Football Reflective Guide to Fantasy Premier League Football

Football Reflective Guide to Fantasy Premier League Football

This Friday sees the return of Premier League football. One thing more important than this is the management of your Fantasy Football team. It’ll make you look out for results that would otherwise have no bearing on your life. It’s the condensed version of Football Manager you can carry around with you every day.

For the purpose of this guide, we’re only looking at the official Premier League version. The site has an extensive rules section and even a weekly Scout that gives tips.

One rule that is missing from their page – and it’s the most important – is how you should never select a player from a rival club. If you support Manchester City, you can never play Lukaku, even if he scores a hattrick every single week.

In a private head-to-head league end of season final (more on leagues later), an Arsenal fan beat yours truly by giving Harry Kane the captain’s armband. A victory forever tainted. Said Arsenal fan shares a surname that sounds like the lead character from Highlander. The catchphrase from that movie was: “There can only be one.”

When it comes to rival players in fantasy football: There can never be one.

If you think it’s okay to select from a rival team you probably have a nice collection of half-and-half scarfs, have a second and third team (possible fourth), and passionately support Barcelona and Real Madrid in El Clásico.

About picking those players, the £50m budget doesn’t go far (most expensive player is currently £12.5m) but it’s important to have 15 active players. Many of us have a sacrificial lamb – the £4m addition we know will never play but the budget’s overstretched – however, it’s a false economy.

Values go up and down. Letting a player rot breaks the bank.

The healthiest squads are picking up points across the board, every week. Their values increase over time, giving greater flexibility with wildcards.

A squad that’s competitive is great, just be mindful of tinkering. The stats never lie. Last season’s can also be found on the site. Sticking to your guns will benefit most of you in the long run. If you could predict individual form, bookies would be going bankrupt. That said, react when it’s clear someone unexpected is having a strong season.

Etienne Capoue is a £4.5m bargain and bagged 131 points last season. In a similar vein, Carl Jenkinson scored 94 points in 2014/15, this was off the back of two seasons, scoring 50 and 51 respectively, but his form did drop off.

Another problem with tracking form, is trying to second guess real life rotation as you juggle your own.

Take Raheem Sterling, for example. He scored an impressive 149 last year and has looked positive in preseason but it’s inevitable he will be rested. So, you need to have a strong player on the bench that is guaranteed to start that week.

Sterling comes in at a hefty £8m, for a million less you can get Wilfried Zaha. He might not have the headline grabbing games Sterling enjoys but he’ll trickle feed a not too dissimilar return over 38 Gameweeks.

As for wildcards, play them as a last resort. A kneejerk, week two, wildcard will not benefit you any better than persevering.

Fantasy Premier League only has meaning if there’s a competitive edge. You’ll soon find yourself in several Classic leagues. These are great, and joining a few public ones allows you to have a peek at other teams to steal ideas (or scout, to give it it’s professional name), but the method of cumulative scoring means even after a few weeks, some participants may have an unassailable lead.

This is where head-to-head leagues help out. Instead of just adding up your Gameweek points, it pits you against someone in the league. If you score higher, you get three points, just like real life. A league table forms where the weekly highest scorer could find themselves out of the top four.

These leagues can even break down into cups after Gameweek 35.

Hopefully these little pointers will help out but they do come from a guy who finished 23rd in last season’s private head-to-head league…

Is Alonso Cursed?

Is Alonso Cursed?

There are 724 other Formula 1 drivers who would have loved some of Fernando Alonso’s curse. He is one of only 33 world champions the sport has seen. But it’s fair to say, Fernando’s days with the crown feel like a lifetime away now, whereas bad luck seems to follow with permanent DRS enabled.

It was the recent attempt at IndyCar’s Indianapolis 500 that endeared him to a new legion of fans but once again showed the stars will not align for the Spaniard. It would have been the stuff of dreams had he won the big one in his rookie race. Ability wise, it wouldn’t have been shocking, but it is more Hollywood than reality.

