Emma's Space

With both Costa and Kante suspended for this gameweek I decided to transfer out Kante,  but kept Costa as he is one of my best players!  For Kante, I bought in Fletcher - he'll be mainly on the bench, but will hopefully be decent (and cheap) back up.

Having taken first place in the £15 Super League all for myself in week 16, now it's time for me to try and create a little gap - and hope my captain choices are good ones!  Let's see what happened in Gameweek 17...

Week 15 was great, I reached the summit of the £15 Super League.  The only problem now is, it's pretty much only downhill from there...  Could I stay there after week 16 or would I start to slide down the table?  Let's take a look...

With Week 14 really giving me a boost, I was looking forward to Week 15 and seeing if I could close the gap on first place in the £15 Super League a little more.  Read on to see if I was successful in this or not...

I made one transfer and two changes to my team this week... Let's take a look at how that worked out for me: With Coutinho being a key player in my team, I felt with him being out for a few weeks it was worth transferring him out and bringing someone else in to (hopefully) score some points.  I decided to bring in Eriksen.  Out of the starting line up went Williams and Coutinho, and in came Lovren and Eriksen.

Last week was a pretty positive week, so I have gone for an unchanged team this week.  Let's see how my team did: I decided to transfer out Bellerin, who is currently out injured, for Lovren who seems a good replacement.  I think I may still transfer Bellerin back in again when he is fit, but who for - I'm not sure yet.

After the international break, it was back to league duty for the players.  Let's see how my team did this week: Luckily the break gave Costa time to recover from his injury ready to captain my team again this week.  Sadly Bellerin & Lamela are still out injured.  I substituted out goalkeeper Mignolet and bought in Pickford, as he seems to be scoring quite well at the moment, and will be a good addition to my team.  

The first round of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup arrived in Glasgow at the start of November.  While many of the stars of the Rio Olympics were resting, there was still an impressive line up of riders in attendance. The last time the World Cup was in Glasgow was November 2012 and I was an anti-doping chaperone volunteer.  I had an amazing time ( which you can read about here ).  I applied again to volunteer this year, and was appointed to the Front of House team. Essentially we were the first people that spectators saw when they arrived at the venue (after security at the main doors), and as well as welcoming everyone with a smile and a 'hello', some of us sold programmes and some of the team had cardboard cut-out frames to take pictures of people in (I couldn't resist having my picture taken, see below!)

I made a couple of subs ready for this gameweek:  I bought in Kingsley and Capoue for Galloway and Snodgrass respectively.  Due to Costa's performance last week, I kept him as captain for... was this the correct decision?

I made the decision to stick with Costa as my captain this week... Let's see how that worked out:

New week means yet another captain change.  I decided to go for Costa, as Chelsea were playing Manchester United and I figured with Costa scoring quite a few goals recently he would probably score, so I might as well get double points which would help cancel out the pain of losing points from De Gea conceding.  Let's see what happened...

New Gameweek means new captain.  Ibrahimovic let me down last gameweek, and Costa let me down the week before so I decided to go with a player who has been pretty solid so far this season.  Let's see what happened...

I am in love with this look, especially the stag vinyl.

Following on from the performance of my team in week 6, I changed my captain back to Zlatan Ibrahimovic - I did have an urge to change it to Juan Mata, but I wasn't 100% sure whether he would start - and bought Robert Snodgrass in for N'Golo Kante.

Welcome to my Fantasy Football weekly update.  I am a little late in starting this as it is now week 7 of the Fantasy Premier League, but this is going to be a weekly things from here on forward, and I think it will be very cathartic - allowing me to vent my frustrations or sing a players praises.  I'll keep you updated on my team, transfers, league placement and thoughts as this roller-coaster of a season continues.  It has been eventful right from the off, so I have no doubt that it will remain like that and even possibly intensify as the season draws to a close.

As mentioned in the previous blog, through a prize draw from purchasing my ticket in the pre-sale, I was lucky enough to win a lap around the street circuit track at the Ignition Festival and a paddock tour. #DaysOut: The specially designed street circuit went around the SECC, Armadillo and the Hydro - as shown in the picture below.  Not shown in the picture, just behind the Hydro, there was a shorter figure-of-eight shaped track which was predominantly for drifting. Image from Ignition Festival of Motoring There was just another competition winner, along with myself getting to go in one of the Top Gear supercars, and we were asked which car we would like to go in - the Ford Mustang or the Audi R8 - but I think we were both too polite to choose one, so Mark the paddock manager (who I had actually come across during my volunteering at the 2012 Olympic Games - small world!) decided for us.  The other winner was to go in the Ford Mustang which went a little more sidewa...

#DaysOut: There were two track sessions each day at the Ignition Festival, with viewing available almost all the way around the specially built circuit, which went around the SECC and the Hydro.  I watched some of the action out the back of the exhibition hall, some from the paddock, and some from the grandstand.  Each session lasted around two and a half hours, and it was non-stop action.

#DaysOut: Where do I begin?  Last weekend saw the launch of a brand new Festival of Motoring - 'Ignition' - in Glasgow.  There was no way I was going to pass up the chance to attend and purchased my ticket as soon as I could, in the pre-sale.  I had completely forgotten that pre-sale purchases using certain codes were entered into prize draws, so when I received a phone call telling me I had won, it was a complete shock - a very good one at that (pictures of my track experience prize are in the next blog post)! Ignition Festival ran from Friday 5th - Sunday 7th August, and as my ticket was for the Sunday, I spent two days checking out all the news and pictures on social media getting very excited!  There was so much to see and do, including: exhibitors in the main arena, a test drive area, the live track sessions and live shows in the back of the arena.  Even though I was there all day, I didn't manage to see everything! I went by myself, but it tur...

If you don't already know, I am a huge fan of Formula One.  I have watched it for as long as I can remember, back in the days where there were races on TV at 3am in the morning. Back then, the driver I was cheering on was David Coulthard - he comes from the same region as me!  Fast forward to 2007 and as well as cheering for DC, I couldn't help but also root for DC's teammate Mark Webber - another intelligent driver and nice guy.  Following on from Webber's retirement, his replacement at Red Bull in 2014 was another Aussie, Daniel Ricciardo.  It is hard not to warm to Ricciardo, as he is one of the smiliest and most genuine drivers on the grid - he is also a very talented racing driver, producing some wonderful overtakes, and completely outshining champion Sebastian Vettel in his first season with Red Bull. What a squad! Touchdown 🏈 excited to be here. Baku! A photo posted by Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) on Jun 15, 2016 at 12:00pm PDT ...

Today, I did these Australian Flag nails in support of Daniel Ricciardo who was starting from 2nd on the grid in the European Grand Prix in Baku.  Both practice and qualifying were very eventful, with a few drivers touching the walls of this new street circuit, and many going down the escape routes, however, the race was probably one of the most uneventful this season.

#DaysOut: Yesterday I made the most of the decent weather and visited Ken-Dee Marshes Nature Reserve near to Castle Douglas.  It was a lovely afternoon, just being able to take in all the wildlife around.  If you're in the area (Dumfries & Galloway has been voted Countryfile 'Holiday Destination of the Year 2015/16!') and fancy a nice walk in the countryside, and the opportunity to get up close to some fantastic wildlife, definitely consider Ken-Dee Marshes.

Greg James, the Radio One DJ, is in the process of doing five triathlons in five days - with each one being longer than an Olympic Triathlon - in aid of Sport Relief!  That is some major feat of endurance!  So far Greg has completed a triathlon in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and Sheffield.  Tomorrow's fifth and final triathlon is taking place in Norwich.