Premier League Fantasy Football 2022-23

[Neil Graham]

I didn't even know I was part of an ECF Fantasy Football competition. I literally forget to update my team 95% of the time!

Hi Anthony - firstly this isn't anything to do with the ECF - it's simply a League for chess players and as far as I know the largest in numbers (141 entrants) for chess players in the UK. If you log into Fantasy Football you can see that you are a member of this League. Each year I renew the League and you are automatically entered as you were a member in previous seasons.

Moving on to the second sentence some managers take this extremely seriously and you can soon see who they are and who are those who entered a team in Week 1 and have forgotten about it ever since. In your case you still have the opportunity to play your Free Hit, Bench Boost and Triple Captain chips in the last few weeks before the season's end. As you are currently in 129th place overall perhaps you can overtake some of those above you - after all if you look back in these reports you were the high scorer of the week no so long ago!

[Neil Graham]

Week 31

‘We can’t get away from seven defeats from eight games Dean Smith, Leicester's new manager.

In the merry-go-round of managers, Dean Smith (sacked by Norwich in December 2022) has been appointed as Leicester manager. With Roy Hodgson back at Palace we confidently await Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce and sundry others to be in post shortly. In Premier Chess the deckchairs are shuffled once more with Sam Herring back into the top five; James Friar still out in front. Neil Jamieson with his team "Reti Rovers" outflanked the remaining managers to score 98 points this week but pride of place to Chris Goodall whose score of 11 was the all-time low of the season in 11,311,971st place - lucky he was able to bring on Olise from the bench to add 3 points to his previous score of 8.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 70 2109
2 Hibbert for England David Lambert 78 2098
3 Lord of the Ings Alex Leslie 70 2097
4 Slumdog Mignolet Sam Herring 77 2088
5 Ince and Ruud Mark Leonard 64 2086

Premier Chess Cup After the preliminary round last week, 128 managers now compete for our K.O. Trophy - we'll give a fuller update once we are down to fewer teams.

[Neil Graham]

Week 32

They've replaced their interim manager by a previously sacked interim manager - radio pundit . Spurs sack Stellini; Ryan Mason takes over.

Could this year's Premier Chess be a family affair? Leader James Friar is joined by Joe Friar in the top five as just six managers are now within 50 points of our leader. Melvin Pool has the week's best score with 90 points whilst some 80 points in arrears is Chris James on 10 - still persisting with Cameron Archer as his strike force. Archer is currently on loan to Middlesbrough but had played a total of 43 minutes before moving to the north-east. There is another series of mid week matches starting this evening as the season draws to a close which explains the early report.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 81 2190
2 Liverpool Matthew Timbrell 83 2162
3 Ince and Ruud Mark Leonard 63 2149
4 Lord of the Ings Alex Leslie 48 2145
5 Frying High Joe Friar 75 2145

Overall Top manager is Serbian Ivan Capko whose team Crazy_KeJP^.- has now amassed 2,318 points - so almost 130 ahead of our leader. Ivan has been in the top ten now since Week 17 - can he hold on till the end of the season?

[Neil Graham]

Week 33

"There are still five games to play." Mikel Arteta after Arsenal's loss to Manchester City.

James Friar has extended his lead to an impressive 39 points - but he has no chips left to play; but neither have his rivals. There is one exception Alex Leslie still holds both his Free Hit and Triple Captain cards and these may prove vital especially in upcoming Game Week 34. Thomas Evans proved to be Superman with the top score of the week whereas Chris Goodall was again the week's Lex Luthor of lowest points. Perhaps Chris is holding his Wild Card in reserve till Week 38? We reach the round of 32 in the Premier Chess Cup next week and our coverage will begin then with news of the final 16 qualifiers.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 66 2256
2 Liverpool Matthew Timbrell 57 2219
3 SAN1 Sylwester Nowak 72 2209
4 Lord of the Ings Alex Leslie 62 2207
5 Ince and Ruud Mark Leonard 56 2205

Overall In the cosmopolitan world of Fantasy Football as usual England lag behind - in the top ten overall there are two English managers - trailing behind three from Egypt.

[Neil Graham]

Week 34

"There's nobody ahead of me in terms of footballing knowledge" Sam Allardyce appointed Leeds manager with 4 games to gp.

