Week four is over and the winner of the week and new overall leader is Kendergardener who, with 10 correct picks this week, moves into sole possession of the overall lead with 41 points. Rookie Monster’s strategy of picking twice gave him 9 correct picks which put him in a second place tie with buckdiddy, PeteMoss & robelgordo, whose picks I checked five times to make sure I counted correctly.

The low total of the week goes to tron who managed only five correct picks this week. This leaves him one point out of the last place overall position which is currently held by n00b with 28 points.

WEEK 4 FUN FACTS

This week’s unanimous pick was a wrong one as everybody picked Dallas over Washington. The most correctly picked team of the week was Jacksonville who were taken by everyone except Mallard. Dirty Hun and Rookie Monster were the only two to take Kansas City.

WEEK 4 RESULTS

1. Kender – 10
2. robelgordo – 9
2. Rookie Monster – 9
2. buckdiddy – 9
2. PeteMoss – 9
6. SoP – 8
6. nateeasy – 8
6. Osiris – 8
6. n00b – 8
6. Boner – 8
6. YRD – 8
6. viceroy – 8
6. Shaft – 8
6. Hamass – 8
6. Dr. Mort – 8
6. CliffX – 8
6. Cheekbone – 8
18. HRH – 7
18. JoeyAt75 – 7
18. Taff – 7
18. Tucho – 7
18. loosejonnyt – 7
23. Mallard – 6
23. manbooba – 6
23. Scotsman – 6
23. Dirty Hun – 6
23. daycru – 6
28. tron – 5

OVERALL

1. Kender – 41
2. nateeasy – 40
2. Shaft – 40
2. Hamass – 40
5. robelgordo – 39
6. YRD – 38
6. viceroy – 38
6. Cheekbone – 38
6. HRH – 38
10. Dr. Mort – 37
10. CliffX – 37
12. JoeyAt75 – 36
12. manbooba – 36
12. buckdiddy – 36
12. PeteMoss – 36
16. Osiris – 35
16. Taff – 35
16. Dirty Hun – 35
19. Boner – 34
19. daycru- 34
19. Rookie Monster – 34
22. SoP – 33
22. Tucho – 33
24. loosejonnyt – 32
25. Mallard – 30
25. Scotsman – 30
27. tron – 29
28. n00b – 28

WEEK 5 SCHEDULE

Kansas City at Carolina
Tennessee at Baltimore
San Diego at Miami
Seattle at NY Giants
Washington at Philadelphia
Indianapolis at Houston
Atlanta at Green Bay
Chicago at Detroit
Tampa Bay at Denver
Cincinnati at Dallas
Buffalo at Arizona
New England at San Francisco
Pittsburgh at Jacksonville
Minnesota at New Orleans

In case anyone was wondering where last week’s recap was — well, I’m wondering that too. I sent it to Taff (on Tuesday, admittedly), and he never posted the motherfucker. Feel free to blame him. I think a little public shaming is just what he needs to make sure this doesn’t happen again.  (Taffs Edit : He sent it late tuesday so I didnt get it till Wednesday and I had a busy week)
Anyway. I missed the first minute or two of RAW. My apologies.
GUITAR CHORDS! Y-Y-Y-YEAAAAAAAH!!!!! Batista enters. Cole and Lawler talk him up like he’s a sure thing to win at No Mercy. Normally I get pissed off when Cole can’t get off Batista’s nuts, but I hate JBL more, so there you go.
SANTINO MUSIC! Oh no, Santino, don’t job to Batista! Nooooooooooooo! Anyway, Santino calls Batista the Manimal and then calls for the !!!HONK-A-METER!!! Honky-Tonk reigned for 64 weeks. Santino is at… 6. Santino now calls up the !!!BRAIN BAROMETER!!!, saying that Batista needs some extra visual aids. Santino says the average brain has 6 trillion brain cells. Brain Barometer on Santino: 10 trillion. That’s twice as many! Brain Barometer on Batista: 12. HA! Santino works in a slam about the economy (save it for JBL, fellas), and then gets in the ring.
MATCH TIME! Batista v. Santino. Total squash match for Batista. After the match, Beth is up on the ropes yelling at Batista… which distracts him, and JBL OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE nails Batista with a Clothesline From Hell.
Backstage and Todd has HBK for an interview. I dunno, blah blah blah Jericho sucks. It’s not HBK’s finest hour on the mic. He’ll have a match tonight, any tag partner he wants vs. Jericho/Cade. Shawn teases Hulk Hogan as his partner. No real pop. Steve Austin? Crowd likes that better. The Rock? Crowd actually sorta boos that one. This crowd has weird taste. Shawn says he’s gonna have a tag partner who gets him. We go to commercials.

