While fantasy favourites Cesc Fabregas, Wayne Rooney, James Milner, Ryan Shawcross, Mikel Arteta all went missing in action this weekend, the Scout League Summary has staggered out of no man’s land and returned to the fray. Here’s a belated update on all the current ups and downs across our leagues…
Fantasy Football Scout League (Fantasy Premier League)
Anto Moyles is currently coasting along at the top of the Scout League as we approach the final furlong, despite scoring a moderate 54 points this week the Chris Eagles XI are still 27 points clear of nearest rival Christian Jarvis. Scanning the top ten reveals a couple of well known community members; Anti-Lampard (even though they captained him 2 weeks in a row – make up your mind!) sits in 7th while ShipstonTrev lies in 5th. At this rate it will be hard for Trev to carry on his record of improving his overall rank year on year.
As for the league itself, we still maintain a healthy lead over the behemoth otherwise known as facebook with a good 20+ points separating us from second place. With only 5 more weeks to go the confidence of winning the title for a second year running is growing by the week.
Fantasy Football Scout League (Can You Kick It)
James Collier is currently the man to chase in this “two transfer and no bonus point” game; 57 points this week enough to keep a decent 27 point lead up over second placed manager Ro6035. After a moderate start to the season PDM Allstars has come back with a bang and isn’t set to relinquish his crown without a fight – he now sits in 3rd place in the Scout League and 11th overall. For those unaware, PDM pocketed a hefty £6000 playing this game last season after coming number one in the world.
Elsewhere in the top ten we find previous leaders jms,Paul Whittaker, Anorak and Feanor continuing their steady assault on the upper echelons of the game. Right now the league of leagues is also a title within our grasp with a nice gap opening up over old rivals FISO forum, Fantasy Football Scout is going for the double this season.
In our first Head to Head league MFaulkner continues a long reign at the top of the table, second placed Comfy Coxy trumped him with ease in 58-40 battle and yet still remains nine points back. In fact the whole top half of this table is so close that only five points separate 2nd to 10th. The bottom half seems to have fragmented equally as much with only seven points between Akers (who lost by a single point to Dino this week) at the bottom of the table and Kyle (who despite scoring 60 points was solidly beaten by the best “classically ranked” manager in the league – Jimi) in 12th place.
Not content with being 34th in the world JWF beat Bedknobs & Boomsticks 68-49 this week to continue his rule at the top of our second league. The chasing pack of Aldershot Rejects and Dick Fran Dyke continue nip and peck at the heels. Down in the doldrums Fran got a rare victory over RoysBrotherJohn to hold off relegation, for one more week at least. A high-scoring affair in the league saw Feanor win 74-62 over my Scout colleague Superior Being – a point scoring midfield of Malouda & Etherington were the matchwinners in this contest.
In my mid-season report he was fighting eagerly in second place, now we see that Verbal has since garnered a gargantuan 11 point lead over BigAdz. In a close tie in the middle of the table JustOneMoreThing beat Sir Paulos by a single point by 55 to 54, my colleague shouting vehemently at Tim Cahill picking up a yellow card and costing him a draw. Dribbler got a nice big haul of 81 points this week, which was enough to keep him fighting in the lower regions of the table – currently treading water in 17th place.
Things remain incredibly close at the top of our fourth Head to Head league as well. The top three are all split by just 4 points, something much closer than some of the other runaways we are seeing. Sasquatch is the one leading the way with Daire Fitzgerald and Mike McBam closely following – all three of them continued a good run of form with solid victories over the weekend. Tabfitz rose to 13th place this week with a very low scoring (41-39) victory over Canucklehead – the two extra clean sheets of Vermaelen and Huth proving vital in this contents.
A new (and unknown, as far as I am aware) face is currently leading our final select entry Head to Head league. Patrick Quish trounced old friend rez-rez 61-37 to sneak a grasp of the crown off sliding leader Captain Keg whose loss to James Russell saw him fall to 3rd place this week. A reasonably low-scoring affair also saw Chinmusic hold on to fifth place this week with a 48-41 victory over The Hunt, and all that despite captaining one point 20-minute man Samir Nasri.
The days of unbeaten managers in this league are long since forgotten now, but we have two clear managers running away all the same – all but guaranteeing a place high up the charts. Adil Rafiq and Richard Laycock are your Reserve League duo and measure out their success with places comfortable inside the top 6k overall at the moment, not a bad season by all accounts. The group just behind them is lead by two people who are so very close. Tivoli and Ro6035 both have 75 Head to Head points, they both have 2179 classic points (52nd and 50th in the world respectively), all that separates them is 6 transfers right now.
Ro6035 also deserves a nice big well done once more as far as I’m concerned, 50th in the world in FPL, joint third in the tough Reserve League and 10th in the world in the (mentioned above) CYKI game. That is some consistently good season to be having.
Fantasy Football Scout League (Champions League Game)
I’ll be honest, I wanted to mention this one again because I (Andy) am currently doing pretty well, to the surprise of many – myself included. After a best round score in the Scout League, the only way now is down for me. While Jamie C continues to lead the lines, but a once great gap has now been closed down by the folks in tow. I’m in 4th place while other community members Anorak, MFaulkner, Akers, Bigo1 and Slinky Cabbage all litter the spaces from 12-20.
The fixture (and my own personal) calendar means it’s nigh on impossible for me to get out another round-up this season, so keep your eyes peeled come mid-May time where we will summarise exactly what went down across Fantasy Football Scout and start to leave a few details and breadcrumbs for what will hopefully ensue over the summer. Clue: Fantasy World Cup game.