Fantasy Football FF247 Team Game-week 33
Our rise up the rankings continued with another decent week which resulted in a total of 66pts vs an average of 47. We now sit in 292,920 place, up from 332,420 – that’s now six green arrows in seven weeks and with our wildcard imminent we are hopeful that our rise can continue over the last weeks of the season. Despite not keeping a clean sheet, seven saves from Loris helped him deliver 4pts, while our 2 defenders did the job. Ivanovic unfortunately played centre back vs Villa but still kept a clean sheet, but the star was Morgan who not only kept a cs, but also scored the only goal vs Southampton and gained 3bps and 15 in total. Happy days! In midfield, Ozil, Antonio, Alli and Mahrez did nothing, but Siggy kept his great run going with a goal at Stoke. Vardy was quiet again, but our other strikers scored – Kane at Liverpool and captain Kun at Bournemouth. So we’re happy, it could have been better, but we’re not greedy and Morgan was a lovely bonus.
As many of you have found trying to sort your wildcards, it isn’t easy. Now try and reach an agreement between five people over the medium of WhatsApp, with no-one around at the same time, some on holiday, others working and others just muting the chat! Frustrating, annoying and impossible are some of the words we could use to describe this last week. Anyway, we have finally reached an “agreement” – or compromise may be a better term! Sadly our team value is very low, so we have had to play around with different options, meaning some of the more expensive players (Bellerin, Payet etc) are out of reach for the moment.
And so we have fallen on the following Wildcard squad:
Our Wildcard squad!
Keepers
David De Gea in goal should need no explanation – DGW34 home games vs Villa and Palace are as good as you can get, hence we are banking on two clean sheets! We felt United cover at the back was a must and with the uncertainty over which defenders would play and with Smalling expensive at 6.5mln we feel DDG is the safest route into the space. Karl Darlow we are not so confident about, but a 3.9mln playing keeper is at least an enabler for investment elsewhere in the squad and you never know, he may pick up some save points, after all he’ll be getting plenty of opportunity!!
Defenders
We have doubled up with Arsenal defenders as their fixtures both during DGW34 and beyond are excellent and they should benefit further from the return of keeper Petr Cech. Nacho Monreal we feel is a safe option while we hope that Gabriel retains his place over Mertsacker, but even if the German is given the odd game, it appears clear that Gabriel is favoured over him. Mamadou Sakho gives us a Liverpool option at the back and has decent fixtures either side of DGW34 as well as another double game-week to come in DGW37. Joel Ward, well he has two DGWs in a row and at 4.3mln it was agreed he is worth the punt for the short term. Finally, we have acquired Danny Simpson of Leicester – despite the lack of double game-week, Leicester remain tight at the back and at 4.2mln he is a “no-brainer” for us and benefits from having a fixture in GW35.
Midfielders
Let us address first who we don’t have – Dimitri Payet. It was a huge wrench to leave him out – nine goals and nine assists already this season, he has scored or assisted in all but one of his last six league matches. For many he will be a “must have”, indeed for us at the start of the week we were planning to build the team around him. And then came Kevin de Bruyne. The Belgian returned from injury to score at Bournemouth, City have a better fixture than Payet in GW33 and City host Stoke in GW35 while West Ham blank. On that basis and on a 3-week view we are happy to go with KdB, but we do retain West Ham coverage with Manuel Lanzini who is priced at just 4.9mln and has scored six goals this season and two in his last two games. Philippe Coutinho is welcomed into our team as we wanted some Liverpool presence in midfield and it was a straight choice between him and Firmino. As Firmino has been struggling with injury, Coutinho is our man. We have kept Riyad Mahrez as we feel he still has the ability to return decent returns over the coming few weeks, hopefully starting at Sunderland this weekend! Alexis Sanchez is our Gooner representative and with the Chilean finding his form over the last few weeks, he was an easy choice for us over Mesut Ozil.
Forwards
Sergio Aguero – well we ain’t selling him! West Brom at home this week, followed by DGW34 and Stoke at home in GW35 – add into that the return of KdB –need we say more? The sale of Harry Kane for Romelu Lukaku was voted in, just, but it was close and not agreed by all. But we are nothing but democratic and a 3-2 vote for Lukaku is a win for the Belgian and “bye for now” to the league’s most inform striker. Hmmmm, two DGWs on the spin was the justification and Big Rom best not let us down or it will all kick off at FF247 HQ. The third striker spot has gone to Marcus Rashford, though Connor Wickham, Aleksandar Mitrovic and indeed a team with Kane, Luk and Kun were all discussed. Basically it came down to KdB – if we included him then budget dictated Rashford was what we could afford. It’s not the worst punt of all time – home matches vs Villa and Palace should afford the young striker plenty of chances to repay us, even if Rooney is wheeled out at some point over the DGW.