YO YO YO YO, BROOKLYN BROOKLYN, as Cryme Tyme enters. The crowd doesn’t actually seem very happy. This is an angry crowd and I don’t get it. What, were you all heavy in the Dow or something? (Topical humor! Woo!) JTG is introduced by himself, so I guess this is a solos match.
FINGERPICKING GUITAR!!! Mizorrison enters but Miz is the only one announced, so there you go. Crowd is just dead silent. What’s WITH these guys?
We get a web clip of Mizorrison making fun of JTG’s parents. They’re funny as always.
MATCH TIME! JTG v. Miz. Crowd starts a MONEY MONEY/YEAH YEAH chant, so I guess they’re waking up a bit or something. Miz is out in front early, but Shad plays cheerleader and gets the crowd to clap JTG back into it. He takes control for a second but then Miz gets it back, and this time the crowd clapping JTG back in is much louder. That Batista/Santino match must have just left them really cold, they’re warming up now. JTG in command now. Morrison goes to interfere, but Shad flattens him ringside. JTG’s distracted by the ringside brawl — stupid move, JTG — and sure enough, Miz hits him with the Reality Check and that’s good for a pin. Miz wins. I’m sad now.
We go backstage to watch Jamie Noble wandering around. He finds Jillian and asks for a favor. Holy God, Jillian’s breasts look hyperinflated and they’re about to fall out of her top. Are those implants or did the doctor just staple some beach balls to your chest, paint them tan, and call it a day? Anyway, Jamie insults Jillian a bit and basically says he needs a female tag partner (I’m guessing he’s going against Regal and Layla, since I have two brain cells to rub together), and any port in a storm. Will Jillian team up with him? She will not! She will not be seen with someone Layla dumped. Fair enough. She then says she’s ten times hotter than Layla. Yeah… not so much. She then starts singing and I pray for Jamie to punch her in the throat. No such luck, but we are instead saved by Dolph Ziggler showing up to introduce himself. And then introduce himself again. And then Jillian confirms that his name is Dolph Ziggler. Then she reconfirms and JESUS FUCK IS THERE A POINT TO THIS? Jamie is just as sick of it as I am and rather than shake Dolph’s hand as he introduces himself for the third time, Jamie just walks away disgustedly. I agree with Noble. Nicky, get yourself a gimmick beyond shaking people’s hands and saying your new name, please. And put a rush on it. Anyway, we go to commercials with Cole and Lawler wondering if Jamie will find a partner or not. I’m guessing he probably will.

NOBLE MUSIC! We’re back and Jamie Noble’s hitting the ring. I’m guessing Mickie or Candice for his partner, probably Candice. Paul Burchill and Katie Lea are already in the ring and got no introduction. I guessed wrong. I am stupid!
REGAL MUSIC! King Regal and the Royal Whore head out. They stay at the entrance area, with Regal on his throne and Layla throneside.
So… Jamie has no partner, then? It looks that way and the ref moves to ring the bell, but before he can –
CLAP CLAP CLAP-CLAP-CLAP!!! It’s Mickie! Hi Mickie! Mickie hits the ring. Jamie is delighted to see her and gives her a hug.
MATCH TIME! Burchill and Lea v. Noble and Mickie. Intergender rules are in effect, which turns out to matter very quickly because Paul and Jamie start the match but Paul quickly tags in his sister. Is Noble gonna hit a girl? No… no, he’s really not. He shoves her away and tags in Mickie and now the ladies are going at it. Paul gets a cheap shot in on Mickie and Katie takes advantage to take control and put Mickie in a submission hold, but Mickie doesn’t tap, naturally, since let’s face it; one tag team got entrances and one was already in the ring. Mickie breaks the hold and I guess the hold tired out Katie too, as both divas go crawling to their respective corners. Simultaneous hot tags, and Jamie beats the everloving piss out of Burchill. He points to Regal and Layla, yells THIS IS FOR YOU, and hits Burchill from the top rope. The cover is broken up at 2 by Katie, so Mickie hits the ring to clear Katie Lea off. A bit of hitting and one armbar later and Paul Burchill is tapping. JAMIE WINS! YAY! Noble doesn’t want to break the hold, since he’s sending a message here, but the ref makes him. Noble and Regal have themselves a staredown.
Whoa, 8 man tag match coming up later tonight. Looks like Rey, Punk, Evan, and Kofi v. Priceless and Kane. Awesome. Commercials now.

