Captain Picks Fantasy Football Game-week 25 – Fantasy Premier League 2015/16
As midnight chimes in Tuesday morning, I switch the TV off, reducing Sky Sports News to naught but static electricity. I turn to face the noxious wall to my right, solemnly observing the solvent evaporating as it leaves the pigment behind. Through oxidation the exothermic reaction produces heat, and after a few hours the process is finally complete. Tired and intoxicated, I pull myself to my feet and make my way to bed. I fall asleep with the conclusions of the evening rattling around my unsettled mind. Yes, watching paint dry was way more exciting than transfer deadline day.
Stoke were one of the few clubs to show up at the January sales on Monday. Like an eager consumer first in the queue, face pressed up against a store’s locked glass doors, then sheepishly noticing only a smattering of half-arsed punters behind them. Well, if the Potters were one of transfer day’s enthusiastic early birds, Aston Villa were the school dropouts, smoking weed in their bedroom while a fuming mother pounds on the door to an ever increasing crescendo of Nirvana and Led Zeppelin. “Stop wasting your life away young man, or you’ll never amount to anything!”, “Whatever, mum. The Premier League’s for sellouts anyway.”
Thankfully, FPLers must bear no shackles such as January windows, and we can make transfers whenever we want. In your anti-free-market FACE, Richard Scudamore!
Gameweek 25, then and alas, no place for the likes of Alex Pritchard or Leroy Fer.
5. DELE ALLI (home vs Watford)
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[/three_fourth]Remember when Harry Kane first hit the scene last season? A fund-friendly carefree FPL option to leave in your eleven and happily cash in the points every week. But it took a while before people felt comfortable captaining him, so wary were people of this ‘flash in the pan’… so surprised were they of his sudden impact. And here we are again a year later with Dele Alli, the latest English Spurs phenom (though much credit should go to MK Dons) to light up the domestic game ahead of what must surely be a galactic career. A goal AND an assist in both of his previous two outings have fired the youngster up the player rankings. At a suspiciously cheap 5.9, giving him the armband could feel justifiably atypical. A bit like going into Harrods and coming out with a new shelf and a tin of spam. But if you want spam, and you’ve nowhere to put it, why the hell not?
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4. ROBERTO FIRMINO (home vs Sunderland)
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[/three_fourth]The much maligned Brendan Rodgers’ legacy will probably be how he got a great season out of Jordan Henderson. The way Jurgen Klopp has begun his tenure at the Kop, we may look back at his best achievement being converting an under-performing Brazilian midfielder into a pretty respectable striker. Naturally this won’t sate the Anfield faithful, but it’s great news for FPL. An out of position (OOP) player is like manna for us. Stick someone 20 yards further forward than he’s supposed to be, and suddenly he becomes highly coveted. Try moving Julian Assange the same distance outside the Ecuadorian Embassy and see what happens. Sunderland meanwhile are in the middle of an unkind fixture run that, following their defeat to City, has them tussle with Liverpool and then Man Utd. With no clean sheets since November and a league-high 47 goals conceded, Firmino as a captaincy option could sail under many a radar.
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3. ALEXIS SANCHEZ (away vs Bourenmouth)
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[/three_fourth]Three of the truest idioms: ‘Behind every good man is a good woman.’ ‘You can’t make bricks without straw.’ ‘Every creative attacking strikeforce needs a decent defensive midfielder.’ Rather predictably, Arsene Wenger didn’t bring in a striker this week, but he did hire Mohamed Elneny from FC Basel. A transfer that will likely have no direct FPL ramifications, but could we see some much-needed solidity give Arsenal their final jigsaw piece? One final cog that could set others whirring keenly into motion. Arsenal have already shown themselves to be ready(-ish) for a title tilt, but with the increased ball retention that the Egyptian will surely provide, one imagines that the likes of Alexis Sanchez will be given all the more license to capitalize. The caveat is that he is, of course, only recently back from a long-term absence. However, he showed plenty in last week’s FA Cup win over Burnley to suggest he won’t need long. Furthermore, 4 of his 6 goals, and both of his assists, have come away from home.
