TooSerious

For those who take it way too seriously

Arsenal v Stoke City 1-0
Monreal made his debut at LB with Gibbs out injured. Wenger surprisingly left Santi Cazorla and Podolski on the bench. Podolski comng off the bench to score the winner. Vermeelen was injured.
Crouch was again preferred to Jones as Stoke looked more solid than they have for weeks.
WBA v Spurs 0-1
Spurs unbeaten in 9 now after Bale's 11th league goal of the season (9th away from home). WBA who had Povov sent off for spitting have now lost five from six and their slide continues. Long and Lukaka both started.
BAE started as Naughton took his place on the bench. Holtby replaced the injured Defoe. Dawson started for the sixth straight league match.
West Ham v Swansea 1-0
No goal in six league games now for Michu who assumed the CF position with Danny Graham moving onto pastures new. Vorm's replacement Tremmel played a blinder but couldn't stop Carroll from scoring. Carroll and Nolan renewed their promising partnership.
Demel, who has been in shocking form, missed out altogether although it's unclear if he was injured in WHU's previous game. Joe Cole was again benched for most of the game.
Reading v Sunderland 2-1
Jimmy, Kebe was afforded a start and impressed with two goals. Harte's assist for the second earned praise from his manager.
Le Fondre was again resigned to the bench as was Danny Guthrie. New signing Blackman replaced The Pog after 70mins.
Gardner scored from the spot for lacklustre Sunderland, who brought on Danny Graham for the last 10mins.
Fulham v Man Utd 0-1
A good performance didn't bring any points home for The Cottagers. Rooney won it with his 3rd goal in two games as Evans, Valencia and Nani all started.
Fulham recalled Riise but Berbatov missed out with a hammy, while Frimpong exchanged an Arsenal bench-spot for a Fulham bench-sopt. Hangeland came off with injury and could miss a few, Hughes replaced him.
Man City v Liverpool 2-2
Tevez spent all game on the bench despite City desperately needing...
<p style='font: inherit;]Yes, I know, historically, we've always waited until the final week of the NAB to do Rate-My-Teams. Namely because your team will change aridiculousamount between now and then.
<p style='font: inherit;]However, I'm softening on that stance a little. I mean, sure, I won't be joining in on the fun cause as I mentioned, it's a littlesuperfluous, but hey, doesn't mean that those of you who want to review stuff early day can't, right?


So get into the comments and have at it.



And to get the ball rolling, and maybe offer up a little bit of formatting, here's my first cut to tear apart.



DEF: B. Goddard, B. Gibbs, D. Heppell, N. Bock, L. Brown, B. Staker (S. Docherty, D. Van Unen)

MID: G. Ablett, S. Pendlebury, T. Cotchin, K. Jack, L. Whitfield, E. Kavanagh, K. Mitchell, J. O'Meara (B. Crouch, J. Viney)

RUC: H. McIntosh, M. Leuenberger (M. Daw, C. Sinclair)

FWD: L. Franklin, D. Cox, P. Ryder, T. Rockliff, D. Martin, S. Mayes (B. Macaffer, R. Atkins)



Have at it.



(And yanno, if you're looking for a TS league to join, head on over here
We all know the value of a non-playing rookie Fwd-Ruc. (And if you don't, you'll have to read my upcoming article on the value of a rookie Fwd-Ruc. Spoiler: Captains loophole)



And the cheapest one available is McBean.



So why have I chosen Sinclair?



Sinclair vs Mcbean

$112,200 vs $109,500



Seems an easy decision doesn't it. Mcbean is a $3k cheaper. badda bing badda boom. Done.



No.



Why are we selecting a non-playing rookie Fwd-Ruc? Well, yes, the extra cash is nice, and the potential extra coverage from having Cox/Ryder in the forwardline is nice as well, but what I'm talking about here, is the spoiler.



The Captains/Bench Loophole.



And how does that loophole work again? You need a none-playing player, who plays late in the weekend.



So lets take a look here.



