Fantasy Shocker: Antonio Valencia Injured

Save your free transfer to take him out.

Yes, bad news for all who own him. Manchester United most pivotal player at the moment, Antonio Valencia, has injured his hamstring and will be out until mid of March.

His absence will definitely cause a big trouble to fantasy managers as he is not only a consistent performer, but is also very cheap relative to his production. Managers will find trouble to replace him, though it looks like cheaper players such as McClean, Sessegnon and Oxlade-Chamberlain could provide similar returns of the Ecuadorian.

Good luck to all fantasy managers.

News Update: 9 Jan 2012

Why always me?

A summary of highlights occurred over the past few weeks:

• Neil Warnock has been sacked by QPR after a series of terrible results see them only a point above the relegation zone currently.
• Scholes "retired" his retirement and plays again as Manchester United looks short of central midfielder. A signal of no transfer funds available anyone?
• Manchester United led Manchester City 3-0 at half time but conceded two in the next half with one man up for around 80 minutes of the game. I don't know how you guys feel, but to park the bus with one man up is a humiliation for me.
• Manchester United will face Liverpool in the next round of the FA Cup anyway, with the latter just thrashed Oldham 5-1.
• Thierry Henry to have a two-month return to Arsenal. He's one of the most expensive fantasy premier league player of all time. Let's see how he does this time.
• Also coming from MLS is Landon Donovan, who plays for Everton for the second time. Can he improve the goals stat of the Liverpool club? It seems to be a yes currently.
• Multiple foreign clubs are targeting Liverpool star Luis Suarez to steer his way out of the 8-match ban.
• Meanwhile, Liverpool are leading the race to sign Newcastle's ace Demba Ba. It is understood that the Senegal international has a £10m release clause in his contract.

Eight Match Ban For Suarez

Patrice Evra is the winner in this one, but an eight match ban is really
too much for a non-evident accusation.

Big blow for Liverpool. The Reds' best performing player so far, Luis Suarez, will be banned for as much as eight matches after being judged guilty (serious?) for his racism allegations against Patrice Evra last month.

This will further dent Liverpool's chances of getting that currently unlikely Champions League spot. The good news? Liverpool will have 2 weeks time to appeal for that heavy penalty and by that time, the transfer window is open.

Get a temporary replacement fast, and the blow won't be that serious for Kenny Dalglish. Good luck.

Nemanja Vidic Out for Five Weeks

Looks like both Ferdinand and Vidic won't be available until September ends.

Big blow. Manchester United's captain, Nemanja Vidic, has a more serious injury than expected and will out for up to five weeks.

Both Vidic and Ferdinand were injured during the victory against West Brom last Sunday. This may cause serious difficulties to Ferguson's side for winning games, especially when the young De Gea is still unsettled at Old Trafford.

Nevertheless, the injury of the duo will pave way for youngsters such as Chris Smalling (£5.5m), Phil Jones (£5.5m) and Johnny Evans (£4.5m) to step up as fantasy bargains, though it remains intriguing whether they can fill up their seniors' boots.

Tony Fernandes Takes Over QPR As AirAsia Continues to Make Its Name In Premier League

Now we fly in Premier League.

Say hi to Tony Fernandes. The Malaysian tycoon of low-cost carrier airline AirAsia has bought all Bernie Ecclestone's 66% stake in Queens Park Rangers, effectively making him the owner of the newly promoted Premier League club.

The director of AirAsia has been constantly involved in Premier League since years ago through sponsoring the flight of Manchester United and also sponsoring the English referees.

Now he is ready to involve in a bigger scale through the acquisition of the club which grounded at Loftus Road. Will QPR get a good transfer kitty immediately? We shall see.

Fantasy Nightmare?

"Error logging in. Please check your details and try again.
argggggggggggggggg
cannot login"


"I already set up my team,but dont know I choose which player as captain..
Wanna check again and website totally screwed up.. "


Two of the forum comments about Fantasy Premier League in my favourite forum, Lowyat.NET. In case you still don't know what's going on, FPL website cannot be logged in since many hours ago. And it's still unable to be logged in as for now.


This will cause some big frustration for FPL managers who want to do last minute decision. Fantasy riot in London?

Lee Chung-Yong to Miss Next Season; Joey Barton On Transfer List

Two budget fantasy midfielders are on the headlines these two days:

Chung-Yong Lee
To miss this whole coming season after breaking his leg.

1. Chung-Yong Lee, the second-most popular Premier League Asian after Manchester United's Ji-Sung Park, is forced to miss this coming season after breaking his leg in a friendly against Newport County.

Joey Barton
On the transfer list now.

2. Joey Barton, the second-most popular budget fantasy midfielder after Charlie Adam last season, was put on the transfer list after a dispute with the club owners regarding contract extension. He is even told that he can leave on free.

We might lose both budget fantasy midfielders for this very new season. Bad news.

Andre Villas-Boas: Coach-to-be of Chelsea

Andre Villas-Boas
Mourinho v2.

There you go. The next Mourinho-in-making, the ex-coach of Portuguese treble champions Porto, has departed with his former club in his attempt to join Chelsea.

The resignation has immediately elevated Chelsea's interest on him, with the Portuguese manager currently discussing personal terms with the London club. Abramovich has already agreed to pay €15m worth of buy-out clause to Porto for Villas-Boas's transfer.

It is also reported that Villas-Boas is hoping for a £80m transfer kitty - which will surely speed up Chelsea's relatively much slower transfer activity compared to Manchester United and Liverpool.

