Fantasy Football Files - 2024/25 - Gameweek 38 - Grand Finale

The last gameweek of the season was here and as I was not in top four contention like last year it seemed to take an eternity to get here. I was up against my longtime friend Gary who was in the bottom five but could end the season in the hypothetical relegation zone.

The deadline was last Sunday, which was also my Mum and my Nephew’s birthday, so, I had limited time to do anything with all the activity going on. I wanted to make at least one transfer, but I was content with my midfielders and forwards, so I looked at my defence. I wanted Marc Cucurella but did not have the budget, therefore in what seemed partially underwhelming I sold Daniel Munoz and got in Dan Burn. Gary made three free transfers. In came Bruno Guimaraes, Yoane Wissa and Evanilson for Kevin De Bruyne, Matheus Cunha and Alexander Isak. Evanilson was the most transferred in player this week with Bournemouth entertaining Leicester. I wanted to captain Jarrod Bowen as West Ham travelled to Ipswich however, I ended up going with Mo Salah who was the most captained player this gameweek. I fully bought into the fact Salah could finally break the record on the last day. Gary tried something different and went with Milos Kerkez as captain as he targeted Leicester once again.   

The Kerkez captaincy worked quite well for Gary as Bournemouth won 2-0. He would have loved an attacking return from Kerkez, but you take that as it was a differential captaincy. Evanilson did not return for him though as he put an early chance wide. I would have got Evanilson in if I had more free transfers, so I was relieved. The final chance of my Ryan Sessegnon experiment working failed as he did not start for Fulham as they fell 2-0 at home to Manchester City. Jarrod Bowen once again let me know I was a fool not captaining him as he scored and assisted in West Ham’s 3-1 away win at Ipswich. His goal was a brilliant strike from outside the box.

Liverpool got a late Salah goal as they salvaged a point at home to Crystal Palace. Since wrapping up the league the Reds have literally been sleepwalking and that was the case again here ironically until they went down to 10 men when Ryan Gravenberch was sent off. I believed in the romantism of Salah’s getting the record for goal contributions in a Premier League season and it just about came to the fore. Gary and I were both let down by Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins as Aston Villa’s Champions League aspirations were ended away at Manchester United. Emiliano Martinez was sent off at the end of the first half and it ended 2-0. Rogers was very unlucky to have a goal ruled out when Altay Bayindir lost control of the ball. The result at Old Trafford aided Newcastle who qualified for the Champions League despite losing 1-0 at home to Everton. After all the worries on if Isak would be fit enough to start, he did and of course blanked. Meanwhile transferring in Burn ended up being a waste of time. The game was fruitful for my opponent who had Jordan Pickford in goal as he got 11 points, which meant Bruno Guimaraes not returning did not really affect him.

In the most crucial of games in the battle for the Champions league places, Chelsea squeezed past Nottingham Forest at the City Ground 1-0. This meant Enzo Maresca’s men qualified whereas Forest had to settle for Conference League football, an underwhelming end to what was still an overachieving season for Nuno Espirito Santo’s men. Gary had Ola Aina, so nothing there as if I had taken a points-hit to get in Cucurella it would have worked with Chelsea’s clean sheet. I had hoped Palmer was going to produce some last day magic sadly it was not to be. But seen as I would have taken a points deduction instead to get in De Bruyne who did not even start, things could have been worse. Wolves and Brentford could not be separated as it finished 1-1 at Molineux. We both had Bryan Mbeumo who bagged his 20th goal of the season to give the Bees the lead, before a wonderful strike by Marshall Munetsi levelled it up in. Gary and I both owned Rayan Ait-Nouri so nothing for us there and after being stung by Yoane Wissa several times recently I was happy he did not find the net. With Alphonse Areola not starting in West Ham’s victory at Ipswich, I got Mark Flekken’s points as I squeezed past Gary 57-52. Although he had Salah, me giving him the captaincy helped me massively here as Gary was a little unlucky.

We already knew that Michael B. was the ‘Justice League’ champion, but Josh grabbed 2nd place as Darren B. (D-Man) fell to defeat against Rian (Milito). Muji got 4th place and the highest weekly score which was 147 in gameweek 24. For myself after making the top four last campaign finishing 8th was beyond disappointing but I will look to make amends next season. I ended with 2,371 points which interestingly was my second highest overall points tally which got me in the top 790k in the world. Thanks for reading and see you in August.  

My last FPL team of the 2024/25 season

@DubulDee