The clean sheet points rule is the bane of many a fantasy football manager’s existence.
If your goalkeeper or defender makes it to the hour mark and his team goes the whole game without conceding, then he gets the full bonus. Same goes with midfielders and that one extra point for no goals conceded.
Take, for instance, last season when Southampton defender Cédric was withdrawn seconds before the hour mark in a game in which his side kept a clean sheet and he was denied his bonus points. Some reacted angrily to the supposed injustice, with one fantasy manager even going as far as writing a very detailed letter of complaint about the situation.
We hope that same guy didn’t have Kasper Schmeichel in his team this week, as the Leicester goalkeeper was withdrawn with a knock 57 minutes into the game against Swansea, with the Foxes 2-0 up at the time.
57 – First change for #lcfc and it's Schmeichel coming off for Zieler. Looks like the Dane may have picked up a knock. #LeiSwa
— Leicester City (@LCFC) August 27, 2016
The official Fantasy Premier League account confirmed that the introduction of Ron-Robert Zieler meant no clean sheet points for Schmeichel.
And now Schmeichel goes off after 57 mins (Zieler on)- meaning he won't get any CS points #LEISWA #FPL
— Fantasy Premier League (@OfficialFPL) August 27, 2016
People were left cursing their luck, especially those who brought Schmeichel into their team this week.
He didn’t miss a single minute of action last season, so few could have predicted this.
Picked Schmeichel for the first time this week on FPL and he's off in the 57th minute.
— w’ 🉐 (@winniffy) August 27, 2016
The anger was evident – and with several other goalkeepers saving penalties during the afternoon the loss of points was felt even more keenly.
OH WTF I HAVE SCHMEICHEL IN MY FPL TEAM AND HE'S GONE OFF?
FFFSSSS— YS (@XhakaTheSavior) August 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/am_alkhaled/status/769554367523516416
https://twitter.com/fanfeud/status/769554924673896448
If you’re looking for someone to blame, this guy has picked three goalkeepers for his team in as many weeks and all of them have gone and got themselves injured.
It’s almost certainly not his fault, but still.
The keepers I got on FPL so far: Lloris, Valdés and Schmeichel. They all got injured.
— Gonçalo Machado (@Goncalo24M) August 27, 2016
In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered if Schmeichel stuck around an extra three minutes, since Leroy Fer got a late consolation for the Swans.
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