GW 26 – Review

It was another slightly disappointing weekend of TUG action at the weekend. A couple of surprising results made some of your scores look rather the worse for wear, but there were some positives to take too. Here’s the GW 26 analysis……

Firstly, a huge congratulations to Chris Gregory who topped the Global Weekly Table with a teasing 98 points – so close to Club 100, with just one more goal from any of his teams needed to get there! Rangers’ (most picked with 98 selections) uncharacteristically low goals tally, against SPL’s basement side Hamilton Academical, was perfect for Chris to get his multiplier ladder going on x2, with 4 goal Manchester City (only 13 selections with them playing reigning champions Liverpool) on x3. Raking in the majority of points were 3 goal Manchester Utd (42 picks) on x7 and Nottingham Forest (11) on x8, with 2 and 3 goal sides making up the remainder of Chris’s selections.

The weekend’s Perfect 7 was an interesting one, although a score of 146 has to be considered as relatively low considering how high we know they can go! Most notable in the lineup was a first ever appearance for Hornchurch (just one selection, great pick!), following their dramatic 5-4 win in a seesaw FA Trophy tie against Maidstone United (3). Lots of goals here, more of this please! Brentford (12), Darlington (2) and Millwall (0), joined Man City and Maidstone Utd in netting four goals and made up x3 to x7 in the P7 matrix, with any 3 goal side on x2 enough to bag the jackpot.

19 points is not the worst average of the season (please lets not have another average of 0!), but only 38% of you beat it which suggests it was a pretty poor scoring week for many of you. There were a worrying 24 minus scores, 15 of those came from West Ham Utd (26 total selections), Leicester City (8) and Hull City’s (43 picks, ouch!) failure to score.

Good work by the 27 of you who made smart picks for Dartford, who are top of the National League South and drew 2-2 with Welling Utd, who are at the complete opposite end (although they did fall 2-0 behind in an all too familiar TUG scenario!) For those of you that picked them, well spotted, good to some of you have been doing your research and delving into these lower leagues!

On to the most picked sides now and it was Rangers who bookended the matrix, not only being favourite on x2 and x8, but also x6 and x7. Meanwhile, Chelsea (53 picks), Celtic (75) and Hull City were the most popular sides on x3, x4 and x5 respectively, Hull’s 1-0 League One loss at lowly Burton Albion coming at a clear cost for many of you.

Well, that’s it from me for another week. DON’T FORGET we have another midweek round of fixtures to whet your appetites this week, with plenty of early kick-offs to watch out for. So, get those selections sorted in good time if you want to maximise the potential of the bonus round, it looks like some of you may need it! Good luck!

-Sam Brooke-Wilkinson