GW 9 Review

Ally: Regular players of this game learn over time that there are certain teams which, seemingly, have an uncanny knack of letting you down consistently, usually at the most inopportune moments. One such team that reared its ugly head once again this weekend was Portsmouth, much to the annoyance of many of the field.

Pompey headed into the weekend having scored in every home game of the season so far and having only failed to find the net on one occasion this season. Struggling Gillingham, on the other hand, hadn’t kept a clean sheet since the opening day of the season and so the hosts were justifiably well fancied to get among the goals again. Of course you know by now that the inevitable happened and Portsmouth did indeed slip up and fail to score.

It’s bad enough when any of your teams don’t score, but the pain is even more acute when other teams decide to go goal crazy – either boosting your rival’s scores, or the classic case of what might have been if you had selected the teams in question.

On Saturday, Scottish Premier League side Hibernian hit Hamilton for six, quickly followed by fellow green and whites Celtic putting their own poor start to one side, by thrashing Perth side St Johnstone 6-0 on Sunday. That day also saw Arsenal put 5 goals past hapless Fulham, although it wasn’t all fun and games as a number of players were left disappointed by the goalless draw between the Premier League’s high scoring duo Liverpool and Manchester City.

The end result was wide range of scores, with 13 ‘tons’ headed by Graham Taylor’s excellent 146. At the other end of the scale we saw 25 players go backwards with a minus score, consisting of 22 minus 20’s and 3 minus 40’s.

This coming weekend (GW 10) is another ‘International’ week, and to make up for losing the Premier League, Championship and Scottish Premiership we once again offer the opportunity to dip into the National League North and South and the heady mixture of risk and reward that these sides can bring.

Good luck with your selections!

Matt: Looking through the weekly standings, you could almost sum up the entire weekend in one word; Portsmouth! They were easily one of the most popular picks (also top tipped in our ‘Ones to Watch’ by one of the admins i believe!), but a revelation of a result for lowly Gillingham, including a goal of the season contender from Tom Eaves, saw the form book turned upside down and the hopes of many players in TUG dashed!

I’ve got previous with Pompey myself and i’ve blacklisted them time after time, but despite giving them yet another undeserved chance, i did stick them on x8 which minimised the damage! Others weren’t so lucky and it’s no surprise that the vast majority of the minus scores recorded can be attributed to their 2-0 home reversal. Amazing how one team can do so much damage.

Under normal circumstances, two more sides (who are quite possibly the most selected teams this season) would also have wiped out countless players, but on this occasion the pain they inflicted was quite limited……….the reason being they were playing one another! Liverpool v Manchester City was billed as the game of the season so far, but it turned out to be a rather damp squib! I would suggest that if/when either of these two clubs fail to find the next in an upcoming gameweek, we’ll see no shortage of carnage as a result. Surely it’ll happen at some point!

It was far from all bad news, no goals and low scores though, with 13 tons registered – although after those and a handful of 80s and 90s the totals did begin to rapidly drop off. It’s easy to see why Club 100 did a bit of business too; the likes of Hibernian (6), Aberdeen (4) & West Brom (4) and then Celtic (6) & Arsenal (5) on Sunday afternoon all massively contributed to some hefty totals being accumulated. It really was a gameweek where you could quite conceivably have chosen six teams who all scored at least 3 or 4 goals……….only to have Portsmouth completely ruin the weekend!!

GW 10 is next up and it’s our second International Week of the season, meaning we have the National League N&S fixtures in play (havoc is a near certainty!!) It’s also the Third Round of the Scottish Challenge Cup, with teams from seven of the eight ties available for selection (Arbroath v Edinburgh City is Friday night and therefore not eligible) and this competition gives you further chance to deviate away from your usual tactics – especially as teams from Wales and Ireland are still involved. It’s shaping up to be another fantastic weekend of Ultimate Goals.

Good luck to you all!