After getting my first victory of the head-to head campaign it was imperative to try and press on but I had further dilemmas. Ravi was my opposition, he had a good team and had started the season with an 100% record.
Like most people he boasted Erling Haaland and Gabriel Jesus up front, so this matchup was looking daunting. I wanted to take another points-hit as I was adamant I was not going to use my ‘Wildcard’ bonus chip yet, but there was an issue. The problem was my gameweek 5 opponent was Emmanuel (E-Man) and he had a strong team too, so I did not really want to have a deduction against him. So looking at the fixtures this week and the fact that in the past Ravi has not been bashful when it comes to making changes I decided to take a 4-point hit against him to try and get my team in place to triumph. FPL just makes your brain do overtime, like I haven’t got enough on my place as it is.
The first change I made was to let go of Callum Wilson who got injured last week against Manchester City and I got in Alexsandar Mitrovic. Wilson’s price had plummeted after the injury and Mitrovic’s price had gone up. I had to act quickly so made this transfer prematurely as early as Tuesday, something I rarely do, as anything could happen before the weekend. The next transfer I was literally about to do was get in Leeds’ Illan Meslier in goal. I needed to sell Leicester’s Daniel Iverson as his price had gone down to £3.9m, which was so low that I could not really afford for it to drop any further. Something told me to hold out however. I then saw that James Maddison was a doubt for Leicester’s trip to Chelsea. When it came to Friday it was revealed that Wilfried Zaha picked up a knock against Aston Villa, ‘damn!’. Zaha was in-form and I suspected he could hurt Manchester City on the counter attack so this was a massive blow. So goalkeeper was not the position of issue anymore as my hand had been forced, I now had to decide whether it was Maddison or Zaha I was going to sell to get in my old mate Rodrigo Moreno. After Rodrigo’s goal and assist against Chelsea he went into gameweek 4 as the top scorer in the Premier League and his value had rocketed to £6.4m in FPL. With the money saved from Mitrovic being £0.7m cheaper than Wilson, I did not want to lose more of the budget with another Rodrigo price rise so I opted to get him in now for Zaha (£7m). I was not fully expecting the Spanish international to score for the fourth game in a row but this change had longevity to it. I liked the fixtures Jesse Marsch’s men had coming up hence the fact I have been considering their keeper also. While Meslier would be a differential (though extremely risky) Rodrigo’s ownership was steadily rising towards 30%.
After trying to play Inspector Morse, when the deadline passed Ravi only used his one allocated change, so I was already behind, so much for trying to telegraph his movements. He also had Zaha but sold him for Allan Saint-Maximin. I had thought about getting the Frenchman in myself as it was all about freeing up budget and he was cheaper than Zaha but the Magpies travel to Liverpool in gameweek 5 so I went with Rodrigo. We both captained Mo Salah, I almost went with Harry Kane but thought Salah would dissect Bournemouth despite what mu gut was trying to tell me.
The action started at St. Mary’s as Manchester United travelled to Southampton, but neither of us had anyone in this game United won, so to the 3pm kick offs. Liverpool finally realised the season had started as they took out the frustration from their embarrassment at Manchester United with a 9-0 mauling of Bournemouth! The Reds equalled the highest ever margin of victory in the Premier League and can you believe it Mo Salah did not get a goal contribution. If you heard Liverpool had got 9, you are clearly expecting a hat-trick from him really, this was amazing to say the least. It was not like the Egyptian did not have his chances either. In the first half at 2-0 he missed from a couple of yards after a lovely team move, he then had a right footed effort tipped over by Mark Travers. In the second half; Salah shot over after controlling the ball well with the goal gaping, it was just not to be his day. The Reds scoring nine goals was fitting as there were more important issues than football at hand. In the city of Liverpool four people have been murdered recently, including the heinous shooting of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel last Monday. The Anfield faithful paid homage by doing a round of applause on nine minutes when the game was already at 2-0. May Olivia, Ashley Dale, Sam Rimmer and Karen Dempsey all rest in perfect peace. The world is a shocking and ultimately scary place sometimes and we have to be thankful that we are still alive and well. The stars continued to align as Liverpool's number 9 Roberto Firmino was the star of the show with two goals and a hat-trick of assists as '9' continued to be the theme. Luis Diaz also helped himself to a brace in the mauling which was great for me, and in addition to that Andy Robertson assisted Virgil van Dijk's header. Ravi was to benefit strongly from the game too however as Trent Alexander-Arnold scored a brilliant strike and got a 'fantasy' assist as Chris Mepham turned the right-back's cross into his own net.
