Fantasy Football Fixture Analysis Gameweek 3
Welcome to Fantasy Football Fixture Analysis Gameweek 3. GW2 FPL 2018/19 may now forever more be remembered as Jamie Jackson Week. There’s a fair to middling chance that prior to about 4.25pm on Friday many (most) of you will never have even heard of Jamie Jackson before. Yeah sure enough, he’s got a hallowed ‘blue tick’ on his twitter page and he’s a ‘journalist’ for The Guardian but we aren’t talking Henry Winter or Neil Custis levels of notoriety here. I’ll freely admit I didn’t have a scooby who he was either. I do now though! He’s just about the most hated person on twitter within FPL circles as we speak. Even Ben Crellin blushed. Bobby Madley’s publicist was perhaps the only person to benefit from the whole debacle, in a Tony Blair style ‘good week to bury bad news’ style.
We digress (before we get sued!)… On to this weeks Fixtures article –
My much younger, less good looking and much smaller (than Rosco, who isn’t?!) predecessor AT (don’t worry he’s not dead!) spent last week telling you all about the bleeding obvious. Gems such as ‘Man City and Liverpool are good, Newcastle are bad’ fell from his expert fantasy hands onto the keyboard. And he was correct to do so. I’ll not be so lazy though, rest assured. Maybe…
To be fair to our young whipper snapper he gave you Man City who spanked Huddersfield, Everton who were also victorious, just, and Liverpool who limped home, in a grey fashion….
Unfortunately he also advised you avoid both Newcastle and Brighton like the plague. And both went and got (relatively) positive results. Which is quite fitting really given as the mantra ‘Bloody AT’ was almost trending on site after GW1! I’m not entirely sure why it was but it seems he may have spent pre-season systematically destroying peoples teams one by one like some demented FPL version of T-1000.
I’m sure it was just a quirk of the scheduling calendar that meant I could follow up next after his every fixtures article….
Favourable Fixtures
Manchester City – Wolves (A), Newcastle (H), Fulham (H) There was a benign early passage of play, way before City even opened the scoring, it involved Ederson and Stones playing it across their own goal line, virtually. If you love football you’ll have seen it and smiled wryly as I did. It was almost Pep eating himself, such was it’s audacity and daring. The whole thing took a matter of seconds, but probably encapsulated Pep’s whole philosophy, maybe to an n’th degree that even he didn’t daren’t envisage. But it also then ballooned a while later into Ederson himself making a pinpoint through ball, an 80 yard one, for Kun’s opener. Surely the best and most deliberate assist we’ve ever seen from a keeper?
Does it really matter who they play next? Probably not, they’re streets ahead of anyone. Your main difficulty is of course second guessing which players will actually play. Fortunately that’s not our job here on Fixtures, we just point you at the correct teams! I will however give you a steer as to my own thinking on this, as a bonus (!), I have Ederson and Kun currently and I’m fixing to add Mendy to those. I’m ignoring the mids for now as it’s clearly a mine field. Mendy thinks he’s a mid anyway, so that’s good enough for me.
Arsenal – West Ham (H), Cardiff (A), Newcastle (A)
Wenger out! Oh no, hang on… we went there, did that and he left. Eventually…. Emery out?! Not quite yet. Yeah ok the first two results haven’t quite been perfect but then again neither were the fixtures. The next ones will probably tell us far more as they’re all ‘winnable’ on paper. And it’s not just the next 3 either, Emery and co go all the way until GW11 now until they next meet one of the Big 6. They have a clear run now, as such. Make of it what you will but GW’s 3 to 10 will be definitive for them and also perhaps Emery himself.
West Ham at home is probably just the tonic they need right now as Pellegrini’s men have shipped 6 in 2 games and only scored 1 in response, and that was from the penalty spot. A couple of away trips follow but neither looks particularly daunting.
If you deliberately swerved the Gunners for their opening couple of games then that was probably wise but you can start to look at them as viable options from here on in. Certainly from an attacking point of view anyway. Personally I’d take a rain check on their defenders for now, until they all get their heads around this playing out from the back thing, or at least until Cech does finally stick one in his own net and is inevitably forced to pick up his walking stick and wander off into the distance like Grandpa from The Simpsons, muttering ‘bloody kids’ under his breath.
