2011 is upon us and that means we can do another tasty update. This file goes up to the first week of January – so again there’s been a lot of movement.

Before we do that though, let’s take a look at these 10 things that the World Sports Network told us to watch out for this season:

1. Chelsea wins back to back titles
2. Drogba to score 25+
3. Rooney to get extremely frustrated
4. Sir Alex Ferguson to retire at season’s end, will complain on the way
5. Roberto Mancini’s job to come under question
6. New owners and excitement for Liverpool
7. Chicharito to secure best young player of the year award
8. Intense battle for 4th
9. Newcastle to stay on top, Blackpool relegated
10. 25 Player cap, 8 homegrown

Well if I had to rattle through those I’d say:

1) In Drogba’s dreams
2) Ssshhh… he’s still sleeping
3) Rooney = Frustration
4) Fergie is immortal, he will never retire
5) The only manager who will never be questioned is Fergie
6) Liverpool have more new owners \ managers than Blackpool has supporters
7) The anti-roooney
8) Spurs don’t need 4th place – they’re going to win Europe on first attempt
9) Blackpool to take 4th spot
10) What do you call 8 English players on a bench? A football team.

In our league, it’s uncomfortably close, with just 27 points seperating 20th place and 11th place, just 32 points seperating 30th place and 21st place, just 17 points seperating 40th place and 31st place – need I go on?

Remember: Pain Heals, Chicks Dig Scars, Ferguson Lasts Forever

Also: Use those transfers

Peace out.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

This week it seems that the brilliant performances of “Nottingham Florists” (105 points), “Inter The Dragon” (98 points), “Patrick Swansea” (93 points), “Hi… I’m Troy McClure!” (90 points) and “You gotta roll with it” (89 points) have been balanced out by the weak displays from “Shivbox 1″ (-3 points), “What would Jonas Do?” (2 points), “Morse Utd” (8 points), “Social Structure of Roma” (9 points) and “Leavemyarsealona” (10 points).

Likewise Ferguson was given a dose of third law karma because as Man U went top of the league, he also lost his favourite balloon…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8luSRjwAU0c

Harsh but fair.

There’s been a little wait for this update as International games took precedence at the start of the month but now we are back into the Premiership action… and all 125 transfers are now in effect.

There are a lot of you who still need to transfer your entry money – don’t make me name and shame you – transfer that money now…

…or you too may suffer the Third Law…

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

Again, it’s been a bit of a wait for this update as the International games got in the way – but the weekend saw normal service restored to the Premiership.

A late goal from Agbonlahor gave Villa a win away at Birmingham, whilst Fulham came from behind to beat Evertons early lead through Cahill. Diouf oponed the scoring for Blackburn during their 3 – 1 win over Wolves, whilst Benayoun fired off a hatrick during Liverpools 4 – 0 win over Burnley.

A six goal feast between Man City and Arsenal saw the likes of Van Persie, Bellamy, Adebyor and Wright-Phillips all score. A last minute goal from Cahill sealed a first win for Bolton away at Portsmouth, who still need to get off the mark.

Chelsea came from behind and needed a 4th minute of extra time goal from Malouda to continue their unbeaten start to the season. Spurs meanwhile lost their first of the season to Man U with an early bicycle kick goal from Defoe cancelled out by goals from Giggs, Anderson and Rooney. Wigan beat West Ham with Rodallega the only scorer.

In our league, (other than me) Tim Radford also had a good week with 72 points and up 43 places, as did Joanne Sheen, Dan Jones and Nathan Davies. Unfortunately this week saw two negative points movers in the form of Craig Robson and Adrian Till. Dark times indeed for these two managers.

In terms of positions, Chris Rawlings also had a good week, up 51 places – as did Jamie Keddle up 39 places. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction and this week it was was Dave Heylings down 34 places who suffered the most.

