The Final Countdown

Who will conquer Europe?

We're just slightly more than a day away from this grand finale? Who is your team?

For me it will be Manchester United - never underestimate the home advantage.

I hope there won't be any Oscar-esque performance.

Gameweek 38 Fantasy Preview

So fast, we're reaching the end...

The end is so near, indeed. So how's your position currently? You've only one last week to improve your rankings, it might not help much, but it's better than nothing. At least make sure that there's a good ending will you?

Much drama are still going on at the final gameweek of the season, this includes:

• Race for third / Champions League direct qualification (Man City v Arsenal)
• Race for fifth / Europa League qualification (Tottenham v Liverpool)
• Survival battle (Blackburn v Birmingham v Blackpool v Wolves v Wigan, three spots for five)
• Golden boot battle (Carlos Tevez v Dimitar Berbatov)

These will guarantee excitements and goals galore during this weekend. Invest more on the front!

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PART I: PRE-MATCH ANALYSES

Tevez and Van Persie
Photoshop makes the impossible possible.

Battle for Third (Man City v Arsenal)
Both sides will travel as the Gunners make a visit to Craven's Cottage whilst the new FA Cup champions make their way to Bolton.

Arsenal's form recently has been very dismal, managing to win only twice since March. Terrible defence and mentality has caused the team to suffer heavy slip-ups despite stunning form of Robin van Persie. That is also the reason why Manchester City has gone one point ahead of the London giants despite falling far far behind them for a major part of the season.

Speaking of their opponent, Fulham have been enjoying steady form recently. Barring the 2-5 defeat to Liverpool, the Cottagers have only conceded two league goals at home this year. Not a good news for Wenger.

Arsenal will desperately need three points to avoid cancellation of their pre-season revenue-generating tours, but with the current squad morale, I am very negative about that.

On the other hand, the Manchester Blues are on G6 currently after adding another trophy to their cabinet since 35 years ago. Coupled with Carlos Tevez's equaliser against Berbatov on the Golden Boot race, City are certainly high on morale to finish their season in style. More importantly, City's defence are more solid than the Gunners.

Bolton have good results at home just like Fulham, but defensive wise I'd say City should get at least the same point(s) from Bolton as Arsenal get from Fulham.

Prediction:
Fulham 2-1 Arsenal
Bolton 1-1 Man City
Man City secures third place.

Liverpool are outnumbered in terms of league points.

Battle for Fifth (Tottenham v Liverpool)
Europa League seems pretty slim for the Reds as they travel to Villa Park for a hard battle when Tottenham will sit comfortably at home playing against Birmingham.

Kenny Dalglish's legendary return was spoilt last week with a defeat at Anfield to Tottenham. The result has effectively give way for the latter to fifth, which means that Liverpool will need to pray that Tottenham will drop points in order for them to progress to the Europa.

Needless to say, Aston Villa is always a tough team to beat. Houllier will continue to absent, but still with the likes such as Ashley Young and Darren Bent, there will be great pressure for Liverpool's defenders.

On the other hand, Birmingham are well known for their stunningly poor away form, and it is quite a humiliation should Tottenham fail to bag three points on the closing game at White Hart Lane.

Prediction:
Aston Villa 1-1 Liverpool
Tottenham 3-0 Birmingham
Tottenham through to Europa.

Mick McCarthy
Looks forward to stay for another year.

Battle for Survival
Wolves v Blackburn: Head to head fight for survival. The victor will surely stay, while a draw will most probably make at least one of them stays. The Rovers have problems to score, so I think Wolves will have a very positive chance to stay.

Birmingham: As written above, the Brums are stunningly poor on the road. Pretty negative on their survival, unless the two clubs just below them suffer defeats.

Blackpool: It's one of the club that I wouldn't want them to relegate. Blackpool has been showing some pretty attractive football with their offence. People like Charlie Adam and DJ Campbell give Premier League some fresh breath. Unfortunately, their sluggish defence won't help them. Their opponent, Manchester United may have already won the league title, but the Red Devils still have reason to play their best. The starters want to warm up for Champions League final; the benchwarmers want to prove something to Sir Alex Ferguson. Goodbye Blackpool.

