Another pre-season catch-up as Steve Bruce charms the Black Cats faithful with a emphatic win. Roberto Martinez gets de-railed at Crewe and Big Sam locks horns with an Italian giant and comes away with a draw – if you ignore the farcical penalty shoot-out that is…
Goals from Kieran Richardson, Paul McShane and Roy O’Donovan, together with an own goal, were enough for Steve Bruce to begin his reign as Sunderland boss with a win at Darlington.
Bruce put out a fairly strong eleven, although he was without the injured Kenwyne Jones and Craig Gordon, while Fraizer Campbell and Paulo da Silva were not included in the squad. Interestingly, he went with a 4-5-1, with David Healy leading the line. Given that Bruce has had talks with Peter Crouch and has Jones and Campbell in his squad, it’s difficult to see Bruce opting to keep this lone striker policy but, clearly, this will be worth monitoring throughout the pre-season.
Roberto Martinez was another manager taking his bow at a new club but, unlike Bruce, he sampled the bitter-ish taste of pre-season defeat as Wigan went down 1-0 at Crewe.
Martinez commented afterwards that he saw this first friendly as a training exercise after changing his entire eleven at half-time. However, Wigan sources suggest that there was already enough evidence on show to offer clues as to his tactics for the coming season. Martinez started with two wingers – Charles N’Zogbia and Daniel De Ridder, with Oliver Kapo also in the side in a central attacking role. Jordi Gomez, the Wigan boss’ first signing from former club Swansea, was part of a five man midfield then and also made a good first impression in the playmaker role. Gomez earned 12 goals and 9 assists in 38 starts under Martinez at Swansea last season – clearly he is worth monitoring if Wigan begin to suggest they are capable of scoring goals this term under the former Swans boss.
Finally, Blackburn faced more illustrious opposition – earning a 2-2 draw with Serie A’s Roma but losing out on pre-season penalty kicks. Paul Gallacher and Aaron Doran got the Rovers goals, as Sam Allardyce again appeared to start with three strikers with Gallacher supporting Jason Roberts and El Hadji Diouf. Behind them, Allardyce went with a physical midfield with Grella, Nzonzi and Andrews providing protection for an almost first choice defence of Jacobsen, Samba, Givet and Warnock. Club skipper Ryan Nelsen emerged from the bench in the second-half, as did Benni McCarthy and Morten Gamst-Pedersen.
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thanks Mark
I’m guessing Bruce didn’t wish to play Da Silva for no other reason but to give other players a run out and saving his best for a little later?
Mark, you mentioned Kapo there, what’s the likelihood of him starting as an ATT MID? Do you have any info on whether or not he played well? He’s only 5M & would most likely join the pantheon of cheap midfield options if he was half decent.
I can’t see Paul Gallacher on Blackburns team on FPL, I wanted to check his price?
Oh no, don’t tempt me on de Ridder again… He was a big mistake for me at the start of last season (or was it the season before?).
A lot of us fell for the lure of de Ridder….bad bad memories…
There are a lot of alternatives this season to prevent us making the same mistake. There is a couple of B’ham midfielders that are worth a punt if you need a 4.5m steal.
What are peoples views on McFadden?
I went to school with that guy, never liked him so I refuse to get him on FPL. And I’ve seen him play for Ajax a couple times, but he’s really ineffective.
Haha good story!
What was he like at football when he was younger? Always like it when pros were rubbish at the age of 12 and couldn’t get in the school team.
I went to Ajax v PSV a couple of season ago. Awful game, think it was 2-0 to PSV. Stadium tour was great, the museum is amazing, and there were a couple of Russian guys asking the guide stupid questions like “where do we go after the game?” and “will johann cruyff be here?”
He always played for Ajax in the youth academy, which made him pretty haughty. They didn’t allow him to play on the streets though because of injury danger. I can’t say I don’t laugh at his “success” now in all honesty lol.
I’m sure he’s comforted by the £20k+ a week taht he earns.
