The points machine that is Didier Drogba rumbled on relentlessly again at the weekend, leaving the Everton defence in his wake and all those non-Drogba owners counting the days until his departure for the African Cup of Nations. Let’s see how the Ivorian’s latest points haul rippled through the world of the Scout Leagues…
Fantasy Football Scout League (Fantasy Premier League)
At the top of the Scout League, leader Liam Owens is certainly not taking things by halves – he may be top in the Scout League and top of the world (the world!) at the moment, but he still took what looks on paper to have been quite a risky 8 point hit. He sold Messrs. Rooney, Giggs & Hangeland (the last the most understandable, of course) for Drogba, Reid and Ivanovic. Risky? Even if you don’t account for Drogba gaining the captaincy, he was already 13 points better off from that transfer. This looks like an adventurous and astute manager, and one who has an almost 40 point lead at the top – my hat goes off to you sir.
ZB FC is still contributing to the league average (not updated for end of gameweek at time of writing, but I’m confident we’ll still be well in the lead) in 5th place. Chasing the pack ShipstonTrev is in 11th place and John in 12th place have been making an assured stab at the charts. I also like to point out that 15 of the top 90 managers in the world are members of the Scout League, I think that probably speaks volumes for what we have going here.
Fantasy Football Scout League (Can You Kick It)
In the Can You Kick It game we say hello again to Lee Newman who still leads from the front by a 15 point margin. He may have fallen from last week’s position, but jms is still one place higher (now in fourth) than my last report. a respectable 40 points keeps the man from the stateside inside the top 20 in the world.
As I wander down the top 50 I see a wide array of familiar faces (sorry if I miss you out): djman102, The Hunt, Little Lukin, Monstery, Yer Dad, Dadoune, Seanigula, kamdaraji, PDM Allstars (having a good crack at winning CYKI two years on the trot), Ro6035, Chris De Borg, JN, Anorak & TorresMagic. Well done so far to you all, hopefully me and some of my fellow scouts will be joining you on the front page soon – I just did my transfers and realised I have no goalkeeper this week (rookie mistake) so I doubt it’ll be me.
Our two leading lights from my last report (Jimi and MFaulkner) fell by the wayside this week, The Duke of Portland Seanigula took down Jimi with a chunky 78 point haul while MegasalviO was the one to better MFaulkner – both captained Drogba. That left a space for a new leader to take charge, and that individual is none other than my colleague I’m Not Marshal Foch. It took a hard fought 66-64 victory over jms, who no doubt regretted the decision to captain Defoe over Drogba. Down at the bottom of the table Granville continues his charge to get back in with the pack with a 1 point victory over Sojourners – despite having points aplenty on his bench. Our podcast co-host got the rub of the green here taking home the 3 points despite having the 18th best weekly score in the league.
JWF continues to mow down all that come before at the top of the second Head to Head table. This week his (Drogba less) team took out fellow Tottenham supporter denial powered by goals, assists and penalty saves from the Stoke back-line. Denial will be another manager regretting giving the armband to Defoe. Aldershot rejects remains the next closest competitor in second place thanks to a low points victory over Ibracadabra. At the bottom of the table Roysbrotherjohnson trumped my colleague Superior Being with a 48-40 victory and Fran just managed to scrape by Jason Lang.
djman102 still rules the roost at the top of this Head to Head table. It was a 73-47 white-washing of TorresMagic that did it this week, unfortunate for our Australian compatriot who now slumps back to the bottom of the table. Also at the wrong end, in a 6 pointer battle, Just One More Thing fell foul of Dan B meaning the basement stays incredibly close with just 3 points separating the bottom 6 teams. A middle of the table roundhouse was be-felled onto HammerTime this gameweek as Pop Ooh Yeah FC saw him off, thanks largely to Didier Drogba and Richard Dunne.
Table four sees Canucklehead keep pole position since my last recap. A mighty return of 80 gameweek points were what kept him flying high, earning a victory over Martin1000penalty. The deciding factor here was Ryan Shawcross’ 10 point return, even Drogba’s haul wasn’t enough for the unfortunate Martin. Climbing up into 6th place this week was Daire Fitzgerald who walked by The Rock and his team The Champions with relative ease. The loser here slumping into a precarious position of 16th in the table.
Wandering by anton deco and keeping his place at the top of the table Captain Keg. Would it be surprising to say it was done with the aid of a certain Mr. Drogba? I guess not. The man with great levels of summer bombast (that’s rez-rez) cruised back into third place with victory this week with a 51 point return – he could even afford to go without Agbonlahor’s 9 point return which was left on the bench. Also taking a step in the right direction is The Hunt. His 70 point team (with Shawcross benched) moved up to 15th place overall – just another win away from a push up to a possible 12th spot; a big climb could be on the cards.
Duncan Burman is still top of the league in the Reserves, far and away top top dog and is still unbeaten. Regular second spot filler BKR succumbed the pressure again and falls down to 6th place in the table. Close on the coat-tails in 8th spot is Mediterranean man Dragonfly who has had quite an incredible two weeks, not just in the reserve league, but also in worldwide rankings too – he could even afford to keep Elliot and Dunne benched this week.
That’s about it for another round-up. This gameweek has just finished and yet we’ve another kicking off in less than 24 hours. Get used to it. Hopefully my next report will come down before the most festive of days, as we prepare for the busiest of Christmas schedules – a gift for all us fantasy football managers.