This isn’t to say IndyCar is to be taken lightly.

It may appear a simplified sport to F1 aficionados but there is an art to oval racing. On many occasion fans of other motorsports laugh at the idea of going around in a circle. It’s as if they see the Indy 500 as a simple foot down and steer experience.

In contrast, an average of 16.7 turns are dealt with during each race weekend on the current F1 calendar. During the course of the season, 334 are taken, the highest for an individual track is 23, the lowest being 9 (which still dwarfs the Indy 500). This means each circuit becomes a compromise on setup.

No car can perfect each corner and the straights.

Oval endurance racing is about how to optimise the car for what appears to be a narrow choice between downforce and speed. But the changing conditions – both on track and in car – require gentle tweaks in weight distribution and balance. Rather than the optimisation of several sections, with a knowing sacrifice elsewhere (often offset with ERS or DRS), it is a tightrope walk that requires intelligence combined with a supernatural feel.

The two elements Alonso has above all F1 drivers, past and present.

Such a linear setup target, relying on the feel of the car, should sound like second heaven to someone like Jenson Button. Often described as unbeatable when the he feels the setup is perfect. But he dismissed IndyCar in the clearest terms when interviewed at Monaco. Perhaps the greatest acknowledgement: to get that perfect setup isn’t an easy task.

Alonso took to the Andretti based McLaren-Honda and the new formula as if he’d lived on oval circuits. He won hearts and minds in America and ensured his status as an all-time great. Transcending F1 and proving he doesn’t need an Indy 500 win and Le Mans 24 trophy to solidify his legacy.

But again, he does this through failure, not success.

If life is trying to send him subliminal messages, it’s getting bored with how slow he is to take the hint, so it sent a glaring one. The architect of his demise was once again a Honda badged engine. It forms a long line of conspirators against the Spaniard.

His personal choices can, of course, be questioned. But aside from conduct during his first McLaren stint, he’s appeared to be the loyal and dedicated professional teams pay $40m a season to secure.

With his unfortunate turn of luck stuck in a perpetual cycle, one has to consider a sinister form of fate is driving him to retirement without a third world title.

Time and a narrowing market of professional opportunity compound the issue.

McLaren will not be competitive this season and even the most optimistic Honda engineer cannot be expecting to produce an engine on par with the leading pack in 2018. Such a turnaround would be nothing short of miraculous but the talk of it sounds nothing short of folly.

There’s potential for movement in the top two teams of Ferrari and Mercedes. But the Prancing Horse always has a clear Alpha and Omega when enjoying periods of competitiveness and it’s hard to see Vettel losing his number one spot.

Mercedes sell the idea of equal footing but after the strain of the Hamilton/Rosberg dynamic, they’ve opted for the safe Bottas. He’s formally managed by Wolff and likely still influenced by the Austrian. He’s certainly more malleable than Alonso would be if it came down to an awkward in-house championship fight.

Which leaves Red Bull, probably the best driver balance at the front of the grid with years of longevity, should they wish to retain and are able to fend off third parties.

This leaves Alonso stuck in a seat he sought out after giving his prime years to a failing Ferrari. A Ferrari that came good not so long after he departed. Detractors could claim this is indicative of a negative effect he has teams.

Sportsmen are notorious for being superstitious. Whether it be always placing the left glove on before the right or a lucky meal that can never change on the day of the event. Alonso’s must be to break mirrors every seven years, or driving around for hours hoping to see magpies sat on their own. (I personally don’t have any superstitious tendencies and hope to keep it that way . . . touch wood.)

Since the Indy 500 experience, his return to F1 has continued to be tainted by poor luck. In Azerbaijan he collected a bittersweet two points. The not so subtle remark about how they could have won the race was aimed squarely at his engine supplier.

Austria witnessed a good Alonso start off the grid, only to be wiped out at turn one. An innocent party in a collision where the fates conspired against him.