They Will Need to Learn How to Take Care of the Trophies to Get More of Them...

Great sarcasm. Real Madrid has finally won their first trophy after years, but it seems like they will not add a new trophy to their trophy cabinet after their vice captain, Sergio Ramos, dropped their Copa del Ray Cup while celebrating on the roof of the bus.

The Cup was then deformed by the bus. The extent of damage? Only them will know.

Ill-Mouthed Rooney Faces Two-Match Ban

Wayne Rooney
FA rewarded his hat-trick with match-bans.

Looks like there won't be a transfer bandwagon for Wayne Rooney as the FA has decided to award him a two-game ban after his misconduct on the game against West Ham United.

He scored a marvelous hat-trick to give Manchester United a spectacular comeback victory, but this ban has effectively halted fantasy managers' decision to buy him in.

Fortunately enough though, he will only miss one Premier League game as one of the ban is scheduled on the FA Cup game against Manchester City. Those who have already owned him can afford to keep him.

Five Match Ban for Fergie

Sir Alex Ferguson
Things are not going well for him currently.

The FA has officially sentenced a five-match ban for Sir Alex Ferguson for his misconduct after the match against Chelsea.

This may cause some performance degradation for United's fantasy players. After all, he is the only reason why United is still a dominant Premier League force when the squad now is much more inferior than the Red Devils five years ago.

Halt your United's fantasy purchases, for now.

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.

Rooney's Fantastic Overhead Kick

Simply unbelievable. Similar to Berbatov, same stadium, same intensity of rivalry, same importance, and same class. Enjoy.

Headlines Over the Past Week

Gary Neville
Wish him all the best in his post-football career.

• Gary Neville retired. He cannot be compared to Giggs or Scholes, but still, he's a legend.
• Old fantasy big names, Lampard and Rooney, finally scored some fantasy points which match their price tag.
• It only took 17 minutes for Luis Suarez to score his debut goal for Liverpool. Meanwhile, Meireles scored his third goal from four games and Martin Kelly continued to provide marvellous fantasy returns in such a cheap price.
• Liverpool actually played a weird 3-4-2-1 formation against Stoke. And it worked effectively.
• Two other new signings also scored on Gw25 - Robbie Keane for West Ham and Daniel Sturridge for Bolton.
• Obinna surely impressed fantasy managers with five goals on his recent two games.
• Darren Bent continued his fine scoring record against top sides of the Premier League.
• Fabianski out for the rest of the season. Will Szczesny become a fantasy hot cake?

Goodbye Roy Hodgson, Officially

Roy Hodgson
He's impressed by his fantastic away record.

Finally.

The pain in every Liverpool supporters thus far, Roy Hodgson, has finally left the club on mutual consent. It was unusual for this club though - they had never sacked any manager at the middle of the season so far.

Kenny Dalglish - whom many Liverpool fans chanted for during Roy's reign - is appointed for the position of temporary manager until someone else takes his place. But will King Kenny of Anfield bring Reds out of misery? Time will tell.

The Sacking of Chris Hughton and The Possible Return of David Beckham to EPL

Chris Hughton
Got sacked ridiculously.

Newcastle fans are furious as their manager Chris Hughton was sacked.

Why? Because he took Newcastle back to the Premier League? Or because he took the team sitting comfortably at the middle of the league table up till now?

There is growing resentment towards the Magpies' management, with their ace striker Carroll removed from the "untouchable" list in the transfer market.

Whether his successor is Pardew, O'Neill, Shearer or others is not what really matters; the owners of the club have made themselves in a deep shit and they will have to figure out how to escape from it.

David Beckham
To return to EPL?

Meanwhile, David Beckham says that he is ready to return to EPL soon, with Tottenham his favourite destination.

The reason for that is that Beckham's deceased grandpa was a big fan of Tottenham and he wanted Beckham to play at White Hart Lane as the home team.

Does that mean Tottenham will continue to be overflown by attacking talents?

Blackpool v Man Utd: POSTPONED

Snow brings disaster to those who made early transfers to bring in United's players.

A bad news for Nani, Rooney, Berbatov, Vidic etc. owners - their will not play this week due to heavy snow at Blackpool.

This leaves Arsenal's players as the obvious captain selections. Good luck.

Jamie Carragher Sidelined for Three Months

Jamie Carragher
Now who will become the temporary captain for Reds?

Liverpool's spiritual leader, Jamie Carragher, has to go for a surgery after dislocated his shoulder on the game against Tottenham. It will take approximately three months for him to recover.

This means that the Merseysiders will play without both captain and vice captain up to one month.

Of course, Carra's injury doesn't cause much concern to fantasy managers, although he is owned by 6.3% of over two million managers. What I do concern more is the opportunity that his absence provides - Kyrgiakos to partner Skrtel over the next three months?

We all know how effective Kyrgiakos is in set pieces, and that is proven by numbers - 4.8 points per game is the highest for Liverpool players. Managers could get well rewarded for taking him in now over the next one to two months as the Reds' fixtures get easier.

On the other hand, Van der Vaart is set to absent until the next year, with Bale the obvious replacement.

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.

Steven Gerrard Injured

Steven Gerrard
He can only sit beside the field for the next three to four weeks.

Liverpool was the latest victim of international schedules as their skipper Steven Gerrard sustained an injury in the 1-2 defeat to France.

This will further deplete Liverpool's recovery from slump. I wonder who will be able to provide those quality passes that Gerrard can do. Shelvey?