Not much being emerged from these first pre-season friendlies for the teams. Barely any first teamer names being flung about, guess we’ll have to watch this space.
Crouch could be quite good at Sunderland, depending if he would be played as the lone striker or not.
haha I was part of the de ridder gamble last season to! haha
He sat in my team for seven weeks two seasons ago until I got de ridder of him.
The Kapo advanced central role is interesting because he has shown in the past, and in France, that he has a great left foot and can get goals. He is certainly one to watch.
ManUtd signing http://www.skysports.com/story.....39,00.html
Man Utd sign Diouf!!! haha that headline could have caught a lot of people out.
You should have kept quiet they’d have thought it was Etoo.
Interesting. Wonder if he’ll make any impact in the United team. Doubt it. Not sure what SAF is doing with transfers this summer. Maybe he knows what he is doing, he normally does.
One for the future I would suggest.
He has been loaned out immediately, back to Molde.
Looks like a adebayor/drogba type player but a younger version! He’s been loaned back until January so wont see anything of him until then. I wonder how much he’s cost under £5million i would guess. In many ways Utd have built upon the sqaud, they have just replaced what has left i.e – Owen for Tevez / Valencia for Ronaldo / Obertan for Martins / Diouf for Campbell.
Good point Del, but do you not think that they have rebuilt the squad just with players half their predecessor’s calibre? I think United could struggle this year.
Theres no doubting that Valencia isnt in the same calibre of Ronaldo. Owen however could prove to be just as good if not better than tevez for Utd, only his goals/fitness and the next 2 seasons will tell us that though. The likes of Obertan and Diouf are youngsters with potential to make it big, but not this year.
Looking at the situation as a matter of fact in terms of players out/in it is understandable for anyone to suggest a weaker squad and consequently predict a tough season ahead. However what is often not realised is that the once focus of Ronaldo isnt being replaced by the new signings, the focus will be taken up by members of the squad already and i would hope Rooney AND Berbatov benfit from this.
The Ronaldo role especially during the last 2 seasons when he arguably reached his ‘best’ form to date, could mirror that to Henry when he was at Arsenal, the goals and everything else was either created or executed with some involvement from him. Looking at Arsenal post Henry i would question if they are better off? and the trophy cabinet would tell you they are not. I think Utd are in a different proposition however and in particular this being a season thats builds to a world cup i think will work massivly in thier favour.
Its not often people doubt or question Man Utd, but as a squad post ronaldo there is a point to be proved, national squad places to be won and history to be made. Lets just say i’ve got my fingers crossed!
Good post. Time will indeed tell, and I agree Rooney and Berbatov will definitely have to show what their made of this season.
And also a very important season for Carrick/Fletcher. They’re going to be the heartbeat of the midfield even more so than last season, especially with Scholes and Giggs playing increasingly smaller roles over the years.
Agreed Marknlard, I’ve been flip-flopping between Carrick and Fletcher for a week, but one of them will definitely be in my team. Hargreaves is another one to watch, if he’s fit that is…
Out of the two, it would have to be Carrick for FF points. Much more likely to play a killer ball, great long shot and is on set pieces too.
will carrick get the same room in midfield now without ronaldo to stretch the oppositions midfield?
I always got the impression that there was loads of room in uniteds’s midfield due to the presence of ronaldo on the wing who was the obvious danger man which left carrick to drift upfield without much pressure coming on?
I am not sure carrick will be getting the returns people think he will?
No, I won’t be getting either, I prefer more attacking midfielders.
Don’t disagree with the points you make there. I was just saying that it’s important for both to step up to the plate, as Man U are relying on them to boss the midfield now.
fair enough mnl. A lot seem to be going for him though? Neither of them are floating my boat though?
What does everyone think the chance of SWP being 1st choice to start on the right this season? He had a blistering start to last season and was considering taking a punt on him. My head is telling me ‘if’ I should pick a Citeh player then Ireland would be the safest option. Thoughts?
Man City…wait…end of discussion in my opinion.
