The Fantasy Football Suffix - Gameweek 29 (Pt 1)
14 March 2015
After the commotion of the double gameweek, normal service was resumed with just the usual ten fixtures spread over three days. Most people's teams were still a little unbalanced, with too much representation from QPR and Spurs following last week. This left us starting the weekend hoping for a good showing in the lunchtime kick-off from the likes of Charlie Austin in particular. But did he deliver? Let's find out...
CRY v QPR
Palace have never lost to QPR in the Premier League, and with the news reaching the home dressing room that Rangers were planning on starting Wright-Phillips and Taarabt, they'd have been confident in keeping that record. Murray replaced Gayle upfront for Palace in the only team news worthy of mention. It took just over 20 minutes for Pardew's men to take the lead; Zaha tapping in Bolasie's cross to put the first fantasy points of the weekend on the board. 20 minutes later they doubled their lead, Bolasie again the provider for McArthur to score his second of the season. Two minutes later the game was wrapped up as Zaha added to his goal with an assist for Ward. 3-0 at halftime, the first time Palace have EVER achieved that feat in the Premier League. Popular transfer pick for this week, Jason Puncheon, limped off injured before the hour mark, with Wilfried Zaha close behind him. With 7 minutes to go, and no doubt getting frustrated with his under performing team mates, QPR's Matt Phillips collected the ball about 45 yards out and unleashed a shot that flew past Speroni in the Palace goal. A contender for goal of the season, but in the grand scheme of things pretty meaningless as QPR coast towards relegation. 28 points in 5 games for Phillips. That's an average of 5.6 per game for a player costing just £4.6m and owned by 0.4% of managers. 3-1 the final score with bonus points awarded as follows:
Bolasie - 3pts
Zaha - 2pts
Phillips - 1pt
ARS v WHU
With the abundance of riches in midfield for Arsene Wenger to call on, it was only a matter of time until Cazorla got rested. This was that week. Walcott and Ramsey came into the starting XI,with Bellerin also missing out. With 10% of the Top 1000 owning both Cazorla and Bellerin, this news wouldn't have gone down too well. Arsenal dominated the first half, with nearly 75% possession, but it took until first half injury time when Giroud took the ball off Aaron Ramsey's toes and scored his 11th of the season, and his 4th in the last 4 games. West Ham looked a bit better after the break, but any remaining challenge they could possibly offer ended 10 minutes before the end after Ramsey and Giroud reversed roles with the Welshman scoring his 4th of a stop-start season. He still has an ownership percentage of over 10%, but arguably these are long abandoned ghost ship teams, neglected and forgotten by their managers. A few minutes later Mathieu Flamini put the cherry on the cake as he combined with fellow late substitute Santi Cazorla. 3-0 was the final score, Arsenal now almost certain to finish in the Top 4, and could put in a late push for second place.
Ramsey - 3pts
Giroud - 2pts
Koscielny - 1pt
LEI v HUL
I'm sorry to have to say it, but there are some Premier League fixtures that just don't seem to belong in the top flight. Do you know what I mean? This is one of them. For some reason, I can't see too many people getting excited about this one. Struggling Leicester met slightly-less struggling Hull in a game that saw geriatric goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer keep his place over fit again Kasper Schmeichel in the home goal. Here's an interesting fact (or not) - Schwarzer has now appeared in every single Premier League season since FPL began! Can you tell I'm scratching around for something to write about here? Ok, I'll come clean...nothing happened in the first half, and in the second half it was the same drill until Tom Huddlestone got himself sent off for a challenge on Jamie Vardy. It finished 0-0 and Leicester remain bottom of the table. The only plus point was a bonus point for the 0.8% of managers who have invested £4.5m in Jeffrey Schlupp based on the fact he is listed as a defender but plays in midfield. A nice 7 point return for them today.
