A little later than normal, I hold my hands up and apologize – I completely forgot (though I’m placing the blame firmly at the feet of international football ring rust). Either way, let’s just get right into it and see who’s turn it is to light up the Scout Leagues this week…
Fantasy Football Scout League (Fantasy Premier League)
I need to not even elaborate too much; the original Scout League is still the number one league in the fantasy kingdom, long may it continue – so keep it up folks. Murray Fleeton continues ruling on high thanks to an Arsenal inspired score of 50 points in this gameweek. Of our regular posters, despite falling a wee bit we still have Warlock and Rasping Drive flying the flag in twelfth and thirteenth place respectively.
Fantasy Football Scout League (Can You Kick It)
Over in the Can You Kick It the Scout League we’ve regained the position as the premium league in the competition. Seemingly untouchable in recent weeks Paul Whittaker continues to be the man to beat here; a score of 40 points was enough to actually stretch his lead against many of his closest challengers. His nearest regular contenders continue to be djman102 and The Hunt while not too far away Wassup, Little Lukin and even myself, will be watching with great intent.
We finally have a brand spanking new face sitting pretty on top of our first Head to Head league, that man is Jimi and he was certainly happy about it – as an Aston Villa fan he will have been happy on so many levels; for his own team and his fantasy squad which forged a 64-56 victory over my Scout colleague, I’m Not Marshal Foch. The man to lose that spot was BP FC who will have been gutted to be edged out bySojourners by just a point – if Greg Halford had not have been subbed early to preserve his clean sheet, things would have been very different. Continuing his rise from the depths of the league, Seal is now up to 12th place on 12 points having beaten Seanigula in a close fought game, Elliott’s assist and Sorensen’s save points were the difference in these close encounters. Mark got another win, while Granville tasted defeat. After seven long weeks without a victory, I also climbed up the table too – from the lowly 18th spot to the dizzy heights of… 17th. Bugger.
An old new face at the top of our second league as JWF plants himself back at the top of the table once more, this time beating Feanor in a close Head to Head match up; only 4 points deciding this tie. Looking at the mid-table situation, and …al notched another win, moving up to 9th spot in the process after beating last week’s league leader, Aldershot Rejects in all too comfortable fashion. Last seasons CYKI world champion PDM Allstars fell to Team Sam and in particular his auto-substitution of Richard Dunne in for the injured Steven Gerrard. Jonny is plugging away too, bagging his fourth win and shooting up to 13th spot. Jonnys win however meant that Don’s Fish once again sank very near to the bottom of the fantasy ocean, with only Fran separating Don Corelone and the sea bed.
djman102 just about keeps his footing at the top spot of this league after winning his weekly match up by a single point. Our stateside friend will be looking at his opponents bench and counting his lucky stars as, while Seb Larrson’s 2 points off the bench was enough for him to scrape home, James Collins, Anton Ferdinand and 16 points sat painfully unused on the bench for his opponent. In another mid-table update, Higgo ground out a 57 to 55 victory over Verbal and now sits comfortably in 8th position, dreaming of a challenge for next years Premiership. Just One More Thing continues his ascent from the depths of this table with a cakewalk victory against Deppy35. Unfortunately, Sir Paulous (my colleague who brings you the utterly brilliant “The Technical Area…” reports) chalked up another loss and sits on his own at the bottom, with his level of knowledge I’d like to think it will be only time until he recovers up the table.
Fray Bentos obviously had his mind more on the half-time pies, than the Head to Head this week as Stengo toppled him with relative ease to cruise to the top of the table. Let’s hope JN and his team The Montsters can pose a greater threat, as he will be looking to bounce back from a rather lacklustre defeat to The Rock this week. Moving up the top half of the table martin1000penalty picked up his fifth victory of the season over bottom placed Uncle Ben. He claims this week’s “arm around the shoulder award” though. Most of us would surely be happy to be placed in the top 50,000 at the moment – sadly the draw has conspired against Uncle Ben, meaning that despite his position, he still only has 3 points to his name.
Despite falling foul of James Russell this week, our previous leader matzi11a managed to stay top of the league thanks to his overall ranking (7,202nd) trumping the other three players equal to him on 18 points so far this season. With Defoe now suspended, now could be the perfect time for Peter Crouch to power Juha Hornburg to victory next week over our man currently sitting in pole position. Looking at mid-table once more, and after a somewhat embarrassing return last week, The Hunt has dusted himself off to leapfrog over his competitor (Kevin O’Looney) into 12th place. The inevitable transfer in of Cesc Fabregas was more than enough to push him onto the victory. John Mantarakis claimed his fifth win of the season this week, but with the close competition we have througout this league, that was only enough to help him climb into 10th spot this week.
Finally! It had to happen eventually, and only a mere 9 gameweeks into the season there are now no managers in the reserve league with a 100% record… that being said, we do still have two fellows holding on to their unbeaten records at the top with 8 victories and 1 draw each. Duncan Burman may have scored a modest enough 44 points and fallen down the overall scale, but that was more than enough to catapult him to the top of this huge Head to Head league. The more familiar face of BKR currently sits in second, with only overall rank holding him back. It was a win over occasional Scout poster andyniterider that sealed that position, maybe making things that little bit sweeter. We’d have to ask BKR on that point though.
All done then. The next gameweek is pretty much here on the doorstep already, with this post being a little wayward with it’s timing. Those managers investing in Chelsea players (and particularly Drogba – I still can’t bring myself to buy him) look like they could spell victory come Sunday evening. Let’s see if some off kilter results make things a little more interesting. Who knows, we might even see some clean sheets.