Fortune favours the brave. But, annoyingly, fortune also seems to favour people who captain Suarez. This week's we'll help you stand out, far from the madding Bantasy crowd. In fact, if this week's bantasy blog doesn't rocket-propel you to the top of your Bantasy mini-leagues, I will personally buy you a pint. To claim, you can reach me on: 0800 R-U-SERIOUS?
Happy transfers all.
Sell High
Olivier Giroud 8.6m @ Tottenham
Line 1, Page 1 of “Sleeping
With Glamour Models for Dummies” reads:
“Rule no.1: If you’re gonna deny it, don’t let that schlaaaaag take a pic of you in your Calvins”.
It’s a pity for Grioud that he forgot to pack his copy when
he went away on Arsenal’s weekend mini-break to Anfield a few weeks ago.
Unfortunately for those Bantasy faithful with Giroud in their team,
scoring in the wee hours of Saturday morning was not followed up with more
scoring on the pitch later that afternoon.
It’s difficult to know what to make of Giroud at this point in the
season. He scored twice in GW 27 - with an assist to match - but he failed to get
a look in at Stoke in GW 28, and who knows what’ll happen at Tottenham this
weekend.
Back in September, if you offered me the big man (which,
coincidentally, is what she said) for 8.6m Dollah Billz, I’d have bitten your
hand off. But nowadays, I never feel confident that he’ll deliver the goods. 8.6m
may be as cheap as Giroud has been for some time, but when I shell out that
amount of money I want a bit of consistency in return. Get him out of your team
if you haven’t done so already - the time has come to cash in (which, coincidentally,
is what she did), to sell out (she also did that), to take a hit (and that), and to show
Giroud the back door (we're not sure about that one).
“Rule no. 2: Make sure she’s got big t!ts” – some sections of the
book are more memorable than others. I hear it’s an up-and-down read.
Fortune Favours the Brave
Sergio Aguero 12.1m @ Hull Sh!tty
Sergio Aguero loves scoring as much as the next bloke. He’s just
much better at it. And to those who say that Aguero needs time to settle after
such a long stint out with a “gammy hammy”, I say:
“Don’t listen to ‘em Pats!”
If Aguero were one of Solomon Northup's colleagues, he would be the only guy to pick close to as
much cotton as "My Pats". His stats are awesome. When it comes to points per
game, Aguero holds joint second spot overall (at 7.7 p.p.g.) together with Sturridge. They are second only to Suarez (at 9.7 p.p.g.). If I were Fassbender, I’d visit Aguero every night that
God blessed me with his services on my plantation. I'm sure Pellegrini already has a system for this.
The two Liverpool men have a tricky away fixture against Moyes’
Manchester United on Sunday. I should clarify – not tricky because it’s a good
team. Rather, Man Utd under Moyes are, in the words of Forest Gump, the Premier
League’s box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get. Granted, it
is mostly those cr@ppy chocolates with strawberry juice inside that make you
wish you’d taken the time to read the label. But the odd classy chocolate
truffle; a Rooney belter with a praline centre or an RVP curly wurly - still pops up every now and then.
Aguero is having a medical assessment on his hammy on Friday after only managing 45 against Barca so watch this space - but his price is already creeping up so you may want to just plug him in now - his main value lies in the double GW anyway.
Captain Marvel
Eden Hazard 11.2m @ Aston Villa
If you haven't yet bought into this week's theme of taking big decisions… or it turns out that Aguero is in fact injured, look no further than Eden Hazard. The name says it all.
Chelsea have the best away form in the league at the moment, while Villa only have two wins from their last six home games (the remainder being three losses and a draw). Everything Chelsea do these days seems to involve the talismanic Belgian. I expect goals at Villa this weekend, and I expect Hazard to be on the scoresheet.
He's also on penalty duty at the moment, having scored one last week at Tottenham.
Aston Villa are gonna need to liven up to their club motto and be "Prepared". Good luck to them.
Fool’s Gold
Steven Caulker 5.2m @ Everton
Last week’s 3 – 1 victory over Fulham marked the end of a spell of
over 440 minutes of Cardiff football without a goal. And who better to end the
drought of goals (scored, not conceded) than Cardiff’s very own Captain Marvel,
Steven Caulker?
HEALTH AND SAFETY NOTICE: Steven Caulker is definitely not our Captain Marvel.