I’d wait to see who comes in but it depends whether Hughes plays the same system this year.
SWP wasn’t very effective for points last season.
You could do worse than checking out Fran’s comprehensively ‘longish’ discussion about Man City from yesterday’s post. Many diverse and structured comments made by Fran.
Ireland was worth the money last season. However, at 9.0 he’s far too pricey this year in my opinion, especially as he went off the boil towards the end of the season and is playing in a team that is bursting with players. I suspect the only value in City players will be in the defence if they miraculously learn how to defend, but I will not be having any of them in my team for a good few weeks…
I’m having problems posting comments.
Check out mysterydave dot freeoda dot com for a season ticker
That one seemed to work.
It seems that it doesn’t like the freeoda address being linked by my name.
HTML version:
mysterydave dot freeoda dot com
Excel version:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/.....xtures.xls
Thanks to Dino & Uncle Ben for the background work. I’ve included their tickers also.
I can’t guarantee the accuracy of the FFS style ticker as I don’t know the exact criteria Mark uses to judge the ‘colour’ of a fixture, but looks pretty close and matches the first 5 weeks exactly.
Ah awesome! Thanks Dave, send the link to Mark, it will probably save him an hour this weekend.
I sent it on to him a while back when I came across it. Tasty stuff alright.
not my ticker buddy, I just came across it on t’internet. Some dude called romyn at fiso I think did the original (link in my name).
Apparently he uses the bookies odds to rank teams and if say united are playing the bottom team they will be +3 at home and the lower team will be -3 therefore uniteds points will be +6 (red hot) and the lower team will be -6 (blue ice cold).
As the season goes on I think he plans to update it and the results go into it also. As you know the bookies rarely get it wrong and their odds will get better the more the season progresses and the fixture colours will change accordingly.
Could be a nice tool.
Yeh, one of them is from FISO, the one I’m interested in is the one that is in the style of Mark’s one (made by Dave?). Much easier to read fixtures horizontally.
Yes. Once I had the fixtures in a spreadsheet (thanks to RomynPG at FISO) it was just a matter of replicating the FFS style. It took longer trying to host it and figure out why I could post the link in the comment than it did to make.
Enjoy.
Cheers mysteryDave. Was building something similar but time got the better of me. I much prefer the horizontal and familiar codings that we all know from the site.
Chelsea and United’s fixtures from GW16 to GW25 are rather tasty…
Chelsea: POR, bhm, bir, FUL, hul, SUN, BIR, bur
United: WLV, ful, hul, WIG, bir, BUR, HUL
Fulham being the one more difficult obstacle.
For a second I was going to say that Chelsea have it easier as Man U have to contend with Fulham’s home form, then I realised the Chelsea – Fulham game is a West London derby so anything could happen.
Look at Arsenal’s 23-26!
Yep, I won’t be investing in Arsenal during those weeks!
I’ve removed my stop-gap ticker now as Mark has his up.
Thanks Mark!
Fergie says ‘no more’
http://www.sport.co.uk/news/Fo.....spect.aspx
He said that a few days ago
Ye cannae trust the wee rascal!
He’ll sign someone on deadline day- Ashley Young probably:).
N’Zogbia could be a great buy if he plays on the wing as Mark mentioned……is he calssified as a defender in FPL?
Nope!
Mark and sub-Scribes,
I’ve noticed that the number of comments is already high, and presumably will skyrocket by August. To a semi-casual FFS’er like myself, scanning all the comments for some genuinely insightful advice, perspective or lively debate is going to be be more and more needle-in-haystack.
Any chance of enabling you and your contribution team of ‘highlighting’ particularly valuable comments/replies/threads in different colour? Perhaps just the top 5-10% of contributions?
That way people like me can skip comments from people like, er, me… and also those ubiquitous ‘what do you think of my team’ posts that just take without giving.
Just a thought.
Fantastic site by the way, absolutely invaluable tool. My wife hates you.
You lazy mo fo
Tellyou what we will pick your team for you too
Really? I don’t read the whole newspaper either, just stuff that looks interesting to me. Is that lazy?
