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Archive for September, 2011|Monthly archive page

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Last Minute Tinkers: GW 7 Part 2

In Squad Sheet on September 30, 2011 at 2:59 pm

West Bromwich Albion’s Shane Long is looking to break his four match streak of 2 points in the fantasy premier league.  -23341, -4773, and -17496. Those are Long’s transfers out in the past three weeks and his price has dropped back down to £6m.  He has not linked well with Odemwingie (simply in terms of goals for the team when they’re both on the pitch) as they’ve managed just 1 goal as a team.  The teams prospects have obviously turned bleak and they’ve run up just a 1-1-4 record.  However this is the perfect time to be getting Sunderland as they have so little cover at the back.  The two top earners in the midfield (Brunt) and defense (Shorey) simply cost too much (Brunt) or have a total that relies heavily on one game (Shorey).  While Ben Foster did earn a second clean sheet in three matches, he has only 11 saves through six matches, a very poor total and without those jumping exponentially there is no reason to continue to own him.

At Sunderland it’s bad news about Titus Bramble as he’s been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and possession of a narcotic.  He’d played the full 90′ in each of the last three league fixtures, getting on the score sheet in the 4-0 win over Stoke as he posted 14 FPL points (clean sheet and 2 bonus).  This will pose an unwelcome distraction as Sunderland prepare for West Brom as they’re already without Phil Bardsley (suspended until 22 Oct).  It was Brown, Bramble,  O’Shea and Richardson at the back last week in the 2-1 loss to Norwich and it will likely be Michael Turner getting his first EPL minutes as he’s been unused on the bench the last few matches.  Bramble has been suspended pending the results of the investigation. UPDATE: Bruce confirms it is Turner to start.

While Sunderland are chasing a European spot this season, last season’s fair play entrants to the Europa League have continued to find continental success while struggling in EPL:

And that Tweet was before he’d hit the second one!   Read the rest of this entry »

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Last Minute Tinkers: GW 7 Part 1

In Squad Sheet on September 30, 2011 at 1:43 pm

Clearly He's Just Signed, He's Still Smiling

Of course we’re all aware that Tevez (that’s Carlos Tevez, playeds for Manchester City) is currently suspended. And he may be suspended until Christmas according to some reports. The more immediately interesting bit coming out of the Blues half of Manchester is that Edin Dzeko has learnt his lesson and apologized. Mancini has put Dzeko back into his plans for Saturday’s trip to Blackburn Rovers. This is a bit of good news for owners of Dzeko, those who haven’t yet jumped ship.  With his price falling back to the pack a bit, he can currently be had for £8.7m, a good 2.7m less than his strike partner Aguero.  For those who’ve made the jump for Aguero already on the news of Dzeko’s possible seat “next to” Mancini this weekend, erm,  stick with ‘em. It’s not as if Dzeko has played outstanding football in his past three matches and, apology or not, he is going to be pulled first of the two should reinforcements be required. This weekend – they won’t be.

It’s an unfortunate thought that the only positive about Blackburn, from an FPL perspective, is that they don’t tease you. Even in their 4-3 win the defense allowed three goals, they only managed two scores of their own and both came via Yakubu. Yakubu isn’t a reliable Fantasy Premier League option have played just 668′ last season and fewer than 1200′ each of the two prior to that.  While he’s able to score when on the field (as he’s proven this year) but we’re not even using the paltry £5.5m on him.  It may be to our detriment in the extreme short term, we’re simply not expecting more than another 4 goals out of him the rest of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

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Champions League Day 4

In Squad Sheet on September 29, 2011 at 3:00 pm

A poor handball by substitute Salomon Kalou allowed Valencia to level from the penalty spot in the 87′ and Chelsea will feel aggrieved to have given up the two points after an attacking display that should have resulted in many more goals. The good news for CFC supporters and Fantasy Premier League owners is that they were pacy, crisp and lethal with their passing. The bad news is that they simply weren’t able to get past Diego Alves who had a man of the match performance, posting 8 or 9 saves (depending on the stats you believe).  Chelsea next plays Bolton at Reebok stadium and will look to compound the misery of the bottom side in the table.  Bolton have had horrible news with Stu Holden’s routine procedure returning a dire prognosis of an additional 6 months on the sidelines.  Ivan Klasnic will also miss this match through suspension and Gary Cahill is recovering from the illness that kept him out of last weeks 3-0 loss to Arsenal.

