| MATCH WEEK 7 |
This is why I love Nightmare Soccer. I very much enjoy playing Fantasy Premier League, but when are you ever going to get a week when the team 2nd in your League scores 2 points and sets a record for the worst performance of the season, when the top score is 94? You're not. Clean sheets for Norwich, Leeds and Burnley put the pigeon amongst the cats that's for sure. Six of the players in our Top 10 Nightmares for the season scored minus points. Jokers inspired one Nightmare Team to score over 50% more points than the second best, while the worst two performances of the week came from the teams who started the week in overall 4th and 5th positions. How things can change...
I should mention that Al's Army stay top overall, though their lead is chopped by another 11 points. |
| IPSWICH CRACK THE JOKERS CODE |
Now that's how to play your Jokers. Match Week 6 saw Ipswich Invincibles play both a Captain and Subs Joker, and they end the Match Week with 94 points. That's 33 more than the second best this week. James Willingham's squad was perfect for the Subs Joker - all 16 players played, with only Johann Gudmundsson not starting his team's match. With no minus-pointers, Gudmundsson's single point as a sub was the worst performance from an Invincible. Even without the Subs Joker, Ipswich's total would be 72 points. That does include 26 for Ismaila Sarr who was auto-picked as Captain with James playing the Captain Joker. It really was the ideal week to play the Jokers - if James hadn't played either, and picked the worst possible Captain, Invincibles would still be second best for the week with 60 points.
Ipswich Invincibles jump from 4th to top of Division Three, and are up five places to 3rd overall. But hey, you've got expect an Ipswich fan is going to be pretty damn good at Nightmare Soccer, no...? |
| TEAM SELECTIONS GOOD + BAD |
| Who got their Captain picks right and wrong? Who left the wrong players on the bench? |
| TERRORISTS NOT SO INSPIRED |
| After only one of Relegation Terrorists' squad didn't play last week - they couldn't possibly have had everyone play, with two Brighton goalkeepers - and most players scored well, they also decided to play their Subs Joker this week. But for Terrorists it fell flat. And it was all so well planned... Kjell Schaerpen was sold in an attempt to get both 'keepers among the points, and on the face of it that worked well as replacement Pickford scored 5 points. But, to bring in some cash to buy Pickford, Terrorists made another transfer. Out went Neal Maupay - just 9 points in six matches. In came Mohamed Elyounoussi, 24 points in four. Elyounoussi was named Captain. He was dropped, came on for 3 minutes and scored 1 point. Maupay more than doubled his season total with an 11 point performance. Meanwhile Kristoffer Ajer and Craig Cathcart were suddenly nowhere to be seen, while Brandon Williams and Che Adams were both dropped and remained unused subs. The up-shot is that Terrorists' four outfield subs didn't play - the only player to 'gain' points as a sub was Robert Sanchez. He scored -3. What a nightmare. |
| WILL HUGHES STILL KEEP CLIMBING THE TABLE? |
| Patrick O'Reilly's interesting policy of picking a squad full of entirely West Ham players paid dividends this week. Hammered are second best with 61. Will Hughes Still Love Me Tomorrow? are just behind them in (equal) 3rd. Chris Bounds' boys were bottom after Match Week 1. Since then, last week was the first week they had not moved upwards as they stalled at 22nd. But it appears it was just a little breather as they prepared to take the top half by storm. This week, the Hughes are up seven places to 15th. Their route to the top half: 32, 31, 27, 24, 22, 22, 15. Oh, and despite leaving Watford where they refused to play him, Will Hughes himself has still not appeared at all this season - spending the weeks since his transfer warming his Hughes bottom on Crystal Palace's bench. |
| CATASTROPHE FOR PLANETS AND KANTE |
As I mentioned further up the page, the week's worst two performances came from teams in the top 5. The third worst of the week was 26 points (and by the way 3rd placed Clem Fandango (now 4th) were one of two teams to score 26), but U Kante Beat Me could only manage half that, 13 points. Luke Andrews' five man back line (including goalkeeper) all kept clean sheets. Though Matthew Lowton managed a point, thanks to a yellow card and a 6/10 rating, the others were all in the minus. Kante did at least have Josh King up front (10 points).
13 meanwhile would be a dream for The Planets - incredibly the team that started the week 4th scored just 2 points!?! Having plenty of players in action is definitely the foundation for a decent Nightmare Team. But seriously not this week for Eloise Willingham's boys who had 14 out of their 16 playing. Again, their keeper and all defenders kept clean sheets, while Planets also had two forwards scoring minus points. And their best score was 3 points (except for Youri Tielemans with 5, but he was left on the bench!) It could have been yet worse for Eloise, Ben White scored -4 but also remained a sub. |