Hey, do you think Sega’s ever going to figure out that people bought Sonic games to run really fast and get rings and not for some cheesy, cliche as fuck anime bullshit storyline? Because I really don’t and it makes me sad. In conclusion, fuck you, Team Sonic. Just sayin’.

Backstage when we come back and Priceless is skulking around backstage in the designated Abandoned Industrial Boiler Room Area. There’s one in every big-city arena, you know. This, of course, is where Kane is. Team Priceless makes the pitch to Kane that since his father is Paul Bearer, he’s a second generation superstar too. Hahahahahahahaha! Kane doesn’t react. Team Priceless is scared shitless of Kane and all but begging him to not kill them and just be on their team tonight. Kane says he doesn’t take orders from anyone and all he cares about tonight is kicking the shit out of Rey. They can either stay out of his way or he’ll fucking kill them. Kane, clearly a firm believer that a vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend. Kane then says he’s gonna go talk to Adamle. I’m sure Adamle’s thrilled to hear that.
MUSIC I DON’T RECOGNIZE! Oh, okay, it’s Cade’s new music. I dunno, if they keep on playing it so I can get to associate it with Cade it’ll probably grow on me. Cade’s got a mic. He talks up that he beat Michaels last week and says that Jericho has taught him more than Shawn ever did. Jericho is the better teacher, the better wrestler, he’s just better. Cade doesn’t care who HBK’s partner is gonna be. Jericho will still be World Heavyweight Champion after No Mercy. Standard heel sidekick fare, but delivered well enough.
GUITAR THRASH!!!!!! Punk enters! I thought he was gonna announce himself as Michaels’ tag partner, but no, it’s 8-man tag match time. Crowd has definitely warmed up since Batista/Santino iced them as they’re popping quite loudly for Punk.
BOOYAKA BOOYAKA! Another nice pop for Reyrey, who’s wearing a mask that’s more of an executioner’s hood, really, complete with Day of the Dead-looking skeleton face. Rey takes off the hood (he’s got a normal mask underneath) and gives it to a rampside fan. Rey’s a pretty awesome face. I know I’ve said that before, but he is. We go to commercials. I’m not usually one for skipping entrances, but 8 is a lot and there really hasn’t been that much wrestling yet, so hopefully we’re missing some entrances during the break.

We’re back and yep, Kofi and Evan Bourne have entered, but Rey’s music is still playing. Bit of a diss, that.
PRICELESS! Charlie Haas enters… nah, I’m just foolin’. It’s Team Priceless.
BRIMSTONE! Kane enters last, because he is scary.
MATCH TIME! Punk, Rey, Kofi, and Bourne v. Priceless and Kane. Manu and Bourne start things off. Go Evan go! Unfortunately, Manu’s beating the shit out of him and he’s gotta tag in Rey. Rey and Bourne do some fucking incredible teamwork shit to wail on Manu and… and, okay, I can’t recap this. Shit degenerates pretty much instantly into anarchy. Everyone’s hitting everyone inside and outside of the ring, and it’s really neat, so of course we fucking go to commercials. Didn’t we just get back from commercials? Why yes. Yes we did.

