In the 'Justice League', both of my radio co-hosts are participants, and one of them, ‘Big’ Sam, was my opponent for gameweek 11. It is always great to get a win against them as the banter and the trolling during the show will be high, but Sam particularly had it in for me and for whatever reason I was not sure.
He was a huge reason behind stopping my title run last season, he saved his ‘bench boost’ bonus chip to use against me in gameweek 34 and beat me. Well, lo and behold he used it again here in gameweek 11, a random decision but clearly it was just because he was playing me, ‘Sam, brother, if you hate me just say so bro!’. He captained Bukayo Saka, and he made two free transfers. He sold James Justin and Jean-Philippe Mateta for Rayan Ait-Nouri and Danny Welbeck. I also had two free transfers, early on as I did not want his price to go up, I also got Ait-Nouri in as I sold Lewis Dunk. My other change was one I was partially reluctant about making, as I let go of Jamie Vardy. My opponent had him, so I was not sure about selling him, however, I wanted Jacob Braun Larsen, and I was not willing to transfer out Liam Delap. Sam, has been quite adamant that he would not have Erling Haaland in his team, so in that aspect I captained Haaland. The irony was he did not have my vice-captain Mo Salah either, but with Sam also being a Liverpool fan as I knew he had not made a transfer last week I thought he may try to get Salah in, but in the end he did not of course.
The action did not start until 3pm on Saturday. Brentford, the great entertainers had another home goal-fest against Bournemouth. Yoane Wissa (£6.1m) was at the double as it ended 3-2 to the Bees. Mikel Damsgaard has been amongst the points recently and at £5m he looks a good cheap midfield option, Evanilson (£5.9m) had given the Cherries the lead as he is really starting to look like a shrewd pick. Sam and I both owned Bryan Mbeumo and he assisted a goal for Damsgaard just after half-time. Our other co-host, the current Justice League leader, Darren B. (D-Man), attended Selhurst Park as Crystal Palace fell to a 2-0 home defeat to Fulham. It could have been much worse for the Eagles as Marco Silva’s men had two goals disallowed. Both the goals that were chalked off denied their two goalscorers of braces. Emile Smith Rowe, another player owned by us both opened the scoring after being found by one of Sam’s forwards Raul Jimenez. Smith Rowe thought he had a second, but he was just offside. Harry Wilson (£5.2m) came off the bench to score in successive games, he may be too expensive for people as a fifth-choice midfielder though. A handball decision deprived the Welshman of a second. Joachim Andersen cleared a header from Mateta off the line, which was huge for Sam as Bernd Leno was his keeper. I had left Antonee Robinson on my bench, so I was infuriated even more at the Cottagers’ clean sheet.
West Ham and Everton had a stalemate at the London Stadium, both keepers excelled as it ended goalless. This was good news for me as I again benched Aaron Ramsdale for Lukasz Fabianski. Fabianski originally had 2 bonus points, however it went up to 3 by the time the gameweek closed. His most important save came from a Jasper Lindstrom header. Michael Keane was left on the bench for Jarrad Branthwaite, so now I would get Dara O’Shea’s points rather than Robinson’s who I moved to the end of my bench. Wolves beat Southampton 2-0, unfortunately for me Strand Larsen did not figure in the goals. A man who did was the more expensive option Matheus Cunha. Cunha laid the first goal on for Pablo Sarabia and scored a fantastic long-range strike for the second. We both benefitted from the clean owning Ait-Nouri as the Saints were slightly unlucky to have a Ryan Manning goal disallowed for a foul in the first half.
In the teatime game, Brighton came from behind to shock Manchester City. All looked rosy for Pep Guardiola’s men when Haaland gave them the lead. Haaland then hit post soon after. The Seagulls fought back with goals from substitutes Joao Pedro and Matt O’Reily in the second half. This was the first match that Josko Gvardiol had not returned for me, the only other positive outside of the Haaland goal was that Welbeck did not contribute for Sam. Manuel Akanji was out with a knock as my opponent lost a man in his bench boost effort. In the evening contest, Liverpool beat Aston Villa 2-0. Salah produced the assist of the season to put Darwin Nunez through, and the Uruguayan made the angle more complex for himself before firing in the opener. Now, I will explain the goal properly. Salah raced through after the Reds cleared the ball, he was hauled down by Youri Tielemens, however David Coote waved play on as somehow did not feel it was a foul and then Nunez found the net. Coote may not have a job by the time you read this but that is another discussion for another time. The fact Salah as the last man to touch the ball got an assist is hilarious, but I was not complaining. Near the end of the match, Salah burst through as Villa were caught again to calmly lift the ball past Emiliano Martinez to secure the three points. The main thing is always for my club Liverpool to be victorious, here also though, Sam had Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson with the latter being amongst the bonus points as they matched the points I got from Salah. He also had Luis Diaz but the Colombian blanked. So, after all that overthinking I should have just left the captaincy with Salah as Saturday concluded with me leading narrowly, 57-55.
Sunday, saw Manchester United beat Leicester 3-0, after being worried about Vardy, he ended up missing the match through injury, therefore if I had kept him then I would have got the points from Fulham’s Robinson. Instead, I got O’Shea’s points as said, and he almost equalled Robinson, but for a second half goal from Rodrigo Bentancur as Ipswich pulled off a massive win at Tottenham. The Tractor Boys got their first win since returning to the Premier League as they shocked Ange Postecoglou’s men with two first half goals. Delap did me proud as first he assisted Sammie Szmodics’ overhead kick, then he followed in to easily knock the second in as the ball came off Radu Dragusin. The whole point of choosing to keep Delap was that I felt he could score against Spurs’ high line, and it worked. I now had some vital breathing space as Sam still had his captain Saka and David Raya still to play.
The London Derby at Stamford Bridge concluded the gameweek. The match failed to live up to expectations as neither team could find the quality needed to go ahead. Cole Palmer (who we both owned) had an early effort tipped over by Raya, at the other end Kai Havertz had a goal disallowed for offside. In the second period Arsenal took the lead as Marton Odegaard showed why the Gunners have missed his creativity so much as his good ball found Gabriel Martinelli. Ten minutes later Enzo Maresca’s men fired back through a great strike from outside the box by Pedro Neto as it finished all square. No clean sheet for Raya then and Saka limped off after mainly being shackled by Marc Cucurella. Therefore, I had withstood the challenge of Sam’s bench boost to gain a huge 73-67 victory.
Sam’s hate campaign failed him, this week Sir you failed like you were part of the Democratic Party. He should have just saved it for another gameweek rather than trying to annihilate me, ‘Sammy, are you not embarrassed?!’. This week I am Thanos, and I clicked my fingers expeditiously. Four wins in a row for me now and with the head-to-head league looking like the Championship, I have risen to 5th place. No fewer than five people are all on 18 points, but I have the most classic points of them with 676, so I am at the top of them. 73 was the highest score of the week in the league, and indeed the fourth time I have had the highest score of the week already in only 11 gameweeks. I have moved up into the top 350k in the world overall, with green arrows everywhere in my mini leagues. To be honest the international break is stopping my momentum.
@DubulDee
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