Having placed the Fantasy Premier League game in focus earlier this week, it’s now time to show some love to the leaders from our community in the Sky Sports game, whilst scanning the transfer activity and looking forward to this week’s episode of the Fantasy Football Club.
The Scout Leagues
Jonathan Lenharth’s “Betterthanlasyear” lineup sits atop the official Scout League, leading Mark Hayle’s “bosanquet” side by a full 11 points. Darren Mallett sits in third with is “Malgunners” side, tied on 132 points with Janie Ward’s “Hart to Harte”.
Jonathan’s impressive points total of 165 puts him second overall in the game, trailing Niels Koopman by just a single point going into the weekend in the chase for the £25,000 top prize. That will surely be enough to see Jonathan namechecked in Friday’s edition of the Fantasy Football Club.
Lower down the Scout league table we find our top Scout contributor, Andy, sitting on a haul of 111 points from the first Gameweek and sitting in 11th place. Spooky.
Unlike the Fantasy Premier League game, Sky Sports have included a facility for a “League of Leagues” so we can see how we measure up to the other leagues out there. After just one week, our community has soared to the top – averaging 142.40 – a full 14 points ahead.
If you’ve signed up to the Sky Sports game and are yet to join the Scout League, get enrolled now with his code “8004519”. We have a home cinema kit, worth £600 up for grabs for the winner.
Market Forces
The Sky Sports game is a very different beast to the FPL, in that we have 30 transfers to use over the season as we wish. Many will have looked to use the rules to exploit Chelsea’s two fixtures in Gameweek 1 as the game allows managers to make transfers each day, to earn points from matches played in that 24-hour period. For example, this coming weekend it’s possible to transfer in Man City players on Sunday morning in order to benefit from points earned in their clash with Liverpool on top of those earned from your starting XI from Saturday.
Personally, I allowed my team to settle for the first weekend but having made a fairly decent start, I’m looking to spend a few of my 30 changes this weekend – with Robin Van Persie in my sights.
The United striker has seen plenty of attention in the market this week and now commands ownership of 22.7% having been the fourth most transferred in striker behind the likes of Wayne Rooney, Fernando Torres and Carlos Tevez. With Rooney still the second most popular player in the game on 29.1%, it will be interesting to see if this is whittled away should Van Persie make an impact this weekend.
Not surprisingly, Eden Hazard is the top transferred midfielder over the past few days, holding off the charge of budget options Michu and Marouanne Fellaini in the midfield bracket, off the back of their impressive Gameweeks. Over 32% of transactions made so far this week saw Hazard involved, with Tevez ranked next on 24%. While both of those presumably involved transfers in, Petr Cech featured in 22% of transfers – presumably going the other way following his error for Danny Guthrie’s goal on Wednesday. Michel Vorm and Tim Howard appear to be picking up the fallout from Cech – they have both featured in over 10% of transfers made this week.
As for tips for this weekend: a few will have noticed that Michael Kightly has been classified as a defender in the game and, priced at 4.5, could offer value if he continues to deliver goals as he did at Reading last time out. He faces the Gunners on Saturday – and with points lost for every goal conceded, Kightly may well be one to put on the back burner for this week at least.
The Fantasy Football Club – 10pm Tonight
Tonight’s episode of the Fantasy Football Club goes out at 10pm and features Robbie Fowler and Joleon Lescott – the City defender will be phoning in prior to his trip to Anfield this weekend. Also, listen out for those tips from the shadowy figure that is the man in the know or “ITK”.
