Double gameweek analysis Aston Villa and QPR

Double gameweek analysis Aston Villa and QPR

Nothing quite gets the fantasy juices flowing like a double gameweek. The opportunity to have the armband on a Giroud or a Sanchez, a Hazard or a Costa, is a wonderful feeling and leaves many managers eyeing up that elusive 100 club. Well, that’s all to come but this week we have possibly one of the drabbest doubles ever in prospect! We sincerely hope we are wrong but it’ll be a brave soul who chucks the kitchen sink at this one. Probably more like the odd cup or spoon. That said any player with two games in one week has to be considered, surely. Don’t they? The second double gameweek of the season may well be a sheep in wolf’s clothing but let’s go take a look at how we feel things shape up for both Villa and QPR this week and assess their potential for double points.

Aston Villa – Man United (a), QPR (h)
Game 1 – Manchester United (a)
Villa probably have the weaker claim of the two for your fantasy affections and that’s mainly down to the fact that their first game sees them having to travel to a suddenly revitalised Man United. We say revitalised but the truth is that their home stats, if not performances, have been consistent all season. They have the most home wins (12) and the joint most home goals (33) of any team in the league. United have only conceded 10 goals at home as well which is the same as Southampton and second only to Chelsea. By contrast Villa have the worst away goals record in the league with just 8 scored. And 4 of those were in one game! So that’s 4 away goals in the other 14 fixtures. And Benteke may be injured. Hmmm…

Game 2 – QPR (h)
So having established that unless they play Sunderland, Villa are pretty poor away from home let’s see if they fare any better at Villa Park ahead of the second game against QPR. Villa have won just 3 games at home out of 15 and only Sunderland themselves have won less. They are indeed the lowest scoring side at home with just 11 goals scored or 0.73 goals per game. Defensively, at home, they are rank average for a team in the bottom half of the table with 19 in the against column or 1.26 goals per game. All the other teams in the lower half range from 17 to 22 conceded so nothing exceptional here. If league tables were based on home points alone Villa would be in 18th place.

Of course things have changed slightly recently since Tim arrived with three wins on the bounce prior to last weekends home defeat to Swansea including a cup win against West Brom to send them to Wembley for an FA Cup semi-final. Their current league W/L record is – L, L, L, W, W, L. All in all it smacks of inconsistency but that’s only what you would expect from a team down in 16th place.

Line-ups
It’s always worth checking a teams previous line-ups just to be sure you aren’t about to burden yourself with a player who may have only been filling in temporarily. Here are Villa’s last 2 –

So, ignoring the formations above, their front 6 have been consistent and the only change has been at the back as Hutton returned from suspension to go straight back into the team with Lowton who deputised dropping out and Bacuna (who is listed as a midfielder in FPL) switching to left-back.

The players to watch
Brad Guzan £4.7m
Despite playing for a team in 16th place Guzan is actually the 9th highest scoring keeper in the game with 99 points to his name. He has 8 clean sheets and has made 91 saves which averages out at 3 a game so he’s good for a 1 point save bonus pretty much every game. That may be doubled against Man United though!

Scott Sinclair £5.2m
Since coming in on loan from Man City the former Swansea starlet has been eased back into the life of a footballer who actually plays football but looks to have earned a starting spot now. He scored against Stoke in his first full 90 minute appearance back in GW26 and should he get a run of games he could begin to replicate his Swansea form which saw him score 28 goals in 82 appearances for them before his big move to the Man City bench.

Gabriel Agbonlahor £5.3m
The fact that Gaby is Villa’s leading scorer on 6 goals probably tells you all you need to know about their attacking prowess this season. The good news is that 3 of those have come in the last 3 weeks which does at least point to a modicum of form as he hadn’t scored a league goal prior to that since the 24th of November. When he does score he tends to attract the bonus points too at an average of 2 per goal.

Christian Benteke £7.5m
At over £2m more than his strike partner the enigma that is Benteke has 5 goals to his name but also 2 assists unlike Gaby who has none. Similarly he has scored 3 in his last 3 with his last one prior to that also coming the wrong side of Christmas. It should be noted that he missed a good portion of the early season and actually only featured in 4 games prior to December, missing 9 through injury and suspension. On which note he hobbled off at the weekend with a hip injury so if you are considering him then you will need to check his availability ahead of GW31.

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QPR – West Brom (a), Aston Villa (a)
Game 1 – West Brom (a)
Let’s just get this one out of the way early doors – both of QPR’s games are away from home and their record reads 14 played, 13 defeats. Their only away victory coming at… yep, you guessed it, Sunderland. They go to West Brom first who have won their last 4 at home in all competitions, scoring 8 and not conceding a single goal in the process. Gulp! West Brom have scored 18 at home or 1.2 goals per game and have conceded 19 or 1.22 per game. QPR have scored just 10 on the road or 0.71 per game and conceded a whopping 32 or 2.28 per game. West Brom should score in this one and stats point to maybe a couple at least. QPR’s last 2 away games have been to similarly placed teams as West Brom in the shape of Crystal Palace and Hull and they lost them both 1-3 and 1-2 respectively. We think they can probably score at West Brom but it’ll likely be no more than the odd one and in another defeat at that.