Chelsea will be without Torres, suspended until 29 October following his red card last weekend, and could be without Daniel Sturridge – racing for fitness from a knee injury.  Villas-Boas may elect to keep this side nearly intact, with either Anelka or Drogba coming on for Torres, but it is equally as likely that both will play alongside Mata at the top with Florent Malouda once again finding a seat on the substitutes bench. Read the rest of this entry »

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Play The Wildcard: GW 7

In Squad Sheet on September 29, 2011 at 1:24 am

Fantasy Gaffer’s Official Team has been struggling. Some of that has been laziness – that can not be discounted – but our team has suffered from late Liverpool goals allowed, Norwich conceding penalties, N’Zogbia’s poor start, Albrighton’s inability to find the pitch, Graham’s inability to find the goal and our constant need to hand the captains armband to Robin van Persie.

After feeling like we finally made our point that this team wasn’t that devoid of talent, we posted a nice round 80 this week – good for 3,382 overall – we’ve decided to throw a bit of caution to the wind and bring Sergio Aguero into the side.  This can only be achieved one of three ways:

1) Remove Robin van Persie, or;

2) Remove Luis Suarez, Vincent Kompany and Brede Hangeland, or;

3) Wildcard.

Since we’re of the opinion that it is never ok to pay the 4 point penalty, and because our side already contains the discount defenders that we’re most comfortable with, it was obvious that #3 was going to be the only choice remaining.  Below are a lot of screen caps. If you’re not interested in our team, we understand. We’ve tried to include a number of valuable fantasy premier league bits in between but this is largely about how we’ve chosen to construct our team for the next 4-10 weeks.

Read the rest of this entry »

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FPL Bonus Points Update

In Strategy on September 28, 2011 at 10:55 pm

This season has been a tough one for predicting Fantasy Premier League bonus points.  While many top performances have been easy to spot (Misters Rooney, Dzeko and Aguero come to mind) there have been a number of 3 point performances where the players were more difficult to spot.

This last week saw the continuation of a season long trend of Goalkeepers being passed over by the EA Sports Player Performance Index rating, and thus being passed over for crucial bonus points.  On the year only one keeper (Stoke’s Asmir Beogvic) has earned bonus more than once. His 5 combined points account for 36% of all ‘keeper bonus.

Goalkeepers: Begovic (5), Howard (2), Hart (2), Krul (2), Al-Habsi (1), Hennessey (1), Foster (1).

Among the notables to be denied bonus points were Mark Schwarzer and Ben Foster who played to a 0-0 draw this weekend.  In keeping the clean sheets Schwarzer recorded 3 saves and Foster 4. Yet their EASPPI scores of 14 did not make the cut.  Instead the bonus points were awarded to JA Riise (3, PPI 19) McAuley (3, PPI 19) and Reid (1, PPI 16).  Looking at the Opta stats for each player (via EPLIndex.com) it is clear Riise had an excellent match. He competed 44 of 54 open play passes (81%), in addition to being accurate with both long passes (7/11) and long balls (4/9).  He attacked well down the wing (7 passes to attacking wing positon) and defended well (2 tackles, won 4 of 6 ground 50/50′s and 1 of 1 aerial 50/50′s).  Despite having 80 touches, he recorded just 2 loss of possession. Read the rest of this entry »

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Checking In With: FFC’s Defense

In Squad Sheet, Strategy on September 28, 2011 at 1:42 am

Fantasy Gaffer hedged no bet when making these pre-season statements in the Fulham Buying Guide:

The early schedule coupled with the Official FPL game’s low prices for the other Fulham defenders have moved them into solid “buy” territory.  Ranked in order: Baird, Hughes, Salcido, are all worthy of being a 3/4/5th defender and are priced to allow you to still but one or two top flight options without breaking the bank at the back.  (Aug 1)

While no one could have forseen that family situations would arise that had Salcido taking a year long loan back in Mexico. However Baird, Hughes and Hangeland have yet to put together the type of season that we believed they would over their first 10 matches.

Keep in mind that FFC’s 1st 10 ran: (h)Villa (a)Wolves (a)Newcastle (h)Rovers (h)Man City (a)WBA (h)QPR (a)Stoke (h)Everton and (a)Wigan. We’re now through the first six and Fulham have managed to keep two clean sheets, in their opening day match against Aston Villa and in their most recent match against WBA.  Those two matches have account for 11 of Hangeland’s 15 fantasy premier league points as he earned just 1 point for each of the 4 successive matches between opening day and gameweek 6.  Hughes has been more disappointing. While he earned the full 90′ through three matches, and earned a respectable 8 points in those three weeks (he does only cost £5m), his injury derailed his playing time and now appears to be in a three way race for two spots with Baird and Senderos. Read the rest of this entry »

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Champions League Day 3

In Strategy on September 27, 2011 at 11:46 pm

Well. That was interesting. City were played off of the pitch by a rampant Bayern side following a couple of early calls for penalties that never materialized.

United were constantly under pressure to a Basel side that could, 3 goals notwithstanding, use a few extra moments on the training ground practicing their finishing.

And then the games began.

Mancini - Tevez refused to play

Tevez - I’ve been professional

Mancini -  ”If I have my way he will be out of the club.”

