Ravi was my gameweek 6 opponent. He had been in the Justice League from the very start and he somehow seemed to always get good results against me regardless of where he was in the table. With four defeats in my opening five games, I really had to get a win here.
Despite being unhappy with some of my final choices for my ‘wildcard’ team, I decided not to make any changes. Unless there was an injury, I always try not to make a change the week after activating my wildcard, as there obviously was a reason I picked the players I did looking at their upcoming fixtures. Ravi made three transfers, Dan Burn, Diogo Jota and Alexander Isak were sold for Gabriel Magalhaes, Luis Diaz and Nicolas Jackson, he had two free transfers, so this resulted in a 4-point hit. He refuses to own Erling Haaland, therefore I was hoping the Norwegian could hurt Newcastle. Despite this being the case, I still did not give Haaland the captaincy as when possible I try to stay away from putting the captaincy on someone in the early Saturday kick-off. I left Mo Salah as captain, while although Ravi also had Salah he made Bukayo Saka his captain.
The action began at lunchtime on Saturday as Newcastle hosted Manchester City as said. Things did not start well for me as City took the lead through Josko Gvardiol who Ravi owned. In the second period the Magpies fought back, and Anthony Gordon won a penalty. Gordon picked himself to convert the spot kick to give my opponent further points. Haaland blanked as it ended 1-1 and I was already up against it this early in the gameweek.
In the 3pm games; Arsenal went 2-0 up in the first half at home to Leicester, only to be pegged back to 2-2 thanks to a brace from James Justin. In Leicester’s previous spell in the Premier League, Justin was a very good FPL asset before an horrific injury, and at £4.5m he may just be once again. The Gunners went on to win 4-2 thanks to two injury time goals, the third goal was credited to Leandro Trossard with an assist from Bukayo Saka. Luckily this was to later be given as an own goal by Wilfred Ndidi. Therefore, Saka was to lose the assist and 2 bonus points which massively helped me. As well as this Ravi had paired Gabriel with William Saliba expecting double clean sheet points, so the only negative from this game for me was that Jamie Vardy did not score.
The amazing part of the gameweek was to come at Stamford Bridge. To my surprise I was to take the lead in the head-to-head thanks to a first half masterclass from Cole Palmer. Palmer was to score 4…yes 4 times in the half to set a new Premier League record. Cole is most definitely ‘cold’ just in case you did not know! I was jubilant I owned him as I missed out on nearly all his heroics last season. This was of course until I was forced to start selecting Chelsea players late on otherwise, I would never have maintained my top 4 position in the ‘Justice League’. The downside here was that it meant Lewis Dunk ended up with -1, but when one of your players get a whopping 25 points it does not matter at all to be honest. Jackson thankfully only got an assist for Ravi in Chelsea’s 4-2 victory. Fulham won 1-0 at Nottingham Forest thanks to a Raul Jimenez penalty. The Cottagers’ clean sheet meant more points for me from Antonee Robinson who was also amongst the bonus points also.
The 5.30 game saw Liverpool edge out Wolves 2-1 at Molineux. After a shaky start, the Reds regrouped, and Ibrahima Konate gave them the lead heading in Diogo Jota’s cross. Konate is proving to be a great option currently, he assisted in the last game at home to Bournemouth and is the cheapest way into Liverpool’s first choice defence at £5.2m. Some kamikaze defending allowed Wolves to equalise but almost immediately Liverpool were back in front thanks to a Salah penalty. Jota was the man brought down for the spot kick and this meant he ended up with two assists, so I had got one over on Ravi as he sold him for Diaz. When you add in that I got twice his Salah points then this was a very productive day thanks to the recovery after the early kick off. Saturday concluded with me ahead 69-42.
Sunday, was a pressure day for me. I had no one playing whereas Ravi had three men all from Aston Villa as they travelled to Ipswich. The Tractor Boys took the lead through Liam Delap which was good for me as Emiliano Martinez was my opponent’s keeper. Villa were to fire back through Morgan Rogers and that goal was assisted by Ollie Watkins. Watkins was another of Ravi’s Villa players, so I started to panic when he scored the second goal for Unai Emery’s men. Luckily Watkins did no further damage as Delap found the net again for it to end 2-2. With Onana being his third Villa man and he blanked, I had won my second game of the season.
I still had one player left and that was Aaron Ramsdale. On Monday evening, Southampton lost 3-1 to Bournemouth although it clearly did not matter. Ramsdale made 3 saves so he got 2 points, as I concluded the gameweek with 71 points to Ravi’s 53. The 71 points were the highest in the Justice League this week as the Salah and Palmer combo served up 45 points for me. Not many have Salah and Palmer both in their team in any league I am in interestingly, as many have opted for Saka rather than one of them, some teams do not have either of them. Add the returns from Robinson and Jota, a majority from my tally this week came from 4 players, whereas I have had 6 or 7 players return in the past and not even touched 60 points, so I am truly grateful for Palmer’s haul. My reward for ending my losing streak is a matchup with the champion Eman in gameweek 7, I will need to be on point to prevail with 3 of them.
@DubulDee
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