Barn Door Team

Finally had a good week last week. Seven players in double figures with Torres close, and Kusz and Fabio the only real disappointments. Kolarov to play on Tuesday, but no telling what Manchester City will look like the rest of the way.

For next week, I've assembled another team that's more "who's that?" than "whose who". This was put together before West Ham made their fall through the Premier League trapdoor - with N'Zogbia pulling the lever - so I'm sure to revisit Ba at the least. Also Ivanovic is at Everton and I'm guessing the home teams have the advantage this week. At the very least they'll want to put on a show for their fans.

Otherwise, Birmingham, Blackburn, Wigan, Wolves and Blackpool will be the teams on a mission. You could certainly argue for a team picked exclusively from those squads.

Finally, Manchester United will be fielding the kids this week against Blackpool. All the more reason to load up on the Seasiders. But if you fancy being contrary, maybe today's reserve match is a guide.

Reserves v Bolton: Lindegaard, Rafael, Gill, R Brown, Wootton, James, Fletcher, Norwood, Ajose, Obertan, Brady.less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyNick Coppack
nickcoppack

Look-a-likes

Anyone else disappointed David Luiz and Coloccini aren't on the pitch at the same time? #CFC #NUFC #BBCFootballless than a minute ago via Twitter for Mac Favorite Retweet ReplyTom Strachan
tstrachanedit

Yes. So yes.

So Happy Together

Or at least both happy, apart.

Congratulations to both sides of Manchester on jobs well done.







Special mention for Sir Alex Ferguson and whatever drives him. The European leagues have a bias towards their bigger clubs, but success like he has achieved over a sustained period of time is nothing short of amazing.

Barn Door Live - FA Cup Final Edition

My apologies for the crazy week between me being on holiday and the troubles with Blogger, this wasn't our finest week as bloggers.  My hope is that you had your BD team more or less set heading into this weekend's matches. In any event, I'm back in the US wondering why the weather here is significantly less pleasant than it was in our various stops around the UK - it is still supposed to be Spring here in the States isn't it?

A Very Brief Week Ahead

As you have no doubt guessed from the previous post, I am on vacation/holiday with my wife in the UK and while that may seem closer to the action, let me assure you it is definitely much further. We've been on the go almost constantly so I've had little access to the news and news and opinions that help me put this column together for you. On top of that, my first look at the options for this week reveal that the players that all of the good players are really expensive having presumably done well last weekend.

Who do I mean?

Here's a list of guys who were over 10 points last weekend but you probably want on your team this week:

RvP, Suarez, Odemwingie, Adam, N'zogbia, Maxi, Kuyt, Der Hammer, and Fletcher.

Throw in some guys whose price remains high despite mediocre closes to the season - Ba, Walcott, Nasri and really anyone from Arsenal or Chelsea who has played regularly.

If you're looking for some players who might provide some value among the expensive ones, here are some options - Vermaelen, Ramsey, Rodallega, Noble, and Reina. Hopefully, though, you have your BD line-up set unlike your faithful blogger who was at a wedding when most of the action was going on.

And before you ask, I really don't have much of a sense of what SAF might do with his line-up this week so unless he tips his hand on Friday, I'm staying away. My choices might not be great but I'm at least reasonably certain that they'll start.

Sorry for the brief post but I honestly don't have enough information to do the job right this week. Hopefully Jeremy and maybe Nik will be so kind as to fill in some of the blanks.

Turning Point

Observations from Citeh vs Spurs Live

Without Tevez, Spurs and Citeh are the same team. What do I mean? Both teams have too much invested in too many guys (Modric, VDV, Silva, AJohnson, Milner) who like to play at the periphery waiting to feed off the main action. Dzeko and Crouch just don't seem good enough against stout central defenders who can muscle them off their spots. Neither team had that central figure that just wanted to dominate the game. The problem with the lack of central forwards combined with the absence of a driving force is that it means that neither team has central action for all those other guys to play off of.

Maybe Bale is that guy longer term for Spurs and Tevez could be for Citeh if he stays but with both questionable (Bale has been injured a lot in a brief career) I will be curious to see what's next for both. In some ways Liverpool is ahead of both teams with Meireles, Gerrard, Suarez, and Carroll - they just need to figure out if Kuyt and Maxi are the right complimentary pieces.

As an aside, I enjoyed watching Yaya Toure much more than I thought I would. His game is definitely an acquired taste because he doesn't look the part and he spends a lot of time shuffling around like he's Kolo's much older brother and not his younger brother. That said, when it is time to take action, he's very good and very fast and very assertive. He's the player we Arsenal players keep hoping against any reasonable hope that Abu Diaby might become. He's probably not worth the money but now that they've paid it - he's a useful guy to have around.

