This week saw me pitted against Ravi. Ravi was a fellow Liverpool fan who despite me having more points than him overall he always somehow seems to get the better of me in our head-to-head games. Once again he was above me in the 'Justice League' and I wanted my revenge for my defeat in the reverse fixture. I have wracked my brain on so many occasions in regards of what to do with my team, that I actually could not be asked this week, I wanted to bring Heung-min Son in, but the only way I could do that was to take out Jack Grealish and I did not want to do that as I felt that he could cause Arsenal problems again. I therefore left my team the same.
As they were playing Fulham, I doubled up on West Ham players in defence and hoped for the best. As Liverpool played Manchester City I left Ederson and John Stones on my bench. Not changing the team meant that the injured Wilfried Zaha was on my bench, so if anyone did not play in my XI, then I was screwed as the other man on the bench was Jimmy Dunne, and he does not start for Burnley. Ravi already had a solid team and he made three changes to face me. Liverpool's Nat Phillips and Sadio Mane came in for him as well as West Ham's Tomas Soucek. Before the games had kicked off the fact he brought Soucek in angered me as after weeks and weeks of considering it, I finally gave him the captaincy. In true FPL fashion I knew something would more than likely go wrong, but FPL is the life we chose, so we therefore have to handle any consequences...
The weeks action started at Villa Park as Aston Villa edged past Arsenal 1-0 in the early Saturday kick-off. Ollie Watkins scored a deflected goal after just 75 seconds. I had not even got home from the radio show, so I could not ask for a better start to the game. Villa could have added to their lead in the second half; first Jack Grealish had a shot saved by Mat Ryan that would have been an assist for Watkins. Then Watkins drove just wide from what would have been an assist for Grealish. This game should have been very profitable for me, Watkins did get the maximum bonus points however. Later on Newcastle beat Southampton 3-2. No clean sheet then for Alex McCarthy who had a 'mare, and Danny Ings could have had a hat-trick on another day. He had a first half effort saved by the legs of Karl Darlow, then later on could not get enough power behind a header when in a decent position. In the second half Ings hit the post too with an effort, it was just not to be his day, last season at least one of those chances would have gone in for him.
The 5.30pm game was a goalless draw between Fulham and West Ham. As I stated, I had gone with two West Ham players at the back in Vladimir Coufal and Aaron Cresswell so that worked well, but my third West Ham man did not enjoy his evening. Tomas Soucek was sent off by referee Mike Dean for accidentally elbowing Aleksandar Mitrovic. Dean after being prompted by VAR had a look on the monitor and somehow perceived it to be a red card. Since then the red card has been rescinded, but Dean has received death threats and that is beyond vile however much you did not like the decision. I have been critical of him, as I spoke last week on his decision to send off Southampton's Jan Bednarek but I would never threaten the man's life that is just disgraceful. Coufal hit the bar in the second half and with Soucek being my captain, it was just my luck that he was dismissed. This lost me six points whereas it only lost Ravi three. The only positive was that Cresswell received maximum bonus points. Saturday ended with Manchester United being held to a 3-3 draw at home to Everton. This game was fruitful for Ravi as his captain Marcus Rashford got an assist and there was a marvellous goal by my worst enemy Bruno Fernandes. In addition to that; Dominic Calvert-Lewin grabbed an injury time equaliser, giving Rav 29 points from just one match. Things were not looking good by any means, he had a 7-point lead and had 6 players remaining to my 4. The issue was 3 of my 4 players were from Liverpool, and if they were not to get a result against Manchester City then this was over.
Sunday began with more good news for my opponent as Spurs won 2-0 against West Brom, and Hugo Lloris was his keeper, so the lead increased. Heung-min Son was to be on the scoresheet so if I had brought him in for Grealish the move would have worked as I would have made him captain too. Ravi's day improved further, as next Wolves and Leicester drew 0-0 at Molineux. He had James Justin in his team and he was to get three bonus points. Justin made a huge first half block to deny Adama Traore, and incidentally if it had hit the net the assist would have gone to Pedro Neto, so a double whammy for me there. So it was up to Liverpool to save me. Unfortunately it was not to be as the Reds fell to their third straight home defeat in a row as they were beaten 4-1 by Manchester City. Ilkay Gundogan was at it again with a brace and I actually have no idea when this man's purple patch will finally end. Phil Foden shut a lot of people up, but why oh why did it have to be against my team. Mo Salah scored a penalty, so I would have been better off leaving him with the captaincy as Soucek got me a whole zero. 'I know you felt my joy as I typed that!...sigh'
I had already been beaten, but on Monday Patrick Bamford got more points for Ravi as he got the 100th goal of his career in Leeds' 2-0 win over Crystal Palace. So after this disastrous week where I scored under 50 again, I am now to my dismay off the top of the table in all but one traditional league. As well as this I have slipped to 8th in the head-to-head league. This has angered me beyond belief, I may therefore have to drop my rule in terms of teams I do not pick from. Out of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton, I dislike the Toffees the least, so watch this space as they have a double gameweek coming up, desperate times call for desperate measures.
@DubulDee
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