Once again it’s time for the weekly round-up of all the movers, shakers and big points takers across the Scout Leagues.
Again it was all about the strikers this weekend, last season seeming more like a blip every passing week. Torres bagged a hat-trick as I had predicted all week, Robbie Keane scored four goals as nobody would have seen, and Darren Bent was involved in four of Sunderland’s five goal haul. So let’s see who used all that lot to their advantage in our official leagues…
Fantasy Football Scout League (Fantasy Premier League)
This week is all about firsts in the original Scout League – and the party poppers, banners and champagne (or cherryade for those of you under 18) are already being prepared as we celebrate ourselves once again being the top league in the world, now only the small task of holding said spot for 31 more weeks. After joining our ranks this past week, Michael Young has become the first manager to have theoretically held onto top spot for more than one week – dare we imagine someone there for three weeks?
Meanwhile some regular faces remain right on the precipice of the top of the Scout League too – Burton is currently 8th, Warlock is in 10th place, rez-rez is sat in 11th place, Ro6035 in 12th and finally tutankamum in 13th place. So that’s a fair share of our commenting folks right there pushing all the way for the top spot.
Fantasy Football Scout League (Can You Kick It)
The Scout League in Can You Kick It is holding strong in second place overall – that still gives us plenty of time to snatch that top spot. Paul Whittaker is the new man waving smugly from the top of the CYKI mountain this week, the armband around Fernando Torres’ arm was more than enough to to charge on up the table with a very impressive 80 point score this week. After such a meagre week myself in the FPL game, I was kind of hoping that my Robbie Keane inspired 79 point haul would be enough for maybe best score in the league this week – but it wasn’t to be.
In a hard fought and extremely close battle between our two front-runners in this Head to Head league, BP FC reigned victorious over Bestparamedic to create a little bit of breathing space at the top with 18 points and six victories in seven games. In an all Scout contributor face-off I’m Not Marshal Foch beat Mark in one of our mid table battles – that Darren Bent haul on Sunday was enough to just creep by for my colleague this week. Andy (me), jms, MegasalviO & captainmarvel continued their decidedly poor beginnings at the bottom of the table, all losing, and still with only 1 victory to our names.
Despite valiantly cheering on Don Corleone last week to get the Head to Head victory to back up his overall rank, once again he was bested to remain in that 19th spot – this week falling 13 points short of Monstery‘s fantastic front line of Bent & Torres. A couple of very close games in this league this week as Dick Fran Dyke and Ibracadabra beat Bedknobs & Broomsticks & Jason Lang respectively. Despite captaining Glen Johnson this week, Aldershot Rejects stayed atop League 2 thanks to Fernando Torres once more, this week beating another of my Scout colleagues, Superior Being.
As he fell down the CYKI league in a reasonably dramatic nature, djman102 wasn’t all tears, as he managed to maintain his hold on the top spot here, thanks to a comfortable 60-47 victory over falling star Hammer Time. With Dribbler to face next week, can our stateside friend take out another of the early front-runners? Defoe Rules stays bottom of the pile despite beating Anorak this week by 5 points. Dan B, Just One More Thing & Ryangal1982 all won this week too – to make our third Head to Head league the first to have all players reach 6 points, tough competition for the folks down there.
Last weeks leader Chris Jones has now been knocked down into third place as he lost his second Head to Head of the season with a fairly depressing weekly score of 36 points. Not one to rest on his laurels Sasquatch has taken up the mantle of being league leader once more, his 72-49 victory this week was inspired by, you guessed it, Senor Fernando Torres and that wonderful hat-trick of his. Mr Benn climbed off the bottom of the table this week with a 1 point victory of recent manager of misfortune Donnylad. In another closely fought mid-table battle martin1000penalty managed to overcome The Rock by a single point.
Our final select entry Head to Head has a handful of managers all scrapping for that top spot at the moment, four of them all share the spoils of 5 victories and 2 losses – so it is down to overall points scored to differentiate them for now. Lovely Camel, jils and matzi11a have managed to push by last weeks league leader (in that order) – leaving Captain Keg down in fourth place thanks to Benjamin Wong slaughtering him this week with his Darren Bent captaincy.
Slowly whittling it’s way down away from the perfect record, almost half of last weeks 15 cruising managers fell off the fantasy cliff this week – 8 managers now remain with their unbeaten records. Last weeks two top managers (Alistair Marsden & Ro6035) have kept their unbeaten runs going, but have had to relinquish their places this week as a familiar face has pushed their way up to the top of the Reserve League once more. With a weekly score of 85 points, Joe Cleary has used the overall rankings to once again plant himself firmly on top of this toughest of leagues (he even had room to place Matt Taylor and his 5 point haul on the bench and not regret it too much, for now).
One more gameweek to go then we have to sit through another 2 week international break, a fantasy managers worst nightmare. With England having already qualified the thumb twiddling will be even more incessant. So let us now take in the midweek Champions League games (don’t forget your fantasy teams there too folks – Inter are playing in Russia today so the deadline is an earlier 17:15), plan our squads and prepare our teams for another assault up the Scout Leagues.