Fantasy Football Fixtures Game-week 10

Fantasy Football Fixtures Game-week 10

Sometimes, occasionally, all the stars align and something special occurs. That was game-week 8. It was mainly due to Aguero and that five goal haul but it also combined with some great performances from a good majority of the ‘popular’ players. The result was that many managers were able to post scores over the holy grail 100 point mark. Game-week 9 was never likely to match those heights but it did at least feel like a return to some kind of normality in that it wasn’t spectacular but neither was it ridiculously disappointing, as some weeks have been. That’s unless of course you somehow had both Sterling and Wijnaldum in tandem in your midfield! The pair combined for seven goals and a total points haul of 44. Chances are though that you didn’t, as both were a bit out of the blue and will likely never be repeated. Even the usual Twitterati set of ‘told you so’ predictors were struggling to muster a tweet where they predicted that one to pin to their handle. But that won’t stop the masses transferring the pair in. At the time of writing over 40,000 people have already transferred in one or the other and that’s even before a ball has been kicked / a hamstring has been tweaked in the midweek games. And so we go, onto game-week 10 and beyond as we seek to find our next Aguero, Sterling or Wijnaldum…

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The Tracker…
We have rated each teams fixtures on a sliding scale. Remember that this is just our opinion and you may feel differently but if nothing else it gives you a nice easy visual aid as to each teams upcoming games…

We do have a comprehensive library of other useful trackers including the all singing, all dancing interactive one from Calvin Clyne and you can find them all here – Fixture Trackers

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FAVOURABLE FIXTURES
Southampton – Liverpool (A), Bournemouth (H), Sunderland (A)
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[/three_fourth]Southampton are fast becoming the poster boys for how to run a competitive football club in England, as each season they remain a threat to all of their opponents. Be it those chasing the title or Europa qualification, or teams who simply strive for stability, we’d be hard pressed to find any outfit who view The Saints as a handy source of points of a Saturday afternoon. A remarkable transfer policy combined with a world class youth academy has seen Southampton cement their place in our top flight and, by all accounts, they ain’t going anywhere any time soon. Just the one defeat in their last six games, a narrow 3-2 home defeat to United, is a clear indication of their progress especially when we look at the three opponents since that close game against United. Swansea and Chelsea were seen off to the tune of 3-1 whilst last time out Leicester were held to a 2-2 draw in a game they really should have won. Not bad, not bad at all and there’s not much in the next three that will be overly worrisome.

The first of our featured games for Southampton is a trip to Merseyside to battle it out with tenth placed Liverpool. Not to be confused with whatever the hell it was that Brendan “If it ain’t Suarez, it ain’t happening” Rodgers was attempting to achieve, Liverpool should, SHOULD be a tougher nut to crack now that Rodgers has been moved on in favour of former Borussia Dortmund coach, Jurgen Klopp. As the weeks go bye the German will slowly but surely iron out the creases (and there are many) but, for now at least, especially with the current injury crisis, Liverpool remain a team that are beatable. Is this a banker result for the Saints? Probably not. Is it a fixture that instills fear? Definitely not.

Now, lets get down to the juicier fixtures for Southampton, the first of which is Bournemouth. Having started off relatively well for a promoted side Bournemouth have stuttered badly since losing star striker Callum Wilson for the season, an injury that could well relegate the Cherries unless someone steps up to the plate, and quick. The pounding by City was the latest in a string of poor results, topping off a run of one win in six. Three points are desperately needed by Bournemouth but with the form of Sadio Mane, Graziano Pelle, Dusan Tadic and the return of first choice left back, Ryan Bertrand, it seems unlikely that this game will bring them any joy.

The best has been saved for last. It’s Sunderland. Do we need to go any further? Far from it, but we might as well. Just three points to show for themselves after nine games, with four defeats in the last six. Truly shocking stuff. A management change was much needed and the Black Cats hierarchy realized this and to be fair to them, actually did okay for themselves by somehow managing to convince Big Sam that he can save this crippled squad from the drop. There may well be just enough points available between now and the end of the season but Sunderland really should pose zero threat to Southampton.

