Another weekend of FA Cup games to stress over…

Saturday, 23rd Jan '10

12:45
Preston North End v Chelsea
Reading v Burnley

I'm sure a few people will be irritated to see the Chelsea team Ancelotti has named for Saturdays game...
No Cech, Carvalho, Cole or Ivanovic in the starting 11... leaving anyone relying on those mentioned to cover Drogba's absence with a possible unmanned flange! CHE: Hilario, Paulo Ferreira, Alex, John Terry, Yury Zhirkov, Juliano Belletti, Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard, Deco, Nicolas Anelka, Daniel Sturridge
For Burnley, looks like Fletcher is fit!!

3:00
Manchester United v Hull City (PREM)
Accrington Stanley v Fulham
Aston Villa v Brighton
Bolton Wanderers v Sheffield United
Everton v Birmingham City
Notts County v Wigan Athletic
Portsmouth v Sunderland
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Crystal Palace

Rooney and Valencia are likely to start in a game that can see Man U go top on Saturday
Both Fulham and Villa will likely rest some big players. Regardless, Zamora and Dempsey are out anyway, as are Carew and R Dunne.
Bolton, Everton and Birmingham will all likely field strong'ish sides. Some ISOers will be gutted to see L Osman injured again LOL
Assuming Wigan turn up, I think Rodallega is due a goal...
Other than Rooney, the other straight bat captain choice for the 3pm games would be Bent.

5:15
Tottenham Hotspur v Leeds United

Gutted to see Lennon still out... as I heard Harry say he was aiming for Leeds a week or so back.
Still, it gives those with Defoe and Kranjcar a chance to gain a little on what will be an unmanned flange for many.

Sunday, 24th Jan '10

1:30
Stoke City v Arsenal

Fingers crossed that premiership opposition and a few injuries in midfield will make Wenger play Fabregas and Arshavin in this one. Presumably he'll play Fabianski again in goal and with pundits suggesting Campbell could start... it's 50:50 as to whether the Verm will play!?

4:00
Scunthorpe v Manchester City

If RSC hadn't picked up an in jury I would have predicted that Tevez would have been rested for the 2nd leg of the League cup... Not sure now

Last weekend for the manager of the month also...

Good luck all

Cheers MV

Agree that the Chelski news does not suit, more so my leading team Hate the unmaned flange, but how many transfers can one justify to solve these crappy situations

Have Lampard in my other 3 squads but ISO just keeps taking a battering since Xmas I'm discovering

Also agree that Rooney may be the no brainer for 15:00 as Bent has lost his way a little of late & may prove too risky. Would be happy for him to prove otherwise of course

Just need a few more boys on the park to start another run hopefully over the next 3 months. Catch up games will hopefully assist a few of my squads depending on when they are played

All the best boys.

Not good news re Chelsea in my top squad, means no coverage.

Should be ok for the 3pm games, think I will struggle in the other flanges this weekend due to injuries & rotation. Think if I survive in the top 100 come Sunday night then I will be amazed!

Thanks for the right up again MV & good luck all.

Nice write up MV, but ...



What happened there?

Thank heavens I didn't have a clash!

Top team managed 63 pts - That was all from the 3pm clashes - Am expecting to drop though as most would have starred Wazza. No one in the early or late kick offs for the day.
Rooney was starred in all 4 of my teams so expecting the others with coverage to have got more but unfortunately they are off the top 100 so not really shouting success with those!

Hold your hands up if you did not captain Rooney.

I starred Defoe* and that just hurt.

Sorry about that folks... never thought I would turn to such underhand tactics to win the ISO league LOL
Seriously though... Physioroom has him down as injured with no return date... and he wasn't even on the bench against City... Doh...
Fingers crossed no one left him out...

Scores so far: Lowest 61 pts, average 69 pts and highest 83 pts. Mindvampire6 71 pts and Mindvampire2 69 pts.

High 64, low 63, average 63.3

Roon starred everywhere for me too 67 (ISO), 61, 68, 79, 54. Gotta hope 1 or 2 brave souls didn't star him but not likely!