Differential

How many fantasy manager's seasons were decided by this man? For good or for worse.

Barn Door Team

There is still much football to be played this "week" as Liverpool travel to Fulham later today, and the big Spurs/ManCity clash on Tuesday. But the barn door (and time and tide) wait for no fantasy manager. Here's the state of my team after the weekend's action:

A few enablers in Heitinga, Zenden, and even Hitzlsperger allow for some big spending up top with Odemwingie and van Persie.  Tevez comes into the mix depending on how he looks against Spurs.  Of course he'll have the FA Cup match before the rematch against Stoke the following Tuesday so I may stay away.  Same goes for David Silva, whom I'm holding, but in this team I've replaced him with Matty Taylor.  Bolton are on the road against a motivated Blackpool, but I figure there will be goals on both sides of the pitch in that one.  Hence my keeping Sturridge even after he broke my heart against Sunderland this weekend.  When will I ever learn not to bet on Bolton?  It should be a rule or something!

In net I've moved from Hart to Edwin Van Der Sar.  I expect Manchester United to clinch the Premier League title this weekend at Ewood Park and to do it "to nil".  However, that is a pool of money to draw from to upgrade elsewhere... I'm looking at your spots, Johnny Heit and B.Zenden!

Where have you netted out on the barn door?

Van Persie Scores Again

But the way Y! reports it, well...

The Dutch striker finally made the breakthrough with a chance he created himself, forcing his way into the box before drilling a low shit under the keeper for his 20th goal of 2011.

He's a streaky scorer!

This goal was no stain on his record.

Arsenal really stepped in it today.

Shame that it was just a constipation goal.

(Okay, that last one needs work.)

h/t Sylvie's Pet (Project)

Injuries and Suspensions

Head-to-head this week.

So I started the week with a real bee in my bonnet for 2-gamers. As I posted on Monday I made room for ten of them in my team.

Now? Now I'm not so sure.

I think there's value in some of the one-gamers, notably Bolton hosting Sunderland, Rovers @ West Ham, and West Brom @ Wolves. And I can't get a good handle on whom will play (and perform) for the doubles.

So here's where I am going into what is sure to be wild Friday trading:

The Week Ahead - The Breaks of the Game Edition

Now in general I am a huge subscriber to the notion that "you are what your record says you are" (apologies to Bill Parcels).  Ifs, ands, buts, and the like are generally for losers.  That said, I came across this on The Twitter this morning and thought it would be interesting to share in light of the criticism that Arsene Wenger has received this season for sticking to his (ahem) guns when it comes to his policy of youth.  Likewise, it sheds some interesting light on the "amazing" job that Sir Alex is doing.

Modified table in a world where all shots off the bar/post went in (Source: Opta)

What do we see? That Arsenal would be running away with the title if they could shoot just THIS MUCH straighter.  I'm not smart enough to know if the tendency to hit the bar and the post often enough to cause this big a difference in the table is indicative of anything specific at Arsenal.  It could be the effect of youth.  It could be part of the Arsenal Way which seems to include trying to be too perfect or elegant when something else would get the job done.  It could be the pressure to win something.  It could be a compounding of the lack of confidence due to the team's recent habit of getting very close to winning things but "never winning the big one."  It could also just be bad luck.

In any event, with summer coming and the inevitable call for Arsenal to spend a ton to refurbish the squad this hypothetical graphic gives some wings to the notion that they really aren't that far off in what they're doing.

By contrast everything has gone perfectly for Man United who would be project to have EXACTLY the same number of points had all of their shots hitting the target gone in.  Call them brutally efficient if you'd like.  Also realize that it means that with the squad as currently constituted they have almost zero room for error.  If only a few of those shots that Chicharito nestled just inside the bar start hitting the bar and bouncing out instead they could be in for an ugly season unless they bolster their squad.

Before the comments start to roll in, this is in NO WAY an attempt to claim that Arsenal are the rightful winners of the title or that they are a better team than Manchester United this season.  You are what your record says you are.  United or Chelsea will win the title and if they do so they will do so deservedly.  My only point is that things aren't quite as dire as you are likely to read at the Emirates as they head into the summer.

And with that we take you to your regularly scheduled fantasy analysis:

Two-Gamers

With Carson (@Wolves) enabling.

Thoughts from the crowd?

