West Ham United Fans Challenge
Every week this season, two West Ham fans will compete at Fantasy Football to win money for their chosen charities
Will’s Team
GK: Raya
DEF: Saliba, Mitchell, Branthwaite, C. Richards
MID: Palmer, Foden, Saka
FW: Jackson, Haaland (c) Isak
EASY, EASY, EASY!
It’s done. It’s over.
Yet another plus-100 point haul as James is left in my wake.
107 points for me with a tidy extra 16 points from my bench boost.
I’m 43 points ahead of James now with one game week remaining and all of our chips spent.
James will take it terribly and look for any excuse under the sun of course. But he has been desperate for weeks.
He rode his luck for much of the first half of the season and it finally caught up with him.
One transfer for me this week as I shamelessly replace Dom Solanke with Nicolas Jackson because James has got him.
And the Chelsea striker comes straight into the team with the Cherries visiting Stamford Bridge.
Erling Haaland gets the armband again as I play yet another nice straight defensive bat to get me over the line.
No changes elsewhere as I cap off what has been a remarkably controlled and calm run in.
Despite my impressive score last week I slipped down the overall rankings to 934,000.
All I really want to do is finish inside the top 1million and therefore the top 10%. That’s my only real competition now.
But as much as beating James is nice, I’m most pleased that I’ve secured £500 for the Bobby Moore fund thanks to Betway.
It’s a great cause which does fantastic work to combat bowel cancer which is a disease my family has been affected by. Viva Bobby Moore. And viva the Bobby Moore fund.
James’ Team
GK: Raya
DEF: Gabriel, Walker, Van de Ven
MID: Palmer, Foden, Luis Diaz, Havertz (C), Son
FW: Haaland (V), Jackson
I think I know how Arsenal are feeling right now, needing a miracle on the final day in order to win the title.
After a disappointing Triple Captain chip (story of my chips this season) last week, Will was able to extend his lead over me by four points to 43. I had hoped Foden would deliver more than just a single goal over the two games but there we are. Fact is, even if I’d given the TC armband to Haaland I’d still be 35 points behind, which is still a big old gap to make up in one week.
I have the final gameweek of the season to do the unthinkable and catch him, otherwise the guy who hates FPL is crowned champion. I’ll admit I didn’t see this being the ending at the start of the season but then again, no one saw Leicester City winning the Premier League title in 15/16 and look what happened.
For me, Leicester winning the title and Will beating me at FPL are equal on the miracle scale. It’ll never, ever happen again, but people will always look back and remember how crazy it was to witness.
So is catching him impossible? No. Do I think I’ll do it? No. It’s too big a mountain to climb, especially thanks to Will’s tactics of packing his squad out over the last few weeks as the same players as me. It’s sad he felt he needed to do that instead of playing his own game, but that’s the type of man he is. Towards the end he relied on copying me to win. Congratulations.
I do still have something to play for, though, which is the Cup. As there are only two players in our league, the league’s cup is a straight one gameweek play-off. So my attention is now purely on getting more points than Will this weekend so I still end the season with some kind of silverware.
As a result, I’m attempting to counter Will’s recent copy-cat tactics by replacing Bukayo Saka with Kai Havertz, Dan Burn with Micky Van de Ven and Bruno Guimares with Luis Diaz. Replacing two players he has got with two that he hasn’t gives me a bit more of a chance of reducing the deficit, while the midfield upgrade gives me hope of a Diaz haul at Anfield for Klopp’s last game. On top of that, I’m dropping Alexander Isak to the bench in the hope Will starts him and he blanks. Havertz will be my captain.
Yes, it’s a -8, but with 42 points to make up, what else is there left for me to do than gamble?
One last roll of the dice…
