GW 31 – Review

As gameweeks go, the 31st of the season turned out to be pretty underwhelming, although it was a marked improvement on last week’s stumbling statistics! Only 2 players broke into the exclusive Club 100, with John Richardson and Andy Roome partying alone on 111 and 102 points respectively. The bulk of John’s Global Table-topping score came from Rangers (72 selections) and Hibernian (63) each scoring 4 on his highest two multipliers, with the centurion picking up 60 points from those games alone. It could have been more if it wasn’t for Storm Ciara forcing Manchester City’s game against West Ham to be postponed, a circumstance that left 97 of you feeling blue – especially those of you who had City as your bankers on x2 with a non-scoring side on x3! The two Scottish clubs were joint top scorers this weekend; Peterborough Utd, AFC Fylde and Albion Rovers the other clubs to net four times at the weekend. This meant that the ‘Perfect 7’ score amounted to just 135 points, the second-lowest of the season behind gameweek five’s 134. Not quite the 180+ we’ve become accustomed to seeing in the early part of 2020!

The goals just weren’t flying in as frequently as usual, but high scores (and £1,600 jackpot) are always achievable, so where did many of you go wrong? Well Cove Rangers and Halifax Town both (staggeringly!) failed to score after being selected a combined 79 times, the likes of Northampton Town and Aberdeen also returned no goals, while popular choices Raith Rovers (32 picks) and Portsmouth (25) mustered just 3 goals between them. This was reflected by the slightly disappointing average score of 31, but well done to the 43% of you that managed to surpass that figure!

With the first week of the Premier League’s winter break underway, many of you turned to the Scottish leagues to scoop up points. Cove Rangers and Raith Rovers may have failed to live up to expectations, but Edinburgh City’s 3 goals would have delighted 44 of you (should you have climbed your multiplier ladder) while Celtic also bagged 3 to satisfy some of the 98 players who picked the Scottish Champions – the most backed team on x8 and indeed across the weekend. Hibs were the most popular on x6 and x7, while Coventry City and Halifax Town (goalless and backed by 47 of you!) occupied the x3 and x5 positions. Man City typically occupied the x2 spot (as well as x4), supposedly being a great insurance to get your multipliers going, but Storm Ciara saw that unfortunately none of you would get points from them this week.

As usual, some nasty scores to report this week too – 23 minus 20s and 3 minus 40s were recorded, the bulk of which can be attributed to the postponement of that Man City versus West Ham fixture and the subsequent reversals as a result of non-scoring x3 sides. It’s a tough rule to fall foul of that’s for sure! That’s all to report for now, but DON’T FORGET: we have a midweek round of fixtures to sink your teeth into! Best of luck!

– Samuel Wilkinson