Season preview in one sentence (on 26 August): Pedro, Mahrez, Lukaku and Lens have all started the season in fine fettle, but question marks hang over John Terry and Diafra Sakho for all the wrong reasons.
Forster, F (TW2)
SOT
£ ?m
Dawson, C (TW1)
WBA
£ 8m
Monreal, N
ARS
£ 0.5m
Wimmer, K (TW2)
TOT
£ ?m
Smalling, C
MUN
£ 6m
Ibe, J (TW2)
LIV
£ ?m
Pugh, M (TW2)
BOU
£ ?m
Mahrez, R
LEI
£ 5m
Lens, J
SUN
£ 0.5m
Lukaku, R
EVE
£ 30m
Emenike, E (TW2)
WHM
£ ?m
£ ?m
First transfer window – Friday 2 October 2015
In
Dawson, C – West Brom defender – £8m
Out Terry, J – Chelsea defender – £0.5m (to Cowley Casuals)
In
Forster, F – Southampton goalkeeper – £?m
Wimmer, K – Tottenham defender – £?m
Ibe, J – Liverpool midfielder – £?m
Pugh, M – Bournemouth midfielder – £?m
Emenike, E – West Ham striker – £?m
Out Stekelenburg, M – Southampton goalkeeper – free Zabaleta, P – Manchester City defender – free Grealish, J – Aston Villa midfielder – free Pedro – Chelsea midfielder – free Sakho, D – West Ham striker – free
Having signed Pedro while rumours of his move to England hovered over the auction, the Young Boys manager was thrilled to see the Spanish forward pick up a goal and assist in his first game.
“And Pedro scores…” he tweeted above the din of the chairman cursing his decision to sign Wesley Sneijder a few years ago when everyone had said it was a done deal.
It’s the first time since the Sneijder incident a Kenna manager has seen such instant success buying a player hors d’oeuvre. But second place in the Kenna after three weeks masks concerns at Young Boys.
Many believed that with Pedro on the pitch, defender John Terry got himself sent off in deference to the Titus Bramble ruling. It turns out the former England captain had other motives.
A few minutes after seeing red, Terry appeared in the Young Boys wags section of the stand and asked Pedro’s wife if he could park ‘ [my] open-top bus up [your] King’s Road’.
Eager to extinguish murmurs this was some sort of club initiation for players’ wives, the Young Boys manager held an informal inquiry into the matter, calling forward those connected with the club to give evidence.
The plan backfired when striker Diafra Sakho was found to be intimidating witnesses.
HAVING missed the Kenna League auction the Saturday before, the treasurer was keen to get up to speed on matters. It would be a busy day.
To begin he kept an appointment with his auction second. The treasurer had left detailed instructions with his trusted associate on who to sign and who to avoid. In particular, the treasurer had told his second to ensure only players likely to make plenty of appearances were bought.
They met for coffee.
It is was a painful latte. But leaving the coffee shop and walking in the summer air the treasurer began to feel more optimistic about his side, Bala Rinas. Andre Ayew, Graziano Pelle and Dimitri Payet had all made good starts to the campaign. Perhaps things weren’t so bad after all.
Entering the lobby of Kenna HQ, the treasurer even felt genuine enthusiasm about his chances. Passing the door of the speculations department he saw the chalkstripes inside busy working out the odds on the season’s outcomes. In between lines of hurry up.
He decided to pop in and test his confidence in Bala Rinas. He approached the head chalkstripe.
His biggest rival! Despite consistently acting the buffoon, the Anders Breivik lookalike and manager of Judean Peoples’ Front had auctioned enviously well.
It was only the second week of the campaign, but it was difficult not to get despondent.
The treasurer composed himself. His next meeting was with the chairman. A financial review of the auction. Bean counting, his true speciality. In his control. Fully. An excellent way to take his mind off things.
When he entered the Kenna executive suite, the chairman was in superb spirits. Literally. The executive cocktail cabinet was heavily disturbed.
Season preview in one sentence: Despite the bluster, the Anders Breivik lookalike has assembled a side capable of another podium finish, unless he gets caught short at another transfer window.
In
Boruc, A – Bournemouth goalkeeper – £?m
M’Vila, Y – Sunderland midfielder – £?m
Lingard, J – Manchester United midfielder – £?m
Valencia, E – West Ham striker – £?m
Austin, C – Southampton striker – £?m
Out Speroni, J – Crystal Palace goalkeeper – free Cazorla, S – Arsenal midfielder – free Herrera, A – Manchester United midfielder – free Cisse, P – Newcastle striker – free Rodriguez, J – Southampton striker – free
A KENNA manager embezzled money from classic car sales to bankroll his team, it has emerged.