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2. SERGIO AGUERO (home vs Leicester)
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[/three_fourth]One of the most contentious aspects of Fantasy Footy is the Bonus Points allocation. When word of Kun’s BP-robbing yellow card against Sunderland had spilled out into the streets, children wept, women wailed, and grown men thrashed themselves over the head with shelves they’d pinched from some posh bloke outside Harrods. This was merely a microcosm of what people demand weekly from Aguero. Upon his broad shoulders weigh unimaginably high expectations. The visit of Leicester, a team keeping The Citizens off pole position in both the league and the form table; who have allowed only 1 goal past them in 6 games; who continue to defy gravity; will provide no less relief for the Argentinian. #AlwaysCaptainKun, baa the Twittering sheep, and with good reason. So quickly people forget how cherished a 5 point captain would’ve been 2 months ago. 44 points in 5 GWs is a ridiculous return and justifies the hyperbole. So yes, always captain Kun. Unless you’ve got…
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1. HARRY KANE (home vs Watford)
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[/three_fourth]Spurs idol/childhood Gunners fan Harry Kane will take a trip to the Hornets nest on the back of 4 goals and 28 points in 3 games. Look I know you’ll captain Aguero anyway. YOU know you will. But given the respective match-ups, and the incredible form of the Englishman, you probably, maybe, possibly shouldn’t. Watford’s admittedly impressive shutout owed much to a superlative Gomes masterclass and was their first clean sheet since Boxing Day. 7 of their 9 in total have come at Vicarage Road. To cap it off they lie 18th in the form table, as a fantastic campaign under Flores threatens to unravel. The North Londoners, meanwhile have registered at least 3 goals on 8 separate occasions this season; their most recent results being 4-1, 3-1, 3-0. It’s difficult to see Harry failing to add to his 15 league goals on Saturday.
Thanks for reading Captain Picks Fantasy Football Game-week 25. This article was written by Bryan Munich
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Bit if a selection headache this week. Waiting on news of Alli and Lukaku which will hopefully answer itself. Also not too excited about benching Cresswell. Any suggestions?
I’d play Cresswell over Moreno myself. Alli was dizzy I believe
Alli will be fine. Lukaku you need to wait and see and even if you do I reckon that one may not be answered. Probably a game day decision. Could barely walk last night though apparently! I’d play Moreno myself.
That is a selection headache, think I would play it the way you have it, but I could also see myself playing Alli and Cresswell over M&M. Tough decision you have there.
Mahrez –> Alli and leave it at that i think.
Thanks all. Guess what I can deduce from that is that there is no right answer!!
There will be. On Sunday night
I’d play Alli over Mahrez too, should have said. I’m selling Mahrez to back that up! Well, not selling just to back that up, I was selling him anyway. You know what I mean!
Good to hear you have such conviction in your choices Init! I’m more a master of indecision
Hi guys,
Current line up for GW25 is below, having taken a four-point hit to bring in Aguero and Alli for Ighalo and Ozil (done on Tuesday night). Do you reckon I should:
1. Hold fire on selling Lukaku and play Gareth Barry (away to Stoke) instead
2. Sell Lukaku for Giroud for a four-point hit (would need to do that before his price drops – can only afford it after Giroud’s price dropped last night!)
I know it sounds like madness, but I’ve got a good feeling about Giroud and Arsenal’s fixtures coming up. Vardy is really tempting and, whilst it’s always form over fixures, I can’t help but think that he’s going to have a tough time away at Man City and Arsenal – pretty sure it’s a good while since he scored big points outside of the King Power Stadium. My thinking is that, if I am wrong, I can always bring in Vardy in time for when he plays Norwich (when Arsenal are away to Man Utd) and then has a ridiculously good run of fixtures both home and away.
Your thoughts would be much appreciated!
Hi Swirly, you may have no such issue depending on what Martinez says tomorrow but if you can’t wait due to drops then I wouldn’t be shy on Vardy based on home / away only. He’s got 80 points at home and 74 away. Maybe if NIN’s about though he can convince you on Giroud as he’s just told me some very interesting things about Bournemouth and set pieces but I won’t steal his thunder!
do you think getting giroud could also somewhat cover being ozil-less?
Yeah, that’s another bit of my thinking.
Cheers, Init – NIN’s excellent piece just now has convinced me to bring in Giroud while I can afford to and then sit tight and hope Lukaku doesn’t play (or does nothing again if he does). Could do with some luck – hopefully the Frenchman will bring it!
