GW 35 – Review

Yikes! Well what a disappointing gameweek that was! It’s pretty clear to see why the statistics this week don’t make very pleasant reading; Liverpool’s chances of winning the Premier League title and emulating Arsenal’s ‘invincibles’ ended in dramatic style at the hands of Watford, who thumped the Reds 3-0 at Vicarage Road. Before this encounter Liverpool had failed to score in just ONE match all season, which is why they were picked 87 times, 23 of them on x2! So that’s 23 minus scores already, soon to be followed by plenty more! Another serious culprit of supplying negative results in the Global League was West Bromwich Albion (72 picks), who lost 1-0 at home to relegation threatened Wigan Athletic – add another 17 minus scores to the tally! In total we had an eye-watering 49 (yes – FOURTY NINE!) minus scores, the most recorded in a single gameweek this season. The bulk of those were minus 20s (32), but 15 minus 40s, a minus 60 and a sorrowful -80 were also thrown into the mix. Ouch!

The bad news doesn’t stop there either. Cobwebs have started forming in Club 100 which, for the third week running, remains vacant. In this disaster of a gameweek we also hit a new lowest average score, so bad that it only just cleared zero – the average player scraping together 2 (again, yes – TWO!) points. This really was one to forget wasn’t it?

Let’s glance at the top of the weekly Global Table for a second where Oliver Norman and Karl Norman came out on top, bagging a great score of 92 each. The most notable teams in both players’ matrix were 4 goal Leeds Utd (26 selections) and 5 goal Notts County, who both featured in this week’s ‘Perfect 7’ line-up. 41 of you benefitted from Notts’ thumping five goal haul (should you have reached that multiplier), but none of you foresaw Oldham winning by the same 5-0 scoreline! Greenock Morton and Huddersfield Town each netted 4 times, both were scarcely picked though. So who was picked most and where? As is usually the way with the multiplier ladder, the most selected team bookends the matrix and it was once again Manchester City’s turn. The Citizens were most popular on x7 as well as x2 and x8, while West Brom were selected the most on x3 and x5, with the highest picked team on x4 and x6 being Oxford Utd, who recorded a 2-1 victory over Southend United.

So shall we just brush this week under the carpet? We go again next week where there’s some interesting early kick offs to consider. Will Liverpool bounce back at home to struggling Bournemouth? And will Bristol City get back to winning ways against Fulham in the Championship play off race? Good luck to you all.

– Samuel Wilkinson