The Boot Room: Week 2 in Review

A strange feeling around the league this week, not unlike the prologue stages of the Tour de France or a World Rally Championship event. Teams are into their league seasons and picking up points (or in the case of Spurs and Pompey, failing to) - but with the transfer window still open there's a slight air of a phony war.

The likes of Tottenham, Chelsea and both Manchester clubs are still waiting on big deals to be tied up, while other players are only just returning from Olympic duty. The former scenarios are of particular interest to fantasy managers, as players of the calibre of Robinho, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Andrei Arshavin and perhaps even Ronaldo (the original!) may be arriving on these shores, ready to be claimed by managers with high Free Agent priorities at the start of the next month. When August rolls into September, the window closes, and the first round of World Cup qualifying games are completed, the League season will begin in earnest.


Star Performers

Elano scored twice against West Ham
Talk around Eastlands this summer may have been all about incoming Brazilians, with Jo arriving from CSKA Moscow, a lengthy pursuit of Ronaldinho, and now rumours of old-school Ronaldo, but the samba spirit is already alive and well in Mark Hughes' squad. The most valuable player in the fantasy game this week was the Sky Blues' Elano, who created a brace of chances as well as scoring 2 of his own 3 shots on target.

After Gael Clichy led the defenders last week, the guy on the other side of the Arsenal back line, Bacary Sagna, was the most valuable defender in week two – despite the Gunners' failure to keep a clean sheet. Sagna's 4 attempts created and great passing combined with a couple of nice tackles to make a great week.

Fine performances too from Spurs' Luka Modric, who chipped in in every possible category, and Chelsea's Deco, whose fine free kick gave him his second goal in two weeks, and his side all three points. Staying with Chelsea, Petr Cech kept his second clean sheet to rank as top goalkeeper for the second week (helped by the clean sheet called in this column last week).

Under the Radar

In a relatively quiet week for goalscorers, when only Elano scored more than a single goal, the highest rated striker was in fact Hull City's Richard Garcia. The Australian scored with his only shot on target, but contributions in other categories pushed him into the top spot.

Fulham's Hangeland could be a prudent free agent pick-up
A clean sheet and the only goal of Fulham's 1-0 victory over Arsenal made Brede Hangeland a great play. The Texan-born Norwegian hasn't got a great goalscoring history, but his towering 6 foot 5 inch frame makes him a big aerial threat at set pieces if Fulham can utilise him well. With the value of squad defenders at big clubs reduced by a definition of clean sheets which requires a full 90 minutes of action, Hangeland becomes the kind of undrafted defender who could be very ownable in fantasy play. He'll pick up good minutes and some scoring opportunities.

Back in the Habit

The likes of Jo, Anderson and Javier Mascherano have now returned from the Olympic tournament; Carlos Tevez has returned from his family-related leave. Cesc Fabregas is back in the Arsenal team following injury, and new signing Carlos Cuellar should be ready to take his place in Aston Villa's first team.

Out of Action

Niko Kranjcar gave the worst news to his owners this week, picking up an ankle injury on international duty in midweek which will require an operation. Pompey's Croatian playmaker has been put out of action for three months.

Is Berbatov heading North?

Dimitar Berbatov's dispute with Spurs kept him out of their team at the weekend, and with rumours that the rest of the White Hart Lane dressing room has turned on him it seems like the Bulgarian has played his last game for the club. Spurs want to land two strikers before they let him move to Manchester United, but whether he moves or not, it seems unlikely that he will line up to face Chelsea this weekend. Don't take that as gospel though.

Chelsea may be missing players themselves, having lost both Joe and Ashley Cole to injury during their Sunday win over Wigan. Didier Drogba hopes to be fit to make to their line-up for the first time under Felipe Scolari, but is likely to have to wait until September.

In Search of Spaghetti

Shevchenko is back in Milan
Arsenal's Philippe Senderos is now on loan to AC Milan for the season. He will be joined in Italy by two strikers who have found things in England hard and have returned to Serie A: Andrei Shevchenko has ended his unhappy spell in London with a move back to Milan; Manchester City have allowed the homesick Rolando Bianchi to move to Torino.

Postponed

When setting line-ups for next week, the big thing to bear in mind is that, with Manchester United taking on Zenit St Petersburg in the European Super Cup on Friday night, their game against Fulham is postponed. No players from either club will be able to contribute.

By Sandy King