The British Grand Prix at Silverstone underlined the woes of living with Honda. Starting from the back of the grid after a thirty place penalty, a mechanical failure added another DNF to this season’s tally.

It must be difficult to remain upbeat when faced with repeated setbacks.

Is it just bad luck? Poor judgement? Or does someone, somewhere, have a voodoo doll that looks like a little Spaniard in a racing suit? Is it a curse that means Fernando Alonso will never complete a hattrick of F1 world titles, let alone the triple crown of Formula 1 Champion, Indy 500 winner, and a 24 Hours of Le Mans victory?

Should he secure any of the above, his arduous journey since his last world title in 2006 will feel like it was worth all the ill-fortune in the world. However, all signs point to his misery continuing indefinitely.

 

We Are Daniel Blake

We Are Daniel Blake

Sometimes a film comes along that offers more than social commentary, or even with the intention of raising awareness. It becomes social responsibility. The voice of the voiceless and ignored masses. It presents a civic duty to us all. Its power doesn’t arrive by inflating issues to fill the big screen but allowing the uncomfortable truths – the government would have you ignore – stand front and centre.

Ken Loach’s film, penned by Paul Laverty, shows us what people can be reduced to in modern day Britain. A working-class man that genuinely wants to work but can’t receive assistance from the state despite medical professionals insisting he doesn’t resume activity.

A single mother that only wants the best for her children but is faced with impossible choices as she sees support slip away. Surely the net of despair is closing fast when trips to the food bank aren’t a turning point, just a brief interlude to delay starvation.

She collapses, eating in an aisle, ashamed but desperate. Apologetic to those who do care for her plight and don’t need her pleas for forgiveness. All the while, an unsympathetic state turns the screw. The starvation of her soul becomes more debilitating than malnutrition.

The cold faces of benefit officers symbolic of the callous government peddling senseless rules. These only exist to ostracise the most vulnerable, placing a buffer between real world issues and the comfy 1%.

The working-class man is the title featured Daniel Blake. A far from workshy joiner who suffers a cardiac arrest. Following this, his dignity is placed under lock and key by the benefits system.

His cardiologist flatly refuses a return to work but a work capability assessment – carried out by a person so devoid of humanity and common sense, they resemble a primitive android – declares him ineligible for support allowance.

It transpires his doctor was never consulted and he can’t challenge the judgement until contacted by the appeals officer. This racks up his phone bill and even when, in person, he explains at the benefits office he isn’t computer literate, the stock response is to consult the website.

There is one helpful face there but even she is reprimanded for offering assistance instead of letting people flounder and fail.

Katie is the single mother. A woman in Newcastle after leaving London due to a housing shortage. A long way from home and alone, her first taste of “assistance” comes in the form of a week without payment due to her late arrival.

It creates a volatile scene that begs the characters involved – along with the viewer – to realise it’s just a person that needs help. Shouldn’t the rules exist to aid, not obstruct?

The Daniel and Katie dynamic shows how people pull together when faced with insurmountable odds. If it weren’t for this, the country would collapse because the powers-that-be have stopped listening. And watching. And caring.

Daniel’s neighbour, a young man that offers help when asked, provides some light relief. And in spite of the main subject matter, the spirit of good-nature and humour somehow manages to find its way out of the few available cracks of light.

Ultimately it will be viewed by those with differing political views as either observation or incitement. A warning shot or a motivational video. Those that fail to take heed of the message, are ignoring the real problems the country faces. It’s easier to look the other way: the government encourage you to do just this.

Writing this on the eve of a General Election, it seems pertinent. Right now, Daniel Blake’s problems may seem far away and unconnected to your own. As perhaps the elderly care debate, student fees or NHS funding.

But excusing one wrongdoing because it doesn’t directly affect you, gives the government carte blanche to move onto other political agendas. If you continue to allow the Daniel Blakes to grow in number, one day you will find yourself among them.

By then it will be too late to call for help or expect change.

You are Daniel Blake. They are Daniel Blake. I am Daniel Blake.