Data specialist takes early lead in the SBC League of Legends

The Stat Zone’s Sports Data Specialist Rob Esteva raced into an early lead in the ‘SBC League of Legends’ with a staggering 96 points on the opening weekend.

He was closely followed in second place by Sky Bet’s Jamie Davison, who like Jose Mourinho, reaped the rewards for putting faith in Romelu Lukaku, by giving him the captains armband.

After a goal-laden first gameweek, the list of last weekend’s top fantasy football point scorers was surprisingly dominated by players from newly-promoted Huddersfield Town.

Whilst the majority of fantasy football managers put faith in the likes of Thibaut Courtois or Petr Cech to take the number one jersey, a clean sheet and a fine performance was enough to ensure Huddersfield’s Jonas Lössl was the highest scoring keeper of the weekend.

Mathias Jørgensen also benefited from Huddersfield’s superb defensive performance; the Danish defender brought home ten points in his Premier League debut. He wasn’t the only high scoring defender though, as Spurs’ Ben Davies found the back of the net and kept a clean sheet at Newcastle.

Much to the dismay of many managers, Harry Kane continued his unwanted record of having never scored a Premier League goal in August.

However, where one English striker retained a record, another broke one, as Wayne Rooney’s first Everton goal for 4869 days netted him nine weekend points and also set the record for the longest gap between goals for the same club.

A bundle of strikers grabbed braces this weekend; Jamie Vardy lit up Friday night football at the Emirates, Lukaku bagged two on his Old Trafford debut, Sam Vokes stunned champions Chelsea at the Bridge and Huddersfield new signing Steve Mounie helped his side earn a surprise victory over Crystal Palace.

Elsewhere, a clean sheet and an uncharacteristic winning goal was enough for West Brom’s Egyptian defender Ahmed Hegazi to edge out the likes of Vardy and Lukaku as the weekend’s most valuable player.

It was also a poor weekend for club captains, as both Newcastle’s Jonjo Shelvey and Chelsea’s Gary Cahill saw red cards and ended the first round of games on minus points.

SBC staff members will be desperately clinging onto the notion that its a marathon not a sprint, as despite the inclusion of Cesc Fabregas in his starting 11, Charlie Cole was the only SBC staff member to make it into the top 25.