GW1 Update

An excellent weekend of football!  Unless you happen to be a Leeds fan. 

Our inaugural fantasy football league got off to a flying start, with a total of 71 students, staff and alumni taking part. 

Each week, I’ll be aiming to provide updates on the ups-and-downs, screamers-and-own-goals, and general commentary on our little competition, whilst also trying my utmost to convince everyone (including myself) that there is any “academic and educational value” to all of this. 

Our Manager of the Week has to be Joseph Waring, whose team Flying without Ings accumulated an excellent 112 points. Joseph achieved this without playing any of the “bonus chips”, but only time will tell whether this was luck or Guardiola-esque football management genius.

The Most Selected Player in our Mini-League in GW1 was Egyptian goal machine, Mo Salah, owned by 50 managers in our league (70%).  Salah is also the Most Captained Player in GW1 with 40 managers (57%) giving him the armband for a juicy haul of 34pts.

The Great Escape Prize this week goes to our very own Professor Emre Unlu.  Professor Unlu, who holds a PhD in Economics and lists “Game Theory” and “Decision Making Processes” amongst his myriad research interests, inexplicably captained Romelu Lukaku despite media reports that “Big Rom” would be unavailable for the game against Palace on Saturday having only just signed from Inter Milan on Thursday evening.  Yet, Professor Unlu also selected Paul Pogba as his Vice Captain, earning 48pts from Pogba’s record-equalling four assists in a single game.  Pogba only managed three assists in the entire 2020/21 season.  There’s maybe a lesson in here somewhere regarding game theory and risk mitigation**, and Professor Unlu's experience may also getting us to think about how we can apply these economic theories in fantasy football.

(** - Fantasy Football is a competitive game.  Not a cooperative game).   

This week’s Bench Warmers are Dr Mike Gow (yours truly) and Katie Bolger who both conspired to leave 15pts worth of talent on the bench. Further analysis of their team names - Judas Ancelotti and 50 Shades of (Demarai) Gray - indicate a possible affection for The People’s Club, the oldest and most prestigious team in Merseyside.  It may also explain their decision to leave bargain-basement Koppite defender Konstantinos Tsimikas (6pts/£4.0m) out of their starting line-up in favour of perennial fantasy football underachiever, Lucas Digne (2pts/£5.5m).

To the bottom of the table and a heart-wrenching tale of pain, hope and despair.  Damian Long’s aptly named team Aaaaaa headed into the final game of the week having accumulated a less than impressive 19pts.  Yet, at precisely 5:29pm on Sunday, Damian still held on to a fleeting modicum of hope with his captain, Roberto Firmino, still to play against Norwich. 

This ray of hope lasted until 5:30pm when Jurgen Klopp surprised everyone by (a) opting for contact lenses instead of his usual spectacles, and (b) leaving Firmino on the bench in favour of Diogo Jota.  Firmino was then subbed on at the hour mark, scoring a goal, and earning Damian an invaluable 14 points.  However, joy yet again became delusion as Damian realized this was not enough to lift him from the bottom of the table where remains with his hard won total of 33pts. Oh, how the fickle finger of fantasy football so cruelly toys with our emotions. 

As we move on through the season, efforts will be made to make this a little more “academic” – and we’ll look at some helpful resources, relevant theories, statistics, chip plays, most transferred in/out, and heuristics/bias.  I will also be exploring other ways to communicate updates and interesting articles and resources other than via these weekly emails. 

You have until 11am on Saturday 21^st August to fix your teams for GW2. 

Good Luck

Mike Gow