It’s a fickle world in fantasy football, and having been the hero of the show thanks to his penalty save against West Ham last week, Jussi Jääskeläinen is well and truly the villain of the act today when he struck Roger Johnson around the chops and was duly sent off for his actions.
Knee jerkers across the continents of the globe groaned as the Finnish goalkeeper laid his hands on the Birmingham centre-half this afternoon, leaving Bolton with an uphill task to get back in the game and walking away with a hefty -3 points total for the gameweek – I have a feeling Granville is going to be miffed…
To compound the woes that were bestowed upon all owners of Jääskeläinen, there was a knock on effect to the Bolton outfield, and another of this weeks Scout Picks, as Martin Petrov reacted angrily to the dismissal himself so Owen Coyle chose him to make way and allow Ádám Bogdán to come on and fill the spot between the sticks. Any more red mist and Bolton would have surely been buried.
A fantasy favourite on these shores, Petrov has so far been unable to live up to his billing as a potential star in a Bolton side much like Youri Djourkaeff and Jay-Jay Okocha had previously been before him. Having already suffered a price drop in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) to £5.9m this morning, one can expect his 38th minute substitution to only add more cause for managers everywhere to doubt their investment and worry about a tumble in price.
Given that Bolton now face an unsavoury fixture list after the upcoming international break (ars, avl, MUN) any investment in this Bolton squad now looks to bring it’s own cautionary tale. With their number one goalkeeper due to be absent for all of these games, goals could very well be on the cards for their opponents, which might yet spark a revived interest in the likes of Cesc Fabregas, who himself recently suffered his own price drop.
For now, Jääskeläinen and Petrov have done us no favours and certainly leave The Knee Jerk doing just that, jerking our knees like Michael Flatley and weighing up our options elsewhere – cheers lads.