Game 2 – Aston Villa (a)
So with Villa having scored the least at home and QPR the second least away (2nd only to Villa, ironically) it’s safe to say this one may not be a goal fest! They’ve managed just 21 goals between them in those 29 aforementioned games. You never know and they may just surprise us and go for it but with this one being a proverbial 6-pointer we expect it will be a tight, cagey, nervous affair.

If QPR don’t take something approaching 3-4 points from these 2 games you may as write that little ‘(r)’ in next to them already.

Line-ups
QPR’s last 2 line-ups –

Clearly boss Chris Ramsey is searching for a spark to ignite things by bringing in both Taarabt and Shaun Wright-Phillips against Palace and then trying his luck with Hoilett against Everton. It’s fair to say that none of the moves exactly worked and you wouldn’t go picking them up anyway. Sandro, Barton, Matty Phillips and Austin are your guaranteed starters out of the offensive players whilst at the back Green, Caulker , Isla and Yun should start while Onuoha has started the last 3.

The players to watch
Robert Green – £4.5m
Green is just 9 points behind fellow keeper Guzan with 90 to his name and boasts an even more impressive 106 saves in 29 appearances or 3.65 per game but that’s hardly surprising when you play for a team who have conceded 54 goals, the worst record in the league, 6 worse than bottom club Leicester even. As we have said they’ll probably concede in both games but there’s an outside chance of keeping Villa at bay if it’s a tight game and if nothing else he will get you a few save bonuses. He’s 27 points ahead of the next best QPR defensive option which is Caulker on 63 points.

Matthew Phillips – £4.6m
Phillips was cast into the wilderness under Harry Redknapp but has now started the last 7 games notching a handy 31 points or 4.4 per game. For a £4.6m punt you wouldn’t be overly disappointed if he returned something around those figures for you in both games. In fact he’s got 4 assists and a goal in his last 6 and counting only those his average nudges up to 4.8 per game. Yeah ok, we’re clutching at straws a bit here but when Joey Barton is your alternative (34 points, 8 yellows, a red, 0 goals and 1 assist) we’d rather buy a lump of wood.

Charlie Austin – £6.4m
With 140 points so far Austin is just 1 point behind Costa and 8 behind Aguero and you can literally buy 2 Charlie’s for the price of one Sergio. If only. QPR have scored 31 goals and he’s had a hand in 20 of them with 15 goals and 5 assists. Clearly if QPR are going to score then he’s more than likely going to be involved. Oh and he’s on penalties too. And wins most of those himself. And makes the tea. And irons the kits.

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Other dates for your diary… DGW’s and blanks

GW33 – If you do decide to pick up any Villa or QPR ‘stars’ then please be aware of the fact that they both have a blank in two weeks time in GW33 along with Arsenal and Sunderland so check your numbers before jumping in.

The 4 teams who have a blank game-week in 33 are –
Arsenal
Aston Villa
QPR
Sunderland

Liverpool and Hull will also both miss out on GW33 should Liverpool win their FA Cup replay with Blackburn on the 8th April.

GW34 –  The next confirmed DGW sees both Leicester and Chelsea feature twice –

Leicester play Burnley (a) & Chelsea (h)
Chelsea play Arsenal (a) & Leicester (a)

GW37 – Arsenal and Sunderland go into the penultimate game-week of the season with a double –

Arsenal play Man United (a) & Sunderland (h)
Sunderland play Leicester (h) & Arsenal (a)

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Fixtures Overview

To give you a fuller visual on how the land lies for all the teams involved in both the doubles and the blanks here is our usual fixture tracker…

We have colour coded the fixtures in a simple fashion to allow you to judge your transfer and team selection plans accordingly:

[highlight_blue]Blue[/highlight_blue] – These teams have either a double or a blank game-week to consider.

[highlight_green]Green[/highlight_green] – We deem these to be winnable fixtures for the given team and should, in theory at least (!), harvest good fantasy points for you in the opening games. Aim to have a good nucleus of these players in your squad.

[highlight_yellow]Yellow[/highlight_yellow] – These are the fixtures that could go either way and do not stand out as being either particularly good or poor. If you have a player from a team in this category then do not be afraid to play them but take a considered view that it may or may not not be an explosive week for them.

[highlight_red]Red[/highlight_red]- These are the teams that we consider to have a difficult fixture and as such may be best avoided from a fantasy perspective. Aim to minimise any players that have a run of reds in the opening games.

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Thanks for reading Double gameweek analysis Aston Villa and QPR – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by Inittowinit

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