Was thinking this might encourage more valuable input…
If you have particular favourite posters why not do a search for their username via a find function inside your browser? That’s one way to scan through a large thread.
Good plan Coxy, ta.
Nice idea Coxy. I like your thinking.
I’ll add “Comfy Coxy” to my list of posters to search for in gargantuan threads.
Haha, no problem. Not sure whether I’d recommend myself in your list of posters however. I’m no true expert by any means, but hope I contribute something of half value to the site.
Wading through the crap is half the fun!
…it can be, absolutely. But if you miss two days and find two posts have 1,000+ comments on them, do you really have an hour to scan them all? I’m suggesting this is done to closed/superceded posts only, i.e. when Mark has added a more recent story.
Any good ideas that are worth their salt will invariably be repeated a few times. I do know what you mean about it being a bit daunting when you’re skimming through a long page of comments…
I agree both with BigFourLeggedBeast as well as Marknlard & Mark here.
Reading everyone’s comments can be fun, but it IS time consuming.
As the site grows it will become more and more so. It is also very disorganised so trying to find again a specific post you remember that contained something witty/funny/useful is quite hard.
At the moment a thread is started when a news article is posted on the FFS and everyone makes comments only in the latest thread. It means many posts are off topic (ie not related to the article.)
I do think a better more scalable solution is needed.
Unfortunately I don’t 4legBeasts ideas cut it, and I don’t think I can suggest anything better.
Better integration of a chat room into the site may help, as the comments already blur the line between forum and chat.
Don’t get too lazy, I agree with Marknlard’s comment above.
As if Mark and his cohorts don’t already have enough to do!
Kinda like on Amazon where you can recommend reviews. I like it.
An anonymous ‘I like this post’ tick? The post could turn blue after 5 ticks, something like that.
Would be easy to introduce when the registrations are compulsory (if they are already). Open to some abuse, but not really much point. There’s no prizes or medals.
Not a bad idea Marknlard. I was just about to suggest something like a “like” button (a la Facebook) that moved the post upwards as the number of “likes” increased. Knowing nothing about computers I didn’t know how helpful this idea would have been.
The yellow box on the right of the posts has been very useful in picking out new ones. So this shouldn’t be too different.
Now, we just need to highlight these ideas somehow so that Mark will see…
Mark’s on the ball, I’m sure he’s already considered something on these lines anyway.
Mark (real Mark with FFS avatar) – have you pondered such amendments whilst kicking said ball against garage door? Care to gauge feedback on some ideas?
You “work in the IT department for the biggest telecommunications company in Britain”. Any ideas how this idea of sorting might be achieved then?
you missed of the keyword there “pretending”..
unfortunately I work for the service centre there, as a desktop engineer. I could have a word with one of the web architects or application support guys if Mark would be interested in the concept, however I’m pretty sure if its something Mark would like to implement in the site, I am sure he is more than capable of compiling a bit of code together to do it.
I like what you’ve done there
I like what you’ve done there Marknlard
Is there any saddo’s like me that have the comments on RSS feed and actually read everyones comments while pretending to work in the IT department for the biggest telecommunications company in Britain?
I would love something to filter out the pointless comments from my feed but don’t think its possible, however a top comments separate feed would be ideal for the geeks like me.
Nope, I’m still in the Press Refresh dark ages.
It would be easy to list posts with the most replys first, this may not necessarily list the most valuable posts first but certainly those with the most activity.
I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to these kind of things and although I can’t give an exact solution I’m pretty sure it would only require a simple bit of code.
The tick/rating idea would provide easier access to the most valuable posts but would probably be a bit more work, depends on how busy Mark and co. are I suppose!
If you right click on this page and go view page source, you will see the code for this page, if you scroll down you can see everyones replies in amongst the code. The big blocks of code are where there have been lots of replys (this post near the bottom being the biggest!) So it would just be a case of listing these first.
