My opposition this week came in the form of Michael, a fellow Liverpool fan and the twin of my D&D Football Factory co-host Darren (D-Man). Michael is usually battling it out at the top of the table, but he had suffered an indifferent start to the season. He and his brothers' dominance for most of last season had seen them dubbed as the 'Kray Twins'.
After suffering my fifth head-to-head defeat of the season, I was frustrated and someone had to feel the wrath. After a long hard think I decided to use my 'Bench Boost' bonus chip, as I looked at my bench and did not feel comfortable leaving people out. I obviously do not play anyone against Liverpool, so seen as I still had West Ham's Vladimir Coufal (£4.8m) I sold him for Wolves' Rayan Ait Nouri (£4.3m). With Marcal out injured, Ait Nouri had been starting at left wing-back and was taking some of the set pieces so with him being cheaper than Coufal I thought this would give me more money for when I finally activate my 'Wildcard' bonus chip or if I were to make a double transfer soon as I now have £3m in the bank. When the deadline had passed I saw that Mike had made two transfers meaning a 4-point hit. Out went Kyle Walker and Saïd Benrahma and in came Ben Chilwell & Phil Foden. I had earlier thought about taking a points hit considering the bench boost would cover it, but at the 11th hour decided against selling Heung-min Son for Kevin De Bruyne as Spurs appointed Antonio Conte as their new head coach. Also Son takes set pieces and their opponents Everton had been conceding from them for fun.
The action started at St Mary's on Friday night as Southampton hosted Aston Villa. Southampton had looked better defensively recently and went on to win 1-0 after an early stunner from Adam Armstrong. Whether I used my bench boost or not I was always going to start Tino Livramento, unfortunately late on in the game he came out of the bonus points. This of course meant no clean sheet for Emiliano Martinez despite him making two good saves.
Saturday began with the Manchester Derby, or should I say the Manchester City training session, as Pep Guardiola's men never needed to come out of first gear and strolled to a 2-0 win over their neighbours United. This was largely embarrassing, City should be ashamed they did not score more! No but really, United were a mess and somehow Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is still in a job. When David Moyes was in charge of United in the 2013/14 campaign, two home defeats to City and Liverpool in close proximity were the catalysts to him being axed, Ole stuck his leg out in 1999 however and therefore has immunity. Joao Cancelo got a 'fantasy' assist as Eric Bailly turned the ball into his own net for the opener. Cancelo was to assist again (this time one registered by Opta) for the second as his teasing cross was met by Bernardo Silva at the far post. Already a solid start for the use of the bench boost as otherwise Cancelo would have been on my bench and his efforts wasted by me, 'bang!'. De Bruyne blanked so it was a good thing I did not put him in, and more importantly Michael's man Cristiano Ronaldo blanked and he was the person I feared the most on his team. Foden also blanked and this contest proved more fruitful than I initially thought it would as he had Luke Shaw blank too.
As my friend was not able to attend, I set off for Selhurst Park to watch Crystal Palace and Wolves at 3pm. I had three men playing here; the transferred in Ait Nouri and his teammate Hee-Chan Hwang as well as Palace's Tyrick Mitchell. The Eagles were not great in the first half and Wolves were not much better, but in the second half Patrick Vieira's men were much improved and went on to get a 2-0 win. Both their scorers were men who will more than likely be in my team at a point in Wilfried Zaha and Conor Gallagher. Only Mo Salah has more points than Gallagher out of the FPL midfielders now. Hwang's blank was bad news for Michael too, and Ait Nouri thought he had won a penalty only for the decision to be overturned and it was given as a free-kick. James McArthur assisted Zaha's goal and luckily he was only on Michael's bench. Mitchell got me the clean sheet points, but he was ousted out of the bonus points very late on missing out by one measly point in the bonus points system. My double up on Brentford players somehow ended in failure. I had to use my data as everyone knows Wifi at football grounds is a myth, and when I checked just before half-time Norwich were leading 2-0, what the farke! Now you want to do something! They went on to win 2-1 but that did not stop the Norwich board from parting ways with Daniel Farke. Farke-ing liberty, the Canaries' first Premier League win in 21 games and you get sacked, I mean how dare he win a game, anyway let me stop now. There are rumours Zinedine Zidane would be interested in the job if Delia Smith agrees to be his personal chef...no really let me stop now.
Also at 3pm; Burnley got a draw very few expected at Chelsea through a late equaliser by Matej Vydra, with Michael having Chilwell this was good news, it was nice of Chilwell not to score as he seems to every damn week recently. The late kick-off saw Brighton held to a draw against Newcastle. Robert Sanchez conceding was not enough for him as he was to be sent off after a trip on Callum Wilson that had VAR not been about he would have got away with. So my two keepers managed to get me the gargantuan total of one point. Mike also had Sanchez so he felt my pain. Saturday ended with me having handsome lead of 33-2.
On Sunday, there was the rare factor of three 2pm kick-offs. Normally Sunday is resigned to the biggest game of the weekend, or just for the teams in Europe but Sky decided to show Arsenal v Watford as the biggest match was played yesterday in the Manchester Derby. Michael had Emile Smith Rowe and he was to get the controversial winning goal as Watford thought the Gunners would give the ball back to them after they put the ball out when Ismaila Sarr went down. Ben Foster who I have always had in my team in previous seasons saved a penalty from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Everton and Spurs ended goalless, which was annoying as I thought Son would score, he did go close however. Eric Dier got Michael clean sheet points plus two bonus points. Leeds drew 1-1 with Leicester. Raphinha continued to produce as his smart free-kick flew in to give Marcelo Bielsa's men the lead, but straight from the kick-off Leicester replied. Harvey Barnes cut off of the left-hand side and unleashed an unstoppable shot into the top corner. Rodrigo could have won the game for Leeds but he could only put Stuart Dallas' great cross just wide, 'rage!'. I had already won the head-to-head contest unless there was a miracle of epic proportions as the only man Mike had left that I did not have was Michail Antonio.
So the London Stadium ended the gameweek 11 proceedings, and sadly West Ham ended Liverpool's 25-game unbeaten run. Liverpool's kamikaze defending saw the Hammers edge them out in regards to the scoreline 3-2, but they were better than that suggested. The scant consolation (if there was one) was that none of the goals came from Antonio. Liverpool's callousness on set pieces and their high line was exploited. The only contribution any of us got here was our captain Salah assisted the world class free-kick from Trent Alexander-Arnold that made it 1-1.
So I strolled to victory, but that should be the case more often than not when you use your bench boost and your opponent does not anyway. My target was to get 68 points and I ended up with 60, without the bench this would have been my worst scoring week of the season, so overall using the boost definitely worked. A tiny move up for me in the 'Justice League' table to 8th and I still remain top of five classic leagues with 707 points.
@DubulDee
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