Team of Shadows

Episode 3 - GW 31 Wrap-up, Now With Even More Self-Loathing!

Greetings, all!

How’s it going, y’all? Ready for another installation of my experiment in public embarrassment? This is the reverse demonstration of that guy who says “Dude, I almost brought in Lukaku to cap him right up until the deadline and then I changed away before his haul. And I almost brought in Mkhitaryan that week too!” And then he tells you how many points he would have had but ignores all the other knock-on effects that might have happened in the following weeks. Yeah, whatevs. This parallel universe shows what happens down each fork in the road, even if one fork leads into a really bad neighborhood.

If you missed the previous two find Episode 1 with an explanation as to WTF is going on here, here, and from last GW - Episode 2 - is here.

The Moves

The Early WC team decided that they just had to have a piece of that delicious tasty morsel named Wilf Zaha. He had dazzled against Chelsea and no longer seems to be a prancing show pony. Two goals and an assist in his previous three matches was good enough to be a replacement for Barkley, who has no doubles coming up and who had an away match at United on deck. They still had a marginal Gabbiadini injury, but had depth to let that ride. The armband went to Alexis, the best of the home options at hand. The Late WC team had two moves banked and used them both to bring in Alexis for the rest of the run. They ditched the injured Mane and used an Azpilicueta to Sakho move to pay for it. The Gabbi injury was going to have to get covered up by Baines.

The Teams

The Early Wildcard team is in the table below, as is the Shadow Team that is currently kicking my ass and that will play a Late Wildcard in GW36. The prices are at the deadline going into GW31 and the points in parentheses were on the bench.

The Verdict

Did the Self-Loathing Express continue? Sure as hell did. This week it was Alli who stuck the knife in with his 12-pointer. He came into the Shadow Team back in GW29 when this thing started, and has produced 7, 6, and now 12 points since that point for a total of 25. Holdover Coutinho also titted along again and now has 22 points in three weeks since his stay of execution. Those two led the Shadow Team to a 47-36 margin over the Early WC Team. The only ones of my brilliant WC purchases who can come close to those totals are Ward-Prowse, with 20, and Yoshida, with 19. And given the fixtures, those guys had been sitting on the bench. Some of the points have come in for injured Gabbiadini, but not nearly enough of them. As for this week, I could moan and groan about the Yoshida 11-pointer sitting on my bench, but was I really going to start him against a newly-energized Palace side, especially when I had a couple of Spurs defenders facing Swansea, plus Alonso and Valencia’s attacking potential ahead of him? Nah, sometimes you just end up with points on the bench. Don’t whine about it. Newcomer Wilf Zaha did squat for my real team, while newcomers Sakho and Alexis did equal squat for the Team of Shadows. Except that Alexis’ presence probably kept me from giving the armband to somebody who would have scored better. Well done Princess Alexis, well done indeed!

Before I started this experiment, my overall rank was 19,971

Early WC team: 36 points, overall points 1730, overall rank 24,249

Late WC team: 47 points, overall points 1751, overall rank 13,433

Real team gets a red arrow; Shadows get a green.

Coming Up

Quick turnaround again with games this weekend right upon us. The Shadow Team just has one FT in hand and 0.3 ITB. They are mulling over the timing of a Siggy to Mane move. Both have appealing fixtures in 32. The Early WC team has two FT and 2.0 ITB and needs to take a long hard look at the people who came in on WC, and also see what is going to happen with this Gabbiadini nonsense. Can’t leave your roster with a dead striker very long, even if he is allowing his higher scoring Soton mates to come in off the bench.

Good luck everybody! Let’s hope this parade of public embarrassment takes a turn for the better.

Scott (@tempebug)