MMM : First Round Auction Results

The first round of the Online Auction for the Monday Morning Magnificos has now ended with some surprising results. This is my first experience of an online auction league, and I have to admit to being surprised with just how many players we all ended up with.

The lowest number of bids won was 7 by both Leon Hayes and Shalin Naik, with five teams managing to win 11 bids or more. The Piemen (Chris Lamy) topped out with 13 and a further £36m in the bank to spend on just three more players.

But looking just at budgets and bids won doesn't tell the whole story - as Arsene Wenger would say, what is the quality of the player that each manager has bought. Here's my first take.

Berbie Goes Bananas (Leon Hayes), 7 Bids Won for £58.5m

In probably the most inevitable bid, Leon went for Dimitar Berbatov with an amazing bid of £21.5m - outbidding Finntastic FC by £5.5m. But he backed this up with successful bids for strikers Fernando Torres (£21.5m) and Andy Johnson (£6.25m) with Johnson perhaps a bargain at this value with only Snaiks XI submitting a bid for the Everton striker.

The amazing bargain of the lot might be Chelsea's Ricardo Carvalho for £2.25m, which certainly does make Leon's defence look a lot better than it might have done, losing out on several low bids for good quality defenders. I bet Leon wonders what he might have done with the £4.25m he bid for Jermaine Pennant unchallenged.

Whilst Leon may have three top quality strikers, his season will rest on what he can do with a limited budget and a lot of positions still to fill including key defenders and goalkeeper.

Bobby Robson's Old Boys (Marc Bradbrook), 11 Bids Won for £45.5m

Marc adopted what appears to be a similar strategy to me - to the extent that he bid for two strikers that I went for. Anelka (£8.75m) and Viduka (£7.5m) form an excellent if temperamental strike force. Marc missed out on Michael Owen, though, as he tried to collect Big Sam's strikers.

Elsewhere Marc was unlucky to miss out on Jose Reina by quarter of a million, and Leighton Baines by £2.75m but otherwise secured a good defense lead by Steve Finnan, Micah Richards, Olaf Mellberg, John Terry and Alan Stubbs (if he'll play). Terry is pretty good value at £8m, but Finnan outstanding value at £2.25m.

Shaun Wright-Phillips stands out in midfield for £6m, with fellow Ipswich fan outbidding Marc for Ashley Young and Morten Gamst Pedersen. I've got to admit that I refused to pay big money for midfielders since the difference between a pretty good one and an average one can only by about 20 points which compares very unfavourably with the differences for goalkeepers - but more of that later.

Done Like A Kipper 2.0 (Ken Yau) - 11 bids won for £31m

Ken has a lot of money left in the bank which makes him dangerous in the second round, but he is left hunting for strikers since he missed out on each of Torres, Owen and Berbatov.

Having Wigan's keeper is a bit of a liability, but clearly Ken has faith since he's added Emerson Boyce at full back. Tony Hibbert is a sold selection too as he seems to have a spot in Everton's regular team. Big splashes for Jonathan Woodgate and William Gallas will leave Ken waiting on injury news much of the season, but Amdy Faye might be a really shrewd selection.

Ken spent heavily on Gareth Barry - another player with an international week that boosted his value - but will not be pleased to learn that he was the only player to bid. That's £11.5m wasted... Continuing the theme of big purchases coupled with shrewd investments a midfield of Cahill, Richardson and Parker for £0.5m is not to be sniffed at.

Ken has a lot of money in the bank left - he'll have to hope that there are some good strikers to pick up with it.

Castores Venezolanos (David Trice) - 9 bids won for £51m

Not one but two of the best goalkeepers in the game are on my team. Cech and Reina were secured for £8.25m, and yes that was part of the plan! I'm even more delighted to learn that I outbid colleagues by that extra £0.25m - no, even as chair I cannot see your bids so there is no cheating going on.

As I said before the drop-off at 'keeper and defnder lead me to try and focus on these players, but sadly my plan didn't quite come off. Whilst I picked Emanuel Eboue and Phil Jagielka for next to nothing from good teams (hoping Eboue will be fit on two counts!) I was disappointed not to get Champions League Final scoring Chelsea fullback Belletti with Forthie outbidding me by £3.75m.

Still, securing Daniel Agger of Liverpool at centre back gives me a rock in this position and Mikael Silvestre and Gary Neville's injuries are good news for Man Utd defender Wes Brown who came in to the team for £2.25m.