It’s also time for everyone to pay… I don’t want everyone handing me five pound notes all over the place – as these never seem to make it to the bank – so instead can I ask that everyone do a quick transfer to me online. Details are:

Sort Code: 40 08 28
Account Number: 514 174 28
Please add your name in the reference so I know its from you and then I’ll mark you off.

I’ve also had a huge amount of feedback regarding transfers. And so here is how it’s going to work. As with previous seasons, each team will be allowed 4 transfers – which can be made at the end of any month – with effect from the start of the next. So feel free to start sending any transfer requests in and they will come in from the start of October.

Cheers

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

On Monday I started writing an analysis of the weekends football action but I deemed it too contraversial to release. However apparently at 3am this morning, senior advisers woke the President to debrief him on the study, which he promptly ordered classified. A spokesperson for the Pentagon has declined to confirm reports that more than 90 per cent o f the U.S. nuclear arsenal has been aimed at the Cardiff Bay area for the past 8 hours.

So since I can’t talk about the fact that the Croatian Football Association are accusing UK clubs of a conspriacy to “take out” their players, and since I’ve been sworn to secrecy over the Arsenal allegations that Man U used “anti-football tactics” during their weekend win, and since I have now been handed a gagging order on devulging details of how the “diving” trend highlighted by Eduardo threatens to consume the entire league, I’m just going to keep to the boring stuff…

People have been asking for more details on the prizes, and I’m thinking something like this:
End of season prizes will go from 1st place (£100) to 20th place (£5) and there will be an 4 prizes every month – highest points climb (£5), highest position climb (£5), and two others that I’m just tweaking the details to, but which will give the Portsmouths and Boltons of this world a chance to win a few dollars.

People have also been asking about this years transfer rules. These will be as follows:
Everyone will get 1 transfer at the end of September – this is to help with any early season injuries etc – if you don’t use it though, you cant carry it over to a later time.
Everyone will get 2 transfers in January – exact date will tie in with the end of the real-life transfer window.
Everyone will get 2 transfers at the end of Easter – again the exact date will tie in with the end of the real-life transfer window.

Also for those people struggling with the Excel macro file, you can now see a very simple full league display by clicking on “League File” and then “Simple” in the top website menu. Otherwise just go for “Normal” by the same route.

Have some…
www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

This updates includes games from last week, the weekend and last night – so it is not SURPRISING that people like Alan Corson have got a MASSIVE 107 points since the last update.

CRAZY!!!

At the top, Scally still leads the pack – but with just 49 points since the last update, things are TIGHTENING up – with Nick Sibley unleashing 79 points to climb 5 places into 4th – Rhodri Evans whipping 93 points out of the bag to climb 7 places into 11th spot – and Dan Marshall hammering home 94 points to climb 11 places.

INTENSE!!!

This update now includes the latest wave of TERRIFYING transfers and with only 6 players in the top 20 with any transfers left to use, I wouldn’t be lieing if I said that some managers are very WORRIED.

SCARED even.

Ring… Ring…

Who is it?

Destiny??

I’ve been expecting your call.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

Alot of movement in the League – but I’ll let you see for yourself.

Transfers for February are complete.

Still waiting for one of last months winners “Mundo” to come forward.

Those who have tried sending their “Picture Quiz” results via the website have experienced problems. Apologies for that. Instead the rules of that Fun Competition have changed to simply be: Email me the answer (normally) to the following questions. The answers will either be the two names making up a famous musical couple or the name of their band:

(see the email for the 5 picture questions)

Have a great Valentines weekend.

There will be no love lost at the England Wales game.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

Well I apologise for the little delay in this update – but it’s all because of something I call the panic effect. In the same way the world’s financial markets have been brought to their knees by people losing confidence in the integrity of their banks, so it would seem a lot of you, have been spooked in to a crazed rush of early season transfers. 86 of them in fact!!! So it’s taken me a few extra minutes to literally swim through the tears of managers lamenting an early injury or sub-hero-performances and key in all these player movements – and some of you should hang your heads in shame… in fact I can’t even look you in the eye’s I’m so embarassed for you.

