so final score arsenal 4-0, boselli x2, robbie keane x2

A Day in the Life of Cesc Fábregas
The following nonsense is made up. I don't even know if Cesc likes Jeremy Kyle.

09:51 Wake up. Pre-season training hasn't started yet so stay in bed watching Jeremy Kyle. Check phone. Two unread text messages. Both are from Arsène. The first one was sent at three in the morning, possibly under the influence of a few glasses of red wine. 'Cesc u r making a mistake', it reads. 'We were ment 2 b. We will b gr8 together. U and me, heroes of arsenal. Plz dont goooo 🙁 '. Sigh in exasperation and open up the second text. This one is more succinct. 'Ignore last night's text. Please call me soon - Arsène.' Get up and make breakfast.

10:24 Watch DVD of Barcelona beating Manchester United at Wembley. Imagine that it is you that sets up Pedro to score the opening goal. Celebrate each of Barcelona's goals by sliding along the floor on your knees, just like you do every morning. Go up to the attic and fetch your Barcelona jersey. Hug it tightly and mutter 'soon, soon' surreptitiously.

12:34 Phone rings. Think it's Arsène so leave it go unanswered. Begin throwing darts at Brian Horton dartboard in your kitchen. Phone rings again. Answer it this time. It's a hack. Ask how he got your number but he ignores you. Hang up. Hack rings again. Tell hack that you love Arsenal but who knows what the future holds. Change phone number. Again. Begin to cook lunch (pizza) and return to dartboard.

14:11 Doorbell rings. It's Arsène. He asks if you got his text messages. Tell him you lost your phone. He smiles and invites himself in. Sit down on the couch and listen to Arsène talk about His Plan. Avoid eye contact. Stare at ground and tell Arsène that your mind is made up and there is nothing he can do about it. He starts to get angry and begins talking about League Cup runner-up medals. Ask him to leave. He slams the door while shouting, 'I don't need you, Denilson and Diaby are the best midfielders in the world.' You know he is lying. It still hurts.

16:01 Turn on Sky Sports News. The quote you fed the hack earlier is scrolled across the yellow ticker. Notice that quote has been altered to say that '[you] loved Arsenal but Barcelona is what the future holds.' Watch fans burn your Arsenal shirt outside the Emirates. Ring agent and ask him to clarify what you really said in the press. Read news of Thiago extending his contract with Barcelona and begin to panic. Text Gerard and tell him how much you miss him. Wait sixteen minutes and forty three seconds before you get a reply. Gerard says that he misses you too and that he and Carles are doing everything they can to bring you home. Smile.

18:35 Win the Champions League with Barcelona on Fifa 11. Score two goals as captain in the final. Finish the season as topscorer. Sell Thiago.

19:57 Doorbell rings. It's Wilshere. Don't answer. He climbs in through an open window. He starts to tell you off for making Arsène sad. He asks if you're really leaving for Barcelona. Tell him that you are. Enjoy the confused look on his face. 'But Barcelona's not even in England', he says. Usher him out when he starts singing God Save the Queen. Return to Fifa 11. Drop Messi and play yourself up front. Score a hattrick in a 3-0 victory against Real Madrid.

23:21 Go to bed. There is nothing on telly and you have no one to go out with. Sleep with picture of the time Pepe put a Barcelona shirt on you under your arm. Dream of the Champions League final. Again.

02:42 Woken up by a text. It's Arsène. 'Plz Cesc, i can change. Dont leave. Plz dont leave.'

Change phone number.

It's brilliantly funny how annoyed Daniel seems to be at Garg's "C: This is the worst poll ever" comment and the sly little digs he's been putting in afterwords. Top notch stuff.

I'm excited about the new changes 🙂

Thanks for the update Mark! Is there any chance you can tell us at the beginning of tomorrow whether FPL will go live? I'd like to get some work done this week hahaha

Nearly home time! 😀

What to do - either play some more Zelda, or watch Medium on the way home? Decisions, Decisions. And Angry Birds drains my battery way too much.

Hey have any of you guys been following the womens world cup? I watched the 2007 wc and I have to say the standard has significantly improven

Actually getting excited for FPL to re-open now 😀

Gives me something to do during the day.

I don't see why those who paid for membership are so sad. If you look at the way FFS develops as business:
1) as a start-up they had to to make it popular to be able to gain some revenues
2) once it became big enough, they introduced membership fees to ensure further growth
3) today's news basically mean that everybody who plays FPL will be aware of this site, which means that the maximum possible amount of visitors will be reached

What's next?
4) they can't grow further by increasing the number of visitors, which means that in order to reach higher revenues they will want to make as many visitors as possible sign up for the membership. How do you do that? By making membership area more and more attractive. I guess more and more stuff will be moving soon from the category "publicly available" to the category "members only" or they will provide more unique information for members only which will be important to succeed in the game. Eventually, everybody who takes this game seriously/plays for money will be forced to become a member. The game will be completely commercialized.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the way I see it... And the phrases like that just confirm it: Mark: "As for the Members – they will get new features, more detailed articles based and WITH OUR INSIGHT INTO HOW THE FPL WORKS, they will benefit". Once FFS starts to share private information on how FPL works only for money, that would be the end for me. That's like inside trading on the stock exchange, IMO.

If I have 3 chelsea players in my team on the opening weekend of the season and cahill is still at bolton and in my team,

Then chelsea buy him on the last day of the transfer window, effectively I will have 4 chelsea players in my team, but the rules say you can only have 3 players from the same team, would I have to transfer one out???

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished.

He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al; an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap home.

