⚽ Fitballer Match Two | MNC v EVE | 549 calories 🔥
Hello my name is Simon and I am a fat football fan. I’ve set myself the personal challenge of losing 40 pounds (3 stone) by the end of the English Premier League season, by watching football matches and working out to my Fitballer regime.

PRE-GAME
Having spent the weekend at a festival camp in Royal Tunbridge Wells, the decision was made for me to pick Sky Sport’s Monday Night Football game, between the Sky and Royal Blues, as my Fitballer match of the week.
Using the same cross trainer set up, below are the Fitballer exercise ‘rules’ I went with for tonight’s match.

HOW THE TEAM’S LINED UP (FANTASY FOOTBALL THOUGHTS)


Man City made one main change, with Sane (£8.5m midfielder) lining up at left wingback; as a player featured in all my early FPL team drafts, it has been a disappointing start to the season for Sane fans, who lit up the second half of last season. The rest of the City team remained unchanged from the side that ground down Brighton in Gameweek One, with Danilo (£5.5m defender) making way.
Despite their boring and rather old-school Twitter team announcement, Everton made a bunch of changes to a much more defensively solid team. Youngster Calvert-Lewin moved from left-wing back at home to Stoke to the lone striker in this game. At £5m in FPL, he is one to monitor. New signing Gylfi ‘Siggy’ Sigurdsson is an FPL legend and needs no introduction. The £8.4m midfielder started on the bench.
My FPL interest in this game was concentrated on the home team in the shape of Kevin De Bruyne and Agüero. Having scored a sub-par 37 points over the weekend, I was facing a big fat FPL red arrow if City didn’t score big tonight.
⚽️⚽⚽️ ️ !! KICK-OFF !! ⚽️⚽️⚽️
- 00:00 :: I started the match on a Resistance Level Five (RL5). City decided to let off fireworks before the game, so it was hard to see what the hell was happening.
- 07:03 :: Schneiderlin goes in the book for a lunge on Agüero. Thankfully my City stud showed no ill-effects (except for being shite for the rest of the game). A yellow card means +1 on my cross trainer difficulty, so an early rise to RL6. 💛
- 24:04 :: Another booking for an Everton defensive midfielder (Koeman started four of them), this time it was Davies for a terrible dive. Approaching the half hour mark and goalless, City’s home struggles from last season appeared to have resurfaced. +1 resistance, RL7 💛
- 34:4o :: !GOAL! Rooney arrives late in the box and puts Calvert-Lewin’s pullback between the City keeper’s legs, going in off the post. As Rooney celebrated becoming only the second Premier League player to reach 200 league goals, I temporarily maxed out my cross trainer resistance (RL16), before adding +3 to a RL10 setting. ⚽️
- 41:34 :: Pricey FPL defender, Kyle Walker (£6.5m) picks up a yellow card going for a 50–50 with ex-pricey FPL defender Leighton Baines (now £5.5m). +1 resistance, RL11 💛
- 43:55 :: The ref produces his red card and Walker walks!! While Sky was busy showing a fluffed City chance (Agüero feeding another early favourite but failing FPL asset, Gabriel Jesus), a clash with Calvert-Lewin saw the Everton forward clutching his face on the floor. Replays showed it to be a very harsh decision; on both City and FPL managers that had heavily backed the home side for tonight’s game. A second yellow card leading to a dismissal meant +2 and a RL13 setting. 💛 ➡ 🔴

⚽️⚽⚽ ️FIRST HALF FITBALLER REPORT ⚽️⚽⚽️
A feisty North West affair between the other two clubs in Manchester and Liverpool was full of incident, if not a lot of action. From a Fantasy Premier League perspective, I still fancied City to score but was now resigned to both De Bruyne and Agüero not significantly boosting my Gameweek Two team score.
Compared to my first Fitballer game, I certainly experienced a better workout, covering 0.3 km more ground (owing to no first half substitutions) and burning 101 more calories (ending on RL13 compared to RL4 last week). I also annoyingly discovered that my shitty cross trainer resets its workout statistics around the four minute idle mark. I was as pissed off as Pep at half-time but decided to soldier on.

⚽️⚽⚽ ️SECOND HALF ⚽️⚽⚽️
- 45:00 :: A half-time Pep talk saw Jesus make way for Sterling, meaning the 10% of FPL managers looking for a return from their goal scoring saviour, would only pick up one point. A second consecutive blank surely means a loss of faith in the forward and an inevitable price drop from £10.5m. Having reset my resistance to RL10 at the restart, I decided to ignore the option of a 2 minute rest as well as the -1 for the tactical substitution. ⏮⏭
- 60:29–69:34 :: A double Everton change on 60-odd minutes followed by two quick fire subs by City interrupted the flow of the match, and my workout, as both managers set their stall out for the remainder of the game. Everton went 442 while City’s formation is impossible to call at the best of times with 11 men on the pitch. The 10 minute substitution spell meant -4 resistance, settling on RL6 with plenty of rest.
- 77:40 :: Sterling’s pace has caused Everton problems, leading to a brilliant save from Pickford to deny Danilo. Play goes up the other end and Calvert-Lewin is scythed down by City Captain, Kompany. Who knew pace was important in the Premier League. +1 RL7 💛
- 81:58 :: !GOAL! Despite looking his usual wasteful self, Raheem Sterling blasts home a rather sweet volley from beyond the penalty spot. It was a poor error for Everton’s young defender, Holgate (£4.5m), who was having a good game prior to heading a looping clearance straight to Sterling. City are back in it and looking for an unlikely winner. Queue the fireworks. Or not, I’d like to see the rest of this game. +3 RL10 💛
- 88:02 :: Another red card as the ref makes it ten-a-side for the last few minutes. Schneiderlin is off for a slightly early shower following a second bookable tackle on Agüero. Prior to that, Rooney got booked (+1), then after this, Rooney got subbed (-1). meaning the match ended on RL12. 💛 💛 ➡ 🔴 ⏮⏭

⚽️⚽⚽ ️FULL TIME FITBALLER REPORT ⚽️⚽⚽️
Everton were good value in the first half but I actually think the sending off in their favour negatively affected their game plan. The sum of their newly acquired parts are pretty impressive but you can’t help feeling that Lukaku would have won them this game. Rooney was right up for it but won’t replace his points over the season. As for City, you can’t fault their commitment in getting a draw from this game, having been a goal and a man down. They kept hold of a remarkable 65% possession but I do not like the way Pep has City set up. Without Sane and Sterling in their starting 11, they lack pace and penetration. De Bruyne (£10m) sat too deep again and he’s already out of my FPL team for this upcoming weekend match ups.
This was a non-typical game of two halves…with both 45's playing out the same for both sides but in reverse. A goal + a sending off, with the added factor of second half substitutions. Due to my cross trainer resetting itself at half-time, I was able to directly compare two halves of a full match workout.
Six minutes less active exercise time in the second half resulted in 2.3 km less distance covered. However, starting at RL10 after the interval meant only 11 less calories burnt, despite five substitutions. So all in my full-time stats were as follows:
- Active Exercise time :: 82 minutes 15 seconds
- Distance covered :: 22.9 kilometres
- Calories burnt :: 549 calories