Wigan: Tide changes pretty quick. The comeback victory against West Ham has given them some momentum  this week, and given Stoke's collapse in the recent showdown against Manchester City, Wigan will have quite a chance to sneak away with at least one point for survival. Don't be too confident though, as Stoke rarely  give points to their visitors.

Prediction:
Wolves 2-1 Blackburn
Tottenham 3-0 Birmingham
Man Utd 2-1 Blackpool
Stoke City 1-1 Wigan
Blackpool and Birmingham relegates.
Wolves, Blackburn and Wigan stays.


The Rest
Prediction:
Everton 2-2 Chelsea
Newcastle 1-2 West Brom
West Ham 2-1 Sunderland

Dimitar Berbatov
Desperately needs a start to fight for golden boot.

Golden Boot Battle
There might be two golden boots this season, and that's interesting.

Carlos Tevez plays on the road, but his home-away goal of 13-8 shows that his away goal efficiency is only slightly lower compared to home. And given City's determination to protect their third position, Tevez should score at least one.

Dimitar Berbatov plays at Old Trafford. He picked 17 of his 21 league goals here - obvious home advantage. But he rarely plays since April, losing his place to Chicharito - a major doubt. However, he's very prolific in bullying the weak - one of the good captain this week. The Bulgarian should definitely get a starting position this time, but whether or not he will get quality support from second string players remains a question.

Pretty unpredictable in my opinion, I give up on predicting this and it's up to you guys.

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PART II: SQUAD SELECTIONS

Carlos Tevez
Just goals away to enjoy his best Premier League season.

Captain Picks

• Berbatov, Tevez - Fights for golden boot.

Buys-In

• Berbatov - Flies high.

Squad of XV

GK: Gomes

DF: Dawson, Hangeland, Fabio

MF: Modric, Dempsey, Malouda, N'Zogbia

F: Berbatov, Tevez, Odemwingie

Subs (in order): Begovic, Adam, Huth, Walker

A Day (Year) for Manchester

Giggs, Ferdinand and Vidic
Celebrate the day in history for United.

Balotelli and Yaya Toure
Celebrate for the latter's trophy-lifting goal.

It must be a year for Manchester. Manchester United, after securing a 1-1 draw against Blackburn, has officially claimed the 19th top-flight league trophy for the club and become the most successful club in England's history. Chelsea must have thought that they still have chance when Blackburn led by 1-0, but a late penalty has ensured that the Red Devils take what that's required to drive the trophy back to Old Trafford.

On the other hand, Manchester City claimed a must needed victory against Stoke in the FA Cup final after quite an exciting game at Wembley. This ended their trophy drought for 35 years. Coupled with a ticket to UEFA Champions League, this is such a fantastic year for the Manchester Blues.

It's all but Manchester. Congratulations for both sides and celebrate the day!

Interesting Week of Champions League

Peter Crouch
An early red card has crushed Tottenham's hope of progressing to the semis.

A pretty unexpected Champions League week with numerous strange results. Here are some highlights:

• Tottenham lost 0-4 to Real Madrid at Bernabeu. A loss is expected, but such big loss is not, especially when the London Club has such a good record against the Milan brothers before this.
• Inter's loss is even more shocking as they were humiliated by Schalke at home by conceding five goals. Dejan Stankovic scored a spectacular 25 seconds opening goal anyway.
• Rooney continues his stylish form as he scored an incisive goal to end Manchester United's embarrassing nine-match unwinning streak against the London Blues at Stamford Bridge.
• Barcelona 5-1 Shaktar Donetsk. Perhaps the most expected results?

Thursday's Tragic?

Cesc Fabregas
Persie was out, and now Walcott and him too?

A short summary of football news happened these days:

• Inter lost to Bayern at San Siro, again. A big day for Italian football as all three of their representatives at Champions League lost at home in the first leg. Four CL spots for Germany clubs next year for sure.
• Arsenal won to close the gap between Manchester United to a point. Unfortunately, two big guns - Fabregas and Walcott - were out before the end of the match with injuries.
• 0-0 draw from Manchester United against Marseille. Not too bad in my opinion.
• Tottenham lost to Blackpool - fallen from the sky after a win against Milan.
• Adam will be suspended for two games after getting his tenth yellow. And it's two games.

Stay tuned for Gameweek 28 Fantasy Preview.

Surprises

Robin Van Persie

Flying like a god.