In Week 31 we were calling for the return of Big Sam alongside such other luminaries as Steve Bruce - well like Arnold Schwarzenegger he's back but can he terminate the hopes of the other relegation candidates? Week 38 should tell us. Meanwhile in Premier Chess, James Friar has suddenly opened a large gap over his rivals as they interchange positions. The average score for this week was 82 points and we have to descend to position 59 to find a manager who didn't achieve this score. Meanwhile dozens reached 100+ points for the week with Yong Wang the most prolific on 146 points. It almost pains me to say that Chris Goodall's score of 14 points is the season's nadir of 11,347.165th place.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 129 2381
2 SAN1 Sylwester Nowak 123 2332
3 Dynamo Flick James Marley 132 2330
4 Slumdog Mignolet Sam Herring 134 2328
5 Lord of the Ings Alex Leslie 112 2319

Overall The overall leader has now reached 2,500 points.

[Neil Graham]

Premier Chess Cup

We are now down to the last 16 - so here are the pairings with the matches to take place in Week 35. Current positions in the League in brackets

Mr Richard Arlison (James Friar 1st) v Great Podenceial (Thomas Evans 8th)

SAN1 (Sylwester Nowak 2nd ) v Pattersonaikos (Colin Patterson 69th)

Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 17th) v bobsy all stars (John Reyes 75th)

Bowen out in style (Joel Newman 21st) v MoHaaland Drive (Grant Bucher 47th)

Means No Offense (Kaia Means 9th) v Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 46th)

Mostly (David Egginton 29th) v Coopers Troopers XI (Mike Swanwick 87th)

TicklyTim's Team (Tim Lunn 39th v ‘96 Comeback Special (Ed Dodds 55th)

Amartey McFly (Taran Jina 48th) v Östersunds (Eldar Alizada 112th)

[Neil Graham]

Week 35

I think these two will last to the end of the season TikTok podcast on Steve Cooper and David Moyes.

It was a dismal week for plenty of Premier Chess managers with Haaland not scoring. Such is the dependence on the star striker that our inveterate backmarker Chris Goodall outscored seven of our leading top ten. James Friar has cemented his top position and is now 2400 plus; over 50 points ahead of his nearest rivals who are still jockeying for second place. The top scorer of the week was 134th placed Dave Ledger on 67 whilst Lorcan Pritchard's team "Gangsta’s Allardyce" was 142nd and last for the week.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 44 2425
2 Dynamo Flick James Marley 43 2373
3 Slumdog Mignolet Sam Herring 36 2364
4 SAN1 Sylwester Nowak 31 2363
5 Lord of the Ings Alex Leslie 30 2349

Finally Only four of the top 50 overall teams managed to score over 50 points. Every team selected you-know-who as double points captain.

[Neil Graham]

Premier Chess Cup

Mr Richard Arlison (James Friar 1st) 44-31 Great Podenceial (Thomas Evans 8th)

SAN1 (Sylwester Nowak 2nd ) 31-34 Pattersonaikos (Colin Patterson 69th)

Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 17th) 45-33 bobsy all stars (John Reyes 75th)

Bowen out in style (Joel Newman 21st) 43-41 MoHaaland Drive (Grant Bucher 47th)

Means No Offense (Kaia Means 9th) 31-54 Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 46th)

Mostly (David Egginton 29th) 33-38 Coopers Troopers XI (Mike Swanwick 87th)

TicklyTim's Team (Tim Lunn 39th) 43-36 ‘96 Comeback Special (Ed Dodds 55th)

Amartey McFly (Taran Jina 48th) 28-41 Östersunds (Eldar Alizada 112th)

Quarter Final draw

Bowen out in style (Joel Newman 23rd) v TicklyTim's Team (Tim Lunn 39th)

Mr Richard Arlison (James Friar 1st) v Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 40th)

Coopers Troopers XI (Mike Swanwick 89th) v Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 17th)

Pattersonaikos (Colin Patterson 73rd) v Östersunds (Eldar Alizada 112th)

[Neil Graham]

Week 36

“Today I have received notification of my eight-month ban from football" Ivan Toney admits 232 breaches of betting regulations.

Not surprisingly Toney, who will not reappear till January 2024, is the most transferred out player for Game Week 37. After hitting the 2,400 point mark in GameWeek 35, James Friar crashes through the 2,500 barrier. He has now topped Premier Chess for the last eight successive weeks whilst below him the bun-fight continues with 6 managers in the runner-up position over that period. His lead over his closest three challengers is still around the forty point mark. An inspired triple points captaincy for Callum Wilson ensured that James Chase was Paw Patroller of the week on 141 points - the season's best score whilst no surprise who was the Mayor Humdinger - Chris Goodall occupying the Foggy Bottom position again this week.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 83 2508
2 Slumdog Mignolet Sam Herring 105 2469
3 SAN1 Sylwester Nowak 104 2467
4 Dynamo Flick James Marley 93 2466
5 Ince and Ruud Mark Leonard 97 2441

Overall The overall leader has now amassed a staggering 2,663 points.

