OddDane’s Pre-Season Observations
Welcome to OddDane’s Pre-Season Observations.
Usually I stick to the typical Tips or Captain Picks articles but I got a little stir crazy looking at all the millions of drafts and so I started to wonder and write… which turned into a personal rant and rave about pretty much all the picks in this maddening fantasy game we call fun! I mentioned this madness to the other writers in the FF247 offices and for some reason they thought it would make for an article! Well… here is the result!
The following will be some great tips for you lot, collated from some solid shithousery found on the webbyweb detailing, thoroughly, why every player you pick is just downright awful! Let’s start, shall we?
Gunners:
Goalie: You’re not considering an Arsenal spot in goal are you? Unless it’s Turner and he’s sold, even then he’s a woeful pick (See also Nottingham).
Saliba/White – £40m was spent on a piece of Timber, and you are considering one of these guys? Get out. Now!
Zinchenko: Unless you are running a medical ward, you are looking in the wrong place fella.
Gabriel: I would’ve thought by now you were looking elsewhere but a midfield guarded by the Dukes of Havertz will not bring you any clean sheets mate. Move along.
Saka: The poor lad will need to run up and down the right wing 38x100mins only to see the likes of Kai, Leandro, the Martins (yes, in plural) and Jesus shoot balls out of stadiums. Be real folks, no one wants to see that.
Odegaard: AKA Martin, the one shooting balls out the Arsenal. Remember? I just said it.
Martinelli: Trossard is there.
Trossard: Martinelli is there.
Jesus: I feel like we covered this already…
Villains:
Martinez: New time-wasting rules will see this bloke out before the first half whistle. Heard of Olsen? Haha! Yeah well, there’s a reason why not…
Mings: Pau says hello.
Diaby: See Saka note but replace with Bailey, Bailey, Bailey and the rest of the lot.
Cash: Hint, the name is ironic. This is a quick way to pay Pounds for Lira.
Watkins: Take him for the pens. They’re literally a penalty for his points.
Bees:
Flekken: Excellent pick! Has conceded goals like there is no tomorrow. What could possibly go wrong here?
Mee: You are only getting him to play around with his name. Stop it! It is not funny. Mee no likey!
Mbeumo: Seems like a solid pick, right? Everyone and his dog are touting him as a pick. Alas, you wake up and realise he isn’t a gambling Toney and it is still Brentford.
Wissa: See above.
Bournemouth:
Bwahahaha, you’re going here? Stop yourself, before you hurt yourself and get Outtara here before you can say Solanke.
Silly Seagulls galore:
Steele: Verbruggen says hello, and the No. 1 shirt says goodbye. So does Caicedo, which means goals will be plenty… for the other team.
Estupinan: You pick defenders for clean sheets. He ain’t getting them. You dimwit.
Mitoma: Get a mimosa and look elsewhere. Still not convinced? See notes on Diaby. Replace Bailey with literally EVERY SINGLE one of them
Kudus/Enciso/Groß/March/Ferguson/Pedro/Welbeck/Undav/Adingra/Bouna…something: There’s only one good pick here. It’s Undav, he is off to Germany.
Clarets:
Unless Kompany decides to play again you need to stay clear of this team. Even so, he’s not renowned for scoring so the best he’s going to get you is a draw as whilst they sure as hell can’t score I’m sure some dimwit will pass it back for an own goal. Why? Because you picked a Claret, you damn fool.
Nott’m Forest:
Might as well be Nothingham this lot. That’s how many points they’ll get you anyway.
Sheffield United:
You will get more own goals than anything else, be my guest. You’ll never learn anyway.
Spurs:
Maddison: It would be fun to see Spurs relegated too, so maybe this is the pick for you after all. He’ll be injured though and they’ll stay up, so it’s you losing out mostly. Oh, and Maddison.
Son: No. But an expensive no, nonetheless. I’ll give you that.
Richarlison: He’ll score, take his shirt off and get carded. But as he lives offside the goal will be VAR’ed off and yet he’ll somehow still keep his yellow cards.
Kane: If he isn’t leaving then he’s still in a team called Spurs.
Hammers:
Areola: Unless this is so you can explain why ‘Areola and fries’ is a fun pun for a team name this is just dumb. In fact, either way you are. It’s spelled Aiola.
Fabianski: You are not running a senior housing project, are you? Stop it.
Wolves:
They are selling their players, not buying. Are you the idiot buying them? Good grief…
Chelsea:
Kepa: They bought Sanchez and an entire kindergarten to play in front of him. It is safe to say they don’t know jack about this position. Or any other one, for that matter.
James/Chilwell: If you’re a glass salesman then these are just excellent for your front window to showcase. But you’re not, are you? Move along.