Sorry for the lack of updates as I am having problems with my PC. Anyway, there's lots of surprising results happening over the past few days:

• Tottenham crushed Milan at San Siro. Can you believe it? The London club has actually won two Milan giants in the same season! Fantastic job by Lennon and Gomes.
• Newcastle scored two away clean sheets at this gameweek double. Unbelievable. Smart move for those who stocked Newcastle defenders.
• Arsenal finally won Barca. Not so surprising for me though. Van Persie scored from an unbelievable angle, but Valdes should have done better with his positioning. Nasri wasn't at his best, but his vision is still lethal.

Premier League. Still the best.

Fabregas OUT

Cesc Fabregas
Arsenal's captain will join Gerrard on the sidelines.

Arsenal failed to secure an early progress in the Champions League group stage after a 0-2 defeat to Braga. What's worse? Their emperor on the pitch, Fabregas, was injured.

Fabby will be out for two to three weeks and may miss the important clash against Manchester United. Bad news for his owners.

On the good side, this means Nasri will once again take the central role in Arsenal and bang in lots of points. Time to jump into the bandwagon.

UEFA Champions League Review

Samuel Eto'o
The hat-tricker of the week.

A good Champions League matchday for Premier League clubs with a 100% victory. Here are some highlights:

• Arsenal won 3-1. Arshavin was the key man of the night although he missed a penalty.
• Terry scored an important opener for Chelsea for a 2-0 victory. Anelka maintained his lethality in Champions League with the other goal.
• Super youth Javi Hernandez was the decisive man on Manchester's United encounter with Valencia with his only goal of the match five minutes from the clock. The partner for Berbatov while Rooney's absent?
• Van der Vaart had an memorable Champions League game - first a goal, then a penalty miss and a red card. Still Pavlyuchenko's double from the spot and Gareth Bale's strike ensured a 4-1 victory for the Spurs.
• Eto'o was the man of Inter with a perfect 10 performance to earn the Italian giant a 4-0 victory while Ibrahimovic saved AC Milan's ass from embarrassment in a 1-1 draw.
• Real Madrid only managed to win from substitute Angel Di Maria's goal. Barcelona, however, was unable to capitalise their possession advantage and was stuck in a 1-1 draw with Rubin Kazan.

UEFA Champions League Review

Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Scored in Champions League with FIVE CLUBS.

Matchday 1 of UEFA Champions League ended with little surprise other than Internazionale's draw. Here's some highlights:

• Rafa seems to have no more magic to cast. He brought Liverpool down together with the two notorious bosses, and now he's still far from spring with Inter Milan. A draw with two goals conceded is such an insult to the formidable squad built by Mourinho.
• Messi played a prominent role again as Barca won 5-1 easily. His 51% ownership by UEFA fantasy managers is easily justified.
• Ibrahimovic just doesn't have any problem to play everywhere. His brace against Auxerre is his fifth club to score Champions League goals.
• Fabregas is just unbelievable. With him Arsenal has every single hope to beat any team in the world. And with him available the likes like Arshavin and Chamakh rarely fails to perform. 6-0, perfect.
• Chelsea thrashed their opponent again even with Lampard and Drogba absent. 21 goals in five games! Who can stop them?
• Ronaldo continues his scoring drought. 11 shots against Ajax, nil were scored.
• Tottenham played an impressive European debut with Crouch heading in a beautiful goal. They only managed to earned a draw though.
• Antonio Valencia hurt himself after a clean tackle by Broadfoot. The Ecuadorian lost his balance and that cost him half a year away from pitch. Ouch! Good news for Nani owners?
• A very bad game for Manchester United indeed. They lost two points, and they lost Valencia for most part of the season.

Antonio Valencia
Out of form recently, and now out of field for a long duration. What a pity.

UEFA Champions League Fantasy

Back with the fun!

You play Fantasy Premier League, but how about a fantasy league with all the famous superstars all around the world? There it is - the UEFA Champions League Fantasy (UCLF).

The rules are almost the same, with most of the World Cup stars available to pick! So why not come and join the fun? The FPLZ code for UCLF is

66871-12963

My advise for the game is to pick players from Arsenal, Barcelona and Chelsea as the backbone of your team as they are located in such wonderful groups to score fantasy points.