So, it’s a New Year and we are officially underway with Vantasy Football! There were some tasty fixtures for our big kick-off, with Spurs facing a Chelsea side looking to extend their 13-game winning streak, whilst Arsenal mounted a huge comeback in a six-goal thriller against Bournemouth. So, who were the biggest winners and losers in our first week of Vantasy Football?

Taking an early lead in the table was Pearce’s Pirates, picking up a huge 80 points. It takes a brave man to bench Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but Jonathan Pearce did just that – and still managed to bag the highest score this week! There were some defensive heroics at the back as McAuley and Daniels both scored, whilst making Phillips captain was a bold move that paid off. An early frontrunner, Jonathan has already made himself the man to beat!

Not too far behind was Neil Smith and his Monkey Lamp team, who scored 73 points. Like Pearce’s Pirates, Monkey Lamp were buoyed by two penalties from Defoe, as well as some other standout performers in Snodgrass, Mané and Baines. Neil will have to make some tweaks now that his captain Mané is off to the Africa Cup of Nations but with Sanchez and Costa in the squad Monkey Lamp are never going to be far from the top of the table.

Then there was a bit of a gap to James Collett, scoring 59 points in third place, before the table bunches up with just 3 points between fourth and tenth. Rob Boulton was one of the few teams to include Dele Alli, who bagged a brace and is enjoying a great run of form. One to watch in the next gameweek, perhaps?

And at the other end of the table? It’s safe to say that Van Guard-iola didn’t have the best first week… 35 points was a poor return but we’ll just pretend that we’re warming up and giving you all a chance to win those fantastic prizes. Firmino will hopefully step into the void Mané is leaving, but we’ll need to up our game if we want to keep up with the rest of you.

[table id=1 /]

Don’t worry if you’re stuck at the bottom of the table with Van Guard-iola – there’s plenty of time to catch up and we of course have monthly prizes up for grabs. Not to mention, joining the league automatically enters you for our random prize draw to win an Xbox One or Playstation 4 with FIFA 17!

Be sure to invite your friends to sign-up here and we’ll see you for Gameweek 21 on 14th January!