Nkunku: This might be…. Oh, oops. There he goes. Injured. Of course, he is. It’s your fault for bringing him in your team, you jerk.
Nicolas Jackson: We have covered these wingers already. But you seriously think these kindergarters will score, don’t you? I can’t help you.
Eagles:
Eze: Unless he gets 200 penalties how is going to get points? You seriously think the likes of Edouard, Ayew and Mateta will put them away? Remember, own goals don’t count.
Fly, fly away. And quick!
Everton:
Pickford: The team who just got Ashley Young and now have Tarkowski injured? Yeah, that’s going to go down well. Heard of anti-fpl? Too bad, because you’re playing it brilliantly!
DCL: This would be a great pick. If you’re running a modelling agency for 90’s second hand clothes, that is.
Fulham:
Mitro: With a bit of luck he’ll be off to a warmer climate where he’ll be scoring goals. Maybe if you tried another fantasy game he’d be good for you? This one sure as hell isn’t it!
Leno: Oh, for the love of… Will you stop bothering me? If you insist on these idiot picks I… well I can’t do much about it can I? He’ll make a ton of saves for you so that’s good, but it’s because there’s no defence and he’s already conceded 4 goals. That’s not so good.
Liverpool:
Alisson: He is a brilliant keeper! No really, he genuinely is! His defence definitely is not though. Even if he miraculously saves all the shots, Gomez will swoop in and score an own goal, or injure him. Probably both actually. In 90’ + 8’ over time.
Trent: Did you see the price tag on this one? They thought he’d be midfielder but forgot to tell the developers that. Only good thing I can say is he probably won’t play with Gomez.
Salah: He’s wide and passing to a donkey and a Dutch winger thinking he is Zlatan. They wouldn’t know a goal between them if it smacked them in the foreheads. Also, they want you to pay 12.5m to watch this spectacle? I say no, thank you!
MacAllister: This fella will be playing CB, DM, CM, LB, RB and GK trying to save these defensive shambles from disaster. However, there’s no saving this lot, and he only gets a single point for clean sheets even if he were to pull it off. I’m thinking he does it once! Enjoy your one and only point this season.
Diaz/Jota/Darwin/Gakpo: This is the donkey and the wannabe Zlatan I told you about. Plus some extras. Enjoy!
Luton:
…These guys don’t even have a stadium to play on. Be real.
Man City:
Ederson: He was meant to keep the clean sheets last season and he didn’t. Well, it’s the same lot defending and he still costs a fortune. But you know, cool tats and all that. Maybe Pep will scream his lungs out at him again, that might do… something. It won’t be clean sheets though.
Any player not named Haaland: HAHAHAHAHA you crack me up!
Haaland: This game is about picking him and 14 others, so everybody will have him. Yawn.
Red devils:
Onana: He will play so high up the field that you’ll think he’s Lukaku. But it’s not that team and yet he’ll be scoring like him, none. Others will score though, as it’ll be Maguire or some other poor schmuck who will have to do the goalkeeping…he’s already been lobbed for coming off his line twice!
Shaw: Another poor schmuck doing the goalkeeping.
Rashford: They’ll have a new striker so at least he won’t be the only one scoring. Unfortunately, he won’t be scoring as a winger either. Nice try, you’re out almost ten million. At least it was only nine…
Martial: Visit the nearest hospital/restitution clinic and you’ll know why this isn’t a good idea.
Fernandes: Who is he going to pass to? Højlund? Great, but there’s four defenders on him because he’s their only would-be goalscorer. So instead Bruno will pass it to Mount, who’ll fall or trip on the ball and the other team will shoot it long past Onana who’s at the centre circle to score. It’s 0-10 now, but at least midfielders won’t get deductions from goals conceded.
Højlund: Did you not just read what I wrote? Anyway, he’s also injured…
Newcastle:
Pope – He is 5.5 and teeing off against City, Pool, Seagulls, Villains and Bees and you think this is the way to get clean sheets? God have mercy on your sweet soul, life is going to be tough for you.
Trippier: Newcastle were desperate enough to cash out £40m on a replacement who’s been injured for what feels like a year and yet Trip is somehow still coming with a 6.5 price tag. We already covered his likelihood of getting clean sheets. Good luck.
Isak: Wilson is playing up front, so there’s that. What have I said about wingers thus far…
Wilson: Spaghettis for legs and glass for knees. He’ll score when you don’t have him or from your bench and run off injured at 58’ when you start the lad.
There, that does it, I’ve had enough. The rest of the lot did not even merit a mention and are just terrible. Well, that is all. Hope you have a bad season and an even worse day.
Good day sir, I said GOOD DAY!
Thanks for reading OddDane’s Pre-Season Observations. This article was written by OddDane.
