Two entertaining games saw seven goals scored, El Capitan for many Carlos Tevez striking a brace and Liverpool, in spite of the fillip of a completed takeover, continuing their terrible start to the season.
For many this weekends subplot was the captaincy debate – Tevez vs Nani. Overall Tevez (just) edged it with 12 points to Nani’s 10. If you didn’t captain either of them – awkward.
Bizarrely every one of the Sunday Knee Jerks’ that i’ve written have involved a Liverpool angle. For that reason, and given they still appear to be well and truely skewed on the pitch at the moment, I won’t harp on about how investment in Liverpool players at the moment seems nothing more than a complete folly. If the slipery slope were a theme park ride, Liverpool would be the spoilt kid pestering their parents to spend all day on it. Theories on how a change in owner would lead to a change in fortune on the pitch proved deluded. Liverpool were toothless and look a shadow of the team which came seventh last season – damning indeed. For every negative there is a possitive however, and from a Fantasy Football perspective this came in the form of the Toffees.
The consensus this season is that whilst the league table position would suggest Everton are struggling, performances have indicated otherwise. It was difficult to determine whether they were actually good today or whether Liverpool were just really really bad. Nevertheless there were bright sparks in the sign of Seamus Coleman who continued his fine recent form with an assist for the opening goal. Given Everton’s recent run of clean sheets, indication from manager David Moyes that Coleman has the right hand side of midfield as his own, his price (4.4 million on FPL) and the fact he’s out of position, the young Irishman is looking like a must for our Fantasy Football teams. Before we all run off to put him in our team however it is worth noting that Everton have a tricky away game at Tottenham in the offing but follow this with two home games and an away game to his former club Blackpool. Expect his price to rise in the near future.
The later kick off saw title contenders Manchester City travel to Bloomfield Road to take on Blackpool in only the Tangerines third home game since their return to the top flight. The key information to take from the Manchester City game was the reshuffle of the pack by City boss Roberto Mancini. Notable absences came in the form of the Toure brothers who were no where to be seen either in the starting line-up nor on the bench. Whilst Yaya’s possible omission was noted in our Injuries and Ban’s section and didn’t come as a huge suprise, the absence of his brother was something of a shock. Yaya’s place was taken by the enigmatic Emmanual Adebayor who to be honest was pretty rubbish. At first the consensus was that the revertion to a 4-4-2 was exactly the right move for Manchester City. Certainly if they were to smash some of the lower level teams a more attacking mentality would need to be adopted rather than the continued three defensive minded central midfielders. How wrong that thought process was.
City continually laboured throughout the opening 70 odd minutes of the game with that formation, and it wasn’t until David Silva was brought on to replace the aforementioned Adebayor and the formation was tweaked that things turned round for the better for the Citizens. Silva’s introduction saw an assist for Carlos Tevez’s opening (dubious) first goal and the Spaniard topped it off his influential cameo with an exquisite finish which turned out to be the winning goal. Unfortunately for Fantasy Football enthusiasts his place in the starting line up is far from guaranteed, however one mans place who is certain is Carlos Tevez and with 7 goals in 8 this season and 28 goals in his last 30 games for Man City its difficult to not try to find a way to get him into your team.
Apologies for the use of Ian Evat’s name in the title, bar the “foul”/tackle on him that led to Tevez’s second goal he really did nothing of note – i’m just a sucker for a pun.