We will use our Bench Boost chip in DGW34.
No doubt you will disagree with some of our choices!! We have tried to explain our reasoning behind our thoughts. Please remember that our Team Value was much reduced compared to most we have seen quoted on the message boards and we will be the first to admit that we have looked at many teams that have been shared on site and wished we could of afforded them. But we can only use the funds we have and have built a squad that will not only hopefully return a plethora of points in DGW34 but also either side of the big DGW.
We have no cash in the bank, but plan to hold our free transfer in DGW34 giving us opportunity to use two free transfers to field a strong team in GW35.
The team in full
Captain – Lukaku
No pressure on the big man then. He has the two matches to perform better than Aguero who has West Brom at home. So Rom, pull your finger out lad and don’t make us eternal enemies.
Our vice-captain is Sergio Aguero
Normally Kun would be a unanimous choice for the armband when facing West Brom. At home. But not this week, unless Lukaku somehow misses the DGW, which let’s face it would be very amusing for those that don’t own him.
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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football FF247 Team Game-week 33.
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How you guys think of my line up,
I really confuse on who to bench
I would play Alli ahead of Daniels. After that it’s a toss up between Rash and Bertrand. I’d go with Rash i think.
Okay so I know this is way off topic but thought it might make for a little break from all the wildcard talk.
Is anyone else underwhelmed by the prizes on offer for winning the monthly/quarterly/overall leagues on FPL? Maybe I’m being ungrateful considering we don’t pay a penny to enter and the premier league are well within their right to not offer anything at all, but still…compared to other – what I consider to be lesser – fantasy football games like Sky and Sun Dream Team, it really is peanuts. When you consider it’s the official game and by far the biggest in terms of participation (almost 4 million players now) and has exploded in recent years to become quite a serious business, you wonder why the incentives aren’t higher.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t why I enter a team and I would play the game regardless. Hmm maybe I just answered my own question!
I think the prizes are good. There’s also the Ultimate game. I think there’s big cash prizes for that but it’s a whole new ball game when it comes to effort. I’m going to play it next season though and see what i can do. Will have the time for it whereas before i wouldn’t have.
I’m just comparing them to other games. Sky offer £20,000 for their winner, whilst the Sun give £200,000 to their winner! Not to mention far more prizes throughout the season. Not that I would ever dream of entering the Sun one of course.
Has anyone here played the Ultimate version? Seems quite different to the standard.
Yeah the prizes are better on the whole but i do like the FPL prizes too. I think it’s 20 / 25k up top for the ultimate game. It never gets a mention around here so i assume very few, if any, actually play it. A handful did try their hand at a trial run a couple of seasons back but i’ve not heard much mention of it since. I will defo be playing it next season though. I’ve never looked at the Sun game but i do know the Sky game is absolutely shite. It’s really poorly set up i think and i’ve never actually gotten past the first few weeks before quitting. Never again
Afternoon all,
Non wildcard question:-
I have kasper in goal this week. Should i play simpson to double up on the mean leicester defence or play sakho to spread the risk?
Cheers
Double up for sure.
Thanks Nin,
RMT please gents, any suggestions for improvements wanted and welcomed!
Nice team!!
Perhaps sell one of expensive defenders (Gabriel instead of Bellerin) or Darmian (because you already have DDG) to substitute Radford (by Mitrovic?) or to exchange Iwobi for Lennon?
RMT please, any advice is welcome Thanks guys!!
victorinox
I assume this is a WC squad? I would downgrade Fuchs to Simpson and upgrade Steven Taylor.
How is this leaving you for GW35? Do you have eleven players for that?
i agree with u, fuchs>simpson and upgrade taylor..
Thanks guys!!
Yes we’ll have 2 FT in GW35 and only 4 players with blank
What do you think about Mitrovic? Enough Valuable Player?
Afternoon all!!
Currently on a WC and this is what my team is looking like at the moment! The only one I don’t feel comfortable with is rojo, I don’t have enough money left over to bring darmian in unless I downgrade bellerin to Monreal.
Is there a better alternative than rojo or should just go for it and hope he plays both games?
And should I get rid of Simpson for Delaney or ward?
Mitro
I’d hold Simpson – Leicester are looking determined and drilled in defence. Palace are a sieve.
Unsure on Rojo but I’d feel dodgy having him or Darmian.