We’re back and Cody Rhodes is beating up Evan Bourne in the heels’ corner. Awww, we’re back to an ordered match? I liked the chaos. Cody tags in Manu and the beating continues. Stop making Bourne job, damn it! Bourne escapes and tags in Punk, who beats on Manu until quick interference from TDJ gets him distracted. Manu takes control and tags Cody back in. CM Punk’s in trouble. Cody tags in Kane, and now Punk’s in REAL trouble. Tag to TDJ who wraps Punk’s legs around the ropes or something. Kane gets a cheap shot in from ringside. Punk escapes, but instead of getting a tag, tries to clear everyone off their corner. Picking a fight in the other guys’ corner when you’re outnumbered 4 to 1 works exactly as well as you’d expect and the Punk beatings continue. Team Priceless trades off tags so everyone can get a turn hitting Punk. Kane comes in but he seems more interested in Rey. Kofi, Rey, and Evan are all up on the ropes offering battle if Kane wants to try something, so he thinks better of it and wanders back to hit Punk some more before tagging Cody back in. Crowd keeps chanting and clapping for Punk in attempts to get him back in the match… and it works! Punk gets to his corner and tags in Kofi! Kofi wrecks Cody’s shit, runs over, spears TDJ, and then wrecks Cody some more. Trouble in Paradise! 1! 2! Manu breaks it at 2. Bourne clears Manu off. Cody tags in Kane, who preps a chokeslam, only to get hit from behind by Rey. TDJ takes Rey over the top ropes, but Kane’s dazed. Kofi goes running at Kane, jumps… and gets caught in mid-air. Ohhhhh snap. Kane chokeslams the fuck out of Kofi and that’s good for a pin. Heels win. Back to commercials.

We come back to Adamle standing in the ring. Let’s see what Mikey wants, shall we? Adamle says that earlier tonight, Kane made a request, and Adamle said he’d grant it if Kane won tonight. Kane won, therefore this Sunday at No Mercy, if Rey wins, Rey will have to take off his mask in the middle of the ring. NO, NO, BAD IDEA, LET’S NOT DO THAT AGAIN, WE’VE ALL SEEN THE PICTURES, THERE’S A REASON FOR THE MASK. Now, Rey, Mike knows that
I HEAR VOICES IN MY HEAD!!! Orton’s here to tell us, presumably, his stance on wearing masks in the ring. Seriously, Randy, why now? Mike wants to know what the fuck Orton wants too. What Orton wants is to make fun of Adamle for being Shane’s bitch last week. Fair enough. Randy wants CM Punk re-suspended and is basically telling Adamle that he’s a little bitch if he doesn’t do it. Randy says that when he comes back, Adamle will need him far more than he’ll need Shane McMahon. I dunno, Orton — I’m pretty sure the signature on his paychecks don’t say “Orton” on them.
Bells ring, cows moo, and John “That was another couple million bucks today, I bet” Layfield enters. He immediately starts blathering on, but it’s actually kinda hard to make it out… BECAUSE THE CROWD WON’T STOP CHANTING “BORING” OVER HIM, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, FUCK YOU JBL. JBL actually looks really, really pissed off. I’m sure he is. JBL blah blah blah and then
GUITAR CHORDS! Y-Y-Y-Y-YEAAAAAAAAAH! Batista doesn’t enter! He’s loose! He’s… right fucking behind JBL! Batista out of fucking nowhere! Spear for JBL as Randy and Adamle retreat. Batista mocks JBL for having a bad week (seriously, the man has millions of dollars in the stock market in real life, he’s got to be taking a hosing) and leaves.
Backstage and Santino is on his cell phone talking to… someone he instantly starts pretending is named Frank when he sees Beth glaring at him. Ha! They’d better not be breaking Santino and Beth up, though. Beth blames last week’s loss on Santino. Santino says it’s a good thing Beth doesn’t have a Mool-Ah-Meter, since she’s trailing by like 22 years. HA! But seriously, don’t break them up, please. Beth tells Santino to stay put. We see Kelly Kelly and Candice strolling backstage as we go to commercials.

