GW 4 – Review

The talking points of the weekend HAVE to be Aston Villa’s (Villa picked just twice!) quite staggering 7-2 mauling of Premier League champions Liverpool (79 picks), as well as Tottenham Hotspur (4) hitting a woeful Manchester Utd (6 picks) for six. You can insert your own Covid related ‘rule of six’ jokes here! The return of National League football added more spice to the action and saw Eastleigh emerge as the biggest victors as they put five past Barnet, placing them in the upper echelons of the Perfect 7 along with Villa and Spurs. Adding in 4 goal sides on x2 through to x5,those being Chelsea (49 selections) and Everton (73), Portsmouth and Preston – just a solitary pick between them – and you would’ve walked away with a colossal 184 points and that sweet £7,777 Jackpot prize!

However, the surprises that the weekend threw at us translated into little profit for many of our Ultimate Goals players. In a bizarre twist, top scorer Russell Robinson was actually closer to naught than the Perfect 7, having clocked up 89 points! So, for the first time this season, no one was even particularly close to entering Club 100. In a week that had a whopper of a P7, the average score of just 22 was disappointing to say the least. Forever popular choices Liverpool and Manchester City (71 picks), only scored 3 goals between them, while Celtic (a massive 118 picks) left it extremely late to score twice against a resolute St. Johnstone and Leicester City failed to net for the first game this season, causing plenty of misery in the process as West Ham Utd left the East Midlands with a richly deserved 3-0 win. You could say that being September’s top scorers cursed The Foxes’ first game in October, an Ultimate Goals version of the notorious ‘manager of the month’ curse!

Leicester’s blunder clearly let a lot of you down (66 players to be precise), with 10 unfortunates choosing the Midlands side on x2 and plenty more in their early multipliers. All in all there were 27 minus scores, mostly minus 20s, but we had two wretched minus 60s propping up the Global League Table for gameweek 4! Bad luck Steve North and Charlie Ramshall!

Refreshing to see a different team being the most backed this week; it was the turn of Rangers to top the chart with 123 selections. Manchester City were the most selected x2 team to get you climbing your multiplier ladder, also featuring on x6. Arsenal were most popular on x3, while Everton have become the team everyone seems to fancy on x4 and x5 as a solid middle order choice. This was fully justified as they maintained their 100% start with another 4 gals to add to their impressive goal tally. Rangers beat rivals Celtic to both the x7 and x8 spot.

We have a cheeky midweek round of fixtures this week, with some early kick offs in the EFL Trophy, so get those selections in nice and early to get in on the potential score boosting! It could be another crazy gameweek, as the unknown factor of the National North & South Leagues, plus the Scottish League Cup, are all in play. Good luck!

-Sam Wilkinson