If
you don’t know who the best players are by now, then what have you been doing
for the last 35 Game Weeks? This late on, values correlate with points scored more strongly than they have all season. You may scratch your head
at this, but by no means should you be giving up…
Form and fixtures are the
answer to your bargain-hunting problems – just ask this guy:
"This antique hammer might look sh!te, but wait till I tell you I only paid £10k for it!"
Captain Marvel
You might read what follows and ask yourself if I have gone mad. Fear not – I only smoked a cigarette with two of my new friends that I met at the weekend:
I’m perfectly lucid, I promise.
Juan Mata £9.5M (Norwich (H))
This one is for all of y’all that just don’t give a damn: the blue chip playaaaz, the high rollers, the amber gamblers, the gangstarrz who take two scoops of sugar in their tea, the rude-boyz who drink full-fat coke. You get the picture.
When a struggling club finally ditches its manager, there is often an immediate rebound effect that manifests in a victory at the next game. That information alone may be enough to convince you but, in this case, there is more to it than that:
1. United are playing Norwich at Old Trafford. Norwich’s away form is the worst in the league, with six back-to-back losses. In three out of six of those losses, Norwich failed to even score.
2. The problems at Old Trafford seemed to include the fact that Moyes had lost the respect of the players. Moyes is gone. Giggs is in. The players have to respect Giggs or he’ll have sex with their wives.
3. Moyes didn’t know what his best starting eleven was, or who should play in what position. Giggs does – first, Giggs will start in midfield, second, Giggs will be captain, third, everyone will pass to Giggs otherwise he’ll have sex with their wives.
Yeah mate, I just superinjunctioned your wife in the face. Treasure that when you’re driving home for the last time today.
I suspect that Giggs will give Mata an advanced central midfield role, which will allow him to maraud, assist and score. Then Giggs will have sex with Mata’s wife after the game. So it looks good for Mata (at least until the game finishes).
Also, United also have a double Game Week coming up, obviously.
Things aren't all bad for Moyes though - as one door closes, another often opens. Given Moyes' excellent track-record of not being in Europe, Nigel Farage has suggested that he join UKIP. Onwards and upwards for Moyes, it seems. Farage should proceed with caution though - knowing Moyes' luck, UKIP will become a pro-European party if he isn't careful...
Of course, I may be horribly wrong about all of the above. You could be annoyed with me… but then you would be the one who took advice from someone who heavily implied that he was high…
Buy
Low
Raheem Sterling £6.0m (Chelsea (H))
You can’t talk about form without
mentioning Raheem. Last week was epic – two goals, one assist, three bonus
points, 90 mins = 18 points.
I must flag two things before I continue:
1. Raheem has not always played 90 mins
this season.
This is no biggie really – no one puts in a
performance like last week’s and gets dropped from the starting eleven the
following week.
2. Liverpool are playing Chelsea, which
should be a tricky fixture, what with Chelsea wanting to win the league and
all.
Quite frankly, if the Match of the Day 2 pundits
aren’t worried about this, neither should you be. MOTD, which has become a
household name for its detailed analysis and the deep technical knowledge of
its pundits, has taken what can only be described as a fresh perspective on
Liverpool’s title chances, and, ergo, their remaining fixtures:
“People
talk about fate sometimes, and I’m a big believer in it; and in [the] 25th
year of the Hillsborough tragedy, I think it’s meant to be” – Danny Murphy
(Liverpool, 1997 – 2004)
“That’s
what the other teams are up against; there’s this extra force [I’m sorry, but WTF!?] which is driving
Liverpool to their target.” Martin Keown (Arsenal, 1993 – 2004), agreeing
with Danny Murphy
A very revealing series of dialogue, if you
ask me:
Confirmed:
Danny Murphy is a biased fool.
Exclusive:
Martin Keown is prepared to jump on the nearest hippy-karma bandwagon that
happens to be passing at any given moment.
Also Exclusive:
Liverpool are going to win the league because of their “extra force”.
On Martin Keown’s advice, Arsenal scouts
are apparently working hard to convince Obi Wan Kenobi to come out of
retirement.
For those of you who prefer your analysis
grounded more firmly in realism, I would point to Mourinho’s mid-week comments
following Chelsea’s Champions League match against Athletico Madrid, where he
sighted the Liverpool fixture as one where he may look to rest players. Of
course, this could be classic Mourhino Jedi-mind-tricks, but given how much of
the Chelsea midfield is either injured (Hazard) or banned from the second leg
against Athletico (basically everyone else), we could well see a reduced strength
Chelsea midfield this weekend. In fact, this very afternoon, the BBC Sport website confirmed that Chelsea would be unlikely to face punishment from the Premier League if they field a weakened team. All this could result in more space for Sterling to frolic in.
To sum up – Sterling is a good shout and
he’s proper cheap.