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Manchester City – Manchester United (A), Norwich (H), Aston Villa (A)
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[/three_fourth]City: The source of so much joy and heartache for FPL managers over the last few game-weeks. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. The wealth of options available to Manuel Pelligrini has been of little use at times as one by one the City stars fall to injury. Hart, Kompany, Kolarov, Mangala, Yaya Toure, Silva, Sterling and Aguero have all missed games recently which reflected in their results as back-to-back defeats in game-weeks 6 & 7 brought shock to many, considering how the season started for City. One shining light for the Champions elect has been summer acquisition Kevin De Bruyne. The Belgian commanded a hefty fee of £55m having decimated the Bundesliga following his odd sale by Chelsea and man has he hit the ground running. Three goals and three assists already and, a level of performance that must bring a tear to the eye of Chelsea fans, is just the start that City would have wanted for him. The schedule has been kind to City so far and the next few are no different.

A huge derby gets us started as league leaders City make the very short trip to Old Trafford to battle it out with third placed Manchester United. Shrewd summer signings along with one monumental gamble, and a dose of luck too, has gone a long way to making United a tricky team once more. A few months ago this fixture had embarrassment for United written all over it but maybe not so much now. Recent history does favor the away side with City winning four of the last five derby’s. It’s never easy to predict such huge games as the Manchester derby and it could really go either way. Can United hold strong and nick it? Will it be a goal-fest of a draw? Or will City simply run United over? All are possible outcomes but we feel it’s right to lean slightly toward City for this one, especially if a certain David Silva is fit to start.

A kind schedule was mentioned and we started off with a tough game so you may be wondering just what we’re banging on about! Wonder no more as we now move on to a pair of games that will surely bring six points for City and a wealth of Fantasy hauls. With 11 goals scored in their last two home games, and just two conceded, it’s fair to say that no team is looking forward to travelling to City’s Etihad stadium these days and least of all, Norwich City. Despite putting in a number of good performances, Norwich haven’t gained as many points as their play would suggest is deserved. A leaky defence is the last thing you want when travelling to Manchester these days and that’s just what Norwich have, having conceded 20 goals to date. With all due respect to Newcastle, any team that conspires to go there and concede six, then…

City’s attacking prowess will be too much for the Canaries, just like it will be for the final fixture we’ll cover for City. Oh Timmy, we do feel sorry for you in this one (except Cookie, Cookie loves it!). Already nestled in the bottom three, Villa look destined for doom this season as they failed to replace their sold players well. Seriously, Jordan Ayew? Seriously? A laughable “replacement” for Benteke. Useless up front, useless at the back with Grealish in the middle. That’s what Villa basically boil down to: nothing. A team like City could field 9 players and still hammer Aston Villa. No real need to go on here. Villa are getting it and there’s nothing they can do about it.

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Tottenham – Bournemouth (A), Aston Villa (H), Arsenal (A)
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[/three_fourth]Without setting the league alight, Spurs have been quietly going about their business in recent weeks. No wins from the first four games this season lead many to wonder whether last seasons man-of-the-moment Harry Kane was no more than a one season wonder, masking what was a poor team. Well, “HurriKane” still hasn’t kicked off yet but one feels like it’s coming soon. Undefeated since game-week one and with three wins and three draws in the last six, Mauricio Pocchetino will no doubt be encouraged by what he sees. An improving defence, mainly down to the signing of Toby Alderweireld from Atletico via Southampton, has seen Spurs shut out four of their last six opponents, conceding just three in the process. A solid run, to be fair. Kane and co will look to improve on the current 7th place standing and we feel the next few games provide an opportunity to do just that.

A struggling Bournemouth side start us off in what should be a routine win for the travelling Spurs. The Cherries are fast becoming aware of just how competitive this league is as they have scraped their way to just five points from the last six matches and have a horrifying schedule ahead. Eddie Howe will be hopeful of Glenn Murray providing goals in the absence of Callum Wilson but, if recent weeks are anything to go by, he’ll need to score at least two most weeks to keep his team competitive. Unlikely. Could this be the game where we see the return of the ruthless Harry Kane from last season? It should be!

If not, then Spurs’ next opponents could well provide the opportunity for all of Pocchetino’s attackers to get in on the act they host the aforementioned, miserable, Aston Villa. Villa actually managed a win, by way of 1-0, the last time they visited the Lane but they did have Christian Benteke at that time. And Delph. And an “in-form” Cleverley. And a fit Agbonlahor. It’s very difficult, almost impossible in fact, to see the Villans getting a sniff this time round. We’re going for a banker home win here against Villa, as usual.

