Tineka takes the lead by one point as Ivo shares the weekly honours

The defending champion edges past Candace, Ivo climbs to third, and Rob’s Wildcard lifts Green Street United four places. Clarky gets the Pork Chop.

The league table

#	TEAM / MANAGER	GW8 NET	TOTAL	MOVE
1	TB ABCDEFC Tineka Bishop	70	504	▲2
2	CVD FC Candace Van Damme	49	503	▼1
3	This is the Wirtz! Ivo Ferreira	70	488	▲2
4	PC clarkys cloggers Paul Clark	32	484	▼2
5	Green Street United Rob Ayres	63	466	▲4
6	sendmetocoventry Ian Goodison-Powell	44	464	▼2
7	Park the Bus Hailey Hindle	42	455	—
8	Boo Tottenham Aubrey Hindle	38	453	▼2
9	RH Red Djed Redemption Ryan Hindle	42	447	▼1
10	DA The Balon D'orgus Dela Avle	52	431	▲1
11	Mikel Arteta's Army Peter Mossad	37	426	▼1
12	AFC Kincardine Steve Fletcher	52	379	—
13	Devastators FC Angelo Pavia	41	279	—
14	PP Vermilion Bird Portia Pavia	56	270	—

GW8 scores and weekly honours are net of transfer hits. Nobody took a hit this week, so gross and net are identical. Totals and positions follow the official league table.

The champion is back on top

Tineka Bishop has reclaimed the most uncomfortable chair in Educating Pork: first place, with barely enough of a cushion to qualify as upholstery. ABCDEFC lead Candace Van Damme’s CVD FC by one point, 504 to 503. A 70-point week turns a twenty-point deficit into a lead. No chip required; just considerably more useful footballers than several of the people around her.

Gabriel and Konsa supplied 31 between them, while new arrival Barnes added eight. Candace had Konsa too, and this time Tavernier’s ten made the starting side rather than the bench. But 49 could not hold off the champion. Ivo Ferreira arrives third on 488, four ahead of Paul Clark: the title race has changed shape without asking Clarky whether he was comfortable.

Manager Spotlight: Ivo lets the defence do the talking

Ivo shares Manager of the Week with Tineka on 70. This is the Wirtz! climbed from fifth to third with Raya behind a defence featuring Gabriel and Konsa. Those three alone delivered 38 points before the armband was involved. On a weekend of midfield disappointments, the supposedly unglamorous end of the pitch did the entertaining.

There was assistance from the reserves: Delap and Egan replaced Bruno Fernandes and João Pedro, bringing six points into the counted side. Haaland’s doubled eight completed the reliable part of the operation. Ivo still left thirteen unused, including Kinsky’s nine. Winning the week and finding something to complain about afterwards is proper FPL efficiency.

The armband: check the deputy before the boss disappears

Nine managers selected Haaland as captain and banked sixteen. Ian Goodison-Powell joined them through his vice-captain after João Pedro failed to play. That makes ten joint Captain Fantastic winners on sixteen, with no Triple Captain in use. Ian’s original choice matters: this was the safety net doing its job, not a Haaland captaincy decision rewritten after the event.

Ryan Hindle also selected João Pedro, but his deputy was Palmer. Minus one became minus two. N. Jackson’s thirteen and Gabriel’s seventeen helped rescue 42, yet Red Djed Redemption slipped to ninth. The vice-captain box is not decorative, however much we would sometimes like it to be.

Dela Avle inherited eight from Belloumi; Angelo and Portia Pavia inherited fourteen apiece from Raya. All three had originally captained João Pedro. The same absent captain produced three very different rescue packages. Dela’s 52 lifts The Balon D’orgus into tenth, with Van Hecke’s seven arriving automatically as well.

Transfers: the receipts were mercifully hit-free

Steve Fletcher earns Transfer Gambler for bringing in Tavernier: ten points against outgoing Szoboszlai’s zero, without a hit. De Cuyper for Thiaw was level on one each. AFC Kincardine finished on 52, helped by Bogle’s five from the bench, and remains twelfth. A sound week does not always come with an arrow.

Tineka’s three purchases contributed eleven against three from the departing players; Barnes for Szoboszlai supplied the eight-point difference on its own. Aubrey Hindle had the less enjoyable side of the market: Gvardiol returned one after replacing Van Hecke, who returned seven. Boo Tottenham’s 38 drops Aubrey from sixth to eighth. These are same-week player-score comparisons, not claims that an unchanged team would necessarily have scored the difference.

Nobody in the league paid a transfer hit. There were therefore no deductions to blame, reclaim or accidentally subtract twice. Some weekends the paperwork is kinder than the football.

Green Street United: the Wildcard earns its climb

Rob Ayres recorded the week’s third-highest score, 63, and the biggest rise: ninth to fifth, on 466. The GW08 chip was Wildcard; last week’s Triple Captain stayed in last week. Haaland supplied sixteen as an ordinary captain, Gabriel seventeen, and new arrivals Tavernier and Muharemović nineteen between them. That is a worthwhile opening return, even if a Wildcard should be judged over more than one Sunday.

The reconstruction was not uniformly inspired. Palmer contributed minus one, and Kelleher’s two came in a week when outgoing Raya scored seven. Davis replaced João Pedro for two; just three points remained unused. Eight transfer transactions include Mendy arriving and then leaving, so they do not represent eight different final additions. There was no hit.

A useful week for the Chairman, with no need to pretend every new purchase worked.

The rest of the room: recovery, retreat and a very small Chop

Clarky takes the Pork Chop with 32 and falls from second to fourth. Haaland’s sixteen and Kinsky’s nine account for 25 of those points; the other nine counted players supplied seven between them. Thomas’s automatic arrival brought one. A team sheet can be full without looking especially occupied.

Ian’s 44 takes sendmetocoventry down to sixth despite that helpful vice-captain. Hailey Hindle holds seventh with 42: Gabriel and Haaland contributed 33 between them, leaving the rest of Park the Bus to provide the spare change. Peter Mossad’s Mikel Arteta’s Army falls to eleventh on 37, with Muñoz’s seven among nine unused bench points.

Portia’s 56 is a proper response to last week’s 32. Gabriel, Isak and the inherited Raya armband gave Vermilion Bird some substance, while Tarkowski and Welbeck came on for three. She remains fourteenth but closes to nine points behind Angelo. Devastators FC stays thirteenth on 41, with Virgil and Isak contributing nine each. Angelo used three automatic substitutes for five points and left nothing unused. Neither side needs a fictional catastrophe added to the real table.

Bench of Shame is shared by Tineka and Ivo, thirteen unused points each after substitutions. The weekly winners have taken the bench award too. This is an observation about unused returns, not a claim that every point could legally have been squeezed into either starting side.

GW08 honours board

October: Tineka leads, but the ink stays wet

The monthly race has changed as well. Tineka leads provisionally on 196 net points from GW06–GW08, fourteen ahead of Candace and Rob, both on 182. Clarky is next on 179. Transfer deductions are counted once, and these gameweeks belong to October under the Ontario deadline-date rule.

GW09 is still outstanding. There is no October winner yet. The league lead is only one point, Ivo is now on the podium, and a good final week could rearrange both arguments. Check the captain, check the deputy, and try to keep the bench from writing a better report than the starting eleven.