GW 2 – Review

Welcome to The Ultimate Goals’ GW 2 analysis, a round that really brought out the best in many of our players! Sam’s having a well earned holiday at the moment, so I’m on ‘weekly review duties’ in his absence. Let’s look at how the gameweek panned out…..

If we had ‘Breaking News’ updates on the website, the weekend’s headlines would surely be that last season’s top score of 151, achieved on two separate occasions, has taken just two gameweeks to be eclipsed! With a very attractive looking fixture list available across all nine of our professional UK leagues, Birmingham City supporter Dale Bayford took full advantage of the situation to hammer in a huge score of 152 and top the weekly leaderboard. Such was Dale’s dominance that, despite there being a staggering 61 tons recorded, he still won the round by 10 clear points! His seven chosen teams amassed a whopping 27 goals between them, with the order proving to be crucial – the three lowest scorers, Liverpool (98 picks), Bournemouth (46) and Fulham (80) on x2, x3 & x4 all with a double apiece, then an explosion of goals from x5 onwards; Forest Green Rovers(underrated with only 17 picks), Manchester City (definitely not underrated with 113!), Celtic (100) and Rangers (81) finding the net 6, 5, 6 and 4 times respectively! Incredible! Honourable mentions also to David Munro, Mark Cragg, Paul Rawson and Nick Ilic, who all scored 140+ and under normal circumstances would expect to top the charts with such a heavy points return.

So Club 100 was thoroughly packed out in GW 2, but nine of you have actually dined there in both week and week 2 – what a way for you to get your seasons underway! The current overall leader is Michael Richards, who has already racked up a mighty 259 points, but it’s very early days yet! Unsurprisingly, the average score shot up from 39 in week 1, almost doubling to a very impressive 75 points in week 2 – we don’t often see averages this high! The bar has been raised well and truly! Speaking of which, GW 2’s ‘Perfect 7’ stood at a pretty colossal 185 points and featured seven named teams which is always nice to see; as well as the aforementioned Manchester City, Forest Green Rovers and Celtic, it was Birmingham City (just the solitary pick, but even more reason for our weekly top scorer to celebrate!) and Notts County (3) with 5 goals each (and both on the road too to make it even more notable!) and Exeter City (zero picks!) and Rangers with 4 goals who would have been the ticket to jackpot joy.

Manchester’s City’s 5-0 mauling of Norwich City will have come as little shock to the vast majority of football fans and clearly many of you were expecting such an outcome; as well as being the most popular selection overall, The Citizens were also the most selected x8 side, with 30 of you all sticking them on your biggest multiplier in the hope of raking in big points. At the opposite end of the matrix, Liverpool were the most chosen x2 ‘banker’ team and did what was necessary at home to Burnley, whilst Fulham and Celtic then completely padded out the rest of the matrix, the former with a solid 2 goal return against Hull City and the latter banging in 6 goals as we know, against an unfortunate St. Mirren side who were always on a hiding to nothing in Parkhead after being reduced to 10 men after just 19 minutes!

In terms of the most popular teams by division, it was Manchester City and Celtic who took the honours in the top league either side of the border, with Fulham (Championship), Portsmouth (League One), Forest Green Rovers (League Two) and a three-way tie between Notts County, Southend Utd and Torquay Utd in the National League in England, and Inverness CT (Championship), Falkirk (League One) and Kelty Hearts (League Two) topping the list in Scotland. Unfortunately for those of you who backed Pompey, they stuttered to a 0-0 draw at Doncaster Rovers and caused a third of the minus scores recorded in GW 2. As you can see from the leaderboard, it wasn’t a good week to miss the boat!

GW 3 is next up and once again we have a very healthy looking fixture list across the UK to choose from. There are a handful of early kick-offs to go at if you want to try and get your weekly points tally moving in the right direction before 3pm; in the Premier League, Manchester City will be strong favourites against struggling (and goalless!) Arsenal, whilst there are local derbies on offer in The Championship and League One. They say form goes out of the window in these matches and Nottingham Forest will certainly be hoping that’s the case away at Derby County in an always feisty East Midlands showdown! Bristol City face a tough assignment at Cardiff City and for the second Saturday running, Rotherham have a local rival visiting the New York Stadium – The Millers will be hoping for a better result against Doncaster Rovers after succumbing at home to Sheffield Wednesday last weekend. Good luck to you all and I’ll be back later in the week with GW 3’s ‘Ones to Watch’.

Matt.