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Um I don’t know if this is the best place to mention this but, the “your comments” link at the top of the page/site is no longer there for me.
Said the same thing the other day in another thread. Now it is here. I guess it has been there all along and I never saw it. Always the one you mention.
It’s never been there has it? It’s always lived in the sidebar as per the pic from ODT.
If it suits I guess I can try and stick it there too?
Has always been on the side but there used to be a button on the top that would kind of skip you down to the link. Or at least that’s how it worked for me
There was definitely a link in the area terminators mentioned because I too used it exclusively. When I brought it up in the forwards thread a few days ago someone pointed out the one I pictured above which I had never seen before. Mostly because I got used to using the one in the header. Not a huge deal to me as i now know where to find it. But it was there as recently as a month ago.
Is this what you’re talking about ?
Ok, I’ll take your word for it. Likewise I probably just never used it. I’m predominantly on phone though and rarely use tablet or laptop for comments. I’ll look at restoring it.
Pretty sure they just mean the header on laptop or tablet Matt, as per Term’s pic. The one you have there is a mobile only feature so wouldn’t be on desktop.
It’s under the ellipsis too on mobile, I’d assume that translates on a tablet but I don’t use one.
That said, the ellipsis should in theory mirror the header on a desktop. We think a recent update may have disrupted that and explain the inconsistencies and its sudden disappearance. About a month ago sounds about right.
I use a full browser on a laptop to get here unless travelling. It was nice and if you can bring it back awesome and if not it is no big deal. I’m just glad someone else mentioned it too. I was beginning to wonder if I was perhaps the only person that ever used it that way.
And yes, this is always the best place to point such things out. If people don’t say they need something or that some other link would be handy we’ll never know. No harm in asking. Often obvious. But we perhaps just overlooked it.
+1 we aren’t too scary… okay maybe Init is
It is the “my recent comments” it was at the top right of the screen next to all the other links it was on the far left I think, it has not been there since I have come back in the last week or so.
Bingo. Fixed.
…
yay it’s back!
thank you
none of my comments are showing when i click the link
Mine are!
Thanks innit!!!
Is it working for you? Apparently it isn’t for Term.
“My recent Comments” is working for me. “Latest comments” is not. That one comes up blank. Also if I click on one of the comment links in the sidebar it does not work either. Well it loads the article it appears in but does not take you to the comments. It just loads the article from the beginning.
Hope that makes sense.
it is now working, I cleared my browser cookies etc
“Latest comments” link from the banner does this.
Something else I noticed when I was clearing the cache and cookies and logging back in. There are 2 “login” links but only one works.
Salah with nothing in the bank and a pretty template team or no Salah with 1.5 itb and flexible to move places if it all blows up in my face?
Hard to say, having similar dilemmas.
I feel like this is the decision that will split a of the fpl managers at the start. Get it right and you’ll have a head start but get it wrong and you could be playing catch up early on.
Which way are you leaning if you can even say that?
Team 1 or team 2. 2 could have Kane or Salah.
Team 1
Think I prefer this one to be honest. Just that bench in 2 could see you in serious bother
Team 2
Great. Nkunku is now injured till December. Was really looking forward to having him and seeing him in the premier league.
Jesus injured, Bayern keep bidding for kane till they get him.
So basically we just have haaland and maybe Watkins left as decent fwd options.
I cannot see it going through, Kane is leaning to staying at Spurs, the issue is, he’s too expensive with a season left, he wants £500k+ a week and Spurs want £100m+ as well, he will only win the league with Bayern and national cups, they won’t with the champs league with the likes of City, Barca, Real and PSG at this current time, he lost out big time with the move to City a couple of seasons ago and this summer with the move to Utd, Bayern have already been linked with other strikers.
Think that’s my final team.
Jackson is 7 mil, right? That seems like a lot of money sitting on the bench.
ODT, he will be in action from GW2, someone has to sit out.
Very similar to one of my favorite drafts in rotation now. I also had the same triple up on BRI, but am having a hard time justifying the risk now. On paper, that trio should be good for points, but that’s a lot of leverage into a team that could burn owners.
Make the case for me though. Because my draft was very very similar to that before I dropped it. I could be talked back into a gamble. I’m easily swayed.
Thanks Guy. Think many will be wildcarding by GW5 or even earlier when the hidden gems emerge. By then , we should know if 3-4-3 was a good idea or should we move to something different.
Is Joao Pedro 100% nailed?
This is a terrible FWD pool – only Pedro/Wissa, probably Nunez (gametime?), Watkins or jump all the way upto Kane…..or all the way down to 4.5m fodder.
GM, I think he is. Record summer signing for Brighton, on penalties and had a great preseason.
I can go there, but exit route will be difficult, need to plan that as well.