Hey swirly. Last night i was fairly bored in work and was browsing a different FPL site to see what they were on about, and cam across a comment that interested me. Basically, it said that Bournemouth were very weak at defending set-pieces. The commenter was using this as his reason for not selling Ozil for Sanchez, as Ozil is on most set-pieces. I didn’t want to just take this guys word for it so i did some research and found that he was right. Bournemouth defend set plays pretty badly, making Ozil and the players he would target from set-pieces very interesting options this week. Koscielny has a good chance of getting a couple of attempts on goal at least and may score, and then there is also Giroud. To be fair, he’s not the best header of the ball in the world but seeing as B’mouth are poor in this area, he may get on the end of things and bag a big haul. Arsenal also rate fairly high on set pieces won in attacking areas. If memory serves me right they rank 4th so that’ great when up against a team who is poor at defending them.
Really would love to have Kos this week but it ain’t gonna happen.
Also: Of Giroud’s twelve leage goals to date, Ozil has assisted six of them :thumbup:
NIN,
That’s really interesting analysis that has made me a bit gutted to lose Ozil but also convinced I should bring in Giroud – even if it’s for a four-point hit and just for the next two gameweeks if he does nothing. I just can’t help but think that Sanchez being back should surely help Arsenal break their goalscoring drought, even if Bournemouth have claimed some big scalps so far this season.
Having dropped 100,000 places the gameweek just gone by scoring 51, I guess I couldn’t do much worst anyway!
Cheers again
No problem buddy. There is no guarantee of course, and i’m not usually one for stats based decisions, but this is very interesting and would come at a perfect time, as many bin Ozil for Sanchez, or Giroud to fund Sanchez! As they sell them, they go wild. Oh how sweet it would be.
Cue the 4-0 Cherries win with Giroud and Kos both sent off.
And Aguero to get injured by an over zealous Robert Huth!
Nah, it’s not typical enough. He has to hit the post twice in the opening few minutes, then score, setting up a potentila monster week, then get injured. Come on man, this is Aguero, things are never that simple!
:hippo:
Thanks NIN. Good little piece of research there and actually nails me keeping Ozil given a small doubt so thanks. Not so sure about this ‘viewing other FPL sites’ though! My office at 8am please mate
No…. not the cane….. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Great read Bry, thoroughly enjoyed that!!
Going to replace Pieters when I get my next transfer. I will have 5.4
Thinking of Zouma or Fonte. Who’s the better choice? I have (Cech/Daniels/Dawson/Simpson/Ward)
I’d go for Fonte, he’s got good fixtures coming up and is backed up by a keeper on ridiculous form, even if they are at home to Payet and co.
B’mouth, Villa and Newcastle after Everton this weekend (not that Everton is a really bad game or anything!) so there’s not a hope i’d sell Pieters any time soon. He’s a better option than all those mentioned.
Am I thinking right to try get ozil in my team. I have Sanchez already but ozil is playing well and as we have all said could have scored a couple if it wearnt for Forster! But who would I replace in midfield because I never play 5 mid and 2 upfront always play 343.
Hey lads,
Need some help with my team this week. I have some moves in mind but I thought I’d better ask the 247 community if they were the right moves to do!
So anyone know Lukaku’s fitness level? Is he injured?
I have 2 FT and .1m in the bank.
Transfer Ideas:
Sanchez and Vardy in for Lukaku and Ozil
Sanchez and Ighalo in for Lukaku and Ozil
Vardy and Barkley in for Lukaku and Mahrez (Sanchez in for Ozil next turn)
Thoughts?
Hi makeya, I have a similar set-up and for what it’s worth I’m doing Lukaku and Mahrez for Vardy and Firmino.
Hi Init.
Would love Firmino in there. Just can’t afford him if I want Sanchez. Hardly anyone in my league has Sanchez and we all know he can score big. One person in the blokes ahead of me has Firmino. I haven’t been watching him play, is he on fire?
Firmino + Vardy + Ozil
or
Sanchez + Ighalo + Mahrez
or
Mahrez + Vardy + Sanchez
Do the Sanchez move mate if it makes sense in your ML. Could be a big week for him if Arsenal get an early goal. I’m sticking on Ozil I think but could do your moves also. I fancy Ozil and Firmino to beat Sanchez and Mahrez but that’s very dependant on Firmino and they are anything but!
Ahh yeah I’ve really not made this easy for myself.
Really want to keep Vardy because I see him scoring every week. Not massively keen to have double leister for the next two games though. Really want Sanchez in early for a differential. Would hate for Firmino and Ozil to outscore Mahrez and Sanchez. Easily could happen. I don’t think I could bring in Sanchez if I do the Firmino move though.. Choices are hard!