Curse of the Kop

Ever since I started playing Fantasy Football on Facebook, I have noticed a disturbing trend that has always put in an cryptic dilemma: Everytime I select a Liverpool player in FF land, he will sensationally flop; and when I release him, he will shine in real life! In summary, if I have a few Liverpool players on board in FF, the Liverpool in reality will flop as a team, and when I don’t have any Liverpool players on my FF team, the team will more often than not score wins in reality! Sigh.

So, in reality…while this would be good news for me (Liverpool not performing), it would be bad news for me in FF land…

This ‘curse’ took to a new level last year when I kept Steven Gerard on my team on and off for most parts of the season. During a particular stretch, not only was he not performing (in real life) , he succumb to a groin injury that kept him out for the rest of the season!

This year, I monitored Gerard as his price dropped in early season. He was only at 14.3M when I gleefully bought him, which I felt was a bargain. Furthermore, his return coincided with one of the softest stretches for Liverpool, starting with Norwich City. (See where this blog is going..) Since it was a home game, I installed Gerard as captain too!

Alas! The curse struck again when Liverpool could only manage a 1-1 draw with the Canaries. Gerard didn’t even score nor get a clean sheet! looks like I’m gonna have to revisit this dilemma all over again!

Do I keep Gerard so that Liverpool continue to drop points (for real!)? Or drop him completely so that my FF team would stand a better chance? Hmmmm…For now, I would simply just keep him only if to increase the value of my team. His price has rocketed beyond 15M already!

Elsewhere, I am still dizzy reeling from the nightmare in Old Trafford last Sunday night. As a result, I have decided to ‘punish’ the poor display from my Man Utd boys by making a FF team for this coming weekend with ZERO Man Utd players. It would be a first in my career as FF Manager.

Not sure if I did the right thing, or did I not think straight when I made the trades, but I sincerely hope the ‘rest’ will do them good. I will probably buy them back after this weekend’s away clash at Goodison Park.

Here’s my tentative starting 11 for GameWeek 10 this weekend: