Skybet Scam

Today I was infuriated by my accumulator as opposed to my Fantasy team. My team did just fine, shoving me up into the top 15,000, with goals from Kane, Hazard and Ivanovic as well as a good few bonus points scattered around.

But it was Skybet who wound me up. I stupidly put a £1 bet on a four-fold accumulator including Hull and Sunderland to win, and Leicester and QPR's games to end as draws, at odds of 851/1.

At half time, unbelievably, these results were all coming in. I thought Hull would never hold out, so I frantically began the impossible mission that was 'cashing out' with Skybet. They had some 'unfortunate' (convenient) technical difficulties which lasted until the end of the matches.

After a quick Twitter poke I actually went and wrote a formal complaint e-mail to Skybet, with absolutely no profanities, expecting they might send me a few quid to shut me up and keep me happy, but instead I received a response referring me to some small print about not being liable for factors out of their control, like technical difficulties. 

For most people, I guess this would be a lesson in reading-the-small-print. Not me. No. I am now going to make it my life's work to win as much money off of Skybet as possible.

That'll show them...right?

Bad Reasons for Team Selection

A certain footballer tried it on with my girlfriend. At the time this player was a youth team player in a local team. He has since moved from club to club, climbing up the leagues, getting first team action and proving himself before winning a transfer to a higher placed club until last season he made his debut for a premier league club.

Ok, so the incident in question was a while ago. Alright, fine, it was nearly ten years ago. And said girl and I split up around seven years ago.  

Anyway, the guy had played for a few consecutive matches, and it was wildcard month. He was a budget player; an absolute steal. A differential with a great set of fixtures lined up. This was an opportunity. But I refused to draft him in.

That showed him, right?

Anyway, this is one of the many stupid reasons I have considered for not picking a player. Below are some more:

Unpronounceable/un-spellable name

Ass-pil-quet-to? Va-shee-lef-ski? Szhczchezczsny? (Bless you) Schlupp? If you’re a real FPL addict you know you’ll be repeating your squad to your mates, and typing your teamsheet out time and again on Fantasy Football Scout. So why choose Sunderland defender Réveillere when you know how to spell ‘Wes Brown’? Why worry if those Arsenal midfielders names are pronounced ‘urgh-sil’ or ‘oh-zil’, or ‘ro-sicky’ or ‘ro-zix-ski’, when you know perfectly well how to pronounce ‘wal-co-’, innit?

Doesn’t look like a footballer

I am thinking specifically about Peter Crouch, here. There are plenty of talented (and less talented)players out there who look like they should be doing something else, like Adi Akinbiyi (boxer), Zinedine Zidane (monk), Wayne Rooney (nightclub doorman), Martin Keown (star in Planet of the Apes), David Luiz (Krusty the Clown sidekick), and Maroanne Fellaini (microphone). The list is endless, but Crouch just looked like a giant twig. I was always so worried that he might just snap in half, and this is coming from someone who was nicknamed ‘spider-legs’ as a teenager! It’s so difficult to use your common sense to dissect the stats when your eyes are telling you that the player can’t last another game without breaking, or being used for kindling.

They play for your enemy team.

You can probably imagine how, as a Spurs fan, I have suffered over the years through not picking Arsenal players. The wicked Walcott, foul Fabregas and the villainous Van Persie have all ruined my seasons in the past. Everton fans must feel my pain, refusing to pick Luis Suarez. Or Man City fans who have missed out on (that man again) Van Persie. I have more recently taken a more objective position with player selection, but it’s just so difficult to cheer these players on, even when you’ve captained them.

Personal connection / meeting

I don’t happen to know any professional footballers directly, and I never actually met the goalkeeper mentioned earlier, but I did live down the street from Jonjo Shelvey, and would watch the cheeky youngster running circles around his friends as I walked to the local shops. He has made his way into my team before purely on that basis.

A ‘sign’

I once spent the morning at work (in Next retailers in Romford) trying to decide who to fill my last defender slot out of Paul Konchesky and Anton Ferdinand (work was not particularly riveting). Half way through the day Paul Konchesky walked through the door to browse over the Home section. He was immediately drafted into my squad...and barely ever left my bench.