HOLLA HOLLA! Kelly Kelly brings us back from commercials and Lawler creams his jeans over her like always. Seriously, Lawler, not that she’s not good looking, but she’s Generic Blonde #13. You haven’t seen that before in all your years commentating?
LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT LOVE IS, UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ as Candice enters. What-fucking-ever, Candice.
BETH MUSIC! Beth enters with Jillian. Oh God. Not Jillian. Couldn’t Katie Lea do double duty or something? It’s not like that was the most stressful match she was in or anything… ugh. Anyway.
MATCH TIME! Kelly Kelly and Candice Michelle v. Beth Phoenix and Jillian. Beth and Candice start it off but Candice tags in Kelly quickly. I think Beth put on some knockoff tiara tonight instead of the normal one that grants her invincibility, as Candice and Kelly seem to be hurting her. Tag in to Candice, but Beth takes control and drags her over to the heel corner. Tag in for Jillian. Man, as bad as Candice is in the ring — and she is bad — Jillian is worse. The offense goes back and forth with tags and such. The crowd chants WE WANT PUPPIES. Burn in Hell, crowd. Eventually it’s Kelly and Beth in the ring. Kelly does this absolutely stupid overly flippy thing where Beth is visibly holding Kelly and spinning her around for 30 seconds, but then when they hit the mat it’s Beth who goes flying for no fucking reason. Come on, it can’t be just me who finds things like that stupidly obvious and unconvincing. Anyway, Beth hits Kelly with one of those slams where first she holds the other chick up like she’s on the masthead of a ship and that’s good for a pin. Beth/Jillian wins. More commercials. This RAW is starting to make me feel like I made the wrong choice in DVRing Heroes and watching this live. Lots of fucking commercials, very little wrestling.

We’re back and Deuce is already in the ring.
INDIAN MUSIC! No. No, no, no, no, no. WAIT! YES! IT’S THE GREAT KHARLIE! Wearing a wig! And a prosthetic chin held on by an elastic strap! HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! He’s accompanied by Runjin Singh. The real one! Kharlie yells gibberish into the mic. Translation: Behold his awesome power! More gibberish! Translation: When prepared correctly, curry is both delicious AND nutritrious! Okay, first: this is awesome. Second: Singh is awesome for going along with it. Third, THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME.
MATCH TIME! Deuce v. The Great Kharlie. Haas starts off using Khali’s moveset, which gets him knocked down so hard his wig comes off. Kharlie went down, Haas comes up ,and pins Deuce in short order. Haas starts to celebrate, putting the wig back on so he’s Kharlie again. As he celebrates, though…
NOW it’s the real fucking Khali. Go eat a dick, Khali. Can’t you just stay on Smackdown so I don’t have to watch your useless ass? Singh, who seems very amused by all this, introduces Kharlie to Khali. Kharlie gets up in Khali’s face with a RAAGHGHGHGHAGH yell. Khali can’t help himself and starts laughing. Then Kharlie holds his hand out for a handshake but gets a brainchop instead, so that laughing was clearly out of character. You’d better not be coming back to RAW, Khali. Stay on Smackdown. Fuck, stay in India. Just stay away. Commercials.

We come back and it’s already 10:47, so of course the best use of our remaining time is to spend 3 minutes on a video package letting us know that Wrestlemania is a big deal. And then, naturally, it’s time to pimp No Mercy for another two minutes and can we get on with it, please?
5 4 3 2 1 BREAK THE WALLS DOOOOOOOOOWN!!!!! Yes we can get on with it, as Jericho and Cade enter. Jericho’s on the mic. Okay, apparently we’re not getting on with it. Jericho gives us some arrogant heel talk about how he doesn’t need luck to beat Michaels this Sunday and he’s better than Shawn Michaels. Then he tells Cade to get a ladder out from under the ring so Jericho can give us a demonstration and HEY, ASSHOLES, HOW ABOUT A MAIN EVENT INSTEAD. No. No, Cade’s just throwing a ladder around ringside while Jericho threatens Michaels. Gaaaaargh. Now Jericho throws the ladder around and slams it into the ring and man, this is fucking dumb. Now to demonstrate that he doesn’t care about luck, Jericho walks underneath the open ladder. Are we done yet? Thankfully, we are. Are we going to commercials now? Yes, yes we are. I’m DVRing this shit next week, this is inexcusable.