Recently Crystal Palace always seem to cause Manchester City issues at the Etihad and they flew into a two-goal lead, only for Pep Guardiola's men to fight back. Wilfried Zaha was not in the squad as expected as his future has suddenly become under the spotlight, with some thinking it might not just be an injury at hand. Jordan Ayew could have seen red for Palace, and so could have Erling Haaland as the Norwegian kicked an opponent in the head. Haaland went unpunished and buried any early hope I had of him blanking as he scored a second half hat-trick. Ravi must have been doing cartwheels as the blanks he got for Ederson and Kyle Walker were minor in comparison to Haaland's 17 points. Ten-man Chelsea's win over troubled Leicester at Stamford Bridge was also fruitful for my opponent. The Blues went a man down when Conor Gallagher was dismissed for a late challenge and I had hoped maybe the Foxes could keep a clear sheet, but it was not to be. You would have thought it was the visitors who were a man short as Raheem Sterling who to my dismay Ravi had scored twice as well as hitting the post in-between. There is nothing currently fantastic about these Mister foxes believe me! My rival had Reece James too and he put the ball on a plate for Sterling's second. So no Danny Ward clean sheet again and as I mentioned last time out you see why I need to upgrade my other keeper. Harvey Barnes was under consideration to replace Zaha in my team and he pulled a goal back for Brendan Rodgers' men.
Brighton edged past Leeds at the Amex Stadium. Pascal Gross got the goal and again sometimes you need to just get the man in that is in-form. Rodrigo blanked as I had a feeling would be the case, so that was the caveat in getting the man in-form in but he has more gameweeks to make sure I had not made a mistake getting him in. Brentford and Everton could not be separated at the Gtech Community Stadium. The apparent Chelsea-bound Anthony Gordon opened the scoring with a goal that was not deflected for once. Ivan Toney hit the woodwork with a header as I cursed my luck before a late Vitaly Janelt goal left things all square. In the late match both Ravi's Arsenal men blanked as they fought back to beat Fulham 2-1 at the Emirates Stadium. Mitrovic had me clapping like Eddie Murphy in 'The Nutty Professor' as he dispossessed Gabriel and despite being pulled back slotted the Cottages ahead. Gabriel had the last laugh though as he netted the winner after former Arsenal keeper Bernd Leno showed he needs to get on the weights as he failed in his attempt to get the ball from a corner. Aaron Ramsdale made a good save at 1-1 to deny Mitrovic of a second goal as the Gunners survived a scare to get the points. I needed to get on the weights myself as Saturday ended with Ravi leading 50-37.
So to Sunday; West Ham's 1-0 away win at Aston Villa did not effect the head-to-head so we will look at the game that kicked off at the same time at Molineux. Wolves and Newcastle collided and the big news before kick off was that Bruno Guimaraes was out. This meant Ravi was down to ten men. Wolves took the lead through a typical Ruben Neves stunner, I mean this man does not score simple goals does he?! Pedro Neto who I needed to turn up as he was a differential went close early on, but then he was booked before going close once again. Neto thought he had assisted a second Wolves goal for Raul Jimenez, but the goal was chalked off as Neto committed a foul in the build-up. I shrieked in disappointment despite knowing exactly what would happen once VAR looked at it. It still looked like Bruno Lage's men were heading for all three points when out of nowhere like a Randy Orton 'RKO' Saint-Maximin scored arguably the goal of the season so far. He met a poor clearance from Max Kilman with sublimely timed volley to steal a point for Eddie Howe's men. Just my luck a 90th minute goal had virtually put Ravi out of sight. This was as my defensive differential Rayan Ait-Nouri did not start for Wolves so me and Ravi would both get Neco Williams' points off of our benches, it was now up to Harry Kane to save me.
I now trailed 59-41 so I needed a Kane masterclass as I had only got two points off the bench from Everton's Nathan Patterson in the absence of Ait-Nouri. I was to get the perfect start as Tottenham hit Nottingham Forest with a counter attack and Kane found the far corner. It was not the cleanest contact from England's captain but I did not care, as the miracle was on. The Heung-min Son and Kane partnership is not quite flowing how it once was, but as Dejan Kulusevski has put his marker down it has not really mattered, Spurs had a few breaks where smarter linkup play between Kane and Son could have got them a second, Son was the most guilty party. Just before the hour mark I thought my luck was in as Spurs got a penalty due to Steve Cook's Beach Volleyball audition. Kane's penalty to my disgust was saved by Dean Henderson and with the points he would lose I knew now the head-to-head was definitely beyond me, to top things off Kane then went and got himself booked, 'oh joy!'. Kane did eventually get his second goal but I was beyond caring as my fate had been sealed, despite the two goals and maximum bonus points he only accumulated 10 points, so I was to lose by 8 points.
3 defeats out of 4 now and there is no time to dwell on it as there is a midweek gameweek, don't worry about me I am okay...no help! Damn you Saint-Maximin, saying that if I had not clung on to giving Salah the captaincy and picked Kane things would have been really close, but hindsight is a beautiful thing for a reason.
@DubulDee
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