Five players from the Judean Peoples’ Front team were bought using £11m made from flogging a well-known, carrot top’s collection of Ferraris and Jaguars.
“It’s poppycock to suggest I’ve used the credit from classic car sales to buy Jay Rodriguez (£6m), Papiss Cisse (£0.5m), Ander Herrera (£0.5m), Tony Alderweireld (£3m) and Ryan Shawcross (£1m),” said the Judean Peoples’ Front manager, picking a ginger pube from between his teeth.
The controversy is the only blemish on an otherwise superb fantasy football auction held at the Hoop and Grapes in Farringdon on Saturday.
For nearly six hours, 16 managers battled it out. The auction was augmented by silent bids from a further three absent managers.
The Titus Bramble forfeit ruling was enforced just twice in the afternoon. The absence of the Somali manager of ISIL was largely agreed as the reason why Titus made such few appearances.
Season preview in one sentence: Unable to attend the treasurer sent a second, who despite instructions otherwise took great pleasure in signing David de Gea.
SILVERWARE has always been the preferred method of measuring glory in football.
Fantasy football is no different. Cups, trophies, titles, vases and manager of the month awards are the traditional currency of success, but in leagues where managers come and go is the amount of butler’s elbow grease required the best yardstick of achievement?
Managers who have kicked around a league for years may have won spoils early in their career when the league was more intimate before fading in the face of newer, more dynamic competition and greater numbers of challengers.
As entrants gather for tomorrow’s 11th annual Kenna League auction in a pub on Farringdon Road, they may well wonder if there’s a scientific mechanism for deciding who is most likely to finish where come May.
Luckily, there now is! The Kenna Index.
By turning each manager’s final league position into a fraction, adding those fractions together and dividing the total by the number of campaigns in which they’ve competed, Kenna HQ can accurately predict a manager’s most likely finishing place.
It’s not surprise to see the Tactical Brambler (James N) topping the stats. He’s won the league twice, and ended 10th and 7th in another two seasons.
Two titles in three years puts the Sporting Lesbian manager (Ben M) close second. In a league of 20, both managers would be expected – on form – to finish in the top two spots.
The Lokomotiv Leeds boss (Ben S) is the highest ranked manager to have not won any silverware. The Walthamstow Reds boss (Dudley) is the most consistent of everyone to compete in all 10 seasons, and the best Wulfrunian.
The Young Boys manager (Denney) is the highest ranked Welshman. The Just Put Carles manager (Carles) the highest Catalan.
At the other end, the former Still Don’t Know Yet manager (Pete) is the least successful of those competing tomorrow. In three campaigns he’s never finished higher than 14th and in May the club was finally put out of its misery and relegated.
Most importantly, the Kenna Index provides evidence of the most mid-table manager. Dynamo Temple may not have competed in the league for five years, but in those first six seasons the manager (Yellboy) has put down a marker of mediocrity that will be hard to beat for some time.
Surely the reason not to take part in fantasy football management is if you have a job in real football management.
2. The other half is in charge of your diary
You’ve never liked her old school friend. Yet here you are in a rural village at her bloody wedding. Surrounded by people whose interest in football is comparable to the strength of your phone signal. It’s a cash bar three miles from the nearest hole in the wall. You curse your lack of initiative in domestic arrangements.
3. American dentists consider you good sport
How did Cecil the lion have his eggs?
4. You don’t actually like football, you just pretend to because everyone else does.
Chipping into water cooler chats with the occasional ‘Costa is really suited to the English game’ is an easy way to stay in with the crowd. Spending six hours in a pub surrounded by football ‘bantz’ is unfettered torture.
5. Preparation for a slumber party.
Only four days until guests arrive and so much to do: bake cupcakes, buy two extra microphones for SingStar, try on every cotton hot pant/vest combo in the wardrobe before deciding on what to wear. Quite why a potential Kenna manager would invite several teenage girls to a sleepover is anyone’s guess…
6. Death in the family. Close family, mind. A cousin’s pushing it.
Who’s not only selfish enough to die, but gets buried on a Saturday too?
7. You’re an enemy of the Kenna
Whether it’s a gripe over league rules or a throwaway comment about the competence of the committee, several hours of ‘football reeducation’ in a soundproof room beneath Kenna HQ is never far away. The eyes, ears and agents of the manager experiences department are everywhere.
8. You’re a loser.
Even taking part in a fantasy auction in public is too cool for you.
9. A life-changing windfall
Let’s face it: the league’s annual investment in Premium Bonds has less chance of paying out than a Euromillions ticket. If one manager was that lucky winner this Friday, those new-found riches could be just enough to turn the head.
