February 11, 2004

EPL Fantasy League Week 25 (February): Congratulations to kWaCkY and his Kwitters, who have knocked Bayern Mucus off the top of the table for the first time since Week 9. Kwitters naturally had 73 to win the week and go 7 points clear at the top, proving you will always shovel in buckets of points if you have Thierry Henry as your captain (getting four goal assists also helps). David Hansen's Rings of Saturn also breached the 70-point mark. Bayern, meanwhile, suffered an utter nightmare... (more inside)

posted by taupe to navel gazing at 07:39 PM - 22 comments

Get used to this (see below):

Overall
   Team   Manager   T   G   R   P 
 1  Kwacky's Kwitters   richard looker   27   73   3,745   1,230 
 2  Bayern Mucus 03   Danny The Taupe   32   32   4,508   1,223 
 3  bluebears   andy griffiths   15   63   6,729   1,205 
 4  Ardley Athletic   Squealy Neily   35   52   10,157   1,181 
 5  Crap City United   g s p m   12   43   12,836   1,172 
 6  Rings of Saturn   David Hansen   5   70   17,939   1,152 
 7  Mossy Athletic   Emad Mostaque   23   61   24,096   1,132 
 8  last again   eckeric eckeric   7   63   26,609   1,124 
 9  The Bog Bandits   Fat Buddha   30   54   27,844   1,121 
 10  Cottage Cheesers   worldcup 2002   33   51   28,607   1,119 
 11  Deadly Calm   Big Calm   21   53   34,381   1,103 
 12  FC Cacahuate   skronk _   36   63   42,255   1,083 
 13  37 Push Ups   Corpse R. Christ   1   50   43,904   1,078 
 14  Blammos!   Star Unsuitable   19   54   50,986   1,061 
 15  Terrapin Utd   Rick Scully   17   59   53,869   1,054 
 16  Finally   Mark D   13   52   56,705   1,047 
 17  BillSaysThisSCORES!!   Bill Lazar   21   49   57,561   1,045 
 18  fascist bully boys   Ufez Jones   15   34   60,951   1,037 
 19  Bosiak Bashers   joe bieda   27   40   62,236   1,034 
 20  Nemo's Dreamers   lil nemo   14   48   66,217   1,024 
 21  vagabonds   christopher f   20   53   72,011   1,010 
 22  SilentInTheMorning   pful ler   2   51   82,520   983 
 23  Salmacis FC   Huw Morris   14   42   83,790   980 
 24  cutters   mbd1 mbd1   19   31   85,387   976 
 25  Sporting Goats   Eliot Shepard   0   44   92,859   955 
 26  Atlanta Untitled   Tim Truxell   18   44   95,238   949 
 27  Generals F.C.   Noah Egorin   14   37   98,003   941 
 28  AVZ Thundering Herd   usf bull   7   27   117,830   879 
 29  tallclay   Clay H   16   48   119,337   874 
 30  Trendelmaniacs   t trendel   0   33   152,744   749 
 31  The Phat Cats   garfield one bad SpoFo!   0   59   261,129   100 
 32  JasonSpaceman   Jason Wilder   4   25   265,107   65 
 
February
   Team   Manager   T   G   R   P 
 1  Mossy Athletic   Emad Mostaque   2   61   5,412   136 
 2  last again   eckeric eckeric   0   63   19,499   125 
 2  Rings of Saturn   David Hansen   0   70   19,499   125 
 4  Kwacky's Kwitters   richard looker   1   73   26,030   123 
 5  BillSaysThisSCORES!!   Bill Lazar   1   49   28,675   122 
 6  bluebears   andy griffiths   0   63   35,207   119 
 7  The Bog Bandits   Fat Buddha   1   54   48,109   116 
 7  Bayern Mucus 03   Danny The Taupe   1   32   48,109   116 
 7  Cottage Cheesers   worldcup 2002   2   51   48,583   116 
 10  Finally   Mark D   0   52   48,876   115 
 10  Nemo's Dreamers   lil nemo   0   48   48,876   115 
 12  Terrapin Utd   Rick Scully   0   59   60,595   112 
 13  FC Cacahuate   skronk _   1   63   72,491   110 
 14  Deadly Calm   Big Calm   1   53   81,476   108 
 15  SilentInTheMorning   pful ler   0   51   86,773   106 
 16  Atlanta Untitled   Tim Truxell   0   44   96,070   104 
 17  The Phat Cats   garfield one bad SpoFo!   0   59   114,834   100 
 18  Sporting Goats   Eliot Shepard   0   44   119,531   99 
 19  Crap City United   g s p m   0   43   128,842   97 
 20  AVZ Thundering Herd   usf bull   0   27   146,974   93 
 20  Ardley Athletic   Squealy Neily   3   52   132,690   93 
 22  37 Push Ups   Corpse R. Christ   0   50   155,489   91 
 23  Bosiak Bashers   joe bieda   0   40   167,975   88 
 24  Salmacis FC   Huw Morris   0   42   179,725   85 
 25  Generals F.C.   Noah Egorin   0   37   186,993   83 
 26  tallclay   Clay H   0   48   190,635   82 
 26  fascist bully boys   Ufez Jones   1   34   193,867   82 
 28  vagabonds   christopher f   0   53   194,204   81 
 29  Blammos!   Star Unsuitable   2   54   203,964   79 
 30  cutters   mbd1 mbd1   1   31   244,919   62 
 31  Trendelmaniacs   t trendel   0   33   251,083   57 
 32  JasonSpaceman   Jason Wilder   4   25   258,015   52 
It's been a fun ride at the top, but I don't see our boys getting back there again this season, for the simple reason that I intend to stick to my season-long refusal to collect any points from Arsenal or Manchester United players. (This, and not any anticipation of lost playing time, was why I sold Louis Saha immediately upon his acquisition of a red shirt.) Man U now have an insanely cheap strike partner for Ruud, and it's now essentially suicide to attempt to win your league without at least two of Henry, van Nistelrooy and Saha (at least now that Alan Shearer has totally lost form), let alone none of them. My task now is to continue blowing up my team and scrounge for what value I can find until Muzzy Izzet's injury situation is resolved, and then continue to do the same. I've got some ideas, but they'll have to wait until I can simply right the ship, which will take an intensity of swotting I haven't bothered with since the early part of the season.