Chelsea – Newcastle (A), Bournemouth (H), Cardiff (H)
Would Sir like sauce on that? Sometimes the devil is in the detail. Or so it seems in football management. Seemingly, something as simple as reintroducing ketchup to the lunch service can reinvigorate an entire squadron of men these days. I’m being slightly facetious of course but ketchup is the new word for ‘fun’ in modern football management parlance. If the manager allows it he’s perceived as the relaxed type, if he doesn’t then he’s a disciplinarian. And so cyclical are these things that replacing the ‘no sauce’ Conte with the more ‘saucy’ Sarri was the logical step.
Whether it is indeed sauce, or simply the fresh approach from a manager known for his attacking style, the players certainly seem to have embraced it and they have 2 wins out of 2 under their belts now and 3 goals in each game. Even Morata has scored. Miracle sauce?
If you’re looking for cheap options who play for a top side then you could do worse than look at the likes of Luiz and Pedro right now. Alonso carries a more premium label but if the hype is to be believed then he’s more than likely going to score a lot more than most mids or even forwards who cost the same. You’d have to imagine that Hazard may just embrace playing in a free flowing Sarri side too.
Best of the rest
Crystal Palace – Watford (A), Southampton (H), Huddersfield (A)
This is just a heads up really that you have 6 weeks of Palace bliss, if you choose to accept it, and then 5 weeks of hell. Well ok, probably not hell, but it’s all relative. After the above 3 games Woy also leads his twoops into games against Newcastle, Bournemouth and Wolves. And then things get potentially more wocky, albeit gradually so, with Everton, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Man United being their next 5.
Richarlison – Bournemouth (A), Huddersfield (H), West Ham (H)
Fun fact, our young Brazilliant hero has never scored a professional goal without Marco Silva being tucked into his left sock and operating him by remote control. Ok, so that may not be strictly true but it doesn’t feel that far removed from the reality of his career in England thus far. Robot Rich has a decent run of games ahead of him. The ones noted above are punctuated by a trip to Arsenal but even after that he gets a go at Fulham, Leicester and Palace.
Unfavourable Fixtures
Cardiff – Huddersfield (A), Arsenal (H), Chelsea (A)
When you need a 97th minute penalty save to get a point in a 0-0 at home to Newcastle you probably know it’s going to be a long season. Huddersfield away next is the proverbial 40 pointer. Beyond that classic it’s Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City on the bounce and then Spurs and Liverpool in 2 of the following 4. Sell! Sell! Sell! Or rather, slap yourself hard in the face for buying in the first place.
Spurs – Man United (A), Watford (A), Liverpool (H)
Take a pic. It’s not often you find Spurs hidden down here. It’s more cautionary than anything though as we know they can perform in any given game, from an attacking perspective. I probably just wouldn’t bank on any of their defenders for a few weeks, that’s all really.
Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixture Analysis Gameweek 3. This article was written by Inittowinit
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*** NEW ARTICLE ***
Good riddance to GW2 and Jamie Jackson. The countdown to GW3 begins here, its Fixtures, Young Init is back……and he mentions Jamie Jackson!!
Great article Init!
Cheers mate. Yeah, good riddance Jamie indeed, if I never hear that name again it’ll be a moment too soon. And that’s coming from someone who ignored him!
Jesus, you guys are quick. Tips hat, I’ll have a read now.
I’ll await your appraisal 😉
Nicely chatty and informative, a bit ‘down the pub style’ which I like/appreciate, it takes a bit of effort to achieve that. My only critique would be… drum roll… no mention of the scouse scummers? Played 2, Won 2, For 6, Against 0.
3 out of next 4 are winnable and the way they’re playing I reckon you’ll stuff Levy’s layabouts too. That’ll be 6 out of 6 ffs. I hate L’pool domestically with a passion, all Mancs do – it’s a pre requisite but if they keep playing as they are, with a charismatic manager to boot, then I won’t complain when you win it. I’ll just hibernate over the swummer ‘cos you lot will be effing insufferable, lol.
swummer? Where’s the edit button, eh?
I’m an Everton fan.
Thanks for the feedback though, it’s genuinely appreciated. I like introspection.
That’s not my normal style of writing and I was conscious of it when I was doing it but I went with the flow. I’m usually more fact / stat based and work from that but with just 2 weeks worth to work from I didn’t see the point and so just wrote more thoughts rather than facts. Glad it still came across ok.