Threadbare: Chelsea’s midfield options for their
second leg fixture against Athletico Madrid.
Wilfried Bony £7.2m (Aston Villa (H))
Bony is in fifth most in-form striker in the league. Factoring cost and playing the full 90 as
considerations, Bony has become my no.1 man (sorry Dzeko). If you cast your mind
back in the sands of time to last Saturday, you will recall that Bony scored
both goals away at Newcastle; one from open play and one from a penalty. Two
goals, 90 mins and three bonus points adds up to a 13 point tally – not gonna argue
with that for £7.2m.
This week Swansea host Aston Villa, who
have four losses and one draw in their last five away games. Villa even managed
to lose to Man U…
A sexy pic of Wilfried Bony just to help prove
the point:
Bony - he’ll probably slip you one or two but he
promises to make it STEAMY.
Sell
High
David
Silva £9.6m (Crystal Palace (H))
Look, it’s hard to accept for sure, but this lad has had it. Sad it may be (he was a cold-blooded, ruthless
mercenary when called upon this season) but if you wanna make it in this
world, you need to know when to exit an investment. To prove my point, I asked
a notoriously bullish celebrity fantasy league player what his plans were for David Silva this week:
Are you sure Duncan- that’s so unlike you!?...
A special mention needs to be made of David
Silva’s injury situation - what the hell is a 25% chance of playing? I’m sorry
but that’s called injured. Why not say it? Is there some sort of cover-up going
on here? I’m just saying…
Life is good when your next fixture is
against the team in the worst overall form in the league.
Next up at the Emirates is Newcastle, who
will still be a little tender in the goal-mouth from getting Wilfried Bony-ed
twice last weekend. You have to feel a little sorry for Newcastle because the Arsenal cannon has been firing on all cylinders since the
respective returns of Podolski and Ramsey. Don’t expect Arsenal to go easy -
the pair linked up twice against Hull to create goals, and between them scored
all three goals in total.
Ramsey has returned from injury in peak
form. He gets a ton of assists and goals to match. Podolski is the king of
smashing in loose balls in the box with his left foot. To be fair, at Arsenal
the alternative candidates for king of left foot goals are Gibbs, Monreal and
Vermaelen – none of whom have scored this season, so this might be a little
misleading.
Anyway, I digress. If you have the money, two free transfers, and the
inclination, get both in your team. Newcastle is goin’ DOWN – Obi Wan Kenobi said
so apparently.
Bookmakers suspended betting after Podolski said he wants to score this weekend in a pre-game interview.
Martin
Dimichelis £6.0m (Crystal Palace (A))
I want you to know that I can be the bigger
man. I make this recommendation in spite of myself. Personally, I don’t think
that Dimichelis is a very good football player. I also don’t think that he is
worth £6.0m.
Of course, there is no way that I could be
wrong about Dimichelis… but the numbers speak for themselves. Dimichelis has
100 points and only costs £6.0m. He is a regular 90 minute man and even defied
those who pretend to know what they are talking about (i.e., me) last week when
he chipped in with a goal against West Brom.
But the crux of the matter is this: Man City are so good that they are capable of carrying a player like
Dimichelis. In fact, he can actually start to look decent. Given the regularity
with which he plays full matches, he will be sure to share in any clean sheet
bonuses that Man City win between now and the rest of the season. Need I remind
you that City also have a double Game Week coming up next week?
It is truly with my cap in my hand and a
with a heavy heart that I accept that Dimichelis may be a good addition to any
fantasy league team this week. I don’t like being wrong much – he may be a good
buy, but (for now) but he definitely still is not very good at football.
You might
choose to get him in but just don’t expect any box-to-box dynamism…
#ThingsFasterThanDimichelis - with credit to the authors of the following link: SQ Magazine
Fools' Gold
Not all double Game Weeks are created
equal, and some should simply be ignored. If you were considering putting in
any West Brom strikers ahead of their double Game Week (GW37), I urge you to
reconsider.
It’s a funny qwerk in maths that 2x0 still
equals zero. West Brom’s highest scoring striker is Saido Berahino – he last
scored on 1 January (almost last year!!!!!!) and has a grand old total of 64
points. Berahino has only found the back of the net four times all season; only
once in 2014.
I’m gonna quote some big game chat here -
my mate Tommy Cattel (perhaps better known to you on this blog as GetMeTommy) reckons
that if he played in the Premier League, he’d probably score a few goals a
season: “How difficult can it be? Surely you can get four goals a season just
by being in the right place, at the right time?”. Hmmmmm……
Rightly or wrongly (definitely wrongly), Tommy
is an optimistic guy. You should not be optimistic about West Brom strikers.
If you were considering buying West Brom
strikers, you’d do better to look at Toyland FC’s star striker – Noddy
