So the Banterbury Review has had a bit of a Christmas break, but the leagues have had anything but! We now have our 16 qualifiers for the Shield, which starts in game-week 21 (Jan 11th). On New Year’s Day we have round 4 of the Banterbury Cup. So as we enter the second half of the season the leagues are really coming to life!! A lot of teams will not just be thinking about promotion or relegation but they will also be dreaming of cup glory or of winning the shield, which in my eyes is the ultimate glory. Ok so we will now go around the leagues, cup & shield with me your host Bench and I’ll try and update you as best I can!
Banterbury Cup – Ties to be played Jan 1st
1 Park Bench Exports v Fergie’s Henchmen
2 Busby Babes v Bocadillo Allstars
3 Gasco’s athletic v Monty (Caz Daz)
4 Son of a Pitch v Cookie’s Monsters
5 Horse FC v Manlet F.C
6 Kop Warriors v DavesRedDevils
7 WhoIsRonaldo v Buzz’s Bomb Squad
8 Owls Rule v Gallowgators
Banterbury Shield
So as I said earlier we now have our 16 for the first ever Banterbury Shield, which consists of the top 4 from each league at Christmas. The qualifying period lasted for 17 game-weeks and I feel the cream has risen to the top. Group 1 looks a bit tasty to say the least!
So here are the 16 and their groups plus the opening day fixtures (GW21)
Group 1
1) Cookie’s Monsters
2) James 101
3) Powerful Potty Fc
4) ChorleyRocks
Cookie’s Monsters v ChorleyRocks
James 101 v Powerful Potty Fc
Group 2
1) Gallowgators (Gallow)
2) CFC (Awesome)
3) White Boys Day (Drexel)
4) Where’s The Dosh? (The Cooky Boys)
Gallowgators v Where’s The Dosh?
CFC (Awesome) v White Boys Day
Group 3
1) Monty (Caz Daz) (Monty)
2) Norfulk-in-chance
3) Arsene’s Boys
4) WhoIsRonaldo
Monty (Caz Daz) v WhoIsRonaldo
Norfulk-in-chance v Arsene’s Boys
Group 4
1) 4th Place Trophy (Burnsey)
2) Park Bench Exports (bench)
3) Son of a Pitch (inertia)
4) we love manchester (gpriley)
4th Place Trophy v we love manchester
Park Bench Exports v Son of a Pitch
Now to the bread and butter stuff, although I’m sure the likes Mutts, Potty and Nifty will not be looking forward to it!
Premier
Cookie is top going into the New Year and what a stellar first half of the season he has had picking up 45 points, in all 4 of the leagues not one of the winners managed 80 points to win a league last season. Last season’s champion Bench is very much in contention, he seems to know how to win ugly (must be his beer goggles), he sits 3rd and just one win off Cookie. Also having a great season are Arsene’s Boys, who came up from the Championship and sit 2nd on the same points as Bench. Big shout-out to Pork n Cheese United who won all their festive fixtures and now sit 5th. Gasco’s athletic & Horse FC sit mid-table after a storming start which seems to have tailed off. Killer Instincts 2nd quarter has been a little bit special, after picking up only a point from his first 11 games he has won 6 form his last 9 including wins over the top 2. At the bottom we have THE MUTTS NUTS who surely can’t wait for the January WC and a new start after managing only one win and a draw in hhis 19 games. Joining Mutts in the bottom 3 at the half way mark are TheKopKnightRISES & Prutsers; allemaal.
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/843/standings/
Championship
Moving on to the championship and Gallowgators ‘hits and build value’ strategy has no doubt worked in the first half of the season, as he is still in all 3 Banterbury competitions. James 101 & WhoIsRonaldo both favourites in Potty’s Bookmakers for promotion sit 2nd & 3rd at the half way stage. I would also watch-out for Mito’s Mercenaries in the 2nd half of the season, worth an each-way bet @ 20-1!
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/9338/standings/
League 1
What has happened to Potty? From 12 unbeaten and an 11 point lead at the top, to 7 defeats on the spin and stuck in Somerset with floods (of Tears) and he goes into the new year 5th in the table. So sitting top is Elliot aka CFC(Awesome), 2nd is Little Red aka Monty (Caz Daz), in 3rd we have GPriley’s we love Manchester, 4th is everyone’s favourite Dingo, DavesRedDevils, in 6th are Fergie’s Henchmen and in 7th is inittowinit***. An interesting 2nd half of the season is certainly in store in this league and lots of banter I hope.
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/9479/standings/
League 2
I would like to congratulate the 4 teams that made the Shield, 4th Place Trophy, White Boys Day, ChorleyRocks & Norfulk-in-chance as well as the 2 teams who are still flying the flag on New Year’s Day in the Cup, Busby Babes (pj) & Owls Rule (NZ Alex).
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/my-leagues/9698/standings/
Qualification League
This is a classic league with 2 places up for grabs in the official Banterbury leagues. The current top 5 are Norfolk n’ Chance, The Cape Bulls, The special onesie, NINja Warriors & Cloughie’s Revival. All 5 are in with a great shout of qulification so best of luck to you all as well as to all the other managers in the league, of course!
