Fulham 2-0 Aston Villa
The lunch time kick-off saw Fulham face Aston Villa, who had Christian Benteke back in their starting eleven. After a recent poor run of form Dimitar Berbatov had a point to prove to his doubters and Fulham’s new Boss Rene Meulensteen was looking to put an end to a run of six straight losses for “The Lilywhites”. Both sides came out in attacking mode and Villa’s goalkeeper, Brad Guzan, was forced into action early, producing a fine save from a Berbatov header who then had a penalty appeal turned down following a weak challenge from Ciaran Clark. Not to be outdone, Benteke, who looked desperate for a goal, forced Maarten Stekelenberg to parry an effort away. The deadlock was broken in the 21st minute when former Villain Steve Sidwell squeezed in a fine effort following good work from Ashkan Dejagah. Fulham were now full of confidence and continued to press forward and the lead was doubled on 30 minutes when Alex Kacaniklic was brought down by Leandro Bacuna and the resulting penalty was nonchalantly dispatched by Berbatov. Following the re-start, Villa brought on Aleksandar Tonev for the disappointing Karim El Ahmadi, but Fulham continued to dominate the play with John-Arne Riise, Philippe Senderos and Scott Parker all stepping up to the plate and Riise was only denied when he sent a header crashing off the bar. Villa’s Chris Herd let the dominance of Fulham get to him with a reckless challenge that earned him a yellow card and manager Paul Lambert replaced him shortly afterwards, but Villa could just not break Fulham down and when the home supporters started chanting “How bad must you be, were winning at home” he knew it wasn’t going to be Villas day.
So this was a first win for Meulensteen, who was hugely respected when he was a member of the coaching staff at Old Trafford under the tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson and judging by today’s result, he might just be the man to turn Fulham’s season around. Todays result showed what confidence can do to a side – Fulham bossed the play but on the flip side Aston Villa looked devoid of ideas, hitting long balls to the out of sorts Benteke.
Bonus points: Sidwell (3) Riether (2) Berbatov & Senderos (1)
Arsenal 1-1 Everton
Next up was a trip to The Emirates as the league leaders entertained an Everton side who have been playing well under Roberto Martinez. Both sides had their young England midfield stars on display, namely Jack Wilshere and Ross Barkley and both sets of players set about with a determination to take the three points. The first half was a frantic, high tempo battle. The Toffees started at pace with attacking moves down each flank with Seamus Coleman and Brian Oviedo testing the Gunners defence. Arsenal were sharp with their passing, aware that a win would take them seven points clear of their rivals. To their credit Everton were not in awe of their opponents and Kevin Mirallas fired high after great work from Barkley. It was Arsenal though that had some of the best chances of the half, Santi Cazorla played in a lovely driven cross for Kieran Gibbs which the Arsenal man just failed to connect with and Tim Howard produced two great saves at the feet of Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey. The second half was a feisty affair and Referee Howard Webb had to be on his toes. Everton’s James McCarthy went into the book following a high challenge on Ramsey and will miss GW16 through suspension. Arsene Wenger decided to ring in the changes on 67 minutes in an effort to win the game, when a triple substitution saw the arrival of Mathieu Flamini, Thomas Rosicky and Theo Walcott for Cazorla, Ramsey and Wilshere. Everton responded with the arrival of Leon Osman for Steven Pienaar and Gerard Deulofeu for Miralles. It was the Gunners though that struck first in the 80th minute when Mesut Ozil converted a Walcott assist, but just four minutes later Romelu Lukaku was adjudged to have got the slightest touch to an Oviedo cross and the ball ran onto Deulofeu, who was on hand to smash it into the net. The final few minutes were frantic and Olivier Giroud nearly won it for the Gunners with a rasping 30 yard effort that had Tim Howard well beaten, but not the crossbar. All in all this was a fantastic game of football and both sides will surely look back at it and agree that a draw was a fair result.
Predicted Bonus points: Ozil (3) Deulofeu (2) Jagielka (1), Distin (1), Oviedo (1)
This article was written by Eddy
Josh…
Ok so he must of picked up a yellow in a non prem game, because this seasons history on the FPL site he only had 4 yellows before his ban against Norwich….?
Yeah he did. After a little research, he got his 5th against Man City in the Capital One Cup.
Just some thoughts:
Migs, Daniels
Terry, Mertasacker, Gabbidon, Jagielka, Baker
Sessegnon, Shelvey, Ramsey, Yaya Toure, Whittingham
Rooney, Suarez,
1 FT, 1.1 bank
1) going into this GW, it seems my team is rather set. A lot playing each other but we can’t do much about that. I think I need a second starting GK, Liverpool don’t look too solid. who’s the better option cheap ‘keeper?
2) Suarez has the great form, but against Spurs might be hard. Could Rooney against Villa be the captain choice?
3) have I missed something and should replace someone?
Milky Bar from Hawaii.
Or would people recommend just a straight replacement of Migs?
3rd striker?
Obviously Suarez has been amazing, but Liverpool have a tough bunch of fixtures and without Sturridge and Gerrard they may struggle over the next couple of months. Everton have an easy run of fixtures, with Fulham next up, so getting Lukaku and making him captain could be a good move for you even if that means selling Suarez (I guess your other striker is Aguero).
Anyone having trouble logging into fpl site?
Well at least I can log on, but I cannot change my team.
I cant log in at all!
I couldn’t log in at all at home this morning, seems to be working now at work.
Oh for pity’s sake, the (official fpl) site is screwed up. At least for iPads and iPhones, that is. On the left side of the screen it’s ok except the links don’t work. On the right side, error messages. I just can’t help suspecting the designers have been tinkering – which they’re welcome to do in the summer when their mistakes don’t matter, but right now the result is I can’t make transfers or even change my team around. Useless useless useless.
Same here what a pain in the rear end!
It must be really difficult running the fpl website. You start off the summer with a version which satisfies pretty much everyone. But you can’t resist the urge to mess with it, and so when you launch it for the next season you’re flooded with complaints from people who can’t use the new ‘upgrade’. Then you have to work furiously to fix it (wasn’t there a season recently when they had to allow an extra week of unlimited transfers due to some cockup?) and then you’ve got 9 months of mounting temptation to tinker with it. Just a tiny little tweaking of the code here and there, let’s give it a try, bet nobody’ll even notice…
GKW – I have the same issue on my pc…..so its them, not us! Sure they’ll get it fixed asap.
Hope so – I’ve got a trip to Africa lined up this pm and won’t be back till after the next deadline. So if I can’t get online I’ll miss out on one of my FTs.
Beautiful, where are you off to ?
Tbh just Morocco on business. But Africa sounds so much more impressive
haha good stuff !! I had visions of you trekking through the jungle!
I’m sure the website will be fixed this morning
You know we do have the internet available in Africa…
What about in Morocco though ? :smirk:
Oh well. I have 2FTs, 1.2 in the bank and 5 players I’m not entirely happy with:
Clyne (resale price 4.6) – injured
Ridgewell (5.0), Brady (5.0), Coutinho (8.5), Mirallas (7.2) – not scoring enough
Advice please? My thinking is to trade Clyne or Ridgewell for a cheap (Palace) defender, so I can upgrade Brady to Paulinho (or Coutinho to Hazzard).
How did you manage to sign in?
I think I was already signed in from last night. Anyway, I can see my team, I just can’t change it. But hopefully they’ll sort out the website by the weekend.
Do you know how many points Vorm scored last night?
I can’t see on fpl, but as he didn’t play I guess he didn’t score any…
Vorm’s out, about to have knee op; 4-6 weeks
awesome!