GW 3 – Review

Whether you like the new handball rule or not, there’s certainly one thing that it promises (in Premier League matches at least) and that’s GOALS. The debate for whether or not the rule is ruining football is one for a separate post, but here on TUG all that matters is that ball meets net, however it happens! Now I’ve got that out of the way, let’s get into the analysis for gameweek 3.

Remarkably, for the third week running the top scorer sits on a total of 126! This week Adam Farmer rose the highest in the table and it’s clear why…….Leicester City (just 4 selections!) and Rangers (97) were the only 5 goal teams of the weekend and both made it into Adam’s matrix, on x6 and x7 respectively. Add in 4 goal Blackburn Rovers (10 picks) at x8 and that’s a whopping 97 points right there! Wise choices of Everton (28 picks), Manchester City (97) and Celtic (105) got Adam climbing his multiplier ladder, with Leeds Utd (27) on X4 leaving it late to see this week’s winner progress to the more lucrative multipliers.

With Leicester and Rangers claiming the top two spots on this week’s Perfect 7, it was down to 4 goal teams to fill out the rest of the matrix. On Saturday Blackburn Rovers beat Derby County 4-0 at Pride Park, while Oxford Utd, Doncaster Rovers and Swindon Town (a combined 27 picks between them) each netted four times in League One. Then one of the shocks of the weekend happened in the last fixture of the round, with West Ham (only 2 selections!) stunning Wolves (9) 4-0 on Sunday evening. Any of these sides on x2 to x6, with Leicester and Rangers as your ‘front two’, would have produced a dazzling 155 points and a £7,777 pay-out!

The weekend was packed with goals, which is why we had a decent average score of 45 points, but surprisingly only 10 of you made it past the bouncers at Club 100! With thirteen minus 20s and two minus 40s there were no notably damaging minus scorers at the weekend, but it was definitely a surprise seeing last season’s regular table-topper, Zak Mitchell, prop up the leaderboard!

As for the most selected side this week, Chelsea’s trip to West Brom was backed as the most appealing points earner with 117 total selections for Frank Lampard’s men (didn’t that look bleak at half-time!) The Blues were picked the most on x2, x4 and x6, while Rangers occupied x5 and x7. Manchester City have become more of a multiplier builder than high points earner recently, as the Citizens’ only place in the ‘Most Selected’ matrix is at x3, while of course its Celtic who were most picked on x8, with a 3-0 win over Hibernian being a pretty standard outcome in terms of goals scored.

Remember to get those selections in pronto for a chance to profit from the early kick-offs. Gameweek 4’s 12.30pm fixtures offer up a Premier League London derby as Chelsea host Crystal Palace in what should be an entertaining contest, while struggling Derby County travel to Norwich City in the Championship. Good luck!

-Sam Wilkinson