It was the final day of another gruelling and stressful FPL campaign. I would have loved for it to be a ‘quiet day at the office’, but I had major business to attend to. My opponent was my friend from Secondary School Aasim. We were both Liverpool fans so we were anxious enough heading into the last day with the deciding of the title race at hand.
In the ‘Justice League’ I was in 5th place level on points with my ‘D&D Football Factory’ co-host Darren B. (D-Man). Darren had one more point overall however which is why he was in 4th place, I needed to topple him to be amongst the money positions. Incidentally Darren was playing Chad (Goliath) another member of the D&D Football Factory team. I not only needed Darren to lose but to get less points than me just in case I lost myself. The chances of both happening were slim but I had to have hope, I mean this was just as intriguing as Manchester City and Liverpool’s title race.
I actually really liked the look of my team, and if I never had to worry about Darren then I would have just left things the same to try and take Aasim’s team out. My mind was doing overtime however and I felt inclined to make transfers. I had seen Mo Salah trained after his FA Cup final injury, so despite feeling that it was unlikely he would start, I drafted him back in. It was a massive risk but as Aasim and Darren did not have him I was trying to play 4D Chess. Salah’s ownership had dropped to as low as 41% also which in a sense somehow made him a minor ‘differential‘. He was chasing the Golden Boot with Heung-min Son breathing down his neck, so even if he was just to be a substitute then he would come on and shoot whenever possible which he usually needs no invitation to do anyway. I sold Wilfried Zaha to get Salah in and I must admit I feared doing it. To free up the budget however I had to sell a man in-form Jamie Vardy another thing I was really reluctant to do. I needed a striker that was an enabler as there was so little money leftover, £5.6m to be exact, so in came Ashley Barnes (£5.2m). I knew Barnes would start for Burnley so got him in as I thought they might have one last big performance in them as they strived for Premier League survival. This meant I had three Burnley men now, so this was either going to make me look like a genius if they pulled it off, or it was going to fail miserably. Knowing how FPL life goes when you need it in your favour the most it was more likely to be the latter.
I boldly gave Salah the captaincy because just getting him back into the team was not enough for me clearly. Aasim gave his captaincy to Son as I knew many others would, so me giving it to Salah was because I knew not many would try it, I was thinking high risk high reward. Aasim sold Emmanuel Dennis for Danny Welbeck and Ryan Sessegnon came in for Wesley Fofana.
Of course with it being the last day all games kicked off at the same time. So there is overlapping and interlinking pending, you have been warned! Liverpool went behind at home to Wolves after just three minutes at Anfield, not the start wanted by any means. Me and Aasim had Andy Robertson so there would be no clean sheet points. Aasim also had Alisson in goal so it was a double blow for him. Liverpool levelled through Sadio ‘Gucci’ Mane who Aasim‘s team boasted, he was an option I strongly considered myself. Manchester City also went behind just before half-time as Matty Cash scored a header to put Aston Villa ahead. This meant no clean sheet for Joao Cancelo who Aasim had. Meanwhile Tottenham were cruising towards Champions League football as they led 2-0 at Norwich at the interval. Harry Kane getting me points as he headed in the second. In the second half Dejan Kulusevski made it 3-0 to Antonio Conte’s men with a sublime curled effort into the top corner which was assisted by Kane.
Back to the Etihad Stadium and Villa went 2-0 up through former Liverpool man Phillippe Coutinho. The only issue was over at Anfield Liverpool were still only level with Wolves. Salah was now on the pitch, he went through on goal but Willy Boly made a great challenge to prevent him. As if it was not bad enough that Liverpool were not winning, Salah would have been none the wiser that Son had put Spurs 4-0 up so they were now level in the Golden Boot race. Then just five minutes later Son scored again to make it five, this time with a well curled effort into the far corner. Aasim would have been laughing here as he obviously got double the Son points than me, ”damn Son! Slow down man!”. Then everything was to change at Etihad as the title race took more twists. City came back from 2-0 down within five minutes to lead 3-2! Scenes! I felt sick as my team was going to lose the league and then to a much lesser extent my head-to-head battle was not going in my favour by any means.
