World class goals, TV commentators, England’s demise and further controversy over the Official FIFA Fantasy game provided the inspiration for this week’s output from the Fantasy Football Scout community. We look back on the notable articles and hot topics produced by you, including the early analysis following the release of the Premier League’s 2014/15 fixtures. As always, we also catch up with the community tournaments currently taking place around the World Cup.

The Community Articles

Yet again this week, there was a batch of community writers on hand to help out with our latest predicted lineups. Advice and tips from Demi, Beavis and Portsmouth Bubblejet, among others, proved invaluable to keeping our list up to date with latest injury and rotation news. We’ll be posting a Matchday Three predicted lineups article next week, no doubt calling on your knowledge and opinion once more.

Fresh from his run of excellent World Cup preview articles, Balotellis Bib showed his talents again, this time running the rule over Matchday One’s games and the lessons we can learn from them. He also posted this look at the Official FIFA Fantasy game’s formation trap, a bugbear that has caught out a number of community members recently.

The Hottest Topics

Many of our hot topics focused on the winners and losers in the World Cup to this point. England inevitably rank amongst the biggest flops and, thanks to back-to-back defeats and Costa Rica’s improbable form, Roy’s boys will be on the golf course earlier than expected. Our discussion attempted to examine where it all went wrong for Hodgson’s men, with Wakey pointing to Leighton Baines failure to deliver successful crosses, while The Tinkerman was adamant that a simple case of failing to take chances cost England dearly.

The Official FIFA Fantasy game must also rank amongst this summer’s big disappointments. Bogged down from the start with confusion, last minute rule changes and an array of infuriating design problems, you’ve been quick to highlight the grips with a string of community posts. Phil Fox 85’s Letter to Fifa was one of the very latest and is undoubtedly one of the most eloquent of this week’s threads on the issues on show.

While the FIFA game’s design has come under fire, the basic premise of offering Fantasy managers more complex rules, with Gameweek squad changes and points for a greater variety of player attributes, still appears to carry plenty of appeal according to many who responded to our discussion last week. Roscola and HamsterGod were among the ranks of those welcoming such new dimensions. Hopefully, in 2018, FIFA will finally deliver a game that couples rich features with a clear ruleset and reliable design and interface.

Across the Fantasy games, one of the winning tactics during the tournament so far has been the investment in in full-backs over centre-backs. With a lack of clean sheets on offer, us Fantasy managers have been relying on the considerable assist potential that the full backs from teams such as Holland and Switzerland have offered, according to Parmtree’s hot topic contribution.

Off the pitch, you’ve also been assessing the quality of the TV coverage on offer, with Gnu’s discussion on the commentators and pundits highlighting a number of abject performers. For MJ6987, the BBC, steered safely by the reliable Gary Lineker, has fared well. ITV’s Adrian Chiles, meanwhile, has been far from convincing in opposition according to the opinion on show. Predictably, Phil Neville’s punditry also took another kicking within the thread, but at least the former Everton man’s performances provided the inspiration for this video, imagining Neville’s commentary dousing the flames of excitement during an episode of Game of Thrones.

Back amongst the comfort of the Premier League, this week saw the release of the 2014/15 fixture list. We were quick to take an early look at the fixtures, revealing that Manchester United players could well be back en vogue very early on, given their obliging start to the campaign.

Meanwhile, Fring pointed out that Chelsea have not been so fortunate. The London side have been handed tough matches after all their Champions League group games and face a nightmarish season run-in, as they visit Arsenal and play host to Manchester United and Liverpool in their final six encounters.

The Community Tournaments

The Fantasy Football Scout takeover of the Fox game has been unprecedented. Going into today’s games, 18 of our league were in the top 50 of the game overall, including the current leader Liam Jones. The Fox FFS Deadzone league is topped by Innsie, while Roscola has a commanding 28-point lead in the Fantasy Football Scout Mods and Contributors Fox league.

Over in our Official FIFA Fantasy game league, Welliott is currently top on 257 points ahead of HenryFarr in second on 253. Welliot is also just 13 points over the overall lead in the chase for the first prize of the Kia Soul motor. The Official FIFA game also plays host to the FFS UEFA’s team competition. The results from Matchday One’s matches can be found here.