Richmond (McBean) have the following fixture



Round 1: Thursday

Round 2: Friday

Round 3: Sunday

Round 4: Saturday

Round 5: Friday



Meanwhile West Coast (Sinclair) roll the following:



Round 1: Saturday

Round 2: Sunday

Round 3: Saturday

Round 4: Saturday

Round 5: Saturday



That's 3 weeks over the first 5 that McBean is actually useless as a Captains loophole donut, while Sinclair offers the double chance every single week.



Now, after round 5, McBean doesn't ever play on Friday again (and would be a suggested downgrade if you rolled that way), but for mine, I'd expect to have at least 1 none playing (see: injured) player in your squad from round 6 onwards anyways.



Now, the million dollar question, is that level of flexibility over the first 5 weeks worth it? 3 cracks at a double captain? yeah, I'd take that over $3k (or what, roughly .7ppg)
As die-hard Supercoach Players we have always sat back and been little disappointed that they haven't implemented an Eliminator style game like Dream Team have for years. Most other fantasy sports around world have a game within the game.
There is nothing better than seeing your side, which might be out of overall or finals contention make a late season run in knockout competition. It gives you something to play for.
Well here at Too Serious we are thinking of taking this to the next level. In that other football&amp;rdquo;, otherwise known as soccer here in Australia the Champions League is one of the biggest club tournaments going around. What makes this so good? Well basically even the smaller clubs get to play a few games and aren't knocked out in first week if they come up against one the big rich clubs.
What we are thinking is to base a competition on this. It would include a Group Stage&amp;rdquo; and then go onto Knockout Stage&amp;rdquo; later in the year, after each side has played each other twice (or more if there is no real interest) in the group stage. The top 2 or 4 of each group would go through to final 16/32 (all depending on numbers)
Based on my calculations, and bear in mind that maths wasn't my strongest subject at school if we could get 64 players it would run smoothly.
8 groups of 8 teams, play each other twice = 14 games
Top 4 go through.

5 knockout rounds = 22 rounds
In that we don't play at all during 3 bye weeks.
That leaves 1 round free, which is good as thinking due to all players that get rested in last round of season we could have final in Round 22.
Obviously we don't have any idea how many people would be interested, so if it interests you please let us know. We would potentially require people to put their hand up to be group captain&amp;rdquo; to update results from each group.
**Please note this is still just idea that we've had and obviously lot work needs to go into it to get it up and running**

You can...
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<p style='margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;]The final three, who will it be? That rhymes and you know it does, admit it. Remember it's just one man's opinion, but that that man comes with a pretty high recommendation. The ORFFL premiership says hello.
<p style='margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;]So this wraps up the club preview component of the ORFFL preseason. There's a still a trade period going on that has around a month to go, and there'll be a preview of the up coming draft, and update threads along the way in case anything gets closed. Happy February everyone!

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With Supercoach and Dreamteam tonight, it's probably a good time to get our first open chat session up for the year.



It's only a temporary mockup of how our chat will be working this year, but give it a shakedown and let us know what it's like!



You can access tonights chat here
Premier League



Linsanity 17 (3-10) 1400 v Westside Hardcore (7-6) 1371



Linsanity was able to post consecutive wins for the first time this season with a hard fought win over Westside. This result was in doubt until the final day and due to D12 having a quiet game against OKC, Linsanity was able to sneak past Westside. Ersanity was back in town with (193/3) followed by J Smoove (173/4) and Dragic (165/4). Westside will be hoping to bounce back this week to shore up their position in the finals and this week were best served by Aldridge (165/4), T Thompson (135/3) and Crawford (133/5).

Kings of Karlos (8-5) 1438 v Fudge's Sixers (2-11) 1228



Karlos was able to cement their spot in the top 6 with a good win against Fudge this round. Curry led the way with (208/4), followed by D Will (195/4) and Redick (132/3). For Fudge, the best players were Knight (142/4), Nene (141/4) and the Truth (132/4). Fudge will be looking towards the minor round finals to see if he can avoid relegation by winning the wild card.

Wade Machine (6-7) 1388 v Run TMC (5-7-1) 1373



This was the closest match in the Premier League this round and Wade Machine was able to score the win. Wade Machine played 4 less games the Run TMC and was best served by KG (192/4), Wade (151/3) and Millsap (149/3). Owen is settling down to married life and his team was led by Noah (208/4), Bledsoe (149/5) and Westbrook (143/4).