Excellent idea. I’m looking at this now (although this kind of task is below content creation right now). I’m hopeful this can be implemented before August.
…excellent, I feel vindicated. Cheers!
Maybe a better idea would just be to list the threads in order of most recent activity, so the active threads are always at the top, and the other stuff disappears to the bottom.
More like how a normal forum operates.
well the reason i ask is i’m from Down under and play a different version of FPL which isn’t open yet …so i was hoping to get an idea of N’Zogbia’s classification in the FPL
Can someone mention some decent 4.0 players who will regularly make it into their respective teams?
Sorenson’s the only 4.0 that I’m considering, good question though…
Here’s what I’m thinking:
Reina, Sorensen
—
Evra, Nelsen, da Silva, Shawcross, 4.0 defender
—
Lampard, Gerrard, Jiminez, Malbranque, Kightly
—
SEB, Crouch, Rooney
I’m basically looking for a decent 4.0 defender to do a decent job for a few weeks.
Chelsea and Manchester United have some easy fixtures for the first 5 or so games, and Liverpool have soem nice ones aswell. So my plan is to have Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard, and then when Arsenals fixtures get easier, and United’s get tougher, I’ll bring in Arshavin and Nevland for Rooney and Jiminez.
While doing this, I will be hoping to hop onto a few banndwagons, and within the first few gameweeks leading up to GW5 or something made a little bit of cash. With a little work, I can bring in soem decent money to upgrade one of my strikers, and bolster up my defence a bit. One question though, with my team I have chosen ^^^ what’s a realistic amount of money I can make in about 5 weeks, considering I will be working hard on bring in some cash?
espinoza might be useful in wk2 at 4m
Hi guys n gals.
I weondered if anyone would care to give me their opinions on a couple of key choices I have to make. The bulk of my team is fairly settled but there ar two positions that I’m going back and forth on.
The first choice is between Samba and Warnock in defence. I definitely want a Blackburn defender as I reckon they should be fairly tight this season and they have soem nice fixtures in the first few. Samba should be a regular first teamer and the big guy can be useful at set pieces (although not as useful as he could be in my opinion.) Could be a nice couple of goals/assists to boost his score. Warnock interests me in that there’s a possibility of him playing out of position and/or getting forward quite often if he can get some quality crosses in then again he could have some nice points to boost his total.
The other big decision is between Matty Taylor and Milner. This is a choice between proven form and potential for me. Taylor is a proven performer and all things being equal should be a 100point+ player. Milner has the potential to score heavier than in previous season due to Barry not eating all the bonus points and hopefully more access to deadball situations.
Thanks in advance for any opinions.
Oh and I agree on Sorensen. I think 4.0 is huge value.
I have Nelsen as a Blackburn defender. I don’t know alot about Blackburn, but I reckon one of these there; Samba, Nelsen and Warnock could be very important.
I don’t know whether I like the look of M Taylor as much at 7.0, especially considering Modric is 7.5.
Agreed. Modric might be a better bet than last season. Dont fully understand Milner’s price hike to 7 as he didnt have that great a season, he was 6 at the start last year wasn’t he?
I’d go with Warnock, playes in midfield sometimes. Blackburns midfielders are pretty injury prone to so i would think Warnock is guaranteed to play there at some stage.
Samba was a regular name in last 1/4 of 08/09 season MARK said about a number of times. was runing up the field at times and helped out abit up front.
i would go for warnock and milner. altough with milner you might need to reconsider having him when downing is fit
Thanks guys. Don’t know if I fancy rejiggin everything again to try and get that extra .5 so I may just plump for the Warnock/Milner combo.
Former striker Hughes finally getting serious about players south of the half-way line, makes a move for Lescott…
http://www.skysports.com/story.....74,00.html
…could mean JT is defo staying at Chelski.
blackburns samba end of last season- Oop Being Played In Attacking Position . Under MARKS Monthly Picks.
