GW 3 Review

Matt: Whether you’ve been playing The Ultimate Goals for 10 days or 10 years, the unpredictability of it will always leave you scratching your head and wondering how such seemingly obvious picks look certain to generate plenty of goals, only to see your score floundering when quite the opposite actually occurs! Yep, GW 3 had so much potential to carry on where its predecessor had left on, but instead it turned out to be a bit of a damp squib; Manchester City were supposed to beat Wolves convincingly – they didn’t, Liverpool were supposed to hammer Brighton – they didn’t, Celtic were supposed to take Hamilton apart – they didn’t………..you get the idea!

This is where looking for alternatives away from the usual standout teams can pay dividends; the temptation to pick the sides listed above will be there far more often than not and in fairness they do tend to deliver, but there’s definitely a strong argument for straying into the lower leagues regularly too. GW 3 gave us a perfect example of how the ‘bankers’ as some players call them (a dangerous term as it’s been proven time and time again there really is no such thing in this game!) failed to live up to expectations, whereas plenty of teams elsewhere had no trouble in finding the onion bag three or four times, particularly in Scotland where the generally lesser known leagues so often produce goals galore! A case in point being Ayr United and their 4 goal haul against Dunfermline, tipped by our very own Jamie Cole in the ‘Ones to Watch’ section leading into the weekend. I’ll be quite honest, i didn’t particularly fancy that pick myself but perhaps i should have paid more attention to my fellow tipster’s words of wisdom!! (Not to mention one of my two top tips Colchester United, who came so very, very close to ruining our 100% record on that front! 90+5…….and breathe!!)

The outstanding team of the weekend were clearly Peterborough United, who most certainly did not share Colchester’s inability to trouble the opposition goal during the course of their fixture away at Plymouth! It will come as little surprise that four of the top five weekly players all selected them, including top scorer Charlie Pearch who pipped Lee Clayton by the narrowest of margins. Charlie’s 86 points saw him skyrocket up the Global League by a massive 50 places no less! With the season still being in its embryonic stages and the various leagues you’re involved in yet to take shape, one good score really can propel you from one end of the table to the other!

I must say there’s been a noticeable decline in the amount of minus scores being recorded too. After GW 1’s somewhat tumultuous opening round, where -20s and even -40s and -60s were in abundance, we’ve only had 8 minus scores registered on each of the following two gameweeks. It looks like there’s already a ‘safety first’ approach being adopted by the vast majority of players and who can blame them, one reduction in points on a week where others cash in with big tons and you can easily have swings of 150 odd points! Those damaging blows are not easy to recover from!

The first month of the season has flown by, let’s see what September has in store for us. Good luck for GW 4 and remember, there’s nine leagues to choose from so it’s well worth having a scout around to try and find some of the hidden treasures!