The Pre-Match Preamble – Gameweek 22

Sergio Aguero has made Fantasy Football exciting again.

I’ve chosen a path that guarantees I’m going to run the Gameweek gauntlet with every passing deadline.

I feel like a kid again, hiding behind the sofa in every Man City live game, like an eight-year-old cowing at the sight of the shambling Cybermen.

Aguero will punish me. It could be this week, it could be next. A spanking is coming but, equally, there’s just a chance that my masterplan could reap rewards and help me keep pace, at the very least.

I’m backing Harry Kane and the likes of Romelu Lukaku and even Mesut Ozil and Kevin De Bruyne to sport the armband and match Aguero’s week-to-week output.

Alongside that I’ve adopted Dimiti Payet early and hope that he can help me make up some ground before his bandwagon gets too crowded.

Crucially, I’m going to keep cash in my defence, using transfers to ship in worthy differentials with clean sheet potential and the prospect of attacking points and bonus.

Christian Fuchs is being recruited this week. The Austrian’s crafty left-foot is being trusted with earning me an advantage over those hamstrung by sinking all their funds into City’s barrel-chested goal-getter.

If Fuchs fails, I’ll have him for next week’s King Power meeting with Stoke and then he’ll be shipped out following that for the next candidate to help mitigate my Aguero gamble.

And so it goes on.

More than likely, I’ll be found out and in less than a month I’ll have to deal my Wildcard and tuck into humble pie, shelling out a million more for Aguero.

However, there’s just a chance that Aguero’s re-introduction has created a split in the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) population and that I can exploit it in an unexpected way.

I’m hoping that Kane delivers, and that Lukaku will follow suit in his two Goodison meetings after that. Even if Aguero also comes good, I have to hope that the funds invested in my weekly differential will earn me profit and a slight advantage.

I almost want Aguero to score but score modestly, just to divide things further.

I’ll be banking on Palace to frustrate him somewhat – for Alan Pardew, like a silver-haired Timelord, to concoct a plan to foil Aguero’s plot to take over the FPL rankings and help me to emerge from my hiding place.

Back when I was eight, Doctor Who gave me Saturday nightmares. I’m now 44 and, instead, I’m now dreading the night terror that is the aftermath of an Aguero hat-trick.

I’m telling myself that this is all part of growing up.