Jazz for JamsieP ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQJybhk47xU&feature=related

Talks relating to Sneijder to United really hotting up now. I hope Sir Alex has a plan, because i'm struggling to think of a formation that will get the best out of Sneijder, Rooney and Hernandez.

Cut and paste this below into google then read the blurb under it! You’d say it’s a hoax first but this is the official Nike website!

type this is....Nike Football Wesley Sneijder.... the main google pages says UTD player Snjieder!!??

Has anybody been looking at possible budget keeper rotations yet? I started fiddling about with the season ticker and found that Wolves/Wigan rotates pretty nicely up until GW17. After that it gets pretty patchy.

Wolves/Stoke rotates rather well for the length of the season with a few hiccups where you'd have to choose between liv/MUN or tot/liv to name a few.

Other than that I can't see any other rotations being solid except if you'd want to venture into involving one or more of the newcomers QPR, NOR and SWA.

Any thoughts on this or are the majority going with a solid, more expensive keeper and the cheapest available sub?

Gabriel Marcotti was suggesting last night on TalkShite that Utd fans ought not to expect more than around 25 league games out of Sneider. He has only played 27 or more league games in a season twice in his career and not in recent years. He's slick, but weak...Marcotti was suggesting. He was als o saying that formation wise his best position is also Rooney's best position. So either that means Rooney playing as a striker as he did the season before last and supported by Sneider or one of them being benched. Can't see either being knowingly bench.

In conclusion Sneider for Utd is one to watch, but not invest in fantasy wise from the off.

Arrgh... I want to kick stuff over...

All the gigs I want to go and see now are over.

We are the Ocean, Twin Atlantis, Ed sheeran (sold out).

Havent posted on this in a while but just wanted to send my congrats to Mark and lads on their official connection with the fpl... its a legendary fpl resource 🙂

http://redflagflyinghigh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/barca_trio_go_to_united.jpg

Top 5 things to do while you're waiting for FPL to start...

1. Choose a cool name that will be the envy of your mini-league mates!

2. Pour over the plethora of stats from the last few years of fantasy footy before realizing it didn't help you one bit.

3. EAT! No not cheetos and coke ad nauseum while you refresh the EPL site every 10 seconds.

4. Get some sleep! You'll need it for the upcoming FPL season as you spend every waking moment trying to figure out how the hell your rival's player got 3 BP when he was on the bench.

5. Repair all those broken relationships that were damaged during last season's FPL game. Flowers, dinners, chocolates, wine - perhaps even a romantic evening for two...as soon it will be just you and FPL again for yet another season of bonding between man and computer.

Are Everton's fixtures from GW6-GW10 the worst of all time? It's a truly horrific 5-game run.

Latest on twitter is that David Gill is definitely in Milan, but still negotiating a fee in order to be allowed to talk to sneijder.

Just became a member:)

You guys and your rumours. Got a text today from a mate saying "morning mate, rumours has it FPL is open today, I must admit I'm checking a lot at the mo on FFS".

So as I thought I was the only one of my mates who knew about this site (well at least I'd never heard them mention it), I simply text back "FFS?", playing it cool. My mate then, trying to keep this site a secret texts back "Oh don't worry". So to cut this long boring story short he ends up finding out I know about it too and ends "whats the first rule of fight club". Made me crack me up that even though we both knew about it, we still tried to keep it a secret.

What also made me laugh is him telling me about all your rumours. Hasn't there been rumours about the game starting everyday for about 2 weeks? 🙂

So after 4 years it seems FFS will no longer by the ace up my sleave helping me win all my money mini-leagues, shame, but as the site grew it was inevitable that this would happen and well done to Mark and Co for making this happen.

I presume most people would feel the same way, it was nice to have this secret advantage over my friends, but a level playing field (that is if they bother to use this site, which most won't I suppose), ups the ante.

Mark, you're copyright notice at the bottom of the page still says 2010. Such is my boring life...

If your team included a midfield of

nani
malouda
adam
n'zogbia
y.toure,

would you be prepared to lose one to get scott sinclair in? if so which one???????

What does this 'partnership' actually involve guys? How public will the site be exactly?

A lot of moaners, some I've never seen post before.

Great to hear that FFS and the FPL are now best of mates.

A lot of people are saying it will be more of a level playing field with the scout joining with FPL.

I'm not so sure. "The scout" will be giving FPL pundit like articles ? Correct? And how many of the active players (Which I am sure must be around 50% around christmas) are going to read them articles? I am not criticising what Mark is doing in any way shape or form. AND it is only two articles per week. A preview and a review which is what the pundit gives at the moment, but obviously it isn't as in depth as the scouts is. The bonus point explanations do not really affect us, they just explain the reasoning, which in a way may help us choose players and gain a point here or there, which in the grand scheme of things, one point doesn't really matter. But as far as I am concerned, that is a new feature from FPL, not FFS, so Everyone gets the new feature, instead of just FFS peeps if that makes sense. Unless the name FFScout is at the bottom of the articles or has a permalink somewhere on the site. Which, looking at it now, there is an "Official website partners" banner at the bottom, which to be fair, I have only just noticed after two years of playing the game. I think that will bring more visitors, inevitably of course. But not sure that all our mini-league rivals will spot it, and come over to this site.

Thats my opinion on all this anyways. And when this site does get a sudden influx of people in a few weeks time. It happened last year as well, hundreds of new people joined up last season I'm sure. So I wouldn't worry that there are too many posters on here. (Sorry for the length)

I saw earlier that the servers had been upgraded. Does that mean even with the amount of new users we shouldn't see the dreaded, "we are busy, please post later" picture?........Unfortunately I can't remember the exact message as it's been so long!