Kit colour.

Sometimes you already have enough red and white striped kits in your team, and really don’t need that Stoke defender, or you just feel like your squad would look a lot more aggressive if your starting eleven all have red tops. And I'm not the only person to worry about these things....

Un-personality of the year.

John Terry. I just watch his points accumulate for other teams. Year after year.

Mistrust

Admit it, after Euro 2008 you didn’t want to go anywhere near Cristiano ‘the winker’ Ronaldo. After seemingly deliberately getting our golden angle – yes, Rooney – sent off, the devil himself amongst England fans immediately started banging the goals in from the wing upon his return to the boo’s of stadia around the country, and I simply left it too late to purchase the winker. 

Accumulator Saturday

Another Premier League-less weekend has us twiddling our thumbs, pondering over pressing the wildcard button and looking forward to next week. This is the life we lead, as hard-core Fantasy Football Addicts.

Some people might turn to housework. Get those jobs done that you have been leaving until a free moment from Fantasy League action. Take the dog for a walk, maybe even visit family.

I am doing what most us will actually be doing – having an Accumulator Saturday. The only fathomable way that I can build up interest in non Fantasy Football these days is by plying my hard-earned wages into unrealistic accumulator bets, and praying that the likes of Chesterfield can pull a result out of the bag. The gambler in me has taken hold.

Today I have gone for 4, £1 bets.

First up is a simple 6-fold accumulator, with a bunch of predictable matches combing for a 41/1 gamble. Generally reasonable bets involved in this one, and I’ve opted for re-managered West Brom and Crystal Palace in a couple of the tighter games.

I have a standard, lottery ticket-style 10-fold accumulator with no chance of winning keeping me interested in lower league events today. I know Brentford are playing away and have lost a couple of games recently, but at 4/1 their dramatically help the multiplier here, as does Notts County’s 5/2, and Coventry’s 2/1. I am not expecting much.

Swansea’s 10 men have already ruined my match prediction against Blackburn (why did I think Oliviera might do anything anyway?), so my final accumulator will have to make up for Bartley’s error. I am relying on the decent odds of West Brom and crystal Palace once again, and if Sheffield United and Reading also win I will have a tasty £121.22 for my one pound troubles.

I am fully anticipating that my attention will turn to Fantasy Football about half way through the 3 o’clock fixtures.

Post-Christmas Fantasy Football and Bank Balances

Today was one of those sickening days for a Fantasy Football Addict.

Having lost an unassailable lead of the past few Gameweeks, and tumbling to third in my mini-league during Saturday's fixtures, I had been looking forward with confidence to this afternoon's match, knowing full well that neither of my mini-league opponents had my captain, Sergio Aguero, in their teams.

As a Spurs fan, listening to the match was gut-wrenching enough, but having to listen to City's defence - with my team's Clichy - concede two goals, and Sanchez and Silva both fail to do absolutely anything of merit made me want to quit this wretched game. Finally, my main man Aguero had to get himself booked, bringing his tally to a paltry 2 points. Over in my rival's team, benched Bellerin will be coming in to increase the detestable gap between our teams.

Considering the 'long Gameweek' due to the international break, I will be treating the Fantasy Football website as I've treated my online banking account since Christmas; ignoring and waiting until the end of the month when I get paid and, more importantly, when I get to activate my wildcard.

This is truly turning into a dry January

A Sterling Nuisance

What a nuisance.

It’s not as if we serious Fantasy Football Addicts don’t have enough to consider. When choosing between players, we might want to take into account their overriding stats (the hundreds that there are to choose from), the player’s history, their temperament, their team’s long term and short term fixtures and form. We can watch a lot of football and gauge a more intrinsic understanding of how well individuals are actually playing.

We have to consider how prone players are to injury, fixture pile-ups and rotation risk.

On top of this, our players may be subject to unexpected red card, FA cup replay weekends, double gameweeks, freak goalkeeper performances, missed penalties, bad weather, own goals and one-off terrible performances.

It’s an absolute nightmare trying to make ‘the right decision’.

