Fantasy Football FF247 Team Gameweek 13
Average is the only way we can describe our team’s performance in GW13. Our final score of 44pts was, yes you’ve guessed it, bang on the average mark and led to a whole host of red arrows for the FF247 side. Never mind, these things happen, annoying, but there is no time to dwell on our disappointment. Our score was saved by the continual, good and consistent returns from Cesc Fabregas, who’s assist and maximum bonus points meant he was our joint top scorer with Tim Krul, whose clean sheet led to a 9 point return. Our captain Sergio Aguero let us down, for once. His failure to score at home to Swansea meant we were always going to be struggling this week, especially when you consider the other popular captain choice, Diego Costa scored very early vs West Brom and could easily have had a couple more. Fortunately he didn’t! In the Saturday evening match, Angel di Maria set up Wayne Rooney for his goal, but then proceeded to miss the easiest of one-on-ones, which pretty much summed our week up. The rest of the team did nothing, even Toby Alderweireld couldn’t lead his team to a clean sheet at Villa on Monday night. As a result we have dropped 250 places and now sit in 2,369 place. Time to start the comeback.
Transfer(s) for GW13
Oh the Kruel hand of fate! Even the best laid plans often don’t pan out in reality when it comes to fantasy. We originally kept a slush fund back in the hope that Mr Walcott would be back by now and we were going to bring him in for Tadic but it looks like young Theo could be a while yet so we ditched that idea. Our plans were then plunged further into disarray with the untimely demise of Tim Krul in training yesterday. With no further official news expected on him, as it happened after the Pardew press conference yesterday, we were left with the prospect of no goalkeeper this week as our ‘back-up’ is Mannone who has lost his place at Sunderland.
With this in mind our thoughts turned immediately to Chelsea and Swansea, both of whom have a great run of fixtures ahead and sit 2nd and 3rd in the least goals conceded column. It was at this stage that the suggestion of buying one from each team came up. This would involve a -4 hit and mean we were doubling up on Swansea in defence but also adding a Chelsea string to our bow. Given their fixtures and clean sheet potential we felt this was a small risk worth taking. Purchasing a playing keeper for a hit was a guilt free indulgence given that our other two look likely to be out. After much debate and juggling of players and finances alike we decided to keep Krul as he may return soon and give us two options once again and we sold Mannone and bought the Chelsea stopper Courtois.
In defence our initial thoughts were to transfer out Alderweireld given his tough schedule but we decided to transfer out some ‘dead wood’ instead and keep as strong a ‘playing squad’ as we could with the busy schedule and inevitable injuries, rotations ans suspensions ahead. Taylor, who we own, is on 4 yellow cards currently and may miss a game soon. With all of this in mind we sold Moore of Leicester and bought Bartley of Swansea. Bartley is deputising for the injured Fernandez but this is a situation that is likely to continue for a few weeks yet plus Williams is also on 4 yellows so we would expect to get a good number of games out of Bartley in the weeks ahead.
So to confirm our transfers we have –
Sold Vito Mannone and bought Thibaut Courtois
Sold Liam Moore and bought Kyle Bartley
Captain
Our captain this week is Sergio Aguero
This pretty much came down to an Aguero vs Costa debate. Either could score well this week and there is little to choose between them. You could argue that Southampton has a better defence but likewise you could argue that Bayern Munich has a better defence than Southampton and look what the little Atgentinian did to them this week. We’ve plumped for Aguero as he’s clearly on fire and we have made Costa our Vice Captain.
Our team for this week –
Our goalkeeper is of course new signing Courtois.
We will start Baines in the hope that he is fit. As we have said we are happy to take our chances on double Swansea with a home fixture against Crystal Palace.
The only debate in midfield was Tadic v Boyd but with Southampton’s great home form and him being on penalties and set pieces we are starting Tadic.
Our forwards obviously pick themselves.
The team in text format is –
Courtois
Bartley, Taylor, Baines
Di Maria, Fabregas, Sigurdsson, Tadic
Austin, Costa (vc), Aguero (c)
Subs. Krul. Boyd, Hutton, Alderweireld
Captained Kun last minute, hope it pays off!!