FOX SPORTS A-LEAGUE

[BlueStorm]

Ahhh, God bless you John Curtis! My punt on an unloved, cheap Gold Coast defender pays off in spades when the gumby fires home a 90th minute winner. Certainly put on a better display than Mr Popular Djite, who really looked woeful in the last 2 games.

He has been a killer for all coaches who put the Capt armband on him this past round, and will need to lift pronto to keep a spot in my squad.

Another healthy haul this week - 57 points gets me up to 254th overall. League jumped up to 163rd, probably largely based on McRooster's much improved effort.

Now, strategy for maximum points over the next few weeks:
Round 8
Central Coast Mariners with the Bye
Syd & Nth Qld with the 2 games
(Syd are at home for both to Gold coast/Nth Qld, Nth Qld both away to Wellington/Syd).
I would be loading up on Sydney players - they should be fit and fresh after coming off the bye, and look to have 2 very winnable games at home.

Round 9
No double games this week, and Newcastle with the Bye.
Thinking the National Youth Team will have finished commitments by then, so right to start grabbing all the returning talent (Payne, Cernak, Neville etc).

Everyone has their own thoughts, but I am having great success picking the keeper of the team with a better chance of winning both games (Petkovic, and now Moss have both netted me 12 points in these rounds, pure gold for a keeper and guaranteed to give you the jump on the competition).

Here are a few players from Syd/NQ that look attractively priced (bear in mind I will be out tonight, so you will need to check squads to ensure all are playing):

Reddy (GK - Syd) 8.3
Hughes (Def - NQ) 5.0
Talay (Mid - NQ) 5.9
Bridge (Fwd - Syd) 8.9 * My Pick of the Week
Cazarine (Fwd - Syd) 6.5

Happy trading Guys!

[ossie85]

Had a loss but managed to stop of the ladder. I picked the wrong captain :( AGAIN

Good summary!

[BlueStorm]

Yeah, Captain choice is a real lottery.
Seems to go in a run too - if you pick a decent Capt, it is like everything you touch turns to gold.

Pick a goat (looking at you Djite!) and you can be cursed for weeks in trying to find a player that scores more than 2!

[Justin Bieber]

Nice summary BlueStorm.

What about David Williams as a smokie?

[BlueStorm]

Cheers Hello.

Williams could well be worth the risk.
I did have a look at him, but left him off best buys as I think NQF will struggle to score v Sydney. He should be leading the attack in the absence of Payne, but Payne should be back next week so it would really be a short term selection.

You could certainly do worse, but maybe lean towards Cazarine from Syd at a similar price.

Even though the Sky Blues have had a shocking start to the season, I expect them to gradually improve over the next few rounds, starting with their double header at home this week. Cazarine is a Brazillian who has already scored one goal, but might get shoved to the bench when Brosque gets back to full fitness.

[Justin Bieber]

Cheers for that. Might look at Sydney if they showed more form.

[BlueStorm]

Hard thing with the A-League is that form seems to be very short term. Aside from Adelaide this season, all teams have had ups and downs in only 7 rounds.

Even in previous seasons, it it really only Victory of 2 years ago that have streeted the field, the table often ends up very congested, so it becomes trying to pick a player when he is hot, and dump them quickly for the next hot thing coming through.

Quite a different approach to SC...

[Fletch74]

H2H League results

Game Round 8
Hello 48 : 44 Sez's Victory
RobsOverAchievers 42 : 38 Zidane Wanabes
benjy251090 44 : 44 Yoda's Padawan's
Uber |/|0|)|)'/s 39 : 27 Libby's Legends
Ossie's Antelopes 46 : 41 Bekkle's Army

Highest score this week - HP, and we also have a draw this week...

Table as follows;

Antelope Pie (ranked 158 out of 994) +- Team W D L + Pts
1 Ossie's Antelopes 6 0 2 317 18
2 Uber |/|0|)|)'/s 5 0 3 317 15
3 Bekkle's Army 5 0 3 292 15
4 Yoda's Padawan's 4 1 3 302 13
5 Sez's Victory 4 0 4 306 12
6 RobsOverAchievers 4 0 4 302 12
7 Hello 4 0 4 301 12
8 Zidane Wanabes 3 0 5 284 9
9 Libby's Legends 3 0 5 232 9
10 benjy251090 1 1 6 273 4

Ossie maintains his lead...

[Fletch74]

Classic League Table as follows;

FF Classics (ranked 141 out of 994)  Overall Fantasy Round 1 Fantasy Round 2 Fantasy Round 3 Fantasy Round 4 Fantasy Round 5 Fantasy Round 6 Fantasy Round 7 Fantasy Round 8 # Team Manager GR TOT
1 Heart Attack 35 334
2 Ossie's Antelopes 46 317
3 RobsOverAchievers 42 302
4 Yoda's Padawan's 47 302
5 Hello 48 301
6 Adelaide United FC 50 296
7 benjy251090 44 273
8 Governor Hindmarsh 38 155

Highest score to Powerman. Well done to Heart Attack who's well ahead of the pack.

[BlueStorm]

Thanks Fletch, but feeling a little flat after a shocking week.

Gold Coast's Curtis - Saviour one week, White Goodman the next. The goat was only only the park from 30 seconds before getting sent off for a stupid elbow. Would normally chuckle at such a move, but when his -2 score comes into the team to replace an absent Ifill, I ain't laughing!

Real mixed bag from my recommendations last week. The cheap players Hughes (NQ) and Cazarine (Syd) both found the back of the net. On the flip side, Reddy was just average in goal, Talay got himself red carded, and Bridge played well without any luck (still can't figure out why he didn't get assist points in setting up Sydney's 1st goal Wed night).

Can console myself seeing Sydney winless and bottom of the table ;D

Looking at the next two weeks (ALWAYS plan ahead):
Newcastle with the Bye this week

With the Heart v Victory derby postponed to next Friday, that gives injured players like Fat Cat (Hernandez), Muscat and Brebner a chance to overcome their injury niggles and expect all back for that game.

The following week becomes even stranger - Central Coast (CC) have the bye on the weekend, but play the midweek game. Brisbane are the only team with 2 games in Round 10. They have a tough away game to Perth this week, but might be time to start looking at players like McKay and Theoklitos this week to save on trades next week.

Major Ins: Ifill, Cassio & Mullen
Major Outs: Leckie, Coyne, Carle

Best of Luck lads, and let's get that League Ranking in to top 100!

[Fletch74]

Is Leckie out this week? Is he injured?

[BlueStorm]

He has international duty, with the Under 23 (Olympic) team I think. The whole team was in camp last week, but they released the players for the games. Not happening this week.

Think he will only miss the one game, particularly as there are no A League games next week (except for the delayed Melb Derby, which counts towards this game week). The Socceroos play next Sat night, hence the A League break.

[ossie85]

Game Round 8
Hello 48 : 44 Sez's Victory
RobsOverAchievers 42 : 38 Zidane Wanabes
benjy251090 44 : 44 Yoda's Padawan's
Uber |/|0|)|)'/s 39 : 27 Libby's Legends
Ossie's Antelopes 46 : 41 Bekkle's Army

That's a pretty close spread of scores in my view. After Round 9 we've all played each other once. Long time left!

[BlueStorm]

Spewing I missed out on the head to head league... :'(

[ossie85]

Poor Bluey :(

Can we still create head2head leagues?