posted by taupe at 07:46 PM on February 11, 2004

What is your obsession with Izzet?

posted by StarFucker at 08:29 PM on February 11, 2004

Taupe, I applaud your anti-Arsenal and Man U purity, but man, that and holding on to Izzet will kill you. Let Muzzy go! I did, and bought Parker. And he went and scored his first goal for Chelsea today. That makes up somewhat for my doofus switching of captains from Henry to Saha. Ugh.

posted by worldcup2002 at 12:15 AM on February 12, 2004

It's a long long road, there'll be joys and sorrows too.

posted by kWaCkY at 01:47 AM on February 12, 2004

I bet you're tired and weary aren't you kwacky? Another crap week for my underperforming muppets. I've just about lost patience with Mary Poppins, maybe he's finally past it.

posted by squealy at 03:20 AM on February 12, 2004

Help! I'm losing touch with the top 10! I don't want to be in Division 2!

posted by BigCalm at 03:27 AM on February 12, 2004

Right, I've just blown 8 points in a hopeless attempt to get some decent players, and look forward now to finishing in the oooh, top 15?!??

posted by BigCalm at 04:15 AM on February 12, 2004

.....treading water....slowly drowning in mediocrity.....

posted by mbd1 at 09:42 AM on February 12, 2004

Twice I've been robbed by the Buddha! I am exactly one spot behind him in both this league and the yahoo league. Is there a cosmic debt that I am repaying?

posted by worldcup2002 at 10:39 AM on February 12, 2004

I wish yahoo had this feature: Using View Graph, I plotted taupe vs kwacky's Overall Rank from Week 1 through 25.

posted by worldcup2002 at 12:09 PM on February 12, 2004

I always was a slow starter :-)

posted by kWaCkY at 03:57 PM on February 12, 2004

Factoids: (1) I have 8 more transfer penalty points than kWaCkY, who leads me by 7 points. (2) kWaCkY's performance has been more consistent and more normally distributed around a higher median (his: 51; mine: 47), while I've just got more outliers: Kwitters       Bayern           90+  X          85-89          80-84 X          75-79 X        X 70-74 X      XXX 65-69      XXX 60-64 XX     XXXX 55-59 XXX     XXXX 50-54 X      XXX 45-49 XXXXX       XX 40-44 XXX       XX 35-39 XXXX       XX 30-34 XX        X  0-29 X

posted by taupe at 12:34 AM on February 13, 2004

Good god, taupe, that's brilliant. Where do you find the time? Are you a statis-metician? A stats-magician? Do you do lo-fi info viz for fun or is it a job. Man, good stuff.

posted by worldcup2002 at 01:06 AM on February 13, 2004

Erm, I currently have more points ergo I'm ahead :-) Not sure about the penalty points, I'll take you're word for it. I know that early in the season I twice did some wholesale changes which cost me dearly but since then I've tried to stick to one transfer per week.

posted by kWaCkY at 01:32 AM on February 13, 2004

Thanks, wc. I don't have a job doing this; I'm just some guy looking for meaning in relevant data. (The gameweek histories are the source, from which it took me about four minutes to make a manual histogram in a text editor: here's kWaCkY's, and here's mine.)

posted by taupe at 02:59 AM on February 13, 2004

Well, lots of kisses to you too old chap.

posted by Fat Buddha at 10:11 AM on February 13, 2004

And no amount of transfers can seemingly help my pathetic excuse for a team. Maybe I should change my name to Sunderland/Leeds Untitled.

posted by trox at 11:13 AM on February 13, 2004

So taupe, where's your GAF these days?

posted by billsaysthis at 11:30 AM on February 13, 2004

Q: Is it necessary to fill your roster spots, or can you load up on high priced talent and gamble that you won't need a sub?

posted by garfield at 12:30 PM on February 13, 2004

A: You have to have a full squad of 15 including a spare goalkeeper. Buy really cheap subs, you rarely use them

posted by kWaCkY at 01:02 PM on February 13, 2004

damn. thanks for the flow info. I would've thought subs were used quite a bit since my first week saw a sub score some points.

posted by garfield at 01:19 PM on February 13, 2004

Depends how you want to play it I guess garfy. I went for a strategy of having cheap defensive subs, who nevertheless played most weeks despite being on my bench. Kwacky went for the filling the bench with hospital cases and no-hopers option. I'll leave it you to decide who made the right choice. Hint, it's not me

posted by squealy at 01:50 PM on February 13, 2004

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