Team of Shadows



Episode 9 - GW 37 Wrap-up, the “It Ends In Tears” edition

Greetings, all!

Welcome back, all of you who have been watching this slow-motion car crash take place. If you remember, I had this impulsive need to activate my second wildcard, back in GW29. My lineup was a bit of a mess, and I thought I would be able to “get the good guys” and then make more points with them down the stretch and I knew that I would need to take a few hits along the way, but thought that it might not be too many and BOOM, this experiment was born. I went ahead and pressed play, but I also jotted down all of my purchase prices and selling prices on all of the other guys as well, and decided to run the Shadow Team on paper and chronicle it here. That team was committed to patching over the cracks that were present back then as best they could, but they were going to play second wildcard in 36 and then Bench Boost for 37. You know, like all the smart people do. Well, it’s turning out that I’m not so clever after all.

For a full-blown explanation of WTF is going on here, go back to Episode 1.

The Moves

Early WC team ended up, as predicted, needing to take a few more hits to polish up the turd, err, team for GW37, as not all of the WC choices made “way back when” were players who were still in form in the here and now. They were concerned about Hazard rotation once Chelsea locked things up, so moved from Hazard to KDB and gave the armband to the big Belgian ginger. That move worked out just fine. They were also convinced that City was hitting stride and were likely to have the most explosive potential out there. So Alli turned into Sane. That move also worked out just fine. Single gameweeker de Roon turned into Albrighton, for another net positive. The fourth move was to turn Benteke into Vardy, another single-for-double swap, but one that turned out to be a net negative. In the end, they took a 12 point hit, and came out ahead on points, but there are clearly some adverse effects from having popped that WC so long ago. Duh. The Shadow Team had just played their WC last week, so might have sat tight, but to be consistent, if I thought in my team, that Hazard was a rotation risk and that I should sell him for KDB, then I probably needed to do the same for the Shadow Team, cuz, you know, integrity of experiment? So that’s what they did.

The Teams

The Early Wildcard team is in the table below, as is the Shadow Team that I had been neck and neck with, long, long ago. The prices are at the deadline going into GW37 after the moves were made. Both teams played Bench Boost.

The Verdict

Bleh. Double Bleh. Double GameWeek Bleh. It could have been worse, for sure, but in the end, the defense built weeks ago wasn’t fresh enough to carry the day for my real team. Mourinho rested practically everybody from the EPL games in favor of competing to win the Europa League. So I got a total of two points out of the four matches that De Gea and Valencia were supposed to have been starting. Meanwhile, Forster and Pickford the new keepers for the Shadows, put up fifteen betwixt them. The Shadows had also succumbed to the dark side and put devil-deal-making Josh King in their side, so of course he donged again. Too bad King will spend eternity in a not-so-pleasant place after selling his soul for this run of goals. The other big differential the Shadows had was in the form of old frenemy Etienne Crapoue, who managed to score in the 3-4 goalfest that Watford had with Chelsea. Perhaps if Chelsea hadn’t started Azpilicueta, Ake, Terry and Zouma as their backline…

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



Early WC team: 144 points, overall points 2191, overall rank 18,523



Late WC Shadow team: 172 points, overall points 2247, overall rank 5,150



I dropped a tiny red arrow and am still destined for a step back from the last couple of years. The Shadows are flying. They padded their lead even further and put up yet another green arrow and are approaching my all-time best finish. Too bad it isn’t real. It’s only a shadow of where I’d be if I had any common sense and restraint.

Coming Up

There is one last week to this sad and sorry experiment, and it’s right around the corner, with the giant Simultaneous Sunday. Gotta play it through to the end, though. Lord knows I’m nothing if not a complete masochist. Each team has just one free transfer to make, and neither are probably interested in taking any hits. I’ll be ready for a break from FPL at the end of this week, though. Definitely. Public humiliation and picking at the scabs of your mistake for week after week, end on end will do that to you.

Finish strong everybody!

Sheepishly yours,

Scott (@tempebug)

