It feels as if I am living in DC Comics, fictional, Bizarro World (Htrae), which in popular culture has come to represent a situation or setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite to expectations. Take my first ever attempt to field a 5-man defense, over a 38 weeks Premier League schedule in a season where clean sheets are down and goals are up. Right there, it’s got the making for something that resembles a horror movie, fitting as we are nearing the end of October and Halloween is right around the corner. Who knows, maybe a “Freddie” or “Jason” could potentially carved up some points for my starting I.
Okay, enough of the ghoulish puns and comparisons to comic books of years gone by. By all accounts this team should be doing as well as they are. Now, a 5-man defense won’t win the FPL game, but there is something oddly confident about this team that has followed the proverb, “slow and steady.” Please, don’t make me compare FPL to the dreaded marathon, its too early in the season for that. At the conclusion of GW5, this team had scored 63 points and picked up another green arrows. That’s now FOUR on the season! Talk about the “luck of the Irish!”
The stats don’t lie, as 66 points was six points better than the average but just enough to nick a small green arrow. Now on 282 points for the season, I am well off the pace, but this team is doing something right to have climbed from 2.9M to 1.5M over five weeks. Team value (TV) is up from 100.0M to 101.3M, which is 0.1M more than the average of the top 1k. This is oddly comforting to see just how well this team is doing. One BIG offensive week and I feel this team could overtake my main team, 6thGoal, currently just 26 ahead.
While the Virgil van Dijk injury is going to be costly to Liverpool, as Alisson remains out, Andrew Robertson picked up his third return on the season with his second assist. Not to be outdone, Kyle Walker and City picked up their first clean sheet, while Sergio Reguilon added his first Premier League assist for Spurs. Behind Emiliano Martinez’s league leading third clean sheet, this defense excelled, scoring 33 points avg. 5.5 points).
While I didn’t take Pep at his word, I held Kevin De Bruyne and started him, knowing he probably wouldn’t feature, but had already made two transfers on Reguilon and Tomas Soucek. The West Ham midfielder has some good numbers in the box to back up his inclusion as fifth midfielder or first bench, so he came for an unimpressive one point. It was captain Mo Salah finishing his 6th goal of the season and scoring 14 points to help this team to a strong week, while James Rodriguez added an assist in the Merseyside Derby.
Up front, both Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Raul Jimenez found the back of the net and added six and eight points respectively to my team. GW5 score of 66 points is my new season high, backed by 61 and 63 points earlier in the year, but, as I said just 282 points on the season. Those two off weeks being 47 and 45 points have been a bit of a sting, but being so low in the OR, they were both green arrows.
I am not quite sure what to make of this team. The inclusion of Son Heung-min would have boosted this team very nicely, but didn’t feel a -4 point hit was warranted. Seeing the form he was in, it probably should have been a no-brainer, but his numbers at home against West Ham weren’t all that good. So where I do I go from here? I don’t own two of the leagues hottest players in Son or Harry Kane. It’s my hope that KDB returns to the City midfield on Saturday, as they travel to the London Stadium. City has DOMINATED this fixture, scoring 20 goals, conceding just twice in the last six matchups. KDB has score a goal and two assist last season against the Hammers. Will have to wait and see what players out this week with injury news before any changes take place.