Love, Six and Magic

Epic Fail’s Missus knows best

Definitely seems to be the case. Despite what Mindgames Guru Peppie might say, Norwich have had a cracking fortnight in their lead up from mid table to 2nd place, first witnessing a record value rise for Marquinhos, following up with 6 out of 6 successful bids in Round 5 and 6.  Coincidentally, Isacki is now in East Anglia partying it out with the Norfolk. Maybe other clubs should welcome him home too.

Norwich have clearly shown with a solid couple of rounds, anything is possible in TWS. Maybe Round 7 and the Transfer Window will see some other team pull off a Norwich. But can they do it without Epic Fail’s Missus?

Without further ado, let me unveil some juicy stats about this round’s secret bids…

Vital statistics

Average bid amount: 9.13 tokens

That’s a marginal decrease from the previous round of bidding for midfielders, where it was 10.35

Most common bid amount: 2 (13.3% of bids with a 25% success rate)

TWS started off with 1 as being the most common bid at a successful rate, then its been 2 for a while now (bar the strikers round). The twoken strategy is probably not so successful anymore, maybe there’s a new minimum out there.

All tiebreakers were resolved by more tokens remaining.

Teams that have spent more will have to spend that extra token to be sure of beating the tie. Watch out for the Gooners, who by the looks of it, are still sticking to their 30 token self-imposed budget.

Cheekiest successful bids: Valero (€19 m/token) and Denisov (€16 m/token)

Whilst Aston Villa have become the new bargain kings since the acquisition of Lionel Messi, Arsenal have made Wenger proud with another high ROI deal.

Most valuable homeless target: Ferdinandinho (€32m)

The Hindsight XI seems to get better and bigger with every Round. Captain Hindsight would have won TWS easily.

No released players.

Whilst Villa will be on a bidding holiday this Round, it should be noted that Round 7 is the last round where player releases have a penalty of 2 tokens.

Average ROI = Median ROI = €3.5m/token

After 6 Rounds, is this possibly a good indication of what ROI we can expect to see from the winning team?

Average tokens spent so far: 60 per team

60% budget used after 60% Rounds are completed. TWS Perfection.

Marchetti’s

Wonderful selection of strikers this week for you to peruse including FFS favourites – NGog, Weimann, Ba, Torres, Defoe and Kevin Phillips. But lets look at the oddity. Routinely throughout this competition Barcelona players have been left of the auction list. Given that they are all of high value one has to question what they have done wrong? Is it an acceptance that Barca are no longer a big gun in world football? Its fair to say they were a dominate force recently in the champions league, but every dog has its day and without Pep they are clearly going to get relegated next season. Some might even suggest that the imminent purchase of Bale will be enough for Real to send Barca to the deepest depths of hell.

Or do you all just not like Alexis Sanchez? Personally I am a big fan. Cheaper than Messi on UCL fantasy football and still got a fair number of goals in him. This 26M forward scored 8 goals in 29 matches last season in the league, only playing seven of those matches for the full 90 minutes. In Aug last season his value hit 33.5M and with interest from Juventus there is no reason why he cant have another completely random price hike. I pity the fool who didn’t transfer target this bad boy.

Order of Extreme Valour

I said at the start of this competition that I would congratulate all clubs who signed their own real life players. City went all out this week with a 30 token bid to secure their man, David Silva. Might not have been great business but you can’t underestimate how much the fans will get behind the club now. Fulham may have angered Spurs this week by recapturing Dembele for 3 tokens. (Don’t fear as his cheaper namesake from Fulham is in the strikers auction list too)

But unfortunately for these two teams something else happened this week. This one is for those who were around during the quiz break, like spring break but for quizsters. Super Oscar Babbyyyy, developed a certain fascination for a particular player, spouting their name for the answer to any question. Now Crystal Palace successfully captured his good luck charm, Arda Turan.  The Valour award is theirs this week.

Jose Mourinho Rumour Mill

If you’d like to wind up your rivals or test the market with a few mindgames, get them on the ticker.

It’s been a rather busy week for ticker requests. So let’s sip a cup of Cafe Au Lait and enjoy the latest gems:

Manchester United owner COMH’s reaction to City’s overspending “I’d just like to remind Man City that they cannot spend more than 100 tokens. There’s no way around this time”

The cross-Manchester rivalry has been a great spectacle throughout TWS with COMH’s sarcasm indicating that Man City have all but no chance of winning TWS now. But it gets even better….

Man City manager In Tommy We Trust reacts to COMH’s remarks by saying “Let us play our game and you play yours. We believe in getting a strong team of core players. Unlike United, we retain our best players. David Silva, he’s the very best”

What a fitting comeback from the other side of Manchester. And I completely agree, hence the Valour award nomination.

Palace Ash has been reported missing for the past 72 hours. Rumours that Super Oscar Baabbbyy has kidnapped him and Palace’s budget to acquire the services of his favorite Arda Turan

And to think….Palace actually captured Turan is spooky. Double bluff, well played.

Liverpool Chief Scout Lawro reckons PeppieandFelix’s model is laughable. In his latest interview, he said “We are looking at some massive price hikes for our players which should push us to first place easily. Prediction 2-0”

Peppie’s model now seems to have gained more criticism from the TWS community than Wolverine, which was a shocker by the way. About time he gets a rotten tomato thrown at him? Also it’s good to see Lawro being himself.

Swansea’s latest acquisitions has Cardiff Head Coach Thomass67 pondering about his future again. He was quoted as saying “I am happy as I’m a passionate Jack. Whichever Welsh club does well, I join that team next season”

Cardiff acquiring Casillas in Round 1 for 4 tokens. Remember that? Seems ages ago.

An unknown source was overheard on his walkie talkie as saying “I love the commitment being shown to this game. There’s so much more going on than one can ever see on TWS Chat. Let’s just say some teams have set up impressive infrastructures to do well. In TWS2, I reckon we should look to reward them irrespective of performance”

I wonder who wrote this. The mysterious TWS Reporter must be at it again. But not to worry folks, we’ve been told his identity shall be revealed come end of TWS.

Reminder

Don’t forget the TWS Happy Hour is on at Saturday 10pm as usual 

Latest from the Happy Hour Prediction Contest is that Isacki still top geezer at 4 TWS Pints.  Meanwhile 6 geezers (Dukes of Hazard, Louis, Palace Ash, Thomass67, Super Oscar Baby and Isacki) took Megan Fox home this week. That’s a jumbo sandwich right there.

With a transfer window on the horizon, clubs might want to suit up for a busy week of wheeling and dealing that lies ahead?

Anyways, Isacki has inspired me. It’s now my turn to enjoy a well deserved TWS holiday. So until next time…..good luck all.

Yours, Ginkapo