In midfield I made speculatively low bids for quality players and it came off securing El-Hadj Diouf, whilst Paul Scholes came at a high price considering my only challenge was a minimum bid from the Kippers.

Robin Van Persie leads the line and for a man who had scored 8 from 8 before his season ending injury he looks like a relative bargain compared to Berbie and Torres at £13.25m.

Sadly I came up short on Anelka and Viduka and I'll be looking jealously at Bobby Robson's Old Boys all season long. Still, happy to get RVP, Cech, Reina, Agger and Scholes, my big five targets, and need to get lucky in my next picks on a limited budget to secure the rest of the team.

By the way - for any VBCL owners reading... don't expect me to have followed this strategy in your league!

The Piemen (Chris Lamy) - 13 bids won for £39m

The Piemen are fat on their bidding success... 13 players. Carson and Schmeichel were excellent selections at low prices. Clichy, Warnock and Arbeloa absolute bargains for a £1m apiece. Tal Ben Haim, Joleon Lescott (sickening) and David Rozenahl are all quality centre backs also at a low low price of £1m.

In midfield Chris also bid a low £1m for Elano and Sibierski who are hot right now and Seb Larsson (perhaps betraying his Arsenal allegiances a little too much!). Fortunately he didn't sneak Arteta past us with a low bid.

But what did all of this fiscal prudence get Chris? Well, a chance to big bid money for quality players - and that's where the strategy didn't quite work. Cesc Fabregas came for £15m and he is an outstanding player with a very strong scoring record already this season. Benni McCarthy is an excellent striker and if he repeats last season's 50+ points haul he'll be worth his £10m bid. But failing to secure Torres and Owen spoils this set of bids a bit.

With only three players remaining, Chris's research should be easy for this one and his bid decision-making... well pretty easy too. He just needs to find two great strikers amongst the free agents.

Forthie's Tractor Boys (Peter Forth) - 12 bids won for £51m

Peter was last to submit his bids, and has done well for his money. Tim Howard for £2m is excellent value although getting Cech too would have made this a great pair of keepers. Belletti, Baines and Bale are all excellent pick ups at full back although Bale's bid was uncontested.

Central defence is a bit softer, missing out on Agger Peter has Laursen of Villa and Distin of Portsmouth whilst a solid midfield of Ashley Young, Morten Gamst Pederson, James Milner and Jermaine Jenas is good value too despite £16m spent. A tied bid was lost for Noble.

Up front though the Tractor Boys look a little light. Aliadiere and Ashton were good value at their price, but without Benni McCarthy the team is short of a player who will score 10-15 goals this season, in my opinion. The success of this selection rests on finding a good striker and getting further quality in defence.

Finntastic FC (David Mason) - 12 bids won for £52m

And finally - Dave Mason picked up some excellent defenders in Friedel, Cole, Riise and Toure at reasonable prices. Toure particularly for £2m. Losing out on Wes Brown and Micah Richards and not losing out on Ledley King spoiled this a bit ;-)

This is probably the most interesting midfield so far - Reo Coker for £0.25m is a very shrewd selection IMO. Bentley for £5m and Arteta for £6m gives Dave an excellent platform. Babel has looked superb in his brief Liverpool appearances and Freddie Ljungberg could get 30+ points if he stays fit.

Up front Dave picked up Michael Owen who I suspect he'll be really pleased to have on his team, but not getting Berbatov or Anelka spoils the selection a bit.

Overall some shrewd picks and a very sound base in midfield. Without much budget left and two strikers left to buy, Finntastic FC need to be lucky in their final selections. But if they can, they'll round out a very good team indeed.

Free Agents

Well - to be honest this is the big news... we could all have had Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba or Cristiano Ronaldo for absolutely no cash outlay whatsoever. Shocking!

In goal Jens Lehmann may have gone AWOL mentally but no one picked him or his replacement Manuel Almunia. Other good keepers available include David James, Marcus Hahnemann, Jaskelainen, Robert Green and Paul Robinson.

Full backs include Gary Neville, Wayne Bridge, Paulo Ferreira, Geremi and others. Centre backs left include Rio Ferdinand and Tony Vidic, Yobo, Hyppia and many more besides.

So there is plenty of quality still available and plenty of competition for those remaining spots. Don't forget to submit your bids by Thursday night (10pm) and look out for more news.