The last of our featured games for this section is one we all keep an eye out for when the season schedules are first released. The Derby with Arsenal. While certainly not an easy game, or one to be overly confident about, it is a fixture where anything can happen, similar to the Merseyside derby. Arsenal are showing great from domestically with five wins from six, boasting 5-2, 3-0 and 3-0 scorelines in the last three against Leicester, Manchester United and Watford respectively. Chilean energizer bunny, Alexis Sanchez, is without doubt the star of the show but, should Spurs (and Kane) get the wins and goals that are expected of them vs Bournemouth and Villa, then we could well be in for a goal frenzy with two in form, attacking teams going head-to-head in a big derby.

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Leicester City– Crystal Palace (H), West Brom (A), Watford (H)
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[/three_fourth]Before a ball had been kicked, much was said about Leicester’s managerial situation. Claudio Ranieri’s arrival at the King Power Stadium was questioned and rightly viewed as a massive, massive gamble. Well, here we are nine game-weeks in and it seems that the Tinkerman was the right choice as his team sit in fifth place in the league. It’s been all about attack since the end of last season and the Leicester owners should be very grateful that they have players like Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez in their ranks. The Foxes’ backline is abysmal to say the least, having conceded a whopping seventeen, yes, seventeen times so far. Goals at the other end have all but cancelled out that woeful stat though and, for the time being at least, looks set to keep doing so. Riyad Mahrez has been rested recently but fear not, a 45 minute appearance last time out saw Leicester come back from two down to gain a draw, with the Algerian claiming an assist. Going forward, he will remain the instigator for Leicester and look to keep up the service to goal happy Jamie Vardy.

A trio of winnable games lie ahead for the Foxes and they will surely look at this as seven points there for the taking, maybe more. First up is the visit of everyone’s favorite muppet show, the one they call Pardew. Palace, another high-octane attacking team will be coming for three points themselves as they look to exploit the weak Leicester backline with their pacey attack, orchestrated by French set-piece expert, Johan Cabaye. Just the two clean sheets for Palace so far suggests that this game is set to be a high scoring one. Forget about defensive options for this game, it’s going to be gung-ho to say the least.

If the Palace game is one to mark in your diary as one to watch, the next one might just turn out to be the complete opposite. Tony Pulis’ management style is a million miles from that of Ranieri or even Pardew. Instead of pacey attacking gridlock, Mr Pulis takes the rock-solid approach in every game, without fail. Five clean sheets already and just seven goals scored says it all really. West Brom come to dog it out and they are well drilled at doing so. The question is: Can they keep Leicester quiet? A task that has yet to be achieved this season. If there’s one team who can do it it’s WBA but we feel like Leicester may have too much for them this time.

Lastly, the visit of Watford. Another team quickly finding out how tough the Premiership really is having taken just a single point from the previous three. A relatively sound defence has surprised many but it is the other end of the field where the issues lie. Nine games in and we’ve seen Watford find the net just six times, a stat that if kept going will only result in one thing: A quick return to the Championship. Either way, whether they get on the score sheet in this one or not, it’s very difficult to look past Leicester as we know what they’ll do. They will come out of the traps and try to smother the Watford defence and break them down ASAP. We’re confident they will do just that, succeed and scoop the points.

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Newcastle – Sunderland (A), Stoke (H), Bournemouth (A)
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[/three_fourth]What a difference a day makes! Or does it? In typical Newcastle fashion, we just have no idea what to expect most weeks but usually it’s bad. Really bad. McClaren bad. Going into the last game-week the Toon were on a run of four defeats and two draws from six and up against a Norwich team who, despite their flaws, were seen as a team that could get one over on Newcastle, even on their own patch. In the end, the game couldn’t have gone a more unpredictable way as the away side were hit for six which included four goals for “Aguero in disguise”, Georginio Wijnaldum. It may still take a brave manager to invest in Newcastle players but, with the fixtures ahead, they may well get on the score sheet a decent amount at least. There’s not a lot to work off as before last weekend there was nothing positive to say but we know there are plenty of gamblers among you, so, with the mullering of Norwich still fresh in our minds lets have a brief overview of the next three. (Seriously though, if you buy a Toon player and it blows up badly, know that you have been warned).

Having finally gotten three points on the board, in spectacular fashion, Steve McClaren really couldn’t have hand picked a better fixture to follow up with. Is it a home fixture? No. Ok so what’s next best. Is it Sunderland? Yes!! Their bitter rivals are in an awful state and that’s putting it lightly. Rock bottom of the league with three points to their name so far, the writing is on the wall. With problems all over the pitch the last thing they need is arch rivals Newcastle coming off a big result, arriving with their tails in the air, ready for battle. It may only take one goal to break the Black Cats’ spirits and judging by last weekends rout, that may happen pretty quickly in this game.

