The final week of the Premier League season
also sees the final gameweek of the IEFSA Premier division with two relegation
spots still to be decided. Add in a Promotion Playoff between 2nd
and 3rd in the IEFSA Championship, and you have a very tasty Sunday in
store. It seems like an age since the last preview where I signed off by saying
it looked like the title would go down to the wire. Well that prediction crashed
and burned after @FuzzyWarbles lost four games in a row, while @TRKingston
romped home with four wins. The only black-spot during the title run-in for Todd
was the loss in the IEFSA Cup final to @jforquer11. Joel faces @jasonuk17 this
week in the final game of the IEFSA Championship. The winner of that tie will
earn promotion along with @BenDinnery who went up as champion.
With the title wrapped up all the action is
at the other end of the table where any two from five could still find
themselves facing the dreaded drop. The bottom two sides, @nikarg and
@FantasyYIRMA, face each other, with the loser certain to go down. The winner
of that match-up is not guaranteed safety, but because they both have a high
amount of fantasy points scored, it would take three highly improbable results to
relegate them. @TAMc10, @EPL_MOstradamus and my own side simply need to win
their own ties to assure their place in the top eight. The IEFSA/Fantrax
fixture computer has been tough on my side all season and this week is no
different. To stay up my side will have to beat champion @TRKingston. #IEFSpiracy
@TRKingston’s Team
Not many holes in this squad. All the
players average over ten points, with eight players who average over 15 points.
David Silva alone chips in with 21.5 points every week. He has a rather good 8
goals and 11 assists from 28 games played. He also has assisted 61 shots for
teammates. Teammates like four other players on @TRKingston’s roster. Otamendi,
Fernandinho and Gundogan have scored 4 goals each this season; while Oleksandr
Zinchenko may not have any goals so far, but he is a good bet to start the
remaining game against Southampton after playing against Huddersfield last
weekend.
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| Zinchenko, another shrewd signing from @TRKingston |
@TRKingston has only lost five times all
season (never to my side I might add) and on those occasions my side would have
been the victors against Todd on a losing week only once. He has soundly beaten my team twice
already. If he makes it a hat-trick on Sunday, then I’m sure to be relegated.
What I Need To Happen
If Todd could head off to the beach early
this year that would be great. With the league wrapped up perhaps a lot of his Manchester
City players will be thinking of the beach too, or at least the World Cup. His
side is tantalizingly close to scoring 4000 points for the season though and he
perhaps will be gunning for that target this week. He needs 125 points.
If my side were to reach 4000 points I’d
need to score 1257. I’m not sure Luka Milivojevic can take that many penalties.
But like Swansea this weekend, I just have to cross my fingers and hope.
The Palace midfielder has been one of my
better players this season. He has top scored with ten goals (the same as Todd’s
topscorer!) and been crucial in my side not been totally embarrassed some
weeks. The other star player has been Nick Pope of Burnley. 11 clean sheets
this season have helped the Clarets to seventh in the league, and perhaps
a European place.
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| That's two more goals than Zlatan has... |
Looking through my squad…… well…. It’s a depressing
sight. Big money was spent to bring in Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who now (occasionally)
plays with the LA Galaxy. Serge Aurier was another big signing but failed to
cement a place in the Spurs defence. At the start of the season, most of the
budget went on the Newcastle pair of Gayle and Shelvey, but by the time they
came into form for their club, I had them shipped off to waivers. I even bought
back Dwight Gayle for a couple of games, just when he lost his goal scoring
touch for a second time. Victor Lindelof was my most expensive defender back then
but has only managed to feature in 16 games this season. Tom Ince was due to
light up the Premier League this year. Two goals and barely over 9 points per
game prove only that I wasted 40m of my budget. Cue the winger being dropped
for next season only to be picked up by @TRKingston and go on to win the golden
boot.
Predictions
All I can predict at this stage is that
there will be no fingernails left on the five managers hovering over the drop
zone come five o’clock on Sunday afternoon. In the Championship promotion playoff,
perhaps @jforquer11 is the slight favourite after winning the IEFSA Cup final.
All the other match-ups this weekend will go exactly against my team, just as
they have done most of the season. Just as they have been engineered to, by the dreaded IEFSA/Fantrax fixture computer!
It’s been another great season in IEFSA,
with the new format I believe going down well. Only 9 points separated third
from tenth in the Premier, and only 3 points the difference between all the bottom five. The
top of the Championship was a tight run thing too, with only 8 points the difference
between @BenDinnery on top and (unluckiest team of the season?) @SportsByGotti
in fifth.
Whatever
happens this weekend. Good Luck Everyone, and see you next season. Oh, and go and follow @THE_IEFSA on Twitter, you know you want to.
