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At an average of over 3 goals per game, week 8 of this season’s A-League provided entertainment by the bucket load for fans. Whilst the Adelaide v Newcastle game on Friday night fizzled, the Victory v Gold Coast game sizzled with 5 goals, 3 penalties, a red card, one relieved manager, and more bookings than you can poke a stick at. Over in Wellington, the Phoenix held on against a fast finishing Sydney to record a valuable 2-1 home victory. In Gosford, the Mariners kept pace at the top of the A-League standings with a 3-1 win over the Heart. And in Brisbane, the Roar smashed a shell-shocked Perth Glory 4-0, thus breaking the existing domestic sport unbeaten streak in Australia and standing alone on top with 36 games undefeated and a handy 20 points from the first 8 games of the season. But who were the standouts for their respective teams this week, doing enough … Continue Reading

Week 8 provided no shortage of entertainment for A-League fans, with 16 goals hitting the back of the net, 25 yellow and 2 red cards handed out, and plenty of talking points across all 5 games (referees not withstanding). With an average of over 3 goals per game this weekend, having a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 formation was likely to be quite beneficial for A-League fantasy managers, with strikers and midfielders putting up some very high numbers. This means that while scoring in the thirties last week was a good result for a fantasy manager, doing the same this week was well below par.

If you were looking for a good pair of strikers this week, you couldn’t go past Besart Berisha (two goals) and Archie Thompson (two assists), scoring 9 and 8 points respectively. These two have been the points leaders this season for strikers, with Berisha streeting the field on 55 points with next best Thompson … Continue Reading

It was definitely not the week of the defender in week 7 of the A-League, with none of the 10 teams able to keep the opposition at bay and ensure a clean sheet. But with 17 goals scored, it was a week containing plenty of action. Melbourne Heart continued their early season recovery, with an important away win at Gold Coast. Wellington scraped out a 1-1 draw with Adelaide in front of 20,000 fans in Auckland. The Mariners defeated Sydney in a thriller at the SFS, a 10-man Glory came from two goals down to share the points with the Victory at Etihad, and Brisbane looked troubled early but substitute James Meyer ensured the three points for the Roar. But, the question remains, who was good enough this week to make the team of the week? And was it possible to actually find four defenders who played well?

… Continue Reading

Week 7 of the A-League was definitely not one for goalkeepers, nor was it a great week for defenders either. The fact that no team this week was able to keep a clean sheet probably didn’t help, so if your defenders were going to score well this week they had to have either scored or assisted in scoring a goal or two. Unsurprising then that the top scoring defender this week was Patrick Zwaanswijk, after his pile driver of a free kick found the top corner and proved to be decisive in the Mariners’ 3-2 win over Sydney.

Again, there weren’t many goals scored this week by out-and-out strikers, so your best bet for good points this week was in the midfield. Heart’s Matt Thompson was the pick of the bunch, scoring 9 points thanks to a goal and an assist, but there were other good points to be had with his teammate Jonathan Germano, Central Coast’s … Continue Reading

There were only 9 goals, but plenty of action greeted A-League fans in Week 6. The Melbourne Heart finally found some ticker and put the Jets to the sword, whilst their cross town rivals managed a draw in Gosford. For the second week running, Brisbane failed to penetrate a stubborn defence, coming away with just one point and keeping the rest of the field in touch, and Sydney continued their merry march with an important win in Perth. And Adelaide United ground out an important away win…in Adelaide!?! So, with some teams turning it around in week 6, and some finding the going a little more tough, who was good enough to make the Team of the Week this time around:

Goalkeeper – Liam Reddy (Sydney FC)
Reddy almost single handedly kept the Glory out in the second half at nib Stadium, ensuring a clean sheet for him … Continue Reading

As week 6 of the A-League came around on Friday night, it was good to finally put a controversial week 5 to bed and concentrate on an enthralling selection of 5 games, including a Saturday triple-header. For fantasy managers, top scores this week were hard to come by, with the maximum total achievable being only 78 points. The key this week was defence, with 9 of the 11 best scoring players this week coming from Melbourne Heart and Sydney FC; teams that both kept clean sheets on the weekend. This included a midfield trio of Heart’s Dugandzic, Behich and Fred (with 23 points between them) accompanied by top-scoring player of the week Iain Ramsay with 10 points.

Down back, it was a case of 6′s all round, with Hamill, Antonis, Marrone and Bosschaart filling the four defensive spots. Liam Reddy’s score as goalkeeper was aided by his clean sheet and seven saves, for a total of 8 … Continue Reading

Week 5 of the A-League has come and gone, with 16 goals hitting the back of the net, 1 clean sheet recorded, and the fourth-highest bookings count of any A-League round in history recorded. Add to that that four of the five games went right down to the wire, and it was always going to be a difficult task to select just 15 players worthy of team of the week honours this week. So here’s the lineup for week 5:

Goalkeeper – Ben Kennedy (Newcastle Jets)
This was clearly Kennedy’s best performance all year, as he kept the only clean sheet of the weekend. As the Glory started to push in the second half, he made a series of great saves and aerial takes, and the resulting clean sheet is enough for him to get the starting gig over Victory debutant Lawrence Thomas.

Defence – Brendan Hamill (Melbourne … Continue Reading

Despite week 5 being a week of controversy on the field, and for all the wrong reasons, there were some standout performances by a select group of players that netted their fantasy owners some serious points. Up front, it was hard to go past braces from Jeremy Brockie (10 points) and Archie Thompson (9 points), with Matt Simon (9 points) also chipping in with a goal and an assist against Wellington. It definitely wasn’t the week of the midfielder, with the highest scoring midfielders, namely Karol Kisel, Thomas Broich and Henrique, only managing to score 7 points each.

In defence, if you had Melbourne Heart youngster Brendan Hamill, then you were laughing on Friday night, as he scored a well-finished goal on his way to 12 points, the top fantasy score for the week. It seemed the only way any defenders were going to score reasonable points this week was if they found themselves sticking one in … Continue Reading

We’re very happy to announce that the Ultimate A-League app for iPhone, iPad and Android has today been updated to version 1.3. The new version encompasses the last month and a half’s work on the app, with the majority of new features, updates, tweaks and bug fixes being suggested to us by the over 7,000 people who use the app across all 3 platforms. So, jump across to the App Store or Android Market to download the update now (be patient though, it may take a little while to filter through).

If you’re really keen to know what’s changed, and what’s been added, then here’s a short list for you:

• Live scoring of current round’s matches, including all goals and red cards as they happen (provided by a 3rd-party source). We should say that whilst this has been in testing for the last few weekends, we’re by no means perfect and something could go awry. If it does, … Continue Reading
  

Week 4 produced as many goals in the first game than the entirety of Week 3, and the trend continued as a total of 20 goals hit the back of the net last weekend. A 7-1 win to Brisbane Roar was obviously the standout of the week, and whilst it would’ve been simple to just choose the Roar’s starting 11 as the team of the week, there were many other great performances and standouts across the weekend. So with 20 goals, action packed games, and not one goalkeeper able to keep a clean sheet, let’s see who was selected in this week’s team of the week:

Goalkeeper – Matt Ryan (Central Coast Mariners)
As stated earlier, goalkeeper was always going to be a difficult position to pick this week, as none of the 10 keepers who trotted out over the weekend were able to keep the opposition scoreless. … Continue Reading