GWs 25 & 26 – Review

Welcome to the first gameweek review of a new decade, and what a start to the decade it’s been! Thanks to a New Year’s Day bonus round and a GW involving the exciting FA Cup fixtures, January has gone off at a phenomenal pace for many of you! We’ve had plenty of impressive scores, particularly in that extraordinary weekend just gone, which meant that records were smashed and Club 100 was packed to the rafters! Like last week’s review, this one will cover all the action from both of the two previous gameweeks. So let’s get going!

We’ll start with the weekly leader from the New Year’s Day Global Table. Congratulations to Gordon McKenzie! Accrington Stanley (38 picks) and Bradford City (65) each scored once to get Gordon going on x2 and x3, while 2 goal Lincoln City and York City gave the week’s winner 24 points from the x4 and x8 spots. Gateshead and Solihull Moors each bagged 3 on x5 and x6, but it was 6 goal Sutton Utd on x7 that gave Gordon the bulk of his points, propelling him to the top of the pile with a cracking score of 104! Glory for Gordon but no such luck for the chasing pack, with nearest challenger Owen French missing out on a place in Club 100 by a single point.

By stark contrast, Club 100 in gameweek 26 was as full as it’s been all season, with a colossal 49 of you hitting triple figures! However, it was Chris Watterson and Victoria Jones who rose to top the Global Table, with a Leicester City (86 selections) and Chelsea (48) / Cardiff City (42) combination all scoring twice to get the pair underway with 10 points from their x2 and x3 spots. Watford (72 picks) scored 3 goals on x4, helping Chris along to x5, whilst Victoria’s run of 2 goal teams continued with Chelsea. From there, the two joint-winners profited from the same four teams’ goalscoring exploits, albeit in a slightly different order.  Sheffield Utd (77 picks) scored twice (only twice!) against gallant National League outfit AFC Fylde, 4 goal Man City (113) comfortably disposed of equally ‘valiant’ Port Vale and 5 goal Cove Rangers (56) thrashed Brechin City in a Scottish League Two top v bottom clash. However the biggest contributors goals wise were Barrow, who demolished Ebbsfleet Utd 7-0, adding  35 and 42 points to Chris and Victoria’s tally respectively. All this meant they shared a seat at the top of the table with a tremendous score of 137! Honourable mentions also for Phil Johnson (136 points), and Phil Wilcox, Richard Fulwood, Daniel Ciampa and Mark Cragg, who all made it into the 130s too. Well done to those players, fantastic scoring!

Both gameweeks had huge ‘Perfect 7’ scores up for grabs alongside a juicy jackpot of £1,500! On New Year’s Day it was 6 goal QPR and Sutton Utd, alongside 5 goal Stoke City who were the notable scorers in an incredible high of 176 points! But GW 26 went one better (literally!), with Barrow’s 7 goals and QPR (again!) & Cove Rangers’ 5 goals apiece putting a whopping score of 177 on the table. QPR, incidentally, appeared twice in succession in the P7 after recording thumping back to back wins against Welsh opposition, seeing off Cardiff City 6-1 on New Year’s Day and Swansea 5-1 in the FA Cup on Sunday.

While we had just one member of Club 100 in GW 25, an impressive average of 38 points was maintained…….but this was just a sign of things to come! An incredible average score of 76 in GW 26 battered the previous record average of 56 all the way back in week 3! Some of this was of course down to the magic of the FA Cup, with plenty of goals from the Premier League and Championship teams selected, but equally the slightly less fashionable (yet every bit as destructive) sides from the lower leagues really did some damage. Burnley, Man City and Bournemouth were all well backed and delievered 4 goals in the cup, but it was those eye-catching scorelines at Barrow and Cove that really helped pile up the points!

Unfortunately some of you were sadly not amongst the goals over the prolific last couple of gameweeks. 15 of you recorded minus scores on New Year’s Day, made up of 12 minus 20s, 2 minus 40s and a single horrible minus 60 for Carla Lopez. However in GW 26 it was a different story, mainly because so many of you were running hot thanks to those goal-laden FA Cup fixtures, which meant we had a record low of just 6 minus scores…… 5 of which were minus 20s and one being a painful minus 60 for Alistair Derrick, the only smudges on a gameweek that shone for most of you.

That’s it from me this week. If you haven’t already done so, go and check out the December monthly review, as well as our Talking Tactics page to get tips on how you could improve your Ultimate Goals strategy! Don’t forget to get those selections in early if you’re planning to select teams from the 12:30pm kick offs this coming weekend. Crystal Palace host Arsenal and QPR travel to Brentford in a pair of London derbies. Good luck!

– Samuel Wilkinson