Only 64% of teams have Rooney.

The other 36% are probably waiting for Drogba to come back, who is actually still in 30% of all teams.

Surely almost everyone in the top 100 has Rooney, if anyone up there doesn't have him they've done amazingly to get up there. Same as Fabregas, starred him on weds night and got decent points but still ended up losing 4 places! Really not expecting too much movement on the leaderboard but anyone who has Rooney and didn't star him must be spewing over their corn flakes this morning.

Rooney was one of the easiest picks pre-season as there were no other United atackrs worth considering IMO. Nothing has changed since then.

I carried Drog in one team (ISO) as I thought he'd scoe more on his return than Anelka would from January to May and I didn't want to burn 2 transfers. Probably called that wrong.....

Update done.

Was in 31st, now in... 31st. That'll be 30 starred Rooneys above me then.

Up to 588th

That may sound dreadful to most but I was struggling for ages to get back into the top 1000....

Looks like 3 teams didn't captain Rooney in the top 25 yesterday
And BigJonS's team Bongo4 continued its good recent form with a tidy score of 83 pts.

I dropped from 10th to 21st, I couldn't star Rooney because I've never had him in this squad.

I * Rooney and actually dropped 2 places.

Other 2 were mine. Not there to star, and was hoping it was the difference on the leaders' sqauds to make some ground up.

Title bid firmly on the back foot now. Like Man Utd out of the Cup I can now concentrate on the league, as in Superleague.

Slipped 13 places back to the 43rd, even with Roon's contribution. Too much tortoise hugging here...

Looks like I forgot to set my Arsenal flange First time this season - had't done in advance as bought Spurs players). Only had Fab but don't think he was even in the XI from last night.

Now onto the City flange and none of my players are in the City XI.....

Fabergas did however get an assist today.

Man City News:

TEAMS Scunthorpe v Man City

Man City: Taylor, Onuoha, Boyata, Kompany, Sylvinho, De Jong, Ireland, Ibrahim, Robinho, Petrov, Benjani. Subs: Nielsen, Richards, Wright-Phillips, Zabaleta, Barry, Bellamy, Cunningham.

Dropped back to 94th with top team and had Rooney. No other flange coverage yesterday which is why I dropped! Only had Fab today but he picked me up 10 points, same as the rest of the 93 teams above me no doubt!

I don't have Fabergas, but did have Arshavin

Lots of 10's for me today, plus a 20 for a side still holding Stephen Ireland

Just seen Ivory Coast got beat, so an early return for Drogba. Bagging the Tevez points was well worth it, but reluctant to now get rid. Best get the thinking cap on!

Wasn't around for the Ars k/o but luckily had Fab on star in all three. Wasn't expecting him to play, so got a bit lucky there.

Two 10s and an 11 here today.

Let me save you the touble NM.....if you have Torres......

On the other hand, if you don't ........well give that thinking cap an almighty rogering

Good to see Wenger shielding everyone, except his MVP, from the (alleged) orcas of Stoke but, hey, it's going to take more than 5 points to lift the Banned United into the Top 100.

However, Didums could be back by the weekend, and that Torres->Drogba switch looks very tempting

All but by bottom 2 teams scored 10 pts yesterday, so nothing special there.

On the brighter side, my manager of the month team has finished top for month 5 though

Very little to report from my teams for a couple of weeks and another straight bat weekend saw my top sides edge up a place or 2. Top teams now 13th, 84th, 86th.

I'm assuming that Torres’s injury, ACN absences, Tevez's form and Rooney taking over Ronaldo’s role in TFFO this season (for me at any rate) means that a lot of the top sides have converged to similar strike forces so I'm expecting Drogba’s return to shake things up a bit.

"Congrats to MV" seems like a standard phrase this season, but well done for topping the monthly as well as the overall. Nowhere in the weekly though!

Just seen that the weekly winner had 240 points and second place 164 points. Don't look at this table very often, but can't believe there's been too many bigger winning margins than this.