H2H for the opening of FF247
What’s the story FC, LANGOLD SM4CKHEADS(Chopper), Mystic Devils, Zoostorm FC (Flingy) and The Gift & The Curse have all won 6 out of 7 in this qualification league.
Happy New Year to you all from the Banterbury Leagues and everyone at FF247!
This article was written by Bench
Hey Guys! I overslept today, and missed the price changes. Fortunately, Ramsey’s selling price has remained at 6.8, but it wont tomorrow so I need to sell him today. I know its been asked by a lot of people, but I’m going to ask it anyways. Who should I buy as a replacement, for 8.8 or less? I was thinking Nasri (as I don’t have any city attacking coverage), Lallana, Cabaye, Navas. What do you think? Thanks :biggun:
Also please note I’m playing my wildcard in GW 23, so I just need a replacement with easy fixtures for the next three matches (GW 20, 21, 22)
It’s difficult but I do like Navas (If he plays) seems more likely to be involved in the action than Nasri. BUT Nasri seems more likely to hold a place in the side. Having said that Navas is more in form ATM, and has played the full 90 in the last 2, so I would go Navas over Nasri in the short-term. GL with your decision though
Gerrard is due back and at 8.7m is good value.
You need to leave it late as possible to see of news on his reported return vs Hull.
Navas, you’ll going to use a wildcard in the next 3-4 GW. With Silva out this GW, your avoiding at least one game of rotational Hazard (Eden).
I just bought Navas, and hopefully he’s going to feature at least full lenght at least 3 games out of the next 4.
Both Cabaye/Lallana have at least 1 game where you’d want to bench them due to hard opposition.
HAHA, thx Veer, yeah he ended up going for a suicidal wildcard in my opinion!
Yeah! Me and NIN had predicted he would do just that, you could tell by his transfer history.
I guess I deserve it. Price rise last night. I had no expectations of Szchenezcechy rising, but he did. >_< Now which GK do I get? Is Jaas worth it with the injury-torn West Ham defense? Or?
When do you plan on playing your wildcard? Because if you’re only concerned about the next two matches, jaas is a great option (Fulham and Cardiff), but after that he has Newcastle and Chelsea
Yeah probably closer to the end of the Jan WC. It appears to be a toss up between Jaas and Mignolet, but Mignolet seems to be the common, non-differential choice for a GK 😛
Migs cant keep a clean sheet for his life!
Haha Veer, yes I can see that but his next fixtures look quite nice!
Hey Guys! My friend is making a team for next week. I’m thinking his team should be:
Jaaskalen Gazzaniga
Distin Ward Chester Baker Chambers
Colback Hazard Yaya.Toure Jose.Canas Walcott
Suarez Rooney Rodriguez
That exactly fits his 100m budget. What do you think?
I don’t like the defense. Crazy weak. I don’t like Colback or Canas either. Surely you can go for Mutch instead?
Where do I get the money to upgrade one of them to Mutch?
Wow, didn’t actually realise they dropped to 4.2. My bad! lol
Morning all,
Bench thanks for the update and all your work behind-the-scenes with your Banterbury Leagues, its massively appreciated by everyone involved in the leagues…and also by quite a few who would love to be in the leagues in the future! Well done pal
I WANNA BE INVOLVED COOKIE :'(
Morning Milky, have you emailed Bench ?
Er, Cookie.. No I haven’t :p lol
Gimme email addy?
. If you are not yet part of the leagues and would like to register your interest for next season, please email me at: banterburyleagues@gmail.com
Now that’s why I love ya Steven, you dominate me at FPL and help me out too!
Which GK would you go for at 5.7? Problem is everyone has Mignolet, he’s not much of a differential but he cannot keep a clean sheet if his life depended on it.
Milky, its Stephen.
Is this a short term keeper or for the longer haul ? And who is your other keeper ?
Er sorry Cookie, my bad about that 😛
It is a short-term until the last week or so of the Jan WC. Right now I have no keepers.
Milky,
on paper its difficult to look beyond Migs for 3 weeks – if he can’t keep 2/3 clean sheets in this time, then avoid forever going forward!
Yeah Cookie, it has to be Mignolet unfortunately, and I say unfortunately because he is so popular, and struggling for CS’s. But I can only hope from now until Jan WC. I’ll do the transfer tomorrow maybe.
Milky, play the fixtures, not other managers mate. We’re only halfway through don’t forget.
Fair point.. I guess I’m trying to one-up everyone instead of playing my own team.
Milky, you’re in the top 10k for goodness sake – 3.1mln managers are wondering how to catch you and are trying to be different – play the percentages is my advice mate – let the others do the gambling…
Agreed Cookie. Its a well respected format that Bench is running. Personally, I find Bench’s creation much more interesting then the unwieldy Classic Leagues that are run by most Forums.
And further more, I missed the Banterbury updates. Hopefully we can get back to normal now.
+1
To play Shelvey (H) vs. Man City or play Whittingham (A) vs. Arsenal?
M and B; i’d go Shelvey, he’s always a risk and, although they have tightened up, City’s defence is still not great on the road.