First Impressions and Second Thoughts - Week 11

Can you say "unmitigated disaster" for your favorite blogger? I know I certainly can after this disaster of a weekend.  The only good news, a chance to reload and wipe this one off the books come Tuesday.  Arsenal lost to NUFC.  ManYoo won despite playing terribly.  My entire fantasy team decided it was the weekend not to show up.  I honestly can't think of a single bit of upside to write about. 



Teams

• The Champions - Wow, what can you say about Chelsea's away form? Loss to Citeh, draw with Villa, loss to Liverpool.  Not a good trend.  Making matters worse is that their first choice line-up was pretty much intact with the exception of Lamps who wasn't contributing much before he went out. 
• The Pursuit -Let's face it, ManYoo looked TERRIBLE fielding what amounted to a Carling Cup team against Wolves and but for the industry of Park Ji-Sung they'd have dropped home points to 19th place Wolves.  You could take that one of two ways - the upside, they got three points; the downside - even a mid-table team would have punished them.  Once Chelsea lost, a cr@ppy performance turned into a great weekend all over Manchester.  Back in London, Arsenal continue to confound with a third listless performance in a row (two Premier League matches and the mid-week Champions League match).  Opportunity lost and a potential champion has to pick up all three points against mid-table opposition - not a good sign.
• The Pretenders - Hello Spurs, welcome to official status as pretenders to the crown.  Just not enough there to fight a battle on two fronts.  Other than the brief run where they scored through impressive strikes from Hutton and Pavyluchenko Bolton dominated them.  Chelsea, Arsenal, and ManYoo may lose to inferior opposition on the road from time-to-time but they are rarely dominated like Spurs were on Saturday.  Whereas Spurs lost their chance to gain on Chelsea and Arsenal, Citeh capitalized with solid performance against a team that has been giving others trouble.  That's the difference between Citeh and Spurs thus far this season.  Seems to me that on the basis of this week that Arsenal and Citeh have to be grouped together a notch behind resilient ManYoo but a notch above Spurs.
• Bolton - A lot was made in some circles of the fact that Bolton were only one point ahead of last season's pace heading into this weekend.  The difference that such analysis misses is that this edition of Bolton are capable of dominating a pretty good team going forward.  Not just gutting out tight, hard-hitting match-ups against fellow mid-table teams.
• Birmingham - Can anyone explain these guys to me? The results make sense but they play a tight defense-oriented match one week only to play a wild attacking match the next.  Hard to know what to expect from them from week-to-week or know where the points might be coming from (if any). #NewBolton.
• Wolves - So close but they couldn't quite keep it together to get the Manchester sweep over two weeks that could easily have seen them take 4 points from the two high-flying Manchester sides.
• WHU - Like Wolves, they dropped valuable points in the late going.  They dominated the early going forcing Foster into 7 saves in addition to their two goals.  If they're going to avoid relegation they have to pick up all three points.
• Bunching - Bolton and NUFC are the two most recent teams to enjoy at least a few days in the rarefied air just below the top four spots and above current Champions League darlings Spurs but with only 7 points separating 5th from 18th the margins are still razor thin for just about everyone.  I'm not saying that everyone from Blackpool to WBA to Bolton to NUFC shouldn't enjoy their position while they have it but it's probably best not to get TOO carried away with it.

Players

• Chip off the Old Block - First, a tip of the blog hat to Melanie, daughter of Jeremy, on her goal over the weekend - I believe that's her second of the season in this, her first season of playing the beautiful game - may there be many more.
• Milijas - He didn't have another 17 point effort but he was very effective again with an assist for his efforts - definitely worth consideration alongside Adam, Brunt, Barton, and Nolan as strong midfielders available for less than 10 on less-fancied teams. 
• Gyan - I'm still not sold on him as a strike partner for DBent but with Bent out, he did the business that we would have expected Bent to do.  If DBent continues to miss out, I hope you got him on the BD
• Chicharito/Obertan/Bebe - Wow, that was unfathomably bad.  Chicharito looked for all the world like Macheda 2.0 (a few "magical" early performances followed by, well, nothing).  Obertan seemed to be mostly running around for some exercise rather than with any purpose, I don't know if I saw anything other than a few sideways passes to mark his efforts.  Finally, Bebe looked like he'd never seen a soccer ball before and that the concept of crossing it into box was entirely new to him.  His crossing made Aaron Lennon's look like Beckham in his prime.  Yes, it was THAT bad from ManYoo's reserves.  And to think, van der Vaart cost about £1.7M more than Bebe.  Can anyone explain how ManYoo didn't go in for VDV if they were spending?
• Bale - So, you think Rafa is a better manager than his successor at Anfield? How is it that Bolton and other lesser-lights of the Prem can find ways to keep Bale in check while Rafa with a much more talented Inter team and Rafa's familiarity with Bale from his years at 'pool can't figure out how to bottle him up?  With all of that talent at Inter he can coast through most of Serie A but he's shown me very little to lead me to believe he should be considered a great manager.  Oh, and Bale is officially off my list of fantasy players after that stinker of a performance.  He's just too expensive.
• Drogba/Malouda - Dead to me (OK, that's too severe but I'm dumping both of them for midweek).  Just too much budget to be spending on players who aren't doing anything.  I assume this means that the derby match with Fulham will be where both players break back out. 
• Balotelli - What a frustrating day for fantasy managers, a fantastic BD day turned sour with a red card ensuring that he won't be around to be in your line-up in mid-week.  Still, you have to wonder if Balotelli's performance signaled the effective end of K2's Citeh career.