The gameweek report

Ryan still top as Bruno blows the league apart and Clarky arrives late

Bruno transforms the chasing pack, Paul makes an immediate entrance, and Tineka finds herself holding the Pork Chop. Twelve managers. Several questionable decisions.

The league table

On a small screen, swipe the table sideways to see every column.

#		TEAM / MANAGER	GW2	TOTAL	MOVE
1	RD	Red Djed Redemption Ryan Hindle	72	150	—
2		This is the Wirtz! Ivo Ferreira	91	136	▲5
3		Green Street United Robert Ayres	85	135	▲2
4	TB	The Balon D'orgus Dela Avle	85	133	—
5		sendmetocoventry ian gpowell	70	130	▼3
6		Park the Bus Hailey Hindle	63	118	▼3
7		Boo Tottenham Aubrey Hindle	76	116	▲1
8		CVD FC Candace Van Damme	79	114	▲1
9	MA	Mikel Arteta's Army Peter Mossad	75	103	▲1
10	CC	clarkys cloggers Paul Clark	101	101	NEW
11	A	ABCDEFC Tineka Bishop	53	99	▼5
12		AFC Kincardine Steve Fletcher	72	72	NEW

The gameweek report

Well, that escalated quickly. Gameweek 2 is in the books and the Educating Pork table looks like somebody picked it up, gave it a bloody good shake and put it back down again. Ryan Hindle remains top on 150, although the smugness levels at Red Djed Redemption may need turning down a notch. His 72 was distinctly ordinary against an overall FPL average of 81, and the enormous cushion he bought himself in GW1 is already disappearing faster than a Tottenham title challenge. Ryan still has 14 points in hand, but what looked suspiciously like an early procession a week ago now has a chasing pack forming behind him.

Leading that charge is Ivo Ferreira, who came steaming through the field with 91 points and launched This is the Wirtz! from seventh to second. Rob's Green Street United wasn't far behind, collecting 85 and climbing from fifth to third, while Dela's Balon D'orgus also produced 85 and remains fourth. Ian, meanwhile, has discovered that gravity works just as effectively in fantasy football as everywhere else, dropping three places from second to fifth after a 70-point week. The result is that just six points now separate Ivo in second from Ian in fifth, which is exactly the sort of congestion that makes everyone stare at their phone on a Sunday afternoon wondering why a Crystal Palace full-back has just ruined their weekend.

Then there's Paul Clark. Apparently nobody told Clarky that the season started last week. He wandered into Gameweek 2, selected a team and casually knocked out 101 points, the highest score in the league. Haaland as captain brought 26, Bruno Fernandes added 23, Groß delivered 13 and Mbeumo another 11, meaning four players alone contributed 73 points. It's a magnificent performance spoiled only by the tiny administrative detail that Paul completely missed GW1, so after producing the best weekly score anybody in Educating Pork has managed this season, he finds himself 10th. It's the fantasy-football equivalent of arriving after half-time, scoring a hat-trick and discovering your side was already five-nil down.

The Bruno Fernandes appreciation society

There were essentially two types of manager in Educating Pork this weekend: those who captained Bruno Fernandes, and those who spent the remainder of the Gameweek wishing they had. Bruno returned a monstrous 23 points, which meant Ivo, Rob and Aubrey each walked away with 46 from the armband alone. Ivo's surge from seventh to second was therefore less a tactical masterclass and more Bruno grabbing his fantasy team by the scruff of the neck and dragging it five places up the table, while Rob enjoyed much the same treatment on his way into third.

Aubrey also got the Bruno decision absolutely right, which makes what happened elsewhere in Boo Tottenham all the more magnificent. Sitting among the substitutes was a relatively obscure Norwegian striker called Erling Haaland, who contributed 13 points to absolutely nobody because Aubrey had left him on the bloody bench. It's difficult to know whether to applaud or call for an intervention. Captaining Bruno for 46 while benching Haaland is an extraordinary combination of tactical genius and fantasy-football vandalism, and somehow Aubrey still emerged with 76 points and moved up a place. Pep Guardiola would probably approve.

