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Leaders & High Scorers
He was in second place last week and now he's on top - Gary Thompson is this weeks table topper on 200 points. Maximo United FC displaced former leaders Pique Blinders by scoring a solid 51 points, 9 points more than the average. There wasn't any big standout player for Gary, Danny Rose was his best scorer with 8 points, but playing his bench boost gave him the edge as it earned him that crucial extra 9 points.
We have to mention Matthías Vilhjálmsson and his Prinsinn side who bagged a whopping 78 points. Eden Hazard's goal meant he was an excellent choice as his captain but goals from Wes Morgan & Scott Dann in defence gave him a massive lift. This meant that it was of no worry to Matthias that his strikers didn't return many points, as his defenders had already done the business.
Strugglers
Still stuck at the bottom of the league is our own Simon Fenton. Simon man, sort it out! Team Simon sit in 319th place on 79 points with the closest team to them being Lucas Meee's SAFCSweeperkeeper who have a 7 point advantage. In fairness, Simon did have Jermain Defoe as his captain, so he did alright there, but his next highest scorer only earned four points. It's looking like the decision to spend a lot of points on transfers is going to cost Simon.
If Tom Atkinson is reading this and sniggering then he can wipe that smile off his face. Sunlun are also outside the top 300 in 301st place with Tom misplacing his captaincy on Harry Kane who only brought in 4 points. If only he went with Eden Hazard, who scored against Burnley, his teams position would have been much more respectable.
Both of Simon and Tom need to up their game.
The Roker Report Team
I don't know why I'm being so harsh on Simon and Tom, the rest of us aren't doing much better. None of us are in the top 100 any more but we do have a new leader amongst the Roker Report writers - and it's me! Champagne Papy Bodji may have dropped to 129th place but it was still enough to climb above our former leader Carl Purvis, whose Crystal Phallus side plummeted from 82nd to 188th! For my team, it was defenders seeing me through as Luke Shaw & Gareth McAuley kept clean sheets, while John Terry played 90 minutes in a winning side. An assist from Nolito did me no harm either.
In close proximity in 140th and 149th place are James Henchard's Blackended Roar Mass and Jim Holmes Giroud Sandstorm. Jim was the higher scorer out of the two with Jermain Defoe and Eden Hazard's goals going a long way to his gameweek total of 51 points. If only he'd gone with one of those as his captain, it would have been a really good week for him. But Deigo Costa didn't do badly with the armband, earning him 10 points. For James, he did well out of Jonny Evans and David de Gea but none of his strikers scoring really hampered him.
Joint in 188th place with Carl Purvis is Steel Panthers, managed by Karl Maguire. Karl was another who fell foul to having Sergio Aguero as his captain and will be gutted he didn't chose Alexis Sanchez, as doubling the Chilean internationals 16 points would have pushed him higher up the table. Lingering just outside of the top 200 are Daniel Parker's 50 Shades Of O'Shea in 205th place. To be fair, 50 points was a good return in a low scoring week with Mesut Ozil being his highest scorer on 8 points, mainly earned from his headed goal against Watford.
In the lower reaches but not quite bad enough to be in the struggling section we have Michael Lough's FlyOnTheWingsOfLove in 224th and Gavin Henderson's Ice Cream Kone in 297th. Michael scored above average on 49 points but was let down by a strike force of Romelu Lukaku and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who only brought in six points between them for him. Assists from Danny Drinkwater and Nemanja Matic brought the points in though and Danny Rose's goal made him Michael's best player. We're being a bit kinder to Gav, given that he was late to join in and he did excellently this week earning 59 points. Goals from Defoe, Hazard and Ozil were a positive at the top of the pitch and Manchester United's clean sheet gave him reason to be cheerful at the other end, as he has Eric Bailly and David de Gea.
We looked like we were all on the up last week but now none of us sit in top 100. Still though, I'm doing the best right now so who cares?
Who To Pick Next Week
With the international break coming up it's best to hold off until next week to make your transfers. For example, you don't want to pick Paul Pogba now, only for him to get injured when playing for France.
If you're in need of a cheap defender, look no further than the current leading scorer amongst the men at the back. Gareth McAuley has brought in 20 points in three games and is still only £4.6 million which isn't bad considering he'll probably pick up a few goals from set pieces as the season goes on (he's already got one goal to his name). West Brom travel to Bournemouth next and the Northern Ireland international could easily earn you good points from a clean sheet.
One player who won't be getting injured on international duty is Ross Barkley, having been snubbed by Sam Allardyce. Barkley is selected by a high number of players (19.6%) but he's been a big part of Everton starting their season strongly with a goal and an assist to his name. Taking our red and white specs off, he's definitely one we should be worried about when we host the Toffees next Monday night.
There's an interesting clash between the newly promoted sides next week when Burnley take on Hull at Turf Moor. You expect these types of games to bring goals so, if you want a cheap forward that hasn't been selected by many players, this could be the game to look at. The obvious choice would be Andre Gray and he hasn't been selected by as many as you'd expect (just over 10%) and he has a reasonable fee of £6.5 million. If he can terrorise Liverpool, he's got a good chance of netting at home to Hull.