[Neil Graham]

Premier Chess Cup

Here are the Quarter-Final results :-

Bowen out in style (Joel Newman 23rd) 94-127 TicklyTim's Team (Tim Lunn 39th)

Mr Richard Arlison (James Friar 1st) 83-107 Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 40th)

Coopers Troopers XI (Mike Swanwick 89th) 65-67 Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 17th)

Pattersonaikos (Colin Patterson 73rd) 91-67 Östersunds (Eldar Alizada 112th)

Our resident Cup expert Patrick Coleman, Winner in 2021-2022 thrashes League Leader James Friar - can he complete a Cup double?

Semi Final Draw

Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 25th) v TicklyTim's Team (Tim Lunn 32nd)

Pattersonaikos (Colin Patterson 72nd) v Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 35th)

[Neil Graham]

Week 37

"We deserve to play in the Europa League" Roberto de Zerbi as Brighton & Hove Albion qualify for Europe for the first time.

It was pretty much no change at the top and only a swing of epic proportions will prevent James Friar after nine successive weeks at the top of the League from finishing in first place in the final Gameweek. With all the top managers scoring around the seventy point mark the remaining places are still in doubt. Ed Dodds features as high scorer of the week whilst Jake Thomas is in last position. As Jake has made just one transfer and used none of his chips over the season there is no surprise that he trails our leader by almost 1,000 points.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 73 2581
2 Dynamo Flick James Marley 75 2541
3= SAN1 Sylwester Nowak 72 2539
3= Slumdog Mignolet Sam Herring 70 2539
5 Ince and Ruud Mark Leonard 79 2516

Overall The overall leader is Ali Jahangirov of Azerbaijan who has been in 1st position for the last five weeks. On 2728 points he is eighteen points ahead of his nearest rival. With clubs making multiple changes will Ali stick with Haaland or hand the armband to another player?

[Neil Graham]

Week 38 Preview

Unlike some previous years there is no cliffhanger for the title of Premier Chess Fantasy champion as James Friar can park his Mr Richard Alison bus (see previous report on his team name) and watch whilst Sam Herring, James Marley and Sylwester Nowak jostle for runners -up spot. Other than that the only remaining question is can Chris Goodall (who let's remember started in Week 7) reach 1,000 points?

Moving on to the Premier Chess Cup

Semi-Final results:-

Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 25th) 91-73 TicklyTim's Team (Tim Lunn 32nd)

Pattersonaikos (Colin Patterson 72nd) 61-62 Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 35th)

so the final is Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 17th) v Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 37th)

An astonishing piece of management from Patrick, who as we know is our resident Cup expert. He used four transfers costing 12 points overall in Week 37 bringing in Mitoma, Mahrez, Martial and finding no more players starting with"M", Walker who between them scored 28 points. Can he repeat the trick against high scoring Ben Fearnhead in the Final?

[Neil Graham]

Week 38

The final results are in. Congratulations to James Friar on winning this year's Premier Chess League. Although the gap narrowed there was little chance of his rivals finding forty extra points. Melvin Pool made a belated appearance into the top five whilst Suhayl Abdalla headed the scores for the week with Lorcan Pritchard the backmarker.

1 Mr Richard Arlison James Friar 44 2625
2 Dynamo Flick James Marley 63 2600
3 Slumdog Mignolet Sam Herring 59 2594
4 SAN1 Sylwester Nowak 56 2587
5 Melvinho XI Melvin Pool 72 2567

Premier Cup Result Ben is Mee (Ben Fearnhead 16th) 51-54 Kane and Ables (Patrick Coleman 36th)

Ben made three transfers in Week 38 which cost him 8 points; whilst the choice of Kane as one garnered some 32 points the two others meant that once again Patrick who stuck with his selected team from previous weeks became Premier Chess Cup Winner for a second successive year.

More to follow.

[James Friar Jnr]

Can’t believe I’ve actually won after many years of barely entering the top 5.

Well played all… roll on next season!

[LawrenceCooper]

I just noticed that my score is identical to my classical FIDE rating!