Bench of Shame

Aubrey's 15 wasted bench points would ordinarily be enough to secure this particular award, but Ivo had other ideas. The man who scored 91 points and climbed five places somehow managed to leave another 31 points sitting on his bench: Groß with 13, Raya with six, Davis with six and Neco Williams with another six. Thirty-one bloody points. That's not a bench; that's another reasonably competitive fantasy team. It's difficult to decide whether Ivo should be congratulated for scoring 91 or mocked for somehow finding a way to make 91 look disappointing, so we'll do both.

Paul wasn't exactly innocent either, leaving 17 points unused, while Aubrey wasted 15, Rob 12 and Ryan 11. At the other end of the spectrum, Ian and Peter recorded the mythical zero bench points, although this achievement becomes slightly less impressive when you realise it mostly means there wasn't anything useful sitting there in the first place.

Pork Chop of the Week — Tineka

There are poor Gameweeks, and then there are Gameweeks where virtually every decision appears to have been made after several pints. Tineka's ABCDEFC started the weekend in sixth place and finished it in eleventh after producing 53 points, the lowest score in the league. Five places gone in a single weekend takes some doing, but it's the transfer activity that really gives this performance its artistic merit.

Tineka removed Wirtz, brought in Szoboszlai, and then decided the new signing deserved the captain's armband. Szoboszlai responded to this enormous vote of confidence with four points, doubled to a thoroughly underwhelming eight, while Cherki wandered around elsewhere in the side collecting 14. It's the sort of weekend where you close the FPL app on Sunday evening and suddenly decide gardening might be a more rewarding hobby. For services to poor captaincy, collapsing league position and general fantasy misery, Tineka becomes the inaugural Educating Pork Pork Chop of the Week. Wear it with pride.

Business in the transfer market

Only three established managers went shopping before GW2. Rob quietly moved Sarr out for Anderson without taking a hit, scored 85 and climbed two places to third. Nothing flashy, nobody injured by the decision, no points voluntarily thrown into the bin — almost disappointingly sensible.

Dela, on the other hand, decided one transfer wasn't enough and replaced Van de Ven with Guéhi and Isak with Thiago, paying four points for the privilege. It's essentially the fantasy-football equivalent of paying an entrance fee to kick yourself in the bollocks, although an 85-point return means he got away with it and remains fourth. Tineka's Wirtz-to-Szoboszlai move has already been submitted into evidence and the prosecution rests.

Movers, fallers and general carnage

Nobody travelled further upwards than Ivo, whose 91-point haul carried him five places from seventh to second. Rob climbed two into third, while Aubrey, Candace and Peter each gained a position. Travelling in the opposite direction were Ian and Hailey, both down three, while Tineka completed the full express-elevator experience by plummeting five places from sixth to eleventh.

Paul and Steve are the new arrivals, so neither gets credited with a miraculous climb from nowhere. Steve's opening 72 leaves AFC Kincardine bottom, while Paul's 101 leaves clarkys cloggers tenth. The fact that the week's highest scorer sits two places above the bottom of the league is exactly the sort of stupidity fantasy football was invented for.

GW2 honours board

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What we’ve learned

Two Gameweeks is far too early for anyone to start engraving trophies, but it is quite long enough for bad habits to reveal themselves. Bruno captaincy has already created a sizeable dividing line between the enlightened and the unfortunate, the benches are beginning to resemble expensive museums of unused points, and the first transfer hits have appeared before most managers have even worked out which of their pre-season certainties are actually any good.

The more interesting question heading into GW3 is whether anyone learns a bloody thing from it. Ivo has 31 reasons to reconsider his bench selection, Dela has discovered that FPL will happily charge four points for the privilege of changing his mind, and Tineka may want to give a new signing more than five minutes in the building before handing him the captaincy. Paul, meanwhile, has demonstrated a novel strategy of simply ignoring the opening week and trying to make the points back later.

And then there’s Aubrey. Somewhere between now and the GW3 deadline, a decision must be made on whether Erling Haaland has finally done enough to earn promotion from the substitutes’ bench. The football world waits.