Team of Shadows

Episode 2 - GW 30 Wrap-up, the Self-Loathing edition

Greetings, all!

First, a brief introduction for those of you who missed last week: Go back and read last week. I’m not going to take the time to recap the rationale for this whole crazy thing every week. And I’m told that you millennials don’t have the attention span to read more than like five paragraphs or some such, so I’ve got to keep these brief.

OK, but seriously, what’s this about? Seriously, go back and read last week. It’s not too difficult.

The Moves

The Early WC team just cooled its jets going into GW30. They had a Gabbiadini injury, but the JWP choice as 5th mid gave them the depth to ride out the injury. The armband went to Aguero. The Late WC team also did naught, banking a transfer to enable the upcoming week’s move. Shadow Team doesn’t have quite the same depth, though, and had a fourth defender coming in off the bench to replace Gabbi. As it turns out, that worked out rather well. They also went with Aguero as their captain.

The Teams

The Early Wildcard team is in the table below, as is the Shadow Team that will play a Late Wildcard in GW36. The prices are at the deadline going into GW30 and the points in parentheses were on my bench.

The Verdict

Somebody tweeted last week that this experiment could produce some serious self-loathing, and that came true all too soon. The Shadow Team came through with a 60-49 win this week to pull ten points ahead overall. The front line was the same, but the Liverpool duo that that team still had in place feasted against the depleted Everton defense. My real-life defense did well with three cleans, but Shadow Team pulled a Robertson ten-spot out of its ass off the bench as a Gabbiadini sub. Eff. I could really end up looking stupid by the end of this thing.

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

Early WC team: 49 points, overall points 1694, overall rank 15,274

Late WC team: 60 points, overall points 1704, overall rank 11,300

Both teams with green arrows.

Coming Up

Quick turnaround coming up what with games this midweek. Both squads have 2FT rolling into GW31. The Shadow Late WC Team will patiently use those two to bring in Alexis, just two weeks (and 11 points) later than the WC team acquired him, and he’ll likely sit tight in both teams for the rest of the year. They will fund it by selling off half of their Chelsea defensive duo. Azpilicueta will make way for Bonus Point Magnet and Big Fat Sam Darling Mamadou Sakho. I know Walsh will approve. Palace’s double is in 34 and isn’t all that attractive (liv/TOT) and clean sheets might not seem likely, but tell that to Big Fat and the Great Wall of Palace. Yeah, the squads they’ve just kept clean against haven’t exactly been Murderer’s Row, but they just beat Chelsea, and I need a defender at 5.1 or less and how can you not love the guy?

The Early WC team probably needs a bit more WC news and Gabbi and Rose injury resolution news before it can decide which way to go as that team already has Alexis in place.



Tune in soon to see if this rabbit hole takes us even deeper into the pit of self-loathing.

Scott (@tempebug)

