Another thrilling week of our fantasy league jamboree has passed and throw your hats in the air for Michael B who nailed once again the league leaders’ position on 1,554 points, continuing an impressive run in collecting points like the Sheffield United goalkeeper collects the ball out of his net each game. Nick (1,554) is second and Aleksa (1,518) in third continue the pursuit with pace.
Top scorer in the week was reigning champion Aleksa (105), with Chris (100) and Tudor (99) close by. After a bonanza week of double games for some, points were concentrated around City players, whilst Tudor nailed 49 from his three strikers. As we enter the final week of the month, MoTM is up for grabs.
This week’s photo is of the City players sporting rather natty personalised cardigans arriving for a recent game. Fashionistas the lot of the them, although Erling would do well to iron his shirt and tuck it in
Post Fergie Years Back in the halcyon days of Evil Lord Ferg, the Utd gaffer would smile (think Alan Rickman in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves) over his vanquished opponents by insisting they join him for a post-match glass of red. And in a bid to recapture that magic, Erik Ten Hag has taken to dishing out Fergie’s favourite wine, Antinori Tignanello, to opposition managers. Unfortunately, when Ten Hag presented Luton’s Rob Edwards with a £230 bottle on Sunday, he wasn’t impressed, telling him: I don’t like wine, I like beer. Cue Brew Dog special coming soon.
The mirth of the Post-Fergie Wilderness Years™ is so multifarious it can be hard to keep track of everything, but there was something rather lovely about Utd’s Copenhagen capitulation in the previous round setting up an easy Big Cup tie last week for their noisy neighbours. FCK tried hard, and there were banners and chanting. However, now that the foremost footballing genius of our generation has discovered big lads and defenders who can defend, Sheikh Mansour’s inspiring fairytale continues.
Gary Neville is bored of City. Yep, not only is he sick of seeing Pep’s team leave Utd for dead in the Premier League title race season after season – City have averaged 21.6 points more than Utd over the last five campaigns – he now can’t even be bothered to watch them. Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast (wish he would), Neville droned: I didn’t watch City v Copenhagen. I felt a bit bored. You just can’t watch City – it’s almost like they’ve ruined it a little bit. Of course he’s right, the lack of jeopardy is dragging us all down. But the counterforce of wishful thinking is at least perking him up. I can’t believe Pep is going to be around for more than 12 months or so said Neville, plotting United’s first title win since 2013. If Arteta, Emery and Postecoglou follow Guardiola and Jürgen out of the door, it’s on!
Dan Ashworth The hunt for the Einstein equivalent of Director of Football has reached a new mercurial level. As the days get longer and warmer, there’s plenty to be getting on with for those of a green-fingered bent like myself. Vegetable beds need to be prepared, seed potatoes need to be chitted ahead of planting and fruit trees need to be netted to protect emerging blossom and buds them from our hungry feathered friends.
Once you’ve taken care of all that grunt work, your winter-flowering shrubs and wisteria will need pruning, while heaven forfend you should forget to cut back your ornamental grasses to make sure there’s plenty of room for spring’s new growth. With so much to do and so little time to do it, Dan Ashworth can consider himself lucky to have been put on gardening leave by his employers at Newcastle after being approached to become the new director of football at Sir Jim’s football emporium.
Ashworth is clearly held in very high regard even if I’m not entirely sure what it is exactly the Director of Football does, but Newcastle want £20m for him. Their web site says his role is overarching sporting strategy, football development and recruitment at all ages. Newcastle’s decidedly average current form must be caveated with references to their bad run with injuries and the manner in which they’re rather hamstrung in their transfer market dealings by Profit and Sustainability rules, but the past two windows have been disastrous. Anyway, the point I’m slowly meandering towards is that Newcastle’s recruitment policy seems as hit-and-miss as most other clubs, which makes Utd’s desperation to get Ashworth all the more puzzling. Meanwhile Dan remains in the garden with his secateurs.
Poch Watch Whilst Kalvin Phillips seems to have forgotten how to play football during his 18 months tracksuited on the sidelines at City, Poch is busy working with 20+ players who seem to have the same condition. It’s like building a house said Poch in a recent pre-match media address. But how on earth can you spend so much money to make a team look this average? I shouted at the TV. Poch looked me in the eye directly from the screen: You need to be sure of all the steps you take. We are building from zero. Always it takes time.
I like Poch, he’s a nice guy and I know him to be well-mannered because he once held a door open for me in the dressing room area at Burnley when I was on a ground tour prior to a Spurs game in an incident that led to a no-you-go-first stand-off that lasted so long we both almost missed kick-off. However, while Pep and Jürgen took time to build their respective houses, they appeared to have had competent architects and experienced construction workers, rather than some firm of cowboy builders who sit around on the site all day drinking tea and playing cards.
The Mbappé conundrum: good enough for any team, too expensive for most. Following the revelation that Kylian Mbappé intends to leave PSG for Real when his contract expires this summer, there was surprising talk at Bramhall Lane ahead of Sheffield Utd’s game v Brighton as a potential destination for the French superstar striker. Are you eating a sandwich, in front of me, a Premier League manager? an apoplectic Chris Wilder inquired, as a local reporter dabbed what looked like brown sauce from a Greggs chicken baguette from around his lips, before enquiring about the possibility of Mbappé pitching up at Bramall Lane on a free.
Mbappé-to-Madrid has long been grist for the rumour mills transfer gossip websites and click-baiting In The Know social media charlatans whose sister’s best friend once went out with the milkman of a Parisian tyre-fitter who was childhood friends with the PSG striker in the suburb of Bondy many years ago.
Mbappé has not signed a contract with Real yet, but the deal could be announced once it is no longer possible for the clubs to meet in this season’s Champions League. He is set to sign a five-year deal with Real, earning £12.8m a season, plus a £128m signing-on bonus to be paid over five years, and he will keep a percentage of his image rights.
Madrid chief suit Florentino Pérez, after years of ostentatious flirting, has finally ripped off the safe door and raided the Madrid gold. Good enough to play for any team on the planet but too expensive to pull on the jersey of most, City fans can rest easy that the Striking Viking is now unlikely to swap the sun-drenched delights of Manchester for the dark wet streets of downtown Madrid. And the Bramhall Lane faithful? They can now look forward to the Championship next season, uncluttered by dreams of the French superstar leading their chase of Burnley who romp away with another 100+ point haul in 2024/25.
This weekend There is not a right or wrong way to approach the next few gameweeks, it will all depend on where and when you think it’s best to use your chips. With such insight, that’s why I sit 23rd out of 25, I never do enough work on my team despite talking a lot.
Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and Luton don’t have a league fixture this weekend so you may well be short of a full starting XI in gameweek 26. I currently have no goalkeeper and just eight outfield players who could feature, although the shambolic performance of recent weeks means I need to make some wholesale changes.
My plan though is just to use my one free transfer, or possibly take a four-point hit with a second transfer to try and get a full 11 out, rather than play wildcard. Diogo Jota is also an obvious sell this week given his injury which scuppered my double game week. If you fancy backing against Haaland as your captain then there are some enticing options, particularly Neto or Hee-Chan for Wolves’ home game v Sheffield United, who have conceded 65 goals in 25 games this season.
