GW 22 – Review

Well that was a bit disappointing for many of you – Christmas certainly hasn’t come early here on TUG! It did look a tough gameweek on paper and indeed it proved to be a reasonably subdued weekend on the scores front, with plenty of bumps in the road and a lot of your favourite teams keeping things quiet on the pitch. That’s not to say it was doom and gloom for everyone however!

As ever we’ll start at the top of the weekly Global League Table. A massive congratulations to Pete Morris for being this week’s top scorer! Reliable choice Celtic (90 selections) scored twice to get things going on x2, with Rotherham Utd’s 2 goals keeping him climbing up the multipliers on x3. From x4 through to x7, a delightful combination of 3 goal teams gave Pete 66 points! Bolton Wanderers, Colchester Utd, Exeter City and Manchester City took the week’s league leader through to his x8 spot, where 4 goal Dundee Utd then starred on top of Pete’s TUG Christmas tree. This gave him a ticket to Club 100, with a final score of 108. Good work that man!

For the second week running we had just two entries to that exclusive Club, with Andy Roome and his score of 100 on the nose just enough to sneak in! The weekly average left much to be desired, with plenty of popular choices either scoring low or worse still failing to score at all, with a score of 21 the end result. 31 times chosen Manchester Utd failed to score at Watford, where Nigel Pearson took charge of his first home game as new Hornets manager in fine style, while 10-man Tottenham Hotspur (25 picks) lost 2-0 at home to Chelsea (remarkably only chosen once!) in a London derby. Leeds Utd (13 picks) and Millwall (22) only netted once, both in 2-1 defeats, with West Brom disappointing 34 of you, scoring just a single goal at home to Brentford. However, far and away the biggest culprits were Raith Rovers, who fell to a 2-0 home defeat to Dumbarton, leaving a whopping 45 of you wondering why you’d put your faith in the misfiring Scottish outfit – the second time in the last three home games Rovers have failed to find the net.

However there were plenty of points up for grabs this weekend, with a ‘Perfect 7’ score of 148 possible! The stand out team was clearly Crewe Alexandra, scoring 5 times to seal that x8 spot, but chosen by just 8 players. The rest of the Perfect 7 multiplier ladder was made up of 4 goal teams, so who could you have chosen?…….

……Well there were resounding 4-2 away wins for both Forfar Athletic and Notts County at Stranraer and Halifax Town respectively, while Livingston and Dundee Utd both won 4-0 at home, against Ross County and Ayr United. Also up in Scotland, Albion Rovers saw off Annan Athletic with a 4 goal haul, while free-scoring Barnet smashed the same number at Maidenhead – The Bees could be worth keeping an eye on as they’ve netted 13 times in their past four matches.

There was major disappointment for the 24 of you who recorded minus scores this weekend, with the previously mentioned goalless Man Utd, Tottenham and Raith doing the most damage. 19 minus 20s, 4 nasty minus 40s and a horrific minus 60 from Phil Johnson propping up the table as we reach Christmas. (Phil had an eye-catching x3/x4 combination of Bristol Rovers and Peterborough Utd, who were actually playing one another! This highly intriguing tactic backfired spectacularly, as the two sides played out a 0-0 draw!!)

That’s your fill this week! Remember that we have a couple of bonus gameweeks over the festive period, firstly on Boxing Day and then on New Year’s Day, but don’t forget the regular gameweek in-between those bonus rounds! Brighton & HA travel to Tottenham and Heart of Midlothian host Hibernian in the early Boxing Day Bonus fixtures, but the most notable fixtures surely come with the addition of the National League North & South sides, who will also be available on New Year’s Day. These leagues always seem to produce some weird and wonderful scorelines and will certainly give you food for thought……as if you weren’t already planning on eating too much!! Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us at TUG headquarters.

– Samuel Wilkinson