Week 5, 6 and 7 results

Time flies when you're busy. I've been moving up the last 3 weeks. Buying Fabregas instead Lampard helped tremendously. 64 points in two weeks from Fabregas. Manu and Liverpool keep kicking along. No Chelsea players for me. I'm in good shape. This week's trade was Adebayor for Martins. The Arsenal striker has 6 goals in his last 3 matches. Gotta do it, if not just for the value increase. Everyone's buying him.

Week 4 Results

Week 4 was a much better week for me. Tied for the best I think in our league at work. I made a very conservative gambler by making my goalkeeper, Van der Sar, captain believing he would have a clean sheet against Tottenham. I just went for the extra 6 points and it paid off. Another good week from my Bolton players, Speed and Anelka. I picked up Valencia in a trade and he had a clean sheet. He´s pretty cheap and good value.

For week 5 I traded Carvalho for Hyppia. The blue wasn´t playing and the red came in as a sub for Carragher, who will be out for awhile with an injury. That will give me enough money to pick up Lampard next week. I´llhave Lampard and Ronaldo in the the midfield. Not too many teams will have both of those players.

Week 4 Results:

Week 3 Results

I'm still not happy. Sort of late in posting this because I was travelling home while the matches were being played. JQ and I checked out the scores on the internet kiosk in Melbourne. Wow, took us 4 Qantas flights to get out of Australia. Barrow-Perth-Melbourne-Sydney-LA.

I was booked on Continental from LA to Houston and wanted a shower. They don't have showers in Continental's lounge, so they sent me to Delta's. I'm writing this so I don't forget next time. You can go from terminal 6 to terminal 5 in LA without having to exit security. So I'm in Delta's lounge after having a shower, only $25 for a one day pass by the way, and in walks Henry Winkler. I said holy shit under my breath at first glance. He's with someone, presumably he's wife, and they lay down a newspaper on the table and spend the next five minutes sorting through what they want to read and what they want to trash. Some lady says hello to his wife as if she recognized her, not to the Fonz though. No one else seems to notice who he is. Plain clothes, cheap luggage, but they're with a guy who keeps telling them the status of thier flight, or maybe it was the status of their plane.

Anyway, I'm off to a terrible start this year. I saved too much money in week 1 and with Ronaldo suspended I'm really hurting. My trade this week was Martins and he didn't do diddley squat.

First week at home I have other things on my mind.

Week 3 Results:

Week 2 Results

Disappointing. The intentions were there but it just didn't happen. Ronaldo, what did you do? I was watching the start of a corner kick that was called off before it ever happened, then all I saw were a dozen players pushing each other in front of the net. Ronaldo was nowhere to be seen, but obviously he did or said something to deserve a red card. Ouch. A red card is minus 3 points and when he's your captain, it's double making it minus 6 points. Net on the day for him was -2 for me. A red card is an automatic suspension, but I don't know for how long yet. I think each case is different.

More injuries. Berbatov is out for a couple weeks. I still have a midfielder that hasn't played yet in Campo. Miller for Sunderland has only played 30 some odd minutes each of the first two games. I'm in trouble.

Do I sell Ronaldo or Berbatov? I traded Berbatov for a couple of reasons. First, I replaced him with Martins, who scored 2 goals in his first match and has a game in hand because he didn't play in week two. Selling Ronaldo would mean having to buy him back eventually, using another trade. It's a safe bet that he's going to have a lot of points this season and somewhere down the line, he'll get things rolling again.

So, tempted I am, but I'm sticking to my rule of thumb of only one trade per week. Each additional trade costs 4 points and points are just too hard to come by.

Here's my results from week 2:

Week 1 Results

Not too shabby of a start, I'm happy with it. Anelka, Downing and Forsell all scored goals and clean sheets from Ferdinand, Van der Sar and Dunne helped out. None of my players received any bonus points, none at all.

The best thing is that all of my players' teams will be playing in week 2 so I'm expecting a big jump mid-week.

I like to make my one free trade each week as soon as all my players have played and I know they aren't injured. The quicker you make it, the better the chance of getting your player before the price goes up. And that's a key strategy earlier in the season - to buy players you know are going up in value. Looking at the transfers-in by gameweek menu from the pull down menu on the transfers page will indicate how many people are buying a particular player.

My results from week 1:

Pre-Season Injuries

While watching the charity match between Man United and Chelsea (or is that Chelsea and Man United?), I saw that Terry was sitting on the sidelines with a knee injury. He's gone now and without Terry I really don't feel comfortable with Cech either. So out go Terry and Cech, in come Ferdinand and Van der Sar. Man United have a pretty easy schedule to start with and I like it. With Ronaldo, I'm maxed out.

Also saw that Lita is doubtful with an injury. In place of him I picked up Anelka from Bolton. Bolton have a fairly easy start as well and I've also got Speed in the midfield.

With six teams not playing in week 2, having all your players playing in the first two weeks is a huge advantage. I'm thinking a fair percentage of managers will not consider this and miss out on some points in week two unless they fork out the points to make the trades. The compliment to this strategy is that players on teams not playing in week two can be picked up later in the season when they make up their matches, thus acquiring double points in one game week.

Pre-season Jitters

One week to go before the Voodoo in the Vibes kicks off another season of intensive action. That's the name of my fantasy football team in the English Fantasy Premier League. This will be their fourth season and they are favored to do pretty well. No point in hiding my arrogance, most people are aware of that trait in Americans. The first year the team was simply called Ticos, but the manager decided to put a bit more creativity into their name. As I have proven, anybody can play this game. You don't have to know a thing about it. I didn't 3 years ago.

So..... Strategy. The first week the main thing is to have players playing. From Chelsea, the only ones you can really bank on are Cech, Terry and Lampard. Those are a safe bet to get things going. Ronaldo from Man U is also a must as nearly 60% of the managers would agree. I've put a lot of money in my midfield with Lampard and Ronaldo. Up front I'm going cheap with Berbatov as my main striker at 9.5m. Alongside him is a youngster named Lita, aka "choke" after I saw him play in the U-20 tournament. But I have faith in him. I also have some Finnish guy I've never heard of from Birmingham. It's all in the vibes.

There are six teams not playing in Week 2 and I've avoided having any players from those teams on my roster. This early in the season, you need all the points you can get when you really don't know who will be playing. Hence, no Liverpool, West Ham, Newcastle, Arsenal, Blackburn or Aston Villa players. I'll probably pick up a couple Liverpool defenders after the season starts.