Okay, we’re back. OOOOOH OOOOH SHAWN! Shawn Michaels enters. Who’s his tag team partner? Well… Shawn runs backstage. Cade yells WHAT ARE YOU DOING?, which is a fair question.
ARE YOU READY? BREAK IT DOWN!!!! Come on, we all saw this coming, but it’s a DX reunion! Wooooo! Shawn ran backstage to get changed, since he’s in DX gear now. HBK and HHH enter as DX as the crowd goes absolutely apeshit.
MATCH TIME! Jericho/Cade v. DX. Given the time (already 11) and the fact that it’s DX and all, you’d expect it to be a squash, but surprisingly not as Jericho/Cade start beating on Michaels. HHH is ringside while Michaels gets beat on by the heels… I think we can all see where this one’s going, right? Sure enough, Shawn manages to break Jericho’s offense and Jericho and HBK each crawl to their respective corners. Jericho tags Cade! HBK tags HHH! HHH, unsurprisingly, kicks Cade’s ass. He locks in the Pedigree… and catches a Codebreaker! Jericho out of nowhere! HHH is sent out of the ring and Jericho and Cade team up to beat on Michaels, which gets them DQ’d. DX wins but HBK is now at Jericho/Cade’s mercy and they continue beating him down. Jericho goes to get a ladder to continue the whupping. Hey, where’d HHH go? Ahhhhh, there he is, as he enters the other side of the ring with Mjolnir in hand. Jericho can see HHH and immediately books it out of the ring. Cade has his back turned and is looking at Jericho all “hey, where are you going?” That’s a funny bit of blocking. BAM, sledgehammer shot to Cade. HBK is tuning up the band, and sure enough, WHAM, Sweet Chin Music! Cade drops from the SCM but immediately gets back up so that SLAM, he can take a Pedigree too. Poor Cade. HHH sets up the ladder for HBK to climb. HBK gives a tiny crotch chop at the top of the ladder, probably to avoid losing his balance, and then hits a splash off the ladder onto Cade. No, I don’t know why he did a splash rather than an elbow drop either. Jericho has safely retreated to the entrance area, and DX taunts him triumphantly from the ring as we go to black.

So, Jericho retains, then?

Manager Results

We are now seeing some real consistency between the weekly manager results and the overall season results.

Five managers cracked 100pts this week – Hamass (121), Pete Moss (115), Rob el Gordo (107), Cheekbone (104) and Catmando (100).They are all in the top 6 managers overall.

The only non-centurion for the week in the top six overall is Scott Hun. In the last two weeks he has gone from the overall lead to a massive 82pts behind Hamass and 4th place.

At this point I would like to remind everyone how after the first week, I predicted the GB&NI crowd would soon start going shit. It’s happened even earlier than I expected. The worst of them is Scotsman in 15th place, although I don’t know if he’s trying.

Anyway here’s the table from last week:

And here’s the table for the season:

Player Results
Since I neglected this section last week, I’ll make up for it this time.

First up, below is the “perfect” squad, assuming no transfers during the season…

Goalkeepers: S Carson (WBA), P Cech (Chelsea)
Defenders: M Turner (Hull City), N Nosworthy (Sunderland), C Davies (Aston Villa), M Laursen (Aston Villa), L Barnett (WBA)
Defensive Midfielders: N Denilson (Arsenal), G Barry (Aston Villa)
Midfielders: S Ireland (Man City), S Petrov (Aston Villa), S Wright-Phillips (Chelsea/Man City)
Strikers: A Zaki (Wigan), K Davies (Bolton Wanderers), J Defoe (Portsmouth)

A few comments on the above:

The goalkeeper generally doesn’t matter, so long as they are playing every week.

Defenders are cheap and worth loads of points, especially those playing for crappy teams that have to do lots of defending. Or for Aston Villa.

The two defensive midfielders above are miles better than anyone else so far this season.

Midfielders and strikers score lower points than defensive outfield players. This is the opposite of typical fantasy games. I suspect The Guardian has tried to balanced points across the pitch and gone too far to one side, in much the same way that their hard news stories go too far to the left.

And what about the other end of the scale? Plenty of players get zero, because they aren’t playing, but these guys are a bit special. Here are six of the worst…

B Myhill (Hull City) – The best goalkeeper has 49pts, the 19th best has 32pts (and has played one less game). Then there is this chump with only 24pts. No wonder Hull also have the highest scoring defender.