Ruddy's Cavaliers (7-6) 1588 v Adelaide Maggotz (4-8-1) 1414


The Cavaliers piled on the misery for the Maggotz who are struggling just at the minute with a comfortable victory this round thus cementing their place in the main pack chasing a finals berth. Once again Durant was the best with (271/4) followed by Artest (167/4) and Monroe (167/4). The best players for the Maggotz were Harden (225/4), Okafor (155/4) and Anderson (162/4).

Jasmine's Mob (11-2) 1672 v Ant hak (7-6) 1347...
What's this I see before me? A few new links in the menu bar?



Stats and Donate.



Yes, we've finally gotten the new stats page moved across to TS4.0 and if I do say so myself, it looks pretty swish.



The old filter is gone, replaced with something that I believe is a lot more simpler to use. Simply click on what you want to see, then apply the filter. No more trying to beat the refresh to apply more than one filter at a time!



We've also merged the old, kinda confusing 'Basic' and 'Fantasy' stats into the one display, so at all times, you have access to the full array of statistics available hear at TS. (Just click that 'More Stats' button to cycle through them)



Of course, I'm expecting bug reports, so lay them on me if things break, but take note- I already know that the sorting is slightly dodgy and it's first on the list of fixes!



Next up, donations are back up and running on the site. Not much has changed here. You still head over to the donate page and do the paypal thing. The only major differences from previous years, is that you're now stuck with the ads! However, since the new site is build around them (rather than just cramming them in where they kinda fit), things tend to look a little silly when they disappear.



One of the donor features from last year, the ability to change the rows viewed, is still in development (after bug fixes), so I've defaulted it to a luxurious 50 rows, rather than the annoy not-enough-for-a-full-team 20 - but that will be back, so don't high-five your wallets just yet! :p



The individual player pages have undergone quite a change, and are still being developed, so don't expect them for a couple of weeks yet. Need to fix bugs, then roll the site over to the 2013 season first before I can get back into them.



Finally, a couple of the derived stats are still being recalculated in the background- so if things are missing, don't fret,...
With teams having to select 8 midfielders in 2013, the midfielders priced at around $500K-$560K will most likely come into play again. Most teams will try stacking their midfields with as many premiums as possible but can you afford to have 5 midfielders priced at 620K+ and then try get quality team elsewhere? From early preseason talk, it seems most players are considering running 2 or 3 rookies as usual in midfield, as that is where all the big points are scored you don't want to fall behind 8-ball early on by playing too many rookies in there.
Today I decided to take a quick look at 2 midfielders priced at around $550K that have showed signs of big breakout year and could save you fair amount cash to use elsewhere.Whilst they probably arent technically 'mid-pricers' they fit the bill as breakout candidates and that what aim of these articles are about.

RORY SLOANE
2010: 75
2011: 88
2012: 106
2013 Price: $567K
In 2012 had somewhat of breakout season, which saw him top the ton on 12 occasions. In those 12 he had 5 scores over 120 including season high 178 against Fremantle in round 10. He was remarkably consistent; in further 5 games he scored over 86. That's 17 of his 21 games he scored over 86. The good thing about this is he has ton of improvement left in him and his 4 scores in 70's brings his price down to very tasty $567,000 in 2013.
Sloane is now entering his 5th season and is in the age bracket where they start to play their best football. Adelaide have really good draw and will be fighting it out deep in September so they should get good piece of the Supercoach pie.
Downside to Sloane is fact Adelaide has few star midfielders including Scott Thompson and Patrick Dangerfield who are likely to steal points off him. But keep in mind Scott Thompson isn't getting any younger and they might look to ease him back and let Sloane pick up the slack. Other good thing with star midfielders alongside is that they will get tagged before Sloane,...
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<p style='margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;]Part V and we begin to move into the final 6. Not to denigrate or diminish the chances of those ORFFL clubs mentioned previously, but for mine these 3 clubs mentioned in this preview have seriously strong claims to the The Jar in 2013. If I wasn't the coach of who I'm the coach of, I would be scared.


<p style='margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica;]But I am and I'm not. Read on.[span style='line-height: 20px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;...