Monday Morning Manager

Relief!

Souness knows what it feels like. And so do fantasy manager who gambled on the fitness and finesse of Newcastle's Emre. A match-winning, set-piece goal and an assist (some reports were crediting him with the second assist of the game as well, but that clearly came from Charles N'Zogbia) calmed a lot of nerves on Tyneside and around the fantasy world.

Now if you had the additional fore-sight to include Lampard in your squad then yesterday was a double delight. Lampard continued his amazing run scoring Chelsea's only goal of the game while battering an additional five shots on target!

And if you bought Ameobi and Emre because they were cheap and you needed the money to afford Lampard... well then, you sir are a master.

I'll admit to one of three, with the Emre pick. But a Manager can dream, can't he?

Rather than buy Lampard I put my money on Thierry Henry. Not a bad investment. Hardly ever a complaint. But if there is one weakness in his fantasy profile it is his refusal to regularly take penalties for Arsenal. Were he the regular taker we would be talking about his 2-goal game and Arsenal's comfortable win over a resurgent Manchester City. Instead we get Pires' shennanigans (can someone explain to me the rules in the comments) and a tight one-nil win with Henry coming out with no points. If you wanted Henry to take the penalty... JUST LET HIM TAKE IT!! Don't come up with some soft-shoe routine. Let him place the ball, run up and strike the damn thing! Just brutal for a fantasy manager.

Assorted thoughts:
  • Wigan keeping it real and keeping another clean sheet. Portsmouth coming unglued at the back again. Does Arjan De Zeeuw know how to say "schaudenfruede" in Dutch?
  • Milner -- the quietest fantasy stud on the boards, but not the cheapest anymore
  • Newcastle @WBA next weekend, another in their "must win" stretch. And how have they done so far? Lost to Wigan, tied Pompey and barely snuck by Sunderland. Doesn't bode well for them when they start playing teams from the top half of the table.
  • How many league goals do Everton and Liverpool have between them? And is it more than Chelsea have allowed this year?
  • Giannakopoulos or Khizanishvili?
  • Who is in more trouble - Birmingham or Everton?
Until next week,
The Manager

4 comments:

  1. if you bought ameobi you don't need help from us. go with your heart!

    jeremy

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  2. Regarding your penalty query.
    Perfectly legal, although the final outcome (indirect kick) from the official is in question.
    So long as the ball makes one complete rotation in a direction that is toward the goal, then the kick is valid. Should the kicking player touch the ball a second time, an indirect kick is awarded to the defending team. Otherwise the ball is considered in play and open for any alert player to strike (or gather in). In this case, Pires did not move the ball a full rotation which should have resulted in a re-take. However, the official adjudged Pires to have struck the ball a second time, resulting in the indirect.
    When done well, it's a quite clever play.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, CrazyBobcat.

    So other than probably being a REALLY STUPID IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE, it was legal, but just not well executed?

    Shame. I could have used the points from TH. But next time JUST LET HIM TAKE THE PK!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Related to the comment requesting line-up suggestions I'd splurge on some defenders or I'd think about moving from van der Saar to Cech or Robinson in net...

    ReplyDelete