Fantasy Football tournament 18/19 - now live!

[Medicine Man]

Been a while since I updated on this - quite honestly I ran out of fun and engaging ways to describe the action when we're all playing each other so often!

But things have been pretty interesting for a while.

This weekend saw MM pull level with me at the top of the table on 45 points after humiliating me in our match-up, while Wrathbone, pummeled by Animal, is only 3 points behind us.

Animal himself is on a brutal 5-game winning streak having quite frankly decimated the rest of us over the past few weeks, and he's shooting up the table quickly to now sit on 39 points.

Mrs MM is only 3 points further back than Animal as well, being on a three-game winning streak herself.

Mrs Boots is at the bottom but she's been gamely plugging away since ditching that rubbish 'all Watford' strategy, and although she was most recently beaten by Mrs MM in the 'wives derby', she's at least restored some pride with 9 wins in total thus far.

Very, very tight and honestly believe this is anyone's (except Mrs Boots' ) ... Animal looked dead and buried a month ago but his players got their act together and the scores he's been posting since have been quite terrifying, and he's right back in this.

Also just seen in terms of player points accrued throughout the season thus far, there's less than 4 points (4433.1 to 4429.4) separating me and MM, which is astonishingly tight really.

Well, it's been a dramatic few weeks in fantasy football land for sure.

The missus keeps me informed on an almost daily basis of the goings on in the league right down to even the most mundane minutiae. She might be taking this a little bit too seriously. I know everyone likes to win and all that, but surely you should know you've crossed a line when you're shouting at text on a webpage.

The back half of the season is certainly shaping up to be very interesting indeed.

[Sly Boots]

The missus keeps me informed on an almost daily basis of the goings on in the league right down to even the most mundane minutiae. She might be taking this a little bit too seriously. I know everyone likes to win and all that, but surely you should know you've crossed a line when you're shouting at text on a webpage.

I'm glad she's invested in it, though!

[Animalmother]

My method of picking only defenders and never changing anything ever seems to be paying off. Victory through neglect

[Sly Boots]

If you only knew the hours I spent agonising over this for my paltry 6-point lead over your team...

[Sly Boots]

No massive update, but just an observation that the table is now incredibly tight as we enter the run-in.

There's myself on 51 points at the top, but just behind me MM, Wrathbone and Animal are all on 48 points.

The ladies look out of the running at this stage, but who can say? Animal was dead and buried a couple of months ago, then he won the last 8 on the trot and is my personal pick to walk away with the title. Out of all of us, he's the one most capable of putting up ridiculous scores in any given week.

Which is a bit incredible really... I looked at his team just now, and of the 10 outfield (ie non-goalkeeper) players, SEVEN of them are defenders

Unfortunately for the rest of us, they're really good defenders. Alex Ferguson always used to say that a good attack wins you games, but a good defence wins you championships. I assume Animal took his words very literally when drafting his team.

Or, like, it was a total fluke

[Medicine Man]

Just to add that the fury emanating from the missus of late is particularly pleasing.

I wouldn't discount her yet right enough, but as we all know it seldom ends well when such ire is involved.

[Animalmother]

......Utter fluke sir, I don't know one side of a football from another.

[Sly Boots]

Yikes... four straight defeats and I've tumbled from points clear at the top back down to midtable. My latest humiliation at the hands of the wife was chastening.

And now I'm paired off against a resurgent MM *weeps*

[Medicine Man]

My teams a shambles Sly. I'll get you back to winning ways.

[Sly Boots]

I would have liked to think so, but then I looked at your team... eep

My managerial career seems to be mirroring Ole Solskjaer's...

[Sly Boots]

Blimey... clash of the century this weekend. Me and MM both with 300+ plus scores (a first (and second) for this year's tournament), but was able to win in the end. Spent most of the weekend tearing my hair out every time one his players scored or assisted yet another bloody goal

It was like Ali vs Foreman

[Sly Boots]

Incidentally, just in case the more eagle-eyed among you noticed some shenanigans in the fixtures this morning. For some reason our league was set up to follow a play-off format for the top 4 team for the last two weeks of the season (likely was just a default setting I didn't see), which meant excluding the ladies.

So I had to go into the system and manually set the fixtures for next week, following the same sequence it had been doing before. I may have to do that as well in the final week.

I'm pleased that going into the final two weeks it is still a four-way race for the title, and depending on the results this weekend may go right to the wire.

That said, for next season I'm toying with the idea of setting it up as a more standard points-based format, ie league position depends on how many points your players have scored in total.

Thoughts?

[Medicine Man]

Blimey... clash of the century this weekend. Me and MM both with 300+ plus scores (a first (and second) for this year's tournament), but was able to win in the end. Spent most of the weekend tearing my hair out every time one his players scored or assisted yet another bloody goal

It was like Ali vs Foreman

Glad it wasn't just me. It certainly was an eventful weekend.

I'm all for the points based system you suggested Sly. Sounds fairly sensible and straight forward to me.

[Sly Boots]

Blimey... clash of the century this weekend. Me and MM both with 300+ plus scores (a first (and second) for this year's tournament), but was able to win in the end. Spent most of the weekend tearing my hair out every time one his players scored or assisted yet another bloody goal

It was like Ali vs Foreman

Glad it wasn't just me. It certainly was an eventful weekend.

I'm all for the points based system you suggested Sly. Sounds fairly sensible and straight forward to me.

I'm pretty sure at one point I shouted "oh for fuck sake!" at my monitor when one of your players set up another of yours for a goal in the closing minutes of a match to instantly add about 20 points to your score

This is why all football managers look about 20 years old than their chronological age.

[Sly Boots]

I've sufficiently recovered from last night's scenes to think about something else

It's crunch time for the inaugural Gamers' Arms FF tourney (plus significant others), and heading into the final round of matches it's going to be a straight shootout between myself and Wrathbone, who are both sitting on 63 points.

While MM is only three points behind on 60, whatever happens in the WB-Sly match he won't be able to catch the winner, even in the highly unlikely event of a draw.

Animal, my tip for the top earlier in the season, continued to rack up high scores in the rounds he won and when he lost it was generally very close, but in the end he falls just short. He can still finish level on points with MM, but MM's higher points tally overall would see him remain in third place.

Pretty exciting to see it finish up so close.