The Pre-Match Preamble – Gameweek 8

These international breaks don’t just drain the legs of our Fantasy assets. They’re not just disruptions that scatter flags about our squads. In my case, it appears they are capable of throwing me off course and leading me to abandon basic principles.

A fortnight ago I was stressing the need to maintain momentum by continuing to commit to brave transfer decisions.

I’d sacrificed statistical darlings in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Michail Antonio and escaped unscathed, even in profit.

Now I had to capitalise on this trend and keep taking risks.

Yet this morning, just two weeks on and still rubbing the sleep of the international break from my eyes, I’ve settled on the most uninspiring and unlikely transfer.

Out goes Jonny Evans, in comes Cucu Martina. You read it correctly.

All the talk of gutsy transfers appears to have been dissolved by the two-week hiatus.

The devil in me would have shifted Lukaku for Benteke, perhaps Defoe for Austin or Sterling to Snodgrass, with the surplus spent on a big-ticket defender.

But in just two weeks, my ardour has been doused. Suddenly caution has set in, and I’m looking at the likes of Sterling and letting fear dictate matters.

While I’ve a belief that settling on assets and subscribing to a template will get punished this season, I’m already struggling to fight against it.

The fixtures, the price rises, the points hits – all these factors have combined to ensure that I was left with just one potential move: trading one vanilla 4.5 defender for another.

I’m now trying to convince myself that it’s a policy that can get me results. That, week by week, a straight swap in cheap defensive assets can go some way to cover for my lack of an Arsenal or Spurs asset in my backline.

It’s a nice theory and one that lets me snuggle up to the likes of Sterling and Lukaku in the hope that they will justify the faith.

But I can’t but feel that the break has stalled my progressive transfer policy, dampened my instincts and drowned out the gut-led strategy to be replaced by a pragmatic, dare I say, “dullard” approach.

I’m looking at Martina now and wondering how the twists and turns of a Fantasy season have led me to this and where it will end up.

I’m playing back his improbable 30-yard worldie against Arsenal in my head, just as a means of drowning out the shame of it all.