SquadGod Week 2: Suck it up, it’ll get better

Welcome to another edition of our Soccerlens Fantasy Football news update, and the headline just about says it all – if you’re sucking (or more appropriately, if your team is sucking) ass at the moment, be strong and keep working at it, things will get better.

2 days left until the transfer deadline for Week 3’s games, so let’s get this started and get you some bargain buys if you’re interested in swapping out players.

Before I start though, please vote for Soccerlens – there are 200 people signed up for the Soccerlens group at SquadGod, and that means 200 votes 🙂

Ok, here are the top 10 in the SL group:

Top 10 (Week 2)

  1. Taron, 310
  2. bobdigi, 297
  3. Chuiku2, 280
  4. DDG, 276
  5. jimmyriddler, 270
  6. Hashmeer Shashmeer, 267
  7. Optimis Prime, 266
  8. skippytrip, 261
  9. PJimmy, 253
  10. billium, 249

Some swapping in the top 10 and some people dropping out, and I’m guessing the people who didn’t pick Rooney and Ronaldo are doing the best so far 🙂

Daniel Miedzinski (SL and StateSideFooty blogger) is #23, KyleGooner4 (SL reader and blogger) is #30, Cheeseman (provocative commenter and professional bastard) is #41 (hey man 🙂 ), Eugene Quinn (SL blogger) is #49 (at least I think it’s that Eugene – did I get it right mate?), Liam O’Kelly (SL reader) is #54, yours truly is #55, dbeech (SL reader) is #90 and Nic (FCBNews and SL blogger) is #99.

The rest? you guys need to shape up!

Injuries, Suspensions and Picks

You should regularly check the injuries page at SG as well as this page on physioroom.com to stay updated.

Ricardo Carvalho and Steven Gerrard are the big name ‘injuries’ but both should be back for the weekend games, so no need to panic and drop those stars just yet. Hopefully you’ve dropped Rooney by now, if you haven’t I’d suggest you drop him and pick one of the strikers on my list below.

Sol Campbell and Dejan Stefanovic are expected to be back on the weekend but they aren’t good picks as defenders yet because Pompey visit Chelsea (incidentally, keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow’s weekend Premiership preview which you should use / read before making your transfers).

Reading’s Duberry is out as well, but Michael Dawson and Darren Bent should be back for Tottenham on the weekend – they are risks still as Tottenham travel to Old Trafford, so no Spurs players at the moment either.

And if you have Valerie Bojinov, drop him – he’s out till next year.

Not too many suspended players at the moment but this will change as we get into September and October. See the suspensions list to see if one of your players is out for several games – if that player is Ronaldo get him out if you can.

Goalkeepers: Kasper Schmeichel, Chris Kirkland, David James and Marcus Hahnemann. All four are relatively cheap (I think Jamo is the most expensive) and while they’re not sure-fire winners like Cech or EVDS, you’re bound to be better off spending that money on a goal-scoring forward.

Defenders: Micah Richards, Micah Richards, Micah Richards. If you don’t have him, get him in. Carvalho as well, assuming he can get back in and stays fit, should be excellent. You could also gamble with Reading’s Bikey or Wigan’s Titus Bramble (Bramble is a big gamble considering that Wigan will always concede goals). The big name defenders haven’t really ‘kicked in’ yet, but they will over the course of the season so don’t go on a panic swap just yet. But get Richards if you can.

Midfielders: If Malbranque gets to be a regular on the left side for Tottenham, he might be a good punt to make. Lampard and Gerrard are always good picks, so is Ronaldo (when he gets fit), Malouda, Barry and Arteta. Pick goal-scoring midfielders, always. That limits you but the trick is to save money on defenders and the keeper 🙂 SWP could also be a good punt considering that he’ll get many assists this season. I wouldn’t go for Scholesy, Giggsy, Nani or Carrick this season. Anderson, if he gets fit. Pool…Babel, definitely, Fab will do well but don’t think he’ll score too many goals, Rosicky could outdo him if he stays fit. And Carlos Edwards, once he gets fit in September.

Strikers:RVP, Torres, Martins, Rooney (when he gets fit), Drogba (not Kalou), Berbatov (when he gets back from injury), Robbie Keane, maybe Darren Bent. Spend money on your forwards, don’t skimp in this area. Not sure if the likes of Chopra can do the job consistently over the course of the season, but he should go into double-figures.

Soccerlens Partners

A word on our partners and sponsors for the SquadGod SL group – currently we have a $500 prize for the winner of the SG Soccerlens group, as well as 5 free shirts as prizes offered by our sponsors Subside Sports (get your kits from them folks). I haven’t decided what to do with those shirts yet (how to distribute them), but they won’t go to the winner, for sure. Probably split them somehow between #2 and #3.

I’m waiting for more companies / blogs to jump in and sponsor the competition by offering prizes, so if you’ve got any ideas or if you want free publicity, this your chance to jump in.

Till tomorrow, when I’ll have the weekend preview up. Maybe this week we won’t have so many fuckups by the refs, eh?

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