WEEK 25

[marke192]

First time this season for a write up from me. Most of my teams are all trudging along in the 100 300 positions, ISO being the exception currently in 33rd with most of the transfers blown, true to form!

Tuesday 26/01/2010 7:45pm
Bolton Wanderers v Burnley, Portsmouth v West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur v Fulham, Wolves v Liverpool
An early start for game week 25, a returning Gerrard for Liverpool will be an obvious captain choice for many managers along with Kuyt. Lennon still out, so Defoe and Kranjcar are the pick of the bunch for Spurs. There may be plenty of goals in the pompey v Hammers match but my captains armband will be well away from Fratton Park tonight.

Wednesday 27/01/2010 7:45pm
Aston Villa v Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers v Wigan Athletic, Chelsea v Birmingham City, Everton v Sunderland
Fabregas, Lampard, Anelka, Milner all the top candidates for captain. Saha, Bent, Rodallega could be good outside bets to play catch up.

Saturday 30/01/2010 all 3pm!
Birmingham City v Tottenham Hotspur, Fulham v Aston Villa, Hull City v Wolves, Liverpool v Bolton, West Ham United v Blackburn Rovers, Wigan Athletic v Everton
With Spurs up against Birminghams' tight defence, captain choices for this flange will probably best placed in the other games with Gerrard, Kuyt, Milner, Rodallega and Saha all straight bat selections. A clean sheet for Tottenham defenders would be welcome for managers with Spurs defenders .


Saturday 30/01/2010 5:30pm
Burnley v Chelsea
The big question for this match will be....any sign of Drogba?(Both Drogba and Kalou fly back from the ACN on the 27th) If he's back the gamble made to keep him in will have paid off for many managers!
Lampard and Anelka should provide ample cover in his absence.

Sunday 31/01/2010 1:30pm
Manchester City v Portsmouth
Tevez, Tevez, Tevez! Barring injury in the Carling Cup he's the only choice.......if you have him in your team. Adebayor may well return in this match but the switch to Tevez should have been made before Xmas by most managers.

Sunday 31/01/2010 4:00pm
Arsenal v Manchester United
A must win game for United (assuming that Arsenal and Chelsea win the mid-week, Saturday games!) to bring them level with Arsenal and 3 behind Chelsea. Rooney or Fabregas? Rooney or Fabregas? Rooney or Fabregas? Rooney or Fabregas? Argh!!! My head hurts just thinking about this decision.

Monday 01/02/2010 8:00pm
Sunderland v Stoke City
Darren Bent.

Good luck to all this week! And happy Australia day to all antipodean FISOers' (although Waitangi Day on the 6th of Feb is my personal favourite!-Avoid the Circle line!!!)

[MindVampire]

Great stuff... thanks for the write up
Looks like a really interesting week of footy...

Like you I’m not looking forward to the Rooney v Fabregas captain picks on Sunday...
Come to think of it, the same applies to Wednesdays Fab versus one of the Chelsea boys...
Which makes we wonder if Wenger will make that decision for us...
If Fab plays Wednesday and Sunday, that'll be 3 games in 8 days for a player who has just returned from injury!!!!
I wonder if Wenger will do the reverse of Sunday and bench Fab on Wednesday as he starts with Arshavin and Eduardo!?
Either way Good luck everyone!

PS... you've got to love Ancelotti
Wednesday's provisional Chelsea line up: Cech, Ivanovic, Carvalho, Terry, A Cole, Ballack ,Deco, Lampard, Joe Cole, Malouda, Anelka

[looneytoon77]

Thanks for the write up!

A whopping 6 points from last night's games - Consequently dropped out the top 100 but only by 5 points so hopeful of making it back in after tonight's games.

I like the Chelsea approach to naming teams before the games - Makes our fantasy choices a lot easier!

[murf]

14 points for my two teams last night. They went up 2 and 3 places respectively.

At that rate they'll both be top 20 in around 300 matchdays.....

[Northernmonkey]

cheers marke for the write up, cheers to Frank too.

A 52 for my top side (ISO) tonight should be nice, others got 36, 28, 39, 29 which I'm guessing is the norm. Didn't bother adding up yesterdays drabness.

[Fuseballah]

boring number of points tonight, happy i didn't star Cesc, 4 points would have been no good to me.

[murf]

A nice 63 for my main team this week (49 tonight) - good old Double Fat Frank.
A lesser 34 (20 tonight) in my increasingly shoddy ISO team.

[Fuseballah]

i bet everyone will hit the transfer button tomorrow....as Vermaelen may have broken his leg
dayuuuuum

Luckily there is a frequently tumbling down Campbell back in the sqaud.

[MindVampire]

Big spread from my teams and some poor star man picks...

Final midweek scores: Lowest 29 pts , average 57 pts and highest 84 pts.
Mindvampire 6 scored 57 pts.

[Northernmonkey]

i bet everyone will hit the transfer button tomorrow....as Vermaelen may have broken his leg
dayuuuuum

Luckily there is a frequently tumbling down Campbell back in the sqaud.

That's a right arse if it's true. Apparently he walked off pitch so fingers crossed, we'll have to wait and see manana. According to wenger could be a nerve or broken bone.