Let’s face it, someone had to end the drought. It was never gonna be
Kenwyne Jones – he already scored his goal for the season against Norwich
on 1 Feb, so his goal-scoring boots are now metaphorically hung-up to dry until
the 2014/5 season. Unfortunately for Cardiff fans though, his actual boots are
firmly on, and Kenwyne intends to carry on with his fairly unconvincing
impression of a Premier League striker for the foreseeable future. Given
Cardiff’s absence of convincing fire-power up top, who better than Steven
Caulker to collect a brace of goals and bag Cardiff three points to lift
Cardiff out of the relegation zone keep that third relegation spot?
That, in case you couldn't tell, was sarcastic. Let’s not lose sight of what Caulker is – a defender... in a team that
ships goals. A banker he is not – I’d sooner deposit 5.2m of my Bantasy millions
at the Cooperative Bantasy Bank (which, according to it’s own (now ex) CEO Euan
Sutherland, is not very good at banking). Word out to Rene Meulensteen – there’s
another chief whose time at the helm is almost as short as yours!
Do yourself a favour and look elsewhere for your deal of the week.
Steven Caulker and Ben Turner’s concept piece “Clean Sheets at Cardiff City” didn’t win the Turner Prize this year.
Buy Low
Romelau Lukaku 8.3m @ Cardiff City
Lukaku looks good value again, having been out for three GWs injured. At the time of writing, he’ll set you back 8.3m – 0.5m down
from his Christmas peak of 8.8m.
He’s showing no signs of rustiness - 32 minutes was all he needed to
clinch the winner at West Ham.
For those of you looking for an investment, look no further for
mid-term value appreciation – his upcoming fixtures are: Cardiff City (A) - LOL,
Swansea (H) - manageable, Newcastle (A) – potentially tricky, Fulham (A) – is there a law restricting how many goals you can score in one game?
Football Players @ Fulham (this week it’s Newcastle)
Fulham are in awesome home form at the moment (from the perspective
of any visiting team). And we know that Newcastle will be up for a fight, with
Pardew serving a stadium ban for his ring-side antics last weekend.
Hull City were already out for the count - what was he doing?!
The remoteness of their manager shouldn’t be a problem for Newcastle – I could
captain my Sunday 5-aside team to a victory against Fulham at the moment (yes,
I do mean in an 11-aside match). The only fly in the ointment is that Loic
Remy is out for three weeks.
But the Toon has plenty more to offer – Yoan Gouffran looks good value at 6.3m for his 92 point
total.
Better still is Moussa Sissoko who will cost you 5.6m for his 91 points overall. Sissoko got himself 15 points on Alan Pardew's Fight Night. 15 points! Did he get an assist for Pardew's header?
Given Fulham's recent home form, it's likely that all of the above will share in the spoils. Get
involved…
Adam Johnson 6.5m @ Crystal Palace
Down from a season high of 7.0m, Johnson is looks a bargain again.
When it comes to Double Gameweek-week (GW31), the two Manchester
teams grab much of the attention. Don't forget about AJ though. He's cheaper than any Manchester City 1st XI midfielder. And we know you wouldn't do something silly like buy a United midfielder… would you? 'member we told you! Jeez.
Punt of the Week
Demba Ba 7.4m @ Aston Villa
To Ba or not to Ba, that is the question.
It’s fair to say that Demba Ba, being a devout Muslim, probably
doesn’t have Christmas Day saved as an annual Google calendar alert. So, Ba can
be forgiven for thinking that Christmas had come early last weekend, as he was
literally gifted goals by Sandro and then Kyle Walker within three minutes of
each other.
Torres has 50% chance of playing this week. Ba is certainly third
choice at the moment, sitting behind Eto’o in the Chelsea pecking order. But
there are serious doubts as to whether Mourinho would bring out The Old Man of
Stamford Bridge for the full 90 minutes - it’s only happened four times this
season, and last Saturday’s “Chelsea Dinner”, consisting of Eto'o to start
followed by Ba to finish can only be described as goal-gourmet, dah’ling.
All signs suggest that Mourinho liked what he saw last week. Don’t
be surprised if we get a second helping of Chelsea Dinner this weekend. I think
we’ll see some decent playing time for Ba. Gift or no gift, his two finishes
against Tottenham were clinical.
Some might say that spending 4.3m of your hard-earned Bantasy moneys on Noone is a waste, and they'd probably be right. Still, if you’ve got a sense of humour and Bantasy funds to burn, get
this guy in your team. It’s jokes when Noone scores. The only problem is, it doesn’t
happen very much. Noone has a grand total of one goal for the season so far.
Still, things are looking up – I hear that Solskjaer has got him shadowing
Kenwyne Jones in training. Watch this space…
If only Noone got bonus points when noone scores for Cardiff - he’d
be the highest scoring player in the league!.. this is just confusing now.
Apparently Noone brings a towel to Cardiff City’s home games.