Here’s what I’m thinking:
Reina, Sorensen
—
Evra, Nelsen, da Silva, Shawcross, 4.0 defender
—
Lampard, Gerrard, Jiminez, Malbranque, Kightly
—
SEB, Crouch, Rooney
I’m basically looking for a decent 4.0 defender to do a decent job for a few weeks.
Chelsea and Manchester United have some easy fixtures for the first 5 or so games, and Liverpool have soem nice ones aswell. So my plan is to have Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard, and then when Arsenals fixtures get easier, and United’s get tougher, I’ll bring in Arshavin and Nevland for Rooney and Jiminez.
While doing this, I will be hoping to hop onto a few banndwagons, and within the first few gameweeks leading up to GW5 or something made a little bit of cash. With a little work, I can bring in soem decent money to upgrade one of my strikers, and bolster up my defence a bit. One question though, with my team I have chosen ^^^ what’s a realistic amount of money I can make in about 5 weeks, considering I will be working hard on bring in some cash?
In the first 5 weeks, you will make about 0.5m in ‘real’ money, as in, usuable money.
A good 4.0m Def – try Foley from Wolves?
Hi CBC I noticed on an earlier post that you were at Vegas !
I`ve just got back myself today have had a fantastic time there .
They just don`t understand FOOTBALL for some reason they keep calling it Soccer , bloody hell that annoys me !
Still NO CYKI up & running wish they`d pull their fingers out .
Givet, Nelsen, Samba and Jacobsen will be definite first choice. Warnock will take midfield role. Three of those defenders at 4.5 can’t be bad in abig sam team that always plays defensive and with a five man midfield supporting the K Davies striker which will now become Roberts or Mcarthy.
Blackburn defense os a v good shout and Nelsen especially as he is captain at 4.5
Any ideas out there on who will be first choice keeper between Hart & Myhill in Birmingham goal? Both priced at 4.0. A good defensive record last year and I can see them being an Allardyce 2.0 outfit this season.
i would think Hart Brimfiller
You mean Maik Taylor, not Myhill?
Hart I would have thought, can’t see Man C being happy to let him go on loan and sit on the bench.
oh yeah, of course that would be Maik Talyor. Whoops.
how do u folks rate blackburns defence? freferably compared to boltons, or jaask or robinson… who’s got the slight edge over the other?
I rate Bolton’s defence slightly better but based on fixtures and missing gameweek I’d stick with Blackburn (if you have to choose) for the first 5 at least.
Whats everyones opinion on Belhadj at POR for 5.0?
good but more likely to play in defence.
He was good last year classed as a defender playing mid, but not this year classed as a mid. Youre losing 3 points every clean sheet.
Playing around with my team, here is what I have right now:
Sorensen (Gomes)
Alex, Evra, Carragher, Shawcross (4.0 Defender)
Gerrard, Carrick, Essien, Modric (Mendy or other 4.5 player)
Rooney, Beattie (SEB)
I almost had goosebumps after I put that team in. Obvious omission is Lampard and Arshavin. I would try to get Arshavin in for Modric or Carrick at some point. I can trade Carragher down for a 5.5 defender after a few weeks when we can identity that. And Rooney I would sell down for Defoe after a few weeks.
So its basically Gerrard/Rooney/Modric or Gerrard/Arshavin/Defoe.
When the fixtures are right ill make that move but I think Rooney is going to get off to a great start and I want to ride those first 5 games before jumping off into a different direction. After Week 2 Ashavin starts looking really good. Lamps should still put up great numbers but I think Essien has a great chance to be a real bargain at 7.5 and I want to capture that. He should be up to 9 by Christmas easily if he gets off to a good start. We dont know how Essien will be deployed yet, but he was used in a more advanced role by Hiddink.
Ill be at the Inter-Chelsea match next Tuesday, ill give you guys a report.
Not sure about Essien, if he was playing in a more advanced role last season then he definitely didn’t capitalise on it-1 goal and 2 bonus pts in 8-9 matches last season (granted he was coming back from injury).
He used to be the ultimate bonus pt darling of fpl-I’d want to see signs of that returning before I invested.
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