J Terry (Chelsea) – England national captain and general douchebag, Terry is also the worst performing defender of those to play every game this season.

A Traore (Portsmouth) – At his current points-per-game average, would need 26 matches to pass Turner’s season best tally achieved in 5 matches. And it’s not just the 6-0 result last week, because the other Portsmouth defenders did alright out of that game.

K Nolan (Bolton Wanderers) – 5 games, 25 points. In one game, Nolan picked up just 1 point – 2pts for playing 90 minutes, 1 for a tackle, minus 2 for a yellow card. I guess he did a lot of little things you don’t notice

L Modric (Tottenham) – Apparently the best player ever on Football Manager. Shit in real life.

R Keane (Liverpool) – The big summer signing from Spurs hasn’t scored a goal yet. So he has half as many points as Robinho… in 2.5 times as many games. In fact, there are strikers that have played one match this season with more points than Keane from five!

View From a Manager
I’ve had to do everything myself this week, so I’m doing the manager view…

Last season I won the fantasy competition, but I’ll let you in on a secret – I don’t know that much about English soccer. I mean I do know more than Hamass, who is doing an excellent job by the way, but a great deal less than someone Taff.

There were two main elements to my ignorant success.

Firstly was picking players I know and like, then whenever one got injured, suspended, or stopped playing, I would transfer in the best player based on season stats I could afford. This is easy and similar to the Hamass approach.

Secondly was that the fantasy league last year told you which players were injured or suspended, and automatically substituted those not playing, so even if you made an error with team selection it wasn’t that bad.

This season auto-subs don’t happen, and so in the first week I had five players not score points, while my entire bench did. Whoops!

Since then you can see I’ve done a lot of tinkering, and last week it finally paid dividends as I had all eleven selected players register points for the first time. Considering two of them were playing for a team that lost 6-0, I’m pretty happy to be 3rd for the week, and now in 6th overall.

Now that I’ve mastered picking a fully-fit team, I’m looking to get a little more advanced with my tactics.

Like this week I’m benching the two attacking Everton players in my side because the Toffees are playing one of the big four clubs. And I’ve changed my formation to the super-defensive and possibly imaginary 5-2-2-1 to reflect the fact that defenders score a lot of points.

I also got rid of Luca Modric, because he’s a cunt.

Further Info
Transfer limits reset at the start of each month, so if you need to, use all the existing ones by the 31st. And you can view injuries at that link I had in last weeks column. Good luck!

Week three was a great one for HRHomer who moved up from 13th place to 4th in the overall standings by making 13 correct picks and winning the week outright. Way at the other end of the weekly leaderboard was Mallard who had the low total of the week with only 5 correct picks. At least, he would have had the low total if n00b had made his picks this week. As a result, n00b gets awarded 3 points and moves to last place overall with 20 points. Probably not the best week to forget to make picks. Yikes.

Elsewhere in the overall standings, nateeasy continues to share the lead at 32 points but not with Kender and manbooba, last week’s co-leaders, as they have had their spots atop the leaderboard taken by Hamass and myself.

WEEK 3 FUN FACTS

For the second straight week the Giants were the lone unanimous choice while everyone but Scotsman picked Buffalo. tron was the only person to correctly pick Miami.

WEEK 3 RESULTS

1. HRH – 13
2. Hamass – 12
2. Shaft – 12
2. YRD – 12
2. viceroy – 12
6. JoeyAt75 – 11
6. Dr. Mort – 11
6. buckdiddy – 11
6. nateeasy – 11
6. PeteMoss – 11
11. Dirty Hun – 10
11. Kender – 10
11. Cheekbone – 10
11. robelgordo – 10
11. Osiris – 10
16. Taff – 9
16. tron – 9
16. Tucho – 9
16. CliffX – 9
16. loosejonnyt – 9
16. manbooba – 9
16. Boner – 9
16. daycru – 9
24. SoP – 8
24. Scotsman – 8
26. Rookie Monster – 7
27. Mallard – 5
28. n00b – 3