Oh, and did you hear?

This would have been bad enough had it been the only problem Mancini had to deal with.

However, there was also the problem of striker Edin Dzeko shaking his head at Mancini as he was replaced by Nigel de Jong 10 minutes into the second half.  It was that change that angered Tevez, who was left on the bench throughout his side’s Premier League win over Everton on Saturday, and it appeared Dzeko was equally annoyed.

“He was disappointed but he played a bad game,” said Mancini. ”I wanted to keep the score down and not concede a third goal…It is the last time any player at this club does that…”He will sit the next game next to me.”

From a fantasy premier league perspective lets deal with these issues in order.   Read the rest of this entry »


Arsenal Injury Update

In Squad Sheet on September 27, 2011 at 2:07 pm

Heading into tonight Champions League fixture with  Olympiacos Arsene Wenger has addressed a number of injury issues facing the club.  This weekend in the EPL Arsenal face Tottenham at White Hart and will be looking to build on their 3-0 win against Bolton.  Spurs are looking at a few injury issues of their own and we’ll have a post about Spurs following their Thursday Europa league fixture (home against Shamrock).

For Arsenal is appears to be good news:

Gervino is not fit, he has a minor muscular problem that is very, very mild.  Walcott is not fit, he has a minor knee problem. He got a kick, but there is no damage in the knee. All three have a chance for the weekend. I would say Theo has a more than 50-50 chance.

The third mentioned above is Laurent Koscielny. Koscielny has played the full 90′ in 5 of Arsenal’s six EPL fixtures this season.  With Sebastian Squillaci also not currently fit it will be interesting to see who Wenger lines-up today as that should provide good insight into the weekends selection as well.  At this point it would be foolish to invest in Arsenal’s defense, particularly with Tottenham finding the scoring touch since the addition of Adebayor.

In the three matches with Adebayor Tottenham have scored 8 goals, with Ade scoring three and assisting on one.  They’re 3-0-0 in that span and have only allowed one goal themselves, the Wigan goal last weekend.  With Rafa, Luka and co. all firing well at the moment Arsenal will need to ensure that they are solid through the midfield. Lacking the explosive pace of Walcott on the right may limit their counter-attack ability.   Read the rest of this entry »

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Aston Villa Injury News

In Squad Sheet, Strategy on September 27, 2011 at 1:42 pm

From the Aston Villa site there is news that five players are all looking to pass

Bent and Heskey are in line to return for Saturday’s clash against Wigan Athletic after recovering from groin and hamstring problems respectively, while Jermaine Jenas could make his long-awaited debut having been kept on the sidelines with a kicking strain.

Ciaran Clark [knee] should also be in contention to face the Latics, while Carlos Cuellar has trained for the first time since undergoing a knee operation at the end of last season.

However, the encounter with Roberto Martinez’s men will come too soon for Cuellar as he needs to build up his match fitness.

James Collins received positive results from a scan on his injured ankle following Sunday’s draw at QPR, so the only injury concerns for McLeish are Aussie utility man Chris Herd [tendinitis] and long-term casualty Eric Lichaj [hip].

Yeah, that’s a long quote but keep in mind that two of those players are first choice XI, and two more were in line to join them.  That’s four players that McLeish could have been without as he tries to right the Villa ship.  Following four straight draws in the League the Villans will host a Latics side who’ve lost three straight.  From a fantasy premier league perspective this is likely not welcome news as the return of Heskey and Jenas will create more competition for the emerging Barry Bannan who has had three straight starts (although no full 90′) notching a goal (penalty) an assist and 18 FPL points in that span.  He is priced at just £5m and is still owned by less than half a percent of all owners.   Read the rest of this entry »


An Apology of Sorts

In Sorted on September 27, 2011 at 12:51 am

Not Pictured: Coleen Rooney

We’re very sorry. Had we ever, in 1000 years, perhaps even more, ever thought that being one of @ColeenRoo’s 373,275 followers would have paid off with the knowledge that Wayne was home with the missus instead of in a Stoke hotel room with Rio and six ladies we would have given serious thought to following her account before deciding that it just wasn’t worth the trade off to us – you know, personally.

Fortunately DTguardian has no such scruples and alerted the masses with with information that he later confirmed – Rooney missing from the squad – on Saturday, at a time when fantasy rosters were pretty much set the world over. Probably not great news for the 62339 owners who bought Rooney in the week leading up to the Stoke fixture.

Now United has responded by putting a gag order on the WAG’s accounts relating to players and whatnot and Ms. Roo has complied to the point that she’s deleted the offending tweet.  But in the interest of apology we’d like to offer up some of her other tweets to see what we can expect from team sheets around the country in coming week.  After the jump there isn’t much fantasy premier league advice but you know what, that makes for a poor apology. Read the rest of this entry »