So at the end of week 1 in October, here are the scores on the doors:

Big Bird United remains top but this time with Gary and Jonny Ed taking the next two podium positions. Like a slap in the face though “My mum’s got bigger guns than Jonny Eds” has burst into the top 10 up 17 places, whilst Claire McG and yours truly recorded some tidy rises of up 62 places and up 54 places respectively. However it would seem money can’t buy you happiness as last months cash winners – Neil, Rawlings, Baker and TJ all fell down the rankings. (For the record lads, I am open to bribery and am quite partial to iced donuts from Tesco’s).

Well that’s it for now…

Be brave.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

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Remember the transfer rules are strict:

:: If you send a transfer on the 1st of the month – it will not go in until the end of that month. So get your transfers in before the end of the month.
:: Any transfers that I receive that don’t work – i.e. you go over your £50m limit or have more than 2 players from one team – will not be included.
:: Also when sending transfers please include the player numbers of those you are removing and bringing in.

Apologies for the lack of updates but I have been off on holiday – or more accurately I spent 3 days at an awesome wedding, followed by what seemed like a lifetime trying to travel back to Wales. 4 hours just on the M25 during the mother of all storms whilst being overtaken by hedgehogs on the grass verge – all whilst dangerously dehydrated and tired, really tested the old pain thresholds let me tell you. All this means though is that there’s even more movement in the fantasy football points – as this update is basically two weekends worth. Ooooohh, intense!!

For those of you who haven’t sneakily been keeping an eye on the BBC website all day following the final day of transfers, there’s some crazy news:

Man City have not only been taken over by Abu Dhabi but have made an audacios bid in excess of £30m for Berbatov. It’s still up in the air but it’s going to be a humdinger whatever way it goes.

The confirmed last day transfers though are:

In: Everton (Saha), Liverpool (Flora, Gulacsi), Newcastle (Gonzalez), Portsmouth (Belhadj), Tottenham (Pavlyuchenko, Corluka)
Out: Bolton (Dzemaili), Fulham (Zakuani), Liverpool (Finnan, Voronin), Man City (Corluka, Vidal), Man Utd (Saha), Stoke (Parkin), Wigan (Bouaouzan)

As for the scores on the doors – there are a lot of new faces in the top 10 – many of whom spent last season languising in the relegation zone. Top spot goes to Jamie on 120 points, with Sam and Kirsty in hot pursuit. Also in the mix is Zoran, closely followed by the Crispy family. Last years champs are spread across the league at this early stage with Gareth in 17th, Keivan in 13th, Jon in 54th, Dylan in 103rd and MG in 89th. Some big climbs from the ladies with Luan up 104 places, Joanne up 95 places, Rebecca up 72 places and Carys up 70. This update’s biggest faller though was Nadia down 113 places.

As requested by Baker and Rawlings, there is now an additional column that shows the points since the last update (usually a week).

Meterologically speaking, today was officially the first day of Autumn, which means that with rain and wind pretty much guaranteed for every day now until June next year, now is the time to invest some cash in the new Lazy Boy chair and start religiously watching your favourite team in style and comfort. (http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/product.asp?ID=657&gclid=CP6kvtb5upUCFROI1Qodgyz_QA)

Until next time…

Look alive people and get those teams in.

Also confirmation on the transfer rules:

:: each manager will have 4 transfers to take during the season
:: transfer requests can be sent in whenever you want but will only be entered on the last day of that month – i.e. will take effect from the first day of the following month

Sorted.

Latest player lists available.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

Anyone seen Nicky Shorey? She’s a mate!!!

:: each manager will have 4 transfers to take during the season

:: these can be sent in at any time but will always come into effect from the start of the next month

Note: where weekends fall across the end of the month, there is usually an announcement that says that transfers will occur after a full weekend of games.

:: the fourth and fifth transfers will be available in the Easter transfer window