Well that's it. I just nervously hit the "confirm" button for the penultimate time and my cards are on the table.
Opted to be rid of Davies given that he may not play if Cuellar is fit and Laursen is due back soon too. Also given that Villa's next 2 games are Liverpool and Man Utd, it may be that he's a liability if he'd played anyway!
Fulham's run-in also includes many of the top teams and although they look safe at the moment things could get tough for them in a hurry, so Johnson probably won't score too many from here-on-in. (Cue hat-trick against ManU at the weekend.
)
Arshavin seems too good to miss at the moment, (although he'll probably now turn out to be absolutely capable of missing every chance going since I've signed him!) so he crept in ahead of Berba, and since he was half-a-mill cheaper it meant I didn't have to drop one of my more pricey centrebacks.
And then the last decision?
Looking at the run-ins for most of the relegation scrappers that have players available (CB or MF) for 3.5mill & below, there's a few teams that could be in trouble. Hull are one, having 3 of the big 4 still to play. Middlesbrough are pretty much doomed too, unless they can pull out a few more performances like they did against Liverpool. West Brom are all but down anyway, I just can't see them rescuing themselves if they can't score at all.
So the outstanding team here is Stoke, who seem to have got all bar one difficult fixtures out of the way (Arsenal away on the last day of the season
) and so it came down to a choice of Stoke defence (i.e. quite a few dropped points) or midfield, and while they concede many goals Stoke are adept at nicking a goal or 2 themselves here & there, so the "
Delapidator" got the nod. Scrapping with teams around them, beginning with 'Boro this weekend, I'm hoping that a few more assists will be forthcoming from open play or from the infamous long throws.