Saint vs Man City

Right. Now that I finally bothered to update this site. Here's the lowdown on Saints vs Citeh. Niemi in goal will have lots of shots saved. The duo of Lundekvam and Jakobsson are lacking in the speed department, so Anelka will beat their offside trap, and get plenty of shots on target, outpacing the two centre backs. Le Saux vs Shaun Wright Phillips. Le Saux with his"Attack at all cost!" mentality will be caught too far up front. No clean sheet for Saints then. Delap, Prutton and Bosvelt, Barton will probably cancel each other out. If Reyna starts, it's advantage City. Nilsson faces Sibierski. Fernandes will make a meal out of Thatcher, but will not get a lot of points, because both Phillips and Beattie can't find the net at the moment. Fernandes needs to get his shots on target. Best player for an assist. Dunne and Distin are decent defenders. James could be a good pick, but there are better ones out there this week.

Week 3 Picks

Primary on the list is to stock up on Man U players. They play Blackburn away on Sat and Everton at home on Monday. Both are very winnable games. They play in the CL this midweek. Concerns: Two games within 3 days. Sir Fergie will rest his players, especially after their midweek exertions in the CL. If they do well early in that match, the gaffer will sub out his key players for Blackburn. Otherwise, don't count on these players appearing at both Blackburn and Everton. Ferguson will let his senior players play both games, most likely Keane, Giggs and Scholes will play 180 minutes of football. Howard, G.Neville and Silvestre too. Ronaldo will be back, an excellent pick if not for the fact that he will most likely play only one of the matches, with Fletcher back to play the other. Since Fletcher, Kleberson and Fortune are likely back, squad players like Miller, O'Shea, Bellion and Djemba2 will have their playing time cut short. Watch out for news on Saha. Unlikely as it is, he could make a cameo return. Otherwise Smith is an excellent pick. Player Picks: Giggs/Smith/Scholes/Howard. Tip: Pick these guys only on Fri after the midweek updates. Their values will inevitably drop after the update since they do not play any matches. Otherwise you stand to lose out on that 200+ salary cap you amassed. ;-)

1) Buy Man Utd on Fri after the midweek updates.
2) Check out CL results and time subs were made.
3) Watch out for Saha news on Fri.

The other postponed Week2 match is Liverpool vs Portsmouth. No news on this one, since Portsmouth's Monday game vs Fulham is televised, don't think they can move the fixture. So until further notice when the game is postponed to, stay clear of Gerrard and co if you are thinking two matches. Further considerations are the inclusion of Xabi Alonso, Luis Garcia and Antonio Nunez (injured). The first two could start, since they sit out of tonights CL qualifier.

1) Wait for news of Pool vs Pompey fixture.

On the flipside, keep away from Everton players. I predict West Brom will get a result against the Merseysiders, in addition to the potential drubbing by Man Utd. Only Gravesen looks a decent pick anyway.

Other decisions that make perfect sense is to load up of Arsenal and Boro players. But of cos you guys know that already. One last thing, this whole post is under the assumption that Yahoo! decides to stick the Man U vs Everton game to Week 3. If they backdate it to Week 2, the returns will be much less.

Dummies' Guide To Early Season Team-picking

So looking through the changes in Yahoo, i figured i'd better come up with a decent strategy to keep up with the big boys at the start of the season. Playing catch-up too much throughout last season. So here's my take on team picking strategy.

Two simple rules.
Rule 1: Pick up points
Rule 2: Make money

This probably entails plenty of transfers in and out of your team. Elaborating, pick a few proven point scorers for your team, no matter how expensive they are. These are your bread and butter, to get you a decent haul of points every week. Hence, they should be playing full matches week in, week out, scoring goals (forwards & midfielders) and crossing (defenders). There are plenty of these players before Week 1 (bW1) . Your bW1 players should therefore be very carefully picked since you probably only have this chance to get them; their values are sure to skyrocket, or not go down, if they were high to begin with. Examples of such players would be Henry, Pires, Le Saux.

Which if you do you maths, unfortunately do not leave you much for the rest of those empty slots. These remaining slots should be filled with 'journeymen' players, who will be transferred in and out of the team depending on their price, and who they play that week. They are pretty much gambles, but since they do not cost much to begin with, you won't lose out on rule 2. Rule 1 though is a problem, especially if the 'journeyman' gets the red. Thus the need to offset them with those abovementioned permanent fixtures in your line-up. Plenty of cheap good players who fit in this category available bW1 too. Examples bW1 are Cygan, Biscan and Kanu.

This strategy could of course backfire bigtime, but what the heck, that's the fun in playing YFF. Comments welcome.

Welcome to YahooFootie 2004

Hello again to everyone. The site address has changed. The site content is still the same. Game on!
Formally www.yahoofootball.blogspot.com