Now we can add ‘annual leave’ to the endless thanks so Brendan Rodgers and Raheem Sterling. Apparently the manager had always planned to give the lad a break this winter.

Footballers are not supposed to go on holiday during the season! They are similar to teachers in this respect. We rely on them! We need them to help retain our fantasy football sanity.

This week I will now be sullenly following the BBC rolling feed and hoping for clean sheets; the most stressful aspect of the fantasy football team to rely on. My first substitute, Alan Hutton, will now keep my nerves high for the entire 90 minutes if he has any hope of fetching me fantasy returns. I hate waiting for clean sheets. Maybe I would be better off if all of my defenders just conceded early on; it would take the pressure off.

But god, I hope they don't!

As I walked around London reading the match preview today, even adverts I walked past seemed to be mocking my Sterling decision.

Sort Out Sunday

Yesterday was what my housemate and I labelled “Sort-out Sunday”. The lousy intermission between relentless feasting and starting working again for the rest of the year. A day when we should be getting our laundry, admin, taxes and facial hair into order. With no proper football matches this weekend (FA cup no longer counts) and having made my  FPL transfers early to avoid getting caught out by price changes, there was no justification for abstaining from Sortin’-out.

So I did what anybody would do in this situation, I began fantasising about my future fantasy fifteen. With no current exigencies in my squad the logic is to delay the wildcard until Game week 24 if possible. However, there’s no harm in planning ahead, so below is what I currently consider to be my “Target Team” (right) for gameweek 24, along with my current team (left). I will be interested in the disparity between this target team and my actual gameweek 24 team.

Disclaimer: My current team has a few players who have recently been drafted in specifically for the final weeks before the close of the wildcard. These include Benteke (fixtures) Terry (Form) Moreno (Fixtures) Sterling (Fixtures). Benteke’s time is almost up, he was introduced before his goal against United but otherwise has failed lived up to expectation, and he only has one decent fixture left. With my embarrassment of Fantasy cash I may introduce either Van Persie or Falcao for their matches against QPR and Leicester.

Target Team logic:

This is team built upon fixtures from gameweek 24.

Using the Fantasy Football Scout’s 10-fixture tracker as a base point, West Brom are shown to have the best fixtures. I will of course ignore them unless their Pulis-inspired defence begins to perk up. The 7-0 against Gateshead is fooling nobody.

Swansea: Second on the same fixture ticker. Plenty of clean sheets so far should be set to continue. Neil Taylor is the only player I have kept from the start, and I have no reason to remove him. Further up the field Siggurdson and Bony provide the obvious options, with “Siggy” still the best value for money out of the two.

The next bunch of teams (below) are all strong teams with exciting fixtures, before we get come down to Sunderland and Aston Villa, in 8^th and 9^th place respectively for fixtures.

Arsenal: some wonderfully calamitous defending of late lead me to sell Calum Chambers for a tidy profit. It was an amicable breakup; I was grateful particularly for his 18-point haul earlier in the season, but I don’t want to return to this defence. Instead, I would prefer to invest in their more capable attack, including talents such as Sanchez, Cazorla, Walcott and Giroud.  Cazorla is the man in form but could be a flash in the pan, Sanchez is over-priced as a winger (if he remains there). Giroud burned me only a few weeks ago, when I brought him in and captained him, so I will be monitoring Walcott (hard work for a Spurs fan) and likely shoving him into my starting lineup.

Chelsea: I have removed Costa twice this season, and he has scored consistently following both occasions. Until he starts getting more than his typical 5-pointers I will retain the more valuable Hazard (purchased at a mere 9.9) and bring in Azpilcueta, if only to make use of the anticipated Terry profit. I also worry that I might be unsettling my other teammates with Terry in the squad.

Man City: Clichy has served me well, but I simply can’t stomach any more of Pellegrino’s rotation antics, so I will pocket the 0.2 profit I have made on him and focus on their forwards. Aguero will obviously be brought in until his next injury and Silva will be dropped before he begins assisting the assister, as per normal.

