Well. Happy New Year and so forth.

Our team, FC Clowder City, comprised entirely of players who have a strong feline connection, is now through GameWeek 21 of Fantasy Premier League. We should be purring in triumph, a sleek, well-oiled machine, throbbing with pace, confidence, composure and aerial grace, whiskers covered in cream. 

We are not.

That is not to say that at the players are not sticking faithfully to their own Cat Rules. They show many cat-like tendencies: sitting down mid-pitch and grooming, staring fixedly at where the ball isn’t, biffing it insouciantly offside, dozing in the sunnier patches of the park, strolling away for no reason.

All very cat, but it  does not translate into points. 

Roger and I try to cheer ourselves with the thought that we only  joined the game late, in GW11,  and can make up for lost time with superior silky skills, but a look at the stats will show you that we may be deluding ourselves.

Squad News

Since my last post, the squad has suffered. 

• Bukayo Saka, our much-loved glorious Number Seven shirt and point-winning star, is off injured for a long time,  probably the rest of the season. This is very sad for him and all of us and we wish him all the very best.

• Mo Salah has obviously incurred the wrath of Bast  He is on the field, and Liverpool are on course to win the League, but he has suffered a dramatic loss of form lately.  Ou sont les hat-tricks d’antan?  He is still our captain and we will keep the faith. 

• Ruben Gato Dias is off with a muscle injury but his manager seems reluctant to get him back on, and his team, Manchester City, are going through a dark night of the soul.

• Mikhailo Mudryk, the Ailurophile of Chelsea, has disappeared, like his Cheshire relative. This is all very cat, but not very helpful.

• Neither of the Johnsons (Ben and Brennan) have shown up very much. 

• Our new asset,  Milos Kerkez,  acquired via Hungarian credentials, had a glorious burst of form but has now gone back to sleep. Again, we are keeping the faith.

Rules Upgrade

To give ourselves a chance we have expanded the qualification  parameters. Players from Senegal or with  Senegalese heritage will now qualify. This is because Senegal’s national animal is the African Lion, and has hardly anything to do with the fact that Senegal produces a steady stream of top-class footballers. Lions are just cats but bigger and the males have magnificent hair. What could be more football?   

We already have Nicholas Jackson, Chelsea striker, who went off the boil as soon as installed. Roger mused that footballers may be mostly made up of subatomic particles that change state when you observe them. He may have a point. 

However, Jackson will surely stroll back into  form, and the new protocol means we can sign Ismaila Sarr the Crystal Palace wonder winger, Pape Matar Sarr (no relation) of Tottenham Hotspur, and Idrissa Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye of Everton.

Our second strategy shift is to include Romanian players.  Romania has just overtaken Hungary at the top of the cpp Index.  A human population of just under 20 million and a cat  population of 4.42 million gives a cpp rating of 0.24. This means that 48% of Romanian households are owned by at least one cat. And the Romanian word for cat is pusica. 

This is a good move statistically, but at the moment there is only one Romanian player in the Premier League. Fortunately this is Radu Dragusin, the huge, handsome and ferocious defender for Tottenham  Hotspur. We will get him while we can, as he may soon be lured away by the Parisian glamour of PSG. 

We will keep you posted.

Come on you Clowder!