Next Saturday sees the 11th Kenna League fantasy football auction.
It’s a unique experience. Around 20 managers perched around a pub table, player lists at the ready, trying to make eleven signings in a 4-4-2 formation to win them the league.
In a process that takes up to six hours, alcohol, self-doubt, bluff and double bluff are just some of the challenges managers must overcome.
Where no manager can buy more than one player from each Premier League club, the Titus Bramble forfeit ruling lurks at every turn.
With many already paid up, here are the benefits of taking one of the few remaining places at the table.
1. ManYoo v Spurs and Chels v Swans will be on in the background
For the first time, the auction will take place on the opening day of the season. Managers will have to to decide whether a Carlton Cole brace means he’s a top, top, top, top, top, top player or just plain old CFC (Carlton effing Cole) on a lucky day. Hundreds of other mind-boggling permutations await.
2. You will only have to make transfers twice this season
As Ruud Gullit discovered, football isn’t all bars and discotheques. Expect for Kenna managers, it is. They are only required to visit the pub three times a season to stay in with a shot at the title: the auction and two transfer windows.
3. Proper champagne will be served before the bidding begins
Thanks to the generosity of last season’s cash winners, a toast will be made before the auction to The 1,000-year Kenna. Which is a damn sight longer than this Kenny Rogers wannabe, who looks like he wouldn’t last 1,000 milliseconds.
3. For the next nine months, you can smugly explain the Kenna to wide-eyed, envious simpletons still sucking from the teat of FPL/Mirror/Sky Sports fantasy football
Kenna managers past and present will tell you it’s the superior form of the game. Everyone else is just lining the pockets of media barons.
5. From midday you can start drinking. Heavily.
www.tsphoto.co.uk
Your unfathomable thirst has a home. So long as you buy the chairman a drink.
6. The joy of watching other, less-informed managers sign injured players.
Sly glances shoot across the table. Wasn’t he was stretchered off in a friendly last week? He’s out for a few months, isn’t he? But now two people are actually bidding for him. Can everyone keep a poker face until the hammer goes down? The sale. The mirth. The pure relief you checked your initial instinct to bid. ‘He’s injured.’
7. The auction will take place on a balcony with an outdoor telly and a retractable awning so you can smoke without interruption to your bidding tactics.
The old days of crowding around a table bursting with pint glasses, player lists and hedgehog ashtrays are back.
8. At some point someone will Bramble themselves both hideously and comically.
Like the morning session of the first day of at Lord’s, the opening lots are a low key affair. Those assembled bubble quietly. Politely. A slow dramatic build up as managers begin to fill their team sheets and rounds of drinks appear and appear again. The moment will finally come when someone, somewhere buys an illegal player. The stumps clatter, bails fly and everyone shouts ‘BRAMBLE!’. All of a sudden it’s the evening session on the third second day of Edgbaston.
9. Due to other commitments, the treasurer is sending a second who’s never taken part in a Kenna auction before.
Either by carelessness or design, the treasurer is unable to attend the auction in person. In his stead will be a second. A decent enough sort, but by all accounts a Kenna virgin who will spend the first hour wondering what the blazes is unfolding. It remains to be seen whether this recipe will improve on the two third place finishes the treasurer achieved in the last two seasons.
10. At £25, it’s cheaper to enter than most STD-free hookers.
GERMAN pharmaceutical giant Bayer has withdrawn Canesten Combi sponsorship of the Kenna cup competition over a disagreement about new rules.
Kenna HQ announced the Canesten Combi Cup regulations will be changed this season so total team points rather than goals will be the deciding factor in head to heads. The decision follows an extensive consultation period with managers.
Bayer claim the rule change is inconsistent with its brand values. A company suit said: “When we first partnered with the Kenna in 2006 the contest was based on points, and that was congruent. Back then we were focused of reducing irritation both for our customers and for managers who found themselves in the lower half of the table halfway through the season without a chance of silverware.
“In 2012, the cup format was changed to goals, which was absolutely in line with our own goals as world leader in the fight against vaginal thrush. However, we feel Kenna HQ has made a right gorilla salad of the competition with this latest rule change. We like our cups to be neat and tidy.”
Under pressure to find a new sponsor, and with less than two weeks until the start of the new season, Kenna representatives yesterday met executives from Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. A deal appears to be have struck.
A bleary-eyed chairman said this morning: “Talks were going well yesterday but when negotiations began to stall the guys from Roche insisted Swiss custom dictates we take a half-hour break to join them for a drink.
“Things get a little hazy after that. The next thing I knew I’d woken up in a strange hotel room feeling like a Bill Cosby co-star. In my hand was a signed five-year sponsorship deal. It had even been named.”