OVERALL

1. nateeasy – 32
1. Shaft – 32
1. Hamass – 32
4. HRH – 31
4. Kender – 31
6. YRD – 30
6. viceroy – 30
6. Cheekbone – 30
6. manbooba – 30
10. JoeyAt75 – 29
10. Dr. Mort – 29
10. Dirty Hun – 29
10. robelgordo – 29
10. CliffX – 29
15. Taff – 28
15. daycru – 28
17. buckdiddy – 27
17. PeteMoss – 27
17. Osiris – 27
20. Tucho – 26
20. Boner – 26
22. loosejonnyt – 25
22. SoP – 25
22. Rookie Monster – 25
25. tron – 24
25. Scotsman – 24
25. Mallard – 24
28. n00b – 20

At first it was, “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” Then it was, “Are you on the list?” But now a new volume is upon us and a now we must know, “In every hero, there could be a villain.” I am of course talking about the comic influenced television show, Heroes. It is returning for its third season/volume after a short abrupt end for the second due to the writer’s strike. Heroes follows the mould of that of a comic book where there are multiple arcs, interwoven plots, continuity, and above all else, they leave you wanting more at the end of every season. Season two ended in the beginning of volume three, Villians, where Sylar is seen finally getting back his powers by showing us his telekinesis skill to grab a spinach can.

Heroes is a multi-faceted show with an overall great story, great characters, and above all else a great mind behind it. The one thing I enjoy most about this show is that Tim Kring, the creator, listens to the fans first and adapts the second part of the season to their likes and dislikes. HRG/Noah Bennett(Jack Coleman) is a prime example. Just like Spike in Buffy, the fans enjoyed the fence riding mystery man from The Company who ended up being on the side of good. But then again, with Heroes, there is a blur between which are good and which are bad. But this new volume is going to help make that blur into a nice defined image.

That is one thing I can complement for Heroes. While other shows that set the “clamoring for more” style(Lost, Alias), Heroes has almost perfected it. In volume one, they ended it with Nathan(Adrian Pasdar) and Peter(Milo Ventimiglia) flying into the air where Peter as predicted, exploded from the overload of powers. Along with that they left it open that Sylar(Zachary Quinto) had survived with a blood streak and a shot of a cockroach by an open manhole. In volume two it ends with Natan, once again, biting a bullet(get it bullet, lol, puns are awesome) as he is “assassinated”. They always leave the fans hanging and wanting more. They never give you the whole cake instead they serve you piece by piece.

But the pieces aren’t always great as shown by the first few episodes of Season Two. Sure, they evolved the plot and stories, but they lacked the suspense of the first season. But that was all fine because they redeemed the season with Four Months Ago. There it explained everything we waited for. It gave us what happen to the Petrelli’s in the air, how Nathan healed from the explosion, how Peter got his memory wiped, and what happened to D.L.(Leonard Roberts) It has to be, in my opinion, one of the standout shows. Their ability to go further and farther brings out the strengths in the story helping it weave it so much better.

In Season Two we got us a hefty new addition to the characters with some new heroes. They were; Maya(Dania Ramirez), Alejandro(Shalim Ortiz), West(Nick D’Agosto), Elle(Kristen Bell), and Monica(Dana Davis). The cast grew and fans grumbled. In the end it all worked as hopefully the Heroes crew has learned how to give us a new characters while not disrupting the flow of the story. They also gave us Bob(Stephen Tobolowsky) and Adam/Kensei(David Anders) which gaves us further knowledge of The Company.

Volume Three is set to revolve around the villains which leaves me questioning…will Adam return somehow? Also, if the teasers are indications then Sylar and Angela Petrelli(Cristine Rose) have sided up. As for the heroes themselves, now that Hiro(Masi Oka) and Ando’s(James Kyson Lee) story arc has somewhat completed what is in store for them? Will Nathan survive the assassination(yes)? Will Matt(Greg Grunberg), Mohinder(Sendhil Ramamurthy), and Molly Walker(Adair Tishler) continue their trifecta of teamwork? And most importantly, will the third volume live up to the hype?

All in all, those are some reasons to get into Heroes. NBC has struck gold with this show and as long as Tim Kring and the writers can keep it up it could be one of the few shows that maintain a constant great performance. The DVD for Season Two comes out August 26th so if you want Netflix that or buy it or steal it or jack off in the woods. Whatever you do, Heroes is coming back to NBC on September 22nd so be prepared, I know I will.