GW 43 – Review
The third gameweek of May featured the return of European teams to the fold to add a little more excitement as the season draws to a close. As is the norm for this game, some surprising scorelines yielded mixed results for many players and set a rather modest looking average score, while Club 100 struggled for business again – a recurring theme in 2021! Here’s how the weekend’s action played out…..
Top of the Weekly Global Table for GW 43 was Rahin Bakar, with a very respectable effort in getting closer to the 100 point mark than anybody. All seven of Rahin’s picks came from overseas, with Spanish sides Alaves (their only selection!) and Europa League finalists Villareal (3 picks) bagging 4 goals on x5 and x7, while Schalke (Rahin their only backer again!) also netted four in the German Bundesliga. If only bumped up a little higher in the pecking order, Rahin could have been dancing (albeit alone) in Club 100, but the top scorer’s total of 96 meant the prestigious establishment had no entrants again this week! In fact, only three other players notched above 70 points, such was the way the round panned out. Not the best of weeks by a longshot!
Joining the aforementioned standout performers were Real Sociedad (2 selections) and Valencia (also 2), who both hit a fabulous four in Spain at the weekend, with Rangers (63 picks) and Leeds Utd (just 5) scoring as many. Arranging these seven sides in any order on your multiplier ladders would have seen you walk away with a cool £7,777 for achieving a Perfect 7 score of 140 points!
But the selection stats say it all really. Very few of you backed enough of the high-flyers over the weekend to put serious points on the board, resulting in a lowly average of 20 points – one of the lowest scores in weeks. Plenty of players (72) backed Liverpool, who secured a late 2-1 win over West Bromwich Albion thanks to an inexplicable header from ‘keeper Alisson, whilst Atletico Madrid were chosen by 63 players, leaving it late to finally claim a vital 2-1 win over stubborn Osasuna. Barcelona meanwhile (57 backers) fell to a late 2-1 home defeat to Celta Vigo (who had just the one supporter!) However, the real misery came from Everton (37 picks) in their shock 1-0 home loss to Sheffield Utd and most notably of all Chesterfield’s (73) goalless draw with a Wealdstone side who had lost their previous eight matches! Those results stopped plenty of scores in their tracks and were responsible for a combined 17 of the 22 minus scores recorded at the weekend! That certainly disrupted the league table a bit!
Agonisingly, Chesterfield were also the most selected side of the weekend, as well as being the most popular x7 and x8 pick, while Everton were the most popular x3 choice, which further explains the low average. Atletico Madrid were the most picked banker side on x2, while Rangers, Liverpool and Bayern Munich (53 total selections for the German champions) were the most selected on x4, x5 and x6 respectively.
That’s the review for another week. Remember to keep an eye out for the early fixtures and get your teams in well before the deadline should you wish to take a punt on them! GW 44 will see Brentford host Bournemouth in the second leg of the Championship play-offs at 12:30, delicately poised after tonight’s first leg, while St Johnstone and Hibernian fight it out for the Scottish Cup at 2pm. German Bundesliga fixtures all kick off at 2.30pm too, whilst there’s a wide range of other play-off matches available and all the La Liga fixtures too, so make sure you take full advantage of the additional games and leagues on offer! Good luck!
Sam Brooke-Wilkinson