You left the edit button on First 😉
Oops, I do apologise for my rather large faux pas, Evertonian, eh? I might actually start to like you a little bit now, perhaps, maybe.
And if I may suggest, you should carry on with that style, you’ll get a following. It’s fantasy footie, it’s a game, so let’s chill sometimes and I seriously enjoyed the read, go for it.
how does the bonus system work. just wondering why mane suddenly gets 3 points and salah nothing
Missed chances reduces BPS, explains Salah’s zilch.
I think – could be wrong – that Salah often misses out because he misses a few (relative) sitters.
I’ll leave you to research the BPS maze but numerous metrics go into it. I’ve half a notion that if you score the decisive winning goal then that does wonders for your bonus points – but that could be total rubbish and completely wrong.
I think this happens a lot. Salah usually needs to do something special to get bonus
@MrMajeika, on BPS for Salah and Mane
The differences basically are
-Salah (68%) got no bonus for pass completion, Mane got 4bps for completing over 80%
-Salah had 2 assists and Mane had 1 goal, so they offset each other as they are both worth 18 points. 9 bps per assist and 18 bps per goal.
-Played the same minutes, so that don’t matter
-Both created one big chance
-Salah edges him 4 to 3 in bps on key passes
-Mane edges him on dribbles 5-3 in bps
But here comes the bigger problem and in part it is why Salah usually has to score, if not more to stand a chance at a bonus.
2 big chances missed that is -6
1 off target that is -1
1 foul conceded that is -1
2 offsides that is -2
3 times tackled that is -3
plus not getting a passing bonus is a problem, defenders usually do no worse than get 4bps there and sometimes 6bps. First game he didn’t get one either. He had 85% passing success rate in GW1, but he didn’t get the minimum of 30 passes in the game to qualify for a passing bonus.
Right now Salah is top 5 in being tackled for mids, he is in the lead in big chances missed in the lead for most offsides for mids. So that explains his lack of bonus points a bit, by the way, don’t take this as me saying to drop him, just trying to explain why he seems to lack bonus points.
Yep, Salah missing many chances, being tackled, and being offside also relate to him scoring many goals, so it’s not all bad! He didn’t get a lot of bonus last season either but his Points Per Match was monstrous anyway! He’s so involved, and that’s part of the reason Salah will eventually outscore Mane for instance, which he should too given he’s over 3m more expensive.
*part of the reason why I think Salah will eventually outscore…
@Zed, I agree, his expected goals and assists for this season are already very high. Just off hand I can think of three that I think he should have scored on. Ones that I expect someone of his class to put away. He doesn’t need many chances to get the best chances.
Had a sitter 3 yards away last week, I realize he didn’t have a chance to do much before he had to strike it with the keeper very close, but still, if he had one of those every week he would score over 40 this season. Yesterday he had the chip and the breakaway that Wan-Bin got tossed on. Everyone’s favourite Palace defender is one of the few that could have even stayed close enough to trip him up, most weeks that’s an easy one for him.
Init,
Like how you took the lead on the Bobby Madley thing.
Beat me to it. I’m always at the tail end.
I’m glad he stopped where he did though. That’s Init, not Bobby! 😆
GP, just google…. doesn’t matter, I think you’re already there
I like how you really sat on the fence lol
I’m well aware old Chum 😉
I know, you have Pedigree.
Thanks Pal!
Praise from Cesar!
Bravo.
Think I’ll need to let you have this one.
Disappointing as I usually Win a lot.
You do indeed win! Let’s call it a day on that?!
Apparently there’s one called James Wellbeloved….. #fitting
Ha!
Indeed. How apt.
He’d be getting shafted on twitter right now if I’d bought into his dog sh1t.
Thanks, Init, for pointing out the bleeding obvious!
If you really have to pretend that Newcastle got a good result just to rubbish my article, then be my guest. Then again, it’s not called ‘Tips’ for a reason 😉
Seriously, though, that was a great read. I’ll wait until next weekend to laugh at your suggestions 😉
Wasn’t rubbishing your article at all mate, technically it’s called ‘trashing’
And in the best and friendliest of fashions.
Love you really and appreciate everything you do for the site.
Had me at ‘Even Ben Crellin blushed’, brilliant and humorous as usual. Cheers Init.
Thanks Keethan! Bit of a niche one that but I guess anyone who’s been on twitter in the past 12 months will get it.