A return to home comforts to face Stoke is next in line. Predicting this one isn’t easy at all but with Stoke being pretty miserable at the back and still trying to find the right formula at the other end, Newcastle might, might, just scrape this one.

Finally, we can put an end to this colossal question mark of a section! It’s tough going. It really is. Still, with Sunderland and Stoke having been mentioned already we can now look at the last of our three featured games and it’s a nice one, too. Bournemouth play hosts in a game they will be desperate to gain some points from, and they might just do that (forever covering our arses with this lot!). If Newcastle can keep Glenn Murray quiet then they will have gone a long way to halting Bournemouth as a whole. It may well be car-crash viewing, but we’ll tip the Toon to edge this one.

Disclaimer: FF247 takes no responsibility for minus points for defenders, red cards or general whiffs from Newcastle players. Purchase at your own risk!

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BE WARY OF…

Aston Villa – Swansea (H), Spurs (A), Man City (H)
Tim’s lost five straight in the league. Their last ‘highlight’ was a point against… Sunderland. Says it all really. They’re averaging less than a goal a game and have actually failed to score in four of their nine games. Not that anyone’s rushing to add any Villa attackers any time soon. Or defenders. The run of fixtures above says it all really. Avoid. Completely.

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Bournemouth – Spurs (H), Southampton (A), Newcastle (H)
Eddie Howe may be forgiven for checking his car’s vendor to see whether he’s run over the odd unnoticed black cat as his recent luck would certainly suggest that he’s nailed a few unfortunate pussies to say the least. If you can forgive the expression. Unlucky Ed has lost at least three or four of his core team to injury so far and that’s not really what you want when you are hovering just above the relegation zone and with this rough run of games ahead. We’d advise avoiding any Cherries coverage for a bit. Not that there any many left to actually avoid.

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Crystal Palace – Leicester (A), Man Utd (H), Liverpool (A)
A quick look at Palaces’ results thus far suggests predictability. Their loss to West ham last time out aside (this was more due to being reduced to 10 men in the first half than anything else, and as such was fairly predictable from that point on anyway) then every other result has gone as you’d expect really. The one exception perhaps being the win at Chelsea but even that in hindsight now wasn’t perhaps a surprise all things considered. Point being that Palace seem to be winning the games they should and losing the games you’d expect them to. They’re scoring and conceding an average amount whilst not breaking any new ground in either respect. All that considered then we’d expect them to probably lose the next three! And it’ll probably be by a narrow margin in each case. The good news however is that their games after the above mentioned ones are Sunderland and Newcastle at home! We wouldn’t go rushing out to buy any Palace players then right now but if you have any then they are probably worth holding in reserve. Probably.

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Sunderland – Newcastle (H), Everton (A), Southampton (H)
A change of manager usually results in a phenomenon known as ‘the bounce’. It’s a reaction created, in theory, by the players suddenly having to impress a new boss and also the new gaffers ideas galvanising the team. It oft results in a few positive results on the back of the change. The theory has legs and is tried and tested. Unfortunately said legs don’t stretch to the far reaches of the North East sometimes as Sunderland went down 0-1 to West Brom in one of the most predictable results in the history of results! Big Sam has perhaps finally bitten off more than he can chew here but time will tell. In the meantime he hasn’t got the best introduction given the games ahead. As per Bournemouth – avoid!

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One week wonders
This is where we attempt to highlight any individual games or teams that look particularly enticing for this week alone. A quick look at the fixtures for GW10 doesn’t immediately proffer much inspiration as there are no bankers this week, no ‘Man City at home to Bournemouth’ type games. Indeed nearly all of this weeks fixtures look fairly well matched on paper. In the absence of anything obvious we have picked a few games in which we feel there could be goals on offer due to the underlying stats of the teams involved.

1) Leicester v Crystal Palace
Only Man City and Newcastle (!) can boast more home goals than Leicester (10) this season and they are the 3rd top scorers overall with 19. In addition they have the worst goals against record at home with 10 conceded. For their part Palace have won three of their four away games this season and do look better suited on the road with a pacey counter attack. With just two clean sheets between the pair all season this one clearly smells of goals.

2) West Ham v Chelsea
Talking of a lack of clean sheets this ones sees two teams who have mustered only five between them in eighteen attempts. If that doesn’t convince you then try this – between them they have only failed to score in one game this season and that was Chelsea at Man City way back in August. West Ham are the 2nd highest scorers in the league whