APPELLE LES
GENDARMES!
Sacre bleu! Les Guerillas sont les tetes chiens pour le deuxieme
semaine consecutif. This temps c'est un brillant 34 pointer, which
enables them to depasser les Emplois Corrects et prenez le sixieme
place. (D'accord, assez de cela.) Once again, Henderson
performed mightily, bagging a personal tenner in the scouser's savaging
of Southampton, while Harvey Nicholls Barnes scored again and Sheffield
defenders Egan and Stevens added their clean sheets to Robertson's.
With goalie Pope due to face Yusef's favourite Arsenal, he took the
option of picking his backup keeper, Patricio, who defied Man Utd for
another clean.
Two points back the Steel Balls also crept past Proper Job, into 7th,
compressing the 5th - 8th scuffle into a mere 17 points. Two Man
Utd cleans, from De Gea and Lindelof, were complmented by four Spuds
playing against Man City - brave selection - Aurier, Alli, Lamela and
Moura, to the tune of 14 points. But the big cheese is, as so
often, Salah, who settles for just two goals and 9 points this time.
Cake crumbs go to Big Frank and the Trinity posse, who summon up a 29
pointer, despite falling victim, again, to the Glennster. Clean
sheets from 4 different teams, Leno, Tanganga, Baldock and Doherty lay
the foundation, and SpudSon bags the only goal for a fiver.
WEEK
25 REPORT
BO' SELECTA
What
a day! Calloo callay! Oh frabjous joy and beamish boy, we are
gallumphing back! You might gather that I'm in a pretty good mood,
and the reason for that is that no fewer than SIX of you made selection
decisions that delivered you into my hands. The Guerillas, despite
bagging the headline, might have had an extra 11 points, had Sanchez and
Tarkowski replaced Soyuncu and Sterling. Batshu-yai Crazy and the
Chicago boys each dropped 13, Batshit by picking Jimenez, Grealish and
Martial instead of Baldock, Ndombele and Sigurdsson, and Chicago going
for Soyuncu, Haller and Walker instead of Rudiger (two goals! Sob.)
Fleck and Moutinho. On 14 we find Trinity picking Pereira,
Maddison and Wood, instead of Stevens, Egan and Winks, and also Verti
Kong, who needed to pick Mount, Tarkowski and Daniel James rather than
Reece James, Rodri and the Gundog. Top of the pile, though, are
the Flibble boys, who still manage to creep past Krul and the Gang into
third, despite dropping 15 by going for Doucoure, Cathcart and Rodriguez
instead of Tielemans, Neves and the Walnut. Yippee-ki-yay,
pheasantpluckers!
PLAYER
OF THE WEEK
WHammer
Snodgrass is positively bubbling over with joy at his two goal eleven
point Top Dog performance. I seem to remember buying him at one
time last season, but then discarding him shortly afterwards on account
of him being a useless git. He's come a long way since then -
maybe it's Moe!
REFFIN' HELL
Only
one result changer this time, at Bournemouth, where Anthony Taylor and
VAR Stuart Atwell conspired to decide that the goalkeeper racing out of
his goal, leaping in the air and punching an opponent in the face was
not foul play. Not a follow through after punching the ball, mark
you, just a straightforward right hook. I'm beginning to think
that a prerequisite for membership of PGMOL is having every single brain
cell bleached into submission by the FA. A simply farcical
decision, robbing Villa of a share of the points. Competing with
Taylor for Twat of the Day, though, was Kevin Friend and his VAR Simon
Hooper at Liverpool. Liverpool should have had a penalty for a
Long rugby tackle on Firmino, and Southampton should have had one for a
Firmino trip on Ings. Not only that, but with Friend waving play
on, Liverpool raced to the other end and scored their first goal, a
double injustice. Other incidents included Salah handling the ball
in the Sot'on area, then shooting wide - not penalised, and Robertson
playing a quite brilliant backpass to Alisson, which he picked up with
impunity - "accidental pass", said Friend. Utter bullshit.
Elsewhere, Andy Madley made some kinda history by awarding a red card to
Palace's Ward, then consulting the pitchside monitor and converting the
red to yellow. Excellent, but he blotted his record by booking
Baldock for pulling Zaha's arm, but failing to book him again when he
kicked Zaha comprehensively up in the air. Mike Dean also got in
on the act by only booking Sterling for a tackle on Alli identical to
the one that had Aubameyang sent off and banned for three matches.
He then refused City a penalty when Aurier hacked down Aguero, allowing
play to continue for about two minutes until the VAR told him he'd f'ked
it up and that a penalty should be awarded. By the way, if you
want a good laugh, take a look at Sky Sports' RefWatch on Mondays, where
Dermot Gallagher tries, with gradually increasing desperation and a
rictus grin, to defend the frequently laughable decisions of the PGMOL
boys over the weekend. The baldy little weasel hops about,
deploying what I reckon must be deliberately unintelligible shite to
excuse unforgiveable decisions and rank poor performances from his
mates. It at least has the compensation of being funny, but the
game is in a poor way if the MIB need this kind of advocate.
SECRET
SQUIRREL'S DIARY
Gary
sent me his team selection this week, as usual, but felt the need, about
five minutes later, to explain it. The auto-complete function on
his tablet had decided that it knew better than he did who should be
picked for the weekend matches, and had inserted in the midfield a
certain Mr Freakish. Naturally, it should have been Grealish, but
I reckon that's a pretty accurate substitution.
TRANSFERS
Here's what I know about
NewBlokes at the close of the transfer window. The first three are
Premium Players and if you're interested in any of them you'll need to
let me know by 13:00 on Thursday 6th Feb. at which time I'll invite
bids. The other blokes are all class 2 or 3 and are available
immediately.
Pablo Mari, Arsenal defender £7mill class 1:
Steven Bergwijn, Spurs midfield, £7.3mill, class 1:
Bruno Fernandes, Man Utd midfield, £9m class 1
Loiodice, Wolves midfield, £5mill, class 3:
Podence, Wolves midfield, £6mill, class 2:
Samatta, Villa striker, £5mill, class 3:
Lazaro, Newcastle midfield, £5mill, class 3:
Soucek, West Ham midfield, £6mill, class 2:
Bowen, West Ham striker, £6mill, class 2:
Ighalo, Man Utd striker, £6mill, class 2:
Baston, Villa striker, £5mill, class 3:
Brownhill, Burnley midfield, £5mill, class 3:
Berge, Sheff Utd midfield, £6mill, class 2:
Zivkovic, Sheff Utd striker, £5mill, class 3:
Retsos, Sheff Utd defender, £5mill, class 3:
Don't forget that one of your "Free" transfer weeks is specifically
for use during the January transfer window. As I'm a generous bloke,
you have until first fixture kickoff on the 8th February to use this
free week, at which time, if unused, it will evaporate.
CARTWRIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
Game 15,
and Verti Kong Strong create a bit of a gap at the top as they duff
Hamlet 18 - 5, and Krul and the Gang are held 19 each by Proper Job. The
Kebabers move into 3rd with a 25 - 8 over MoLO, and Balls of Steel slide
into 4th by wiping the Batshit 32 - 24. My Chicago stars drop to
5th after a losing encounter with Flibble, 24 - 27, who rise to 9th.
Frank's Trinity cruelly crush the hopes and dreams of his daughter's
team, 29 - 5, and all for the sake of climbing one place up the table.
Note that I had the decency to lose to my offspring.
PREDICT A
£MILLION
Oh yes, we're back on the right track. The first two results
were very encouraging and I could see the £250K hovering just around the
corner. It was not to be, but at least a dozen points is enough to
bag the £2mill, with Tom picking up the second place £1mill for a niner.
HIT PARADE
& SKILLMEISTER
