The Pre-Match Preamble – Gameweek 21

None of the decisions I’m making these days are easy ones. How I crave a cruel injury or a four-match ban to signpost my next transfer. Instead, each every Gameweek appears to turf me out at a crossroad and asks me to choose a route to walk. The thing is, having taken the low road in such spectacular style last time out, I’m low on confidence.

While I was happy enough to blame myself for the decision to bench Harry Kane in Gameweek 20. I’ve since decided to blame Brendan Rodgers.

It was his failure to sign a striker which lead to the tactical tweak that pushed Raheem Sterling up front. Which in turn meant I had my head turned by his out-of-position potential. Which meant I arrived at the decision to sell George Boyd. Which meant I suddenly had to choose between my third striker and my fifth midfielder every Gameweek. Which led me to choose Gylfi Sigurdsson over Kane.

There you go. It’s all down to Rodgers. There was no error of judgment on my part that led me to that chain of events – Rodgers just needed to sign a proper striker in the first place and we’d have all been fine.

Rodgers now appears to be mocking me. All the Twitter talk is that he’s handed Sterling an extended break in Jamaica, meaning that his twinkling feet won’t be featuring at the Stadium of Light today. That would mean that Sterling would have returned me 18 points over the four matches since I made the fateful trade: Boyd would only have to turn up at Turf Moor against QPR to match that. The last I heard, Boyd wasn’t in Jamaica taking selfies.

So perhaps I should rid myself of Sterling and kill off Brendan’s opportunity to apply salt to my wounds? Today’s transfer is, inevitably, far from straightforward.

I had planned to ship Andy Carroll for Danny Ings but my mind keeps flicking to the form of Carroll towering over the Swansea defence like a Dad at a One Direction concert.

He always seems to bully them into submission – in his last three encounters with the Welsh side’s defence he’s scored three goals and earned two assists. Admittedly, all those points have arrived in East London, so the case to switch to Ings still has some weight but it also has the potential to be another regrettable transfer to send my Saturday mood spiraling.

Maybe I should just reserve my transfers, bank it for next Gameweek when perhaps the return of Sergio Aguero will hand me the most obvious switch of all.

The trouble is, I’m still suffering the effects of the Kane disappointment. I’m aware that I wasted that coup; that thousands have used their transfer this week to grab Kane. I can’t help thinking that I need to use my trade this week to attempt to seek out an alternative differential.

I hope you’re happy, Brendan.