0 and luckily there was no contribution from Gundogan. Ruben Dias was to be amongst the bonus points yet again and I could have so easily put him in instead of Stones, but I thought that Stones was the larger goal threat on set pieces. Neither of us had anyone in the game between West Brom and Fulham that finished 2-2, but I have to shoutout Matheus Pereira (£5.6m) as he scored again and if he is auditioning for my team he is currently doing a great job, could be a real bargain.
Another underwhelming game between Arsenal and Manchester United ended goalless at the Emirates, Delvin had Rob Holding so got clean sheet points, and he got two bonus points also. The big thing from this game was that the man I feared Bruno Fernandes drew a blank. This gave me slight optimism if I was to have a solid day on Sunday. If there was good fortune at the Emirates for me, then there was not to be much at St Mary's later on. Southampton were beaten 1-0 at home by Aston Villa. Me and Delv both had Villa's Jack Grealish Grealish and Ollie Watkins, and Grealish was to assist the winning goal for Ross Barkley. The boost for Delvin came as Emiliano Martinez made numerous saves and got double figure points, my opponent was starting to edge away from me. It could have all been so different, Southampton could have had a first half penalty when the ball struck Matty Cash's arm, and you would assume that would have been taken by Danny Ings. The only good thing about the penalty not being given is that they are applying more common sense when VAR look at handball decisions, because earlier in the season that would have easily been given. Then right at the end of the game, Ings equalised but it was ruled out for offside. Ings' arm was offside but you cannot score with your arm can you? Hopefully the offside rule is restored to a form of normality because it really does seem like they are improvising most of the time when making decisions. There was a change made to one of the offside sub-rules when Manchester City scored against Aston Villa and these type of incidents need to be looked at too.
After Chelsea's 2-0 win over Burnley, Leicester and Leeds met with Marcelo Bielsa's men looking for revenge after being beaten 4-1 by the Foxes at Elland Road. And revenge was exactly what Leeds got as they produced a very good display to win 3-1. This game was not good for me in any way, shape or form, bar an assist for James Maddison. As Sterling did not feature for Manchester City, Delvin was to get Patrick Bamford's points off of his bench, so trust Bamford to assist twice and produce a brilliant finish in between. Things could have been worse as he was very unselfish on his second assist, when he could have scored himself. Bamford got a massive 15 points as he got maximum bonus points. Delvin was pulling away, his lead was over 30 points now. I messaged Delv to say well done, as I was not confident of a comeback.
Liverpool's trip to east London was next up, I needed Mo Salah to come up trumps and hopefully get a something from Andy Robertson and Roberto Firmino too. To my dismay Firmino was only named on the bench, if he was not to come on and do something, then again I in terms of this particular week had made another pointless transfer with so many other options getting good points. After a goalless first half, Liverpool took the lead through my captain Salah. The Egyptian curled in a lovely goal. Liverpool were to double their lead through that man Salah again after a perfect counter attack from a West Ham corner. Firmino was to come on and he did what I needed as he supplied Gini Wijnaldum for the third goal, I was now almost there if Liverpool could keep a clean sheet. West Ham were piling on the corners and eventually it paid off as Craig Dawson made it 3-1. I was fuming. But then in the worst possible fashion for Delvin, despite the ball coming off of Robertson beforehand, the last man to touch the ball from West Ham was Aaron Cresswell who took the corner. Therefore Cresswell was to get a 'fantasy' assist, this meant with Stones not playing that I was to get these points off the bench, carrying me to arguably the luckiest head-to-head win I have ever had in FPL. I immediately messaged Delv to apologise, this was a robbery, this was clearly fraud. I would now win what would have been a draw by the points for the assist and the solitary point from Vladimir Coufal.
This lucky win means that I have won 4 out of my last 5 games, and I am up to sixth place, 3 points off of the money positions. Selecting the right captain is so imperative, without it I would be off of the top of the table in a few more of the traditional leagues, I currently remain top of seven of them. Pep Guardiola, Delvin is coming for you...
@DubulDee
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