The Barn Door Live

Injuries and Suspensions

Premier League team news - ESPN Soccernet

• Sturridge and Steinsson are both doubtful for Bolton which is certainly a bummer for fantasy managers - Sturridge has been great (and still leads Torres 7 goals to one meaningless goal since the Transfer Window closed). Steinsson is a bummer because he's a cheap way to get in on Bolton's potential CS against Rovers who have been bad since their ownership/managerial change. [Thought: PRobbo switches to the right and Alonso gets in at (attacking) left-back. -jeremy]
• Eth is confirmed out for the match at Blackpool - Pennant becomes even more attractive as the percentage of kicks that come his way increases. [Thought: Whelan is a NICE enabler. Under 3 and likely to take some percentage of corners. -jeremy]
• Sunderland are missing all of their forwards which should push Sessegnon up as a great fill-in option - the bitch of it all is that he isn't listed in the game so while he WOULD be a great option, Yahoo! has shown their weakness in never adding him. [Thought: Malbranque likely to start behind the "forward" and may be your way in if you fancy Sunderland. And if you do, why? -jeremy]
• Zamora and AJ are both "pushing" for starts - no idea what that is going to translate to other than "I'd avoid the situation" [Thought: Shame as I'm liking Eidur "Iceman" Gudjohnsen as an enabler this week. Eidur and Steed... what is this, 2002 all over again?. -jeremy]
• Brunt, Thomas and Reid are out for WBA which will hurt their attack against Villa. [Thought: Jara and Vela become relevant, but Cox isn't listed. He's been sessegnoned. -jeremy]
• Old blog favorite fallen on hard times Mikel Arteta has a chance to come back into the squad - this one is worth watching but more for next week than this one. [Thought: Beckford or Osman in this one. -jeremy]
• THud is doubtful along with Corluka and Kranjcar with BAE definitely out of action.
• SEB appears unlikely to return joining Doyle on the sidelines as Wolves see it all slipping away. [Thought: As Neal suggested in The Week Ahead, load up on your BRM defenders. Maybe Larsson as well. -jeremy]
• Carroll seems likely but not definite to return for the NUFC match. [Thought: I'm thinking this is another SAF 'resting' Rooney @Everton. It works in Liverpool's favor if Carroll misses this one. I'm in on Suarez and Kuyt. Don't trust that Maxi was anything but a flash in the pan -jeremy]
• No useful news on the Citeh line-up other than confirming that Tevez will definitely NOT play.

The Week Ahead - Matchweek 35

It took a while but good things finally happened for (most) fantasy managers who went with two-gamers over the stalwarts from places like Chelsea and Arsenal who were still on their roster from a week ago. There were certainly pitfalls with Zamora, SEB, and eventually Eth being limited by injury (I had all three). Despite those pitfalls some combination of the highly regarded two-gamers - Sturridge, Dempsey, KJones, Pennant, Schwarzer, Begovic, Hangeland, Shawcross, etc - won the day. Even with almost no contribution from the three injured players I ended the week over 100 which is pretty solid when compared with the the one-game alternatives (unless you knew Maxi was going to get a hat trick).

I guess my point is that if you play it smart and limit yourself to guys who at least have a chance to be solid fantasy contributors in any individual match, you're likely to be happy to have those guys for two matches over more talented players over one match. Occasionally it doesn't work out (see the Birmingham disaster of a month or so ago) but much more often than not it will.

Was it sweating bullets on Saturday evening when it was clear that the first round of matches was all but useless? Definitely. Do I feel a lot better now that the second set of matches has been played and it turned out much better? Even more so.

Just something to keep in mind as you look forward to next week when again, there will be a limited number of teams (this time two) who will play two matches. The good news is that the teams are better - Manchester City and Spurs. The bad news is that they play each other in what might be the most unpredictable pairing in the league right now. Still, my inclination is to start thinking about my two-game strategy now rather than thinking that I might want to ignore the two-game thing entirely.

History Repeating

In your history books

Check out this post from the blog's first month back in 2004:

Fantasy Premier League Blog: The Roman Empire

We love the Fantasy EPL mentality that Mr. Abromavich has brought to Chelsea, but we're not sure he's picking the right guys up front. To prove our point, we'll be tracking the fantasy totals of Roman/Jose's current strikers against the ones they've kindly loaned out to their rivals (specifically Carlton Cole and Mikael Forssell). Even with a 3 striker to 2 advantage the Banished lead those still around by the narrow margin of 21.60 to 20.40.

After Week 1:

The Most Favored:
D. Drogba - 5.30
E. Gudjohnsen - 10.20
M. Kezmen - 4.90

The Banished:
C. Cole - 16.70
M. Forssell - 4.90

And now compare today's situation where Neal is giving us weekly updates on the respective goal tallies of Torres (1) and Sturridge (7).

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même.

Messi!

Thanks to 101GreatGoals for the clips.

Update: The comparisons come easy. Watch the first goal in this collection and tell me who did it better?

Deuce!

Season over for Ireland

Not that it ever really got started.

BBC Sport - Season over for Newcastle United's Stephen Ireland

Newcastle United have confirmed midfielder Stephen Ireland will miss the remainder of the Premier League season with an ankle injury.

But there's another enabler taken off the board.