[Worm]

Some tidy points picked up tonight with my scores over both nights coming in at 78, 73, 59 & 27 (ISO)

Just having a mare with ISO & FFL is the main contributor to that status while I've been waiting patiently for Dogs Guts to get back Not sure now if he's going to outscore Lamps over the next few months but I've committed to bringing him back so I'll stick to my word after coming this far.

On a slightly brighter note my side that sits in 215th going into tonights games ended up with 58 (78 all up) so bye bye to ISO again for the time being in my roller coaster season

And finally, yes finally, my crap team in 1500th odd saluted for the 1st time in a long time with all 5 of my Chelsea defenders playing in the one side, no cards & no subs for a tidy 36 points with Terry captained. Had Lamps in that squad so not the perfect result for max points, but hey, that team has been shot since its inception

Coming into Feb I'm not too confident now of having an impact on the "big players" on the leaderboard, so I'll re-adjust the goal posts to try to crack the top 50 at this stage by May ........I'll nail those transfers one season

[Oddsman]

Thanks for the write-up marke. Still remember fondly your charge for the summit last season.

74 satisfactory midweek points for Iguana

[mike_d99]

Good write-up, Mark, thanks

78 points for the two nights takes me up six places to 5th. Best position I've had for three seasons, and at this stage of the season the best I've ever had, well chuffed

Other scores varied from 38 to 64.

[Chocs]

Thanks for the preview marke.

A better night for my teams with my top side (just) making it back into the top 10 after a 2 month absence. Squeezed a 4th side into the top 100 for the first time this season as well.

Middling sides fared poorly though with ISO taking a dive after Anelka had given it some false hope of a recovery in recent weeks. Back to reality last night.

[Ashers]

Moved back to 59th, but over 150 points away from 1st.

Will be happy with a top 50 finish.

[looneytoon77]

Appeared to be one of the few that dropped places - Down to 139th now after being 82nd a week ago! No Lampard & no goals made a dismal 34pts for the weeks return. Top points scoring team managed 74pts though, 2 of my 4 teams moved up & 2 moved down.

Hoping for a better weekend set of scores!

[reds363]

Ditto to that LT!

I had Lampard in my worst squad, but other than that none of my 3 teams mustered a single goal between them - top team somehow only slipped 3 places to 22nd and ISO down from the 60s to the 90s.

Now, what to do about Drogba!?

[Ashers]

I have 6 changes left and need to get Fabergas, Drogba and Tevez in my team.

Help!!!!!!!!!!1

[NEONTETRA]

Cahill and MGPs goals rescued me and I'm hoping the gamble of keeping Drogs pays off. I'm up to 37th.

[AkNotSpur]

Nice preview, marke and I paticularly enjoyed the reference to Waitangi Day. That's next Saturday when I will be off with the family for a week at Cook's Beach (Coromandel, North Island) - far away from Sky TV and last minute team news. Perhaps that will be the end of an enjoyable TFFO march from 700 to 133 in the New Year.

Like many, I seem to have benefitted from Drogba's absence although there will be a huge temptation to bring him in for Torres before Tuesday night's game at Hull. I guess that many squads are becoming Chelsea-heavy now that they are the only B4 side left in the cup - not to mention their impressive league form.

Good to hear of someone benefitting from their faith in Pedersen - I must admit to giving up on him a while back as he looked like (partially) ruining another TFFO effort. On the other hand, I've often backed Cahill at the right times over the years and this season looks like another example, despite Everton's surprise cup exit.

Good luck to everyone for the weekend games.

[Biscuitman]

Similar story here - up to 28th, but nowhere near a computer this weekend, so keeping fingers crossed on the selections.

Must learn how to add an avatar sometime...

[Ashers]

Kuyt, Cahill and Defoe I knew I kept you for a reason.

Come on Milner!!!!!

[Oddsman]

Hoping that 64pts for Iguana today, should at least keep those current podium boys honest

[MindVampire]

Top team scored 57 pts and 2nd team scored 45 pts.

[MindVampire]

Sundays scores: Lowest 18 pts, average 26 pts and highest 37 pts.
Mindvampire6 33 pts and Mindvampire2 28 pts.

[Ashers]

How do you know your score already?

I have Rooney *
Given Clean Sheet
Evra, Valencia and Bendtner

Not sure what that is worth?

[MindVampire]

How do you know your score already?

I have Rooney *
Given Clean Sheet
Evra, Valencia and Bendtner

Not sure what that is worth?

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http://fantasyfootball.telegraph.co.uk/matchfacts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your 5 players scored a decent 35 pts assuming Given was your captain for the Man City game

[melvin]

Finished with 29 in highest placed team (151 place) got the wrong one on star as gambled on Fabregas over Rooney

[looneytoon77]

Highest score was 37pts today, lowest was 31pts so not too bad. Didn't score well yesterday though so dropped! 1 to come tomorrow in 3 of the 4 teams.

[Worm]

Best team managed to stay in around 160th after Sat's update. Only 23 pts for Sunday however
Why can't Sweep get a starting gig now that he's been back for a few games

On a more sour note, ISO sinking faster than a weighted marshmallow as my white flag & I plead for the mercy rule to be executed immediately. These guys 3 weeks ago were my only chance of top 75-100 glory it seemed. Well thanks for having us, it was a funky ride

Team Worm 160th odd now becomes my focus & last hope for any pride to be restored.

Will be interesting to see what movement can be made if Bent hits a double & MOM honours tomorrow