Liverpool finally scored and it was Salah. Joel Matip‘s effort looked like it was in but it was cleared off the line and Salah scuffed the rebound in, the Golden Boot race was level and my captain had scored but still more was needed. Robertson made it 3-1 to Liverpool but by then the crowd had informed the Reds that City were ahead so it was all just scant consolation. City were named Champions and my four point-hit had not exactly worked. Spurs’ clean sheet meant further points for Aasim as he had the aforementioned Sessegnon.
Things were further in Aasim’s favour as Marcos Alonso was benched in Chelsea 2-1 home victory against Watford. This meant he got the points off of the first person on his bench Danny Welbeck, as Ben White did not feature in Arsenal‘s 5-1 hammering of Everton. Aasim also had Mason Mount but he did not contribute in the Chelsea win. Welbeck was to score and assist as Brighton came from behind to end West Ham’s Europa League ambitions with a 3-1 triumph at the Amex Stadium. A whole 11 points for Aasim from Welbeck, but the only man I had in this game was Tariq Lamptey and he was only a substitute once again. 9th place is the Seagulls‘ highest ever finish in the Premier League. In the meantime Arsenal’s win only secured Europa League football because of Tottenham’s Carrow Road exploits. There were more points for my opponent as Bukayo Saka fed Cedric Soares‘ clinical finish for the third of their five goals.
My experiment failed as Newcastle sent Burnley to the Championship as they won 2-1 at Turf Moor. Connor Roberts, Josh Brownhill and Ashley Barnes accumulate a gargantuan five points between them...thanks guys I could not have done this without your help! Callum Wilson scored twice for the Magpies, and he will be one of the first names I will consider up front next season if he is fit at the start of the campaign. A man I knew was in-form but I overlooked for the captaincy was James Maddison. After him inspiring my title for gameweek 37‘s edition I should have known better really, but got too hung up on Salah shooting on sight to get the Golden Boot. Maddison scored and assisted forgotten man Ayoze Perez’s first goal as the Foxes beat Southampton 4-1 with all five goals coming in the second half. Vardy scored and with all I went through to reconstruct the team I felt dizzy.
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Remember I sold Zaha to get Salah in as my Uber-differential…well Zaha was on the scoresheet as Crystal Palace beat Manchester United 1-0. Someone who clearly does not like their job wrote on the BBC News graphic/interface that “Manchester United are rubbish”…and well yeah they are correct! So therefore I hope they kept their job and for their attention to detail I actually hope they were promoted! I pray Erik ten Hag does not improve them and that they stay in the mud. Zaha’s goal meant I actually did not need to make changes as I thought, but I let pressure get to me. With Salah only scoring once he ended with 12 points because of the captaincy boost and Barnes only got 2 points. Take four away and that 10 was almost outscored by Zaha (9) himself let alone the 10 points Vardy got as his shot was saved for Maddison’s goal so he was given a ‘fantasy’ assist to go along with his goal. Sometimes FPL is straightforward, we just believe it is not because of PTSD from past decisions. In the only game that has not been mentioned Leeds stayed up as they got an injury time winner from Jack Harrison at Brentford. David Raya who was of course my keeper therefore blanked. Raphinha who has been in my side for a majority of the season but who I recently sold got Leeds’ first goal from the penalty spot as I fell to a 74-60 defeat to Aasim.
In regards to the other battle I was involved in for fourth place; Darren actually lost too as Chad beat him 69-67 but as my score was lower than his he claimed fourth place. He finished 8 points ahead of me in traditional scoring though we both ended the season on 72 points in the Justice League.
So Sunday as you can see was a terrible day, Liverpool did not win the league, AC Milan edged out my Italian team Inter Milan to the Scudetto and add on top of that this FPL mess. Nonetheless I surpassed my minimum points target and that influenced why I tried something so crazy on the last day otherwise I would have been more careful. Congratulations to Muji who won the Justice League, making it three different winners in three seasons. Sam came second, Khurram came third and as said Darren was fourth. I at least walked away with the highest score with my mammoth 146 point tally in gameweek 26 when I triple captained Mo Salah.
Below I will leave all the evidence of how my FPL season ended as I finished in the top 3% (inside 270,000), see you in August people it has been a pleasure!
@DubulDee
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