Huth - 3pts
Schwarzer - 2pts
Morgan, McGregor & Schlupp - 1pt
SUN v AVL
A recall for defender Patrick Van Aanholt and a rare start for striker Steven Fletcher saw Sunderland take on an Aston Villa side full of confidence after back to back league and FA Cup wins over West Brom. Sunderland would no doubt have still fancied their chances; after all Villa hadn't scored an away goal in over ten hours. It took the visitors a quarter of an hour to stop that stat in its tracks. Christian Benteke, who scored against Albion in GW28, met Bacuna's cross to put Villa ahead. Two minutes later Ciaran Clark launched a long ball forward which Gabby Agbonlahor (who had also scored against Albion) cooly side footed in past Costel Pantilimon. The third came in the 37th minute, with Agbonlahor skipping past some half hearted Sunderland challenges to score his second. The assist was provided by Charles N'Zogbia, who seems to be back in favour under new manager Tim Sherwood. The trickle of Sunderland fans leaving the Stadium of Light before halftime became a torrent when Benteke doubled his goals tally for the game when he met a great cross from Bacuna to head home. Sunderland were booed off, and booed back on again for the second half, which saw them take to the field with only 10 men after Seb Larsson mysteriously failed to reappear for a few minutes. Villa didn't add to their total, but importanty they didn't concede either. Gus Poyet will be lucky to survive this mauling, especially after tellig the press pre-match how much he'd enjoyed his time off last weekend by going shopping in London. Sunderland fans will be thinking he should have perhaps been working with his players.
Benteke - 3pts
Agbonlahor - 2pts
Bacuna - 1pt
WBA v STO
Injury doubts over Albion strikers Berahino and Ideye didn't stop manager Tony Pulis sending both out to face old club Stoke. He would have been absolutely desperate to win this one that's for sure. Mark Hughes meanwhile had to do without injured defender Phillip Wollschied. We've already spoken in these Suffix articles about the “Pulis Effect”, and there's no denying that there might be something in this. Certainly he manages to drill his teams to keep it tight at the back, nd today was no exception. Albion opened the scoring with Brown Ideye heading in Craig Gardner's low cross for his 4th of the season after 20 minutes. Stoke had to make a change a halftime as Erik Pieters went off injured. It was West Brom's turn in the 55th minute, much to the annoyance of the 7.9% of managers who own keeper Ben Foster. He was unable to continue, and was 5 minutes short of picking up clean sheet points. The injury woes continued for Stoke and FPL managers alike, as first Moses (0.9%) and then Walters (4.9%) went off. The game finished 1-0 with Pulis being awarded bragging rights.
Ideye & Gardner - 3pts
McAuley - 1pt
BUR v MCY
Burnley drew 2-2 with City when the two teams met at the Etihad back in GW19, so they will have known that Pellegrini's team are not unbeatable. However, having 17 goal Sergio Agüero facing you is probably going to make any defender have doubts. As the most popular captain pick this week, many managers had recognised that this may be the fixture in which the Argentine striker broke the “100 Premier League Goals” barrier. Having been on 98 goals since GW26, surely he couldn't blank for three games in a row? No, he'd get the two goals he needed against Burnley for sure. It was 0-0 at the break and fantasy managers around the world got jittery. Just after the hour mark, it all went horribly wrong for City. George Boyd scored for the hosts, assisted by Kieran Trippier. FPL managers rejoiced! After all, Boydinho is evryone favourite 5th midfielder right? Well, he is for 6.4% of you anyway. But then the realisation dawned; you'd benched him for this fixture! Aargh! With Burnley holding on towards the end, the referee made a huge blunder when he failed to award a penalty to City after Ben Mee brought Pablo Zabaleta in the box. Nothing given, but with the way today went, Agüero would have missed it anyway.
Boyd - 3pts
Heaton, Trippier & Fernandinho - 2pts
With that Burnley win putting Man City 5 points behind Chelsea, the Blues just need to win their two games in hand to be an unassailable 11 points clear. It could be the time to load up on Chelsea players, if you haven't already, and non-Costa owners will be taking a close look at the Brazilniard tomorrow. A low gameweek average will mean anyone who took a gamble on Giroud as captain today will have made huge gains this evening.
Join me tomorrow for part two of the Suffix, after all, nothing can be as bad as part one can it? Er...I meant the days FPL action, not that this article was bad! But I guess you'll be the judge of that!
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