My gameweek 10 opposition was Jacques. He was really looking to pick up head-to-head points as he had a decent amount of points overall in a traditional sense, but like me he had not had the luck of the order of the opponents he had faced in the 'Justice League'. He of course had Mo Salah in his team, so there was no way I was going to take the captaincy off of the Egyptian.
I was nervous about this week as I have never got a great amount of points the week after I got over 100 points. I had two free transfers to make and after days of deliberation I decided to sell the West Ham duo of Tomas Soucek and Michail Antonio. In came Bryan Mbeumo and Rodrigo Moreno. With these changes it saved me almost £2m and gave me room for a big future transfer. I had thought very strongly about bringing in Phil Foden, but his price went up to £8.2m, so this meant the only way to get him in was to get another player up front that I wanted Josh King who was £0.7m cheaper than Rodrigo. I believed Rodrigo would score against Norwich and could not pass up a double of him and Raphinha as long as Raphinha passed a late fitness test. Jacques also had two free transfers but he made three changes, so lost four points. He sold Diogo Jota, Connor Gallagher and the injured Romelu Lukaku for Phil Foden, Emile Smith Rowe and Gabriel Jesus.
The action started at the King Power Stadium as Leicester & Arsenal faced off. I had not even got home from the radio show and the Gunners were already 2-0 up, it was bad news for me as Smith Rowe got the second goal. I was praying Leicester scored so Jacques would not get clean sheet points from Ben White, so trust Aaron Ramsdale to be in inspired form. He made no less than 8 saves and one of them was right out of the top draw to deny James Maddison's free-kick in the first half as Arsenal held on to their lead. I should have known Ramsdale was going to prove me wrong at Arsenal, when he said Jamaican food was his favourite food when Frimpon interviewed him to be honest.
In the 3 o'clock kick offs Burnley beat Brentford 3-1. Maxwel Cornet (£6m) who I'm monitoring scored the third goal, which was his fourth goal this campaign already. Ivan Toney unfortunately blanked for me again, but he did have a first half effort well saved by Nick Pope. Brentford play Norwich next so I will not be selling him just yet but he really needs to start scoring consistently. At Anfield; Liverpool raced into a 2-0 lead at home to Brighton, despite the Seagulls almost scoring twice early on. Salah was the most captained man in FPL this week (which will probably be the case every week until AFCON), and he assisted Jordan Henderson for the first goal. Sadio Mane then grabbed the second with a close range header. But then Enock Mwepu smartly realised Alisson was blinded by the sun and curled the ball over his head for 2-1. So there was no clean sheet points for my differential Andy Robertson and to make it worse he also got booked, so he got me a big fat 0 points. Brighton salvaged a draw through a good goal by Leandro Trossard assisted ironically by former Liverpool man Adam Lallana.
If I told you Brighton coming back from 2-0 down at Anfield was not the biggest shock of the day then you would not believe me. At the Etihad; Manchester City went behind to Crystal Palace early on as Wilfried Zaha scored, and then they were to have Aymeric Laporte sent off as the Eagles won 2-0. With me expecting City to score I obviously left Tyrick Mitchell on the bench, 'rage!'. The good thing to come from this however was that Jacques' City triple did not work as Ruben Dias, Foden & Jesus all blanked, Joao Cancelo blanked for me too of course however. Conor Gallagher scored and assisted so things could have been worse for me if Jacques had kept him. Chelsea won 3-0 at Newcastle, but Trevor Chalobah who my opponent had did not play. Southampton won 1-0 at Watford. Usually Tino Livramento's clean sheet points would be a differential but he is becoming so popular now his price has risen to £4.4m and Jacques had him too.
Before Spurs and Manchester United kicked off at 5.30 I trailed 34-23, so I desperately needed Heung-min Son to produce and Cristiano Ronaldo to blank. Given my needs for this encounter you know who got the opening goal don't you...Cristiano produced the perfect volley from a very good ball by Bruno Fernandes. Seeing United score is bad enough, but when it's ann opponents' player it somehow makes that horrible feeling even worse. To my despair CR7 was not finished there as he flicked the ball to turn away from his man and then played in Edinson Cavani for 2-0, I was now edging closer to defeat. As Jacques other United player Mason Greenwood did not start I was heading to a loss against only ten players, 'I felt sick!'. United went on to win 3-0. I was always told to never rely on Spurs and now I know why...Hotspur...more like hot garbage!
So with Cristiano's 12-point haul I went into Sunday 23 points behind as Jacques had no men left. I had four men left to play, but needed something from all of them to claw this back. First up Burnley and Leeds locked horns at Turf Moor. There was good news before the game as Raphinha who had been a doubt started, and indeed it was him who got the opening goal. Norwich levelled and then the man I brought in Rodrigo got what turned out to be the winning goal. Tim Krul should have done better on Rodrigo's strike from outside the box but believe me I was not complaining, sorry Tim its a Krul world we live in. Rodrigo had been booked before his goal which restricted him to just one bonus point, whilst Raphinha dropped to two bonus points as the maximum went to Andrew Omobamidele who scored for the Canaries. So 15 points between my Leeds double meant I was still 8 behind. West Ham travelled to Aston Villa next and I needed Emiliano Martinez to keep a clean sheet, and well...he did not! West Ham went 2-1 up before half-time and Argentina's number one will feel he may have done better on both goals. Ezri Konsa in my opinion was harshly sent off in the second half and the Hammers went on to win 4-1, Martinez did get an extra point for the saves he made but the damage had been done. If you had said before the game that West Ham would score 4 goals and Michail Antonio would not contribute I would've slapped you, but I somehow got away with selling him a week earlier than I was planning to.
Going into Monday I was behind by 7 points, so I needed something spectacular from Hee-Chan Hwang as Wolves played Everton. I thought I had the first of what was required as Hwang scored in off the post, only for the goal to be ruled out for offside. Wolves went on to win 2-1 but I had fallen short. One of these days I just have to be brave and bench Cancelo, as crazy as it first may seem as defenders on my bench have outscored him two weeks in a row now after his fine start to the season. My fifth defeat of the head-to-head campaign means I have dropped to 9th in the table. I still remain top of 5 classic leagues however, I am frustrated beyond belief after losing to someone who took a points hit..
@DubulDee
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