Blurrton Albion slid down the table slightly this week despite a solid 61 points thanks to an incredible performance from Ali’s team. The average score this week across the whole of Fantasy Football was 60, meaning Blurrton Albion continued their fine mid-table form. A drop of one place to sixth was disappointing, although there is still plenty of promise going forward: with Brandon and Becca on very slippery slopes towards the bottom, there is hope that Blurrton Albion could make the push towards a top 4 finish.
Top Performers
Week 6 saw some very strong performances from captain Romelu Lukaku and vice-captain Alexandre Lacazette. Lukaku scored 7 points thanks to his winning goal against Southampton and 2 bonus points, which when doubled by his captain’s bonus saw him top-score with 14 points this week. Lacazette scored twice as Arsenal beat West Brom on Monday night, as well as picking up 3 bonus points, meaning he added 13 points to the total. A strong performance from our other striker, Tomer Hemed, was sadly wasted as he sat on the bench with 9 points locked up. His winning goal and 3 point bonus in the Seagulls game at Newcastle could see him promoted to the starting 11 next week, however, if the conversation around him was boosted significantly as a result.
Midfield offered a more mixed bag, with scores ranging from Mesut Ozil’s 1 point up to Dele Alli’s 8 points. Willian and Marouane Fellaini both added 3 points as they helped Chelsea and Manchester United to clean sheets against Stoke and Southampton respectively, whilst Ozil’s 7 minutes off the bench didn’t add much to the total and actually prevented the automatic substitution of Hemed, which was frustrating for… Well, I guess the crowd who sourced this team? Tiemoue Bakayoko scored 6 points as he picked up an assist on top of the clean sheet bonus in Chelsea’s 4-0 win, whilst Alli grabbed 2 assists as Spurs held on for a 3-2 win away at West Ham.
Liverpool defenders Alberto Moreno and James Milner added 4 and 1 points respectively after the Reds overcame Leicester 3-2, with Moreno adding an assist for one of the goals onto an otherwise poor 1 point. David de Gea scored 8 points thanks to his clean sheet bonus, 1 bonus point and an extra point for making 3 saves. West Brom’s Ahmed Hegazi picked up an extra point on the bench, but overall it was a poor day for the defence. As we shall soon see, two defenders scored 0 and are up for the chop.
Image Credit: Getty Images
Transfer Time!
Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso and Crystal Palace’s Tim Fosu-Mensah both scored 0 points this week, after Alonso only played 58 minutes and got booked and Fosu-Mensah saw 2 points taken off his score thanks to his side conceding 5 away to Manchester City. Seeing as they both played and neither will be out long term (Fosu-Mensah can’t play next week against parent club Manchester United), it will come down to levels of conversation to decide who will be subbed out.
Fosu-Mensah will be making way this week, after only being mentioned in 64 tweets, in comparison to Alonso’s 1,794. Fosu-Mensah is worth 4.5 million, which means we have 4.9 million to spend on a new defender thanks to money left over from previous weeks. It’s not a lot, but there are some good defenders available for the money. Christopher Schindler of Huddersfield is currently on 32 points and only costs 4.6 million, whilst Newcastle captain Jamaal Lascelles costs the same and also has 32 points. West Brom’s Kieran Gibbs was slightly too expensive, at 5 million.
Perhaps surprisingly, Arthur Masuaku of West Ham will be joining Blurrton Albion this week. His assist against Spurs got fans on social media talking, as he was mentioned 745 times during Game Week 6. I have to admit to knowing very little about Masuaku, but having taken a look through the conversation about him it seems West Ham fans are keen for boss Slaven Bilic to give him game time. In the game against Spurs he actually came on and played on the wing, so it could well be that our crowd-sourced team have just landed themselves another attacking player in the guise of a defender. Time will tell.
Line Up Changes
Lukaku and Lacazette will keep their places as the starting strikers, whilst Lukaku will stay on as captain and Lacazette keeps the vice-captaincy going into next week after generating the second and third most conversation overall respectively on Game Week 6. Tomer Hemed comes in up front to replace Bakayoko in midfield, after the Chelsea midfielder saw a lower level of conversation (1,546 tweets) than Ozil (1,654 tweets). Both of these were far higher than our defenders, but Fantasy rules insist on playing proper football formations rather than my preferred 2-5-3 (a modern twist on the classic 2-3-5). Masuaku comes straight into the team ahead of Milner and Hegazy.
Manchester United are at home to Crystal Palace next week. Maybe having Lukaku as captain will see Blurrton Albion climb high up the table…
This Week’s Starting 11
If Blurrton Albion inspires you to use social media data in new and exciting ways, get in touch with Ali at alistair@blurrt.co.uk