I'm struggling to get it right though. The options aren't great. Four teams with doubles, none ideal. I've decided I'm going to go with three players from each - I think it's just my natural style, I can never resist loading up when players have double games. It's just too tempting. Oh, and I'm bench boosting, obviously.
Again, the options aren't the most enticing. Even with Manchester City you know there's a good chance that whoever you pick they won't play both games. So my team doesn't fill me with confidence. This is my general plan though at the moment.
Sheffield United - just go with three defenders.
Man City - three attackers.
Aston Villa - Grealish plus two more
Arsenal - Aubameyang plus two more
..and this is how I'm currently looking.
(I still haven't actually activated the bench boost yet)
I've went with Sterling over Aguero. There's no way I can afford both with Aubameyang as well, so it's a tough call. I have a good feeling about Sterling though. I may even throw the captaincy on him. So that's where I'm at at present. I'm also undecided as to whether to go with Mahrez or Sane. If either. I'm tempted to take a bit of a gamble on Sane, but he's a bit more expensive. We're starting to hear that he's on the verge of a first team return however, so team news pending I may end up going that way. He certainly should be fresh.
As for Arsenal I've kept Saka in there. He was already in my team from before the shut down and with such a nice price I've decided to just leave him there. He played against Brentford in Arsenal's warm up game a few days ago so hopefully that means he's still in and around the first team. The Arsenal options in general are pretty unappealing, so if I can go super cheap that'll be great.
I don't like having two keepers with double games. It seems like a bit of a waste. My original plan was just to have single game keepers to maximise the doubles, but the Arsenal and Aston Villa options simply aren't great value. I could switch Samatta in for Ayew I guess, but it feels like six and two threes really. So I may as well go with the guaranteed starts.
Still plenty of time to make changes though, so no doubt this team will look very different by deadline day :)
Football Politics - Footbolitics
Or should that be ballitics ?? Not sure.
I've said in the last few posts that I'm going to leave the politics and concentrate on the football. However, I've decided otherwise. Football is so politicised these days that I've decided that it's perhaps worthwhile to provide an alternative voice.
What tipped me over the edge was seeing that players will have "black lives matter" on their shirts instead of their names for the restarted games. As well as the BLM logo and an NHS logo.
(Twitter update)
Now before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm not condoning racism - in any shape or form. In fact, it's a little bit sad that I feel I have to say that. My issue is with the politics. Personally, and again this is just my opinion, I don't like Black Lives Matter. My belief is that it's a very well-funded organisation that is being used to push political agendas, and that it's actually using racial division as jet fuel to propel those aims. Just look at the carnage that has been caused in the United States in recent weeks ..and in an election year to boot.
(Here Candace Owens points out how BLM
conveniently peaks in election years)
Now you may be reading this and thinking; "why bring this into football? why put these opinions on an fpl blog??"
..but this is precisely my point. The Premier League, the mainstream media and footballers themselves have brought this into football. In a very big way. I didn't. I'm exhausted by politics at the moment (who isn't) and I thought football and fpl would be a nice escape from it all. How wrong I was.
Now there are millions of people like me. Including many, many black people. Who don't support these things. That have different opinions about these very controversial issues. So what about those fans (or indeed players) who don't agree with these organisations and campaigns? They're put in a position where they either keep quiet and go along with something they don't agree with. Or they speak out and risk being pilloried and censored for doing so.
I actually have a lot of sympathy for the Premier League itself. They likewise are in a no-win situation. They'll be criticised whatever they do. In fact, I'm sure plenty of people are going along with this heavy and overwhelming politicisation of football simply out of fear of being called racist or bigoted themselves. I'm sure they'd much rather just focus on the sport.
When I read the tweet earlier about the players having black lives matter logos on their shirts I looked at some of the comments underneath. Many were critical, and of course there were arguments back and forth between people. This is only going to get more divisive I fear.
Personally I would much prefer it if we could just keep the politics out of football. However, if it is going to be a political arena then we're all entitled to our two cents.
Hopefully I won't have to do many more of these little ballitics opinion pieces in future, and I can just concentrate on getting my team sorted. As I said at the start though, I'm really starting to feel like its important to provide a different voice. As there's simply no room for it anywhere in the mainstream. Hopefully I can do it with a bit of tact and sensitivity, but given how heated some of these issues are I'll no doubt end up offending a few people sadly.
...if anyone even bothers reading this far that is 😄
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