Southampton: I successfully dumped Pelle for a tidy profit just before the Saints’ dire run of fixtures after gameweek 13. I also removed Bertrand who has somewhat proved me wrong with a goal in addition to some surprise clean sheets. With their fixtures improving, I will be looking to both of Southampton’s attacking full-backs, provided Clyne is back in shape. Pelle doesn’t seem to provide the same value anymore, and Tadic only once managed to reward those who studied his stats. Otherwise, the defence is the place to pick up Southampton players.

Spurs: My team; my weakness. I have something of a man-crush on Eriksen, despite the detriment Chadli has on his statistics. 

Kane is simple impossible to ignore at the moment, especially as the only main striker of a top six team worth under £6mil, but will be tricky to remove if his form takes a downturn. I will be monitoring Chadli - who currently provides better value than Eriksen - until the window close in case I require a pricier striker than Kane.

Keepers: Following the intriguing article by Ludo on Fantasy Football Scout, I have been convinced by the two-keeper-from-one-team strategy and am opting for the two keepers from Sunderland, in the hope that once, just once; my substitute keeper will come on to save a penalty and prove the ultimate differential. I expect to revert back to the two budget first-team keepers before long, probably as soon as Sunderland have a tough fixture.

Boyd. An obvious budgeteer, enabling these other wonderful purchases. He seems to have a knack of scoring in the weeks when first-teamers are unexpectedly dropped. I want some of that.

Hutton. Another cheepie (bought at 4.2) who I have a soft spot for after he saved a cup round of mine with a late goal. An attacking wingback in a team whose resilience is increasing with the return of Ron Vlaar, why not retain him as a budget 5^th defender?

Baines: He does still take penalties, right? And free kicks? Ok, so he's the current weak link and if he still does nothing in the next three weeks I could well be swapping for Clyne, and will have more money to splash around up front.

My laundry basket hasn’t been touched, and my online bank account remains locked, but at least my FPL business plan is flexible.

A squad of Aguero Alternatives

Aguero is coming back. Fantastic! Especially for those of us who consider ourselves proper Fantasy Football players. The self-proclaimed experts.

We are all secretly nodding to each other in our imaginary conference rooms or school yards, over the heads of all of those ignorant Casuals. There are imaginary handshakes and imaginary notes being passed around imaginary class; 'it's almost time to buy back Aguero'. We all know we will buy him the minute he gets up off the bench (and undoubtedly scores a fifteen-minute brace).

They, the unknowledgeable, won’t be buying Aguero for at least...well...maybe a couple of days after we do. But we will get there a good £0.1million ahead of the average joes, and sit back victorious in our imaginary thrones.

Or will we? Aguero is not the only returner, and not the most durable of players. We have a tasty looking wildcard to deal with and maybe this is the opportunity to gain ground on the other so-called experts. The top 1000 specialists. We divert our eyes shadily from our imaginary comrades.

Yaya Toure and Bony will return from the African Cup of Nations in gameweek 26, if not earlier, along with the in-form Mane, the budget-bracket Sahko and the out-of-position Schlupp.

Jedinak, the second best midfielder in Europe, returns from the Asian cup by gameweek 24.

The formidable Sturridge is expected to return from injury 'sometime in late January' (yes, a familiar story) as well as Aaron Ramsey and the defensively reliable Kompany.

The idiotic Giroud’s suspension is over.

The talented Angel Di Maria is still recovering, as is Nathaniel Clyne. The marauding Glen Johnson, Man United’s Rojo and Tim Krul (LINK) may also return to fitness soon, particularly if you believe the player information on the FPL website.

And who knows, maybe Baines could even return to attacking ways, particularly if he continues to play in midfield.

Without even taking into consideration the possible new signings, we could easily find ourselves with a team unlike any other. The contra-template. Above is a squad that I could achieve if I replaced my entire team with players who should be returning by gameweek 25 at the latest. Currently an ultra-unpopular squad, whose value is set to plummet before the wildcard expires. This is a threatening looking team, constructed from a squad with a good team value, but there’s still no room for Kun in there.

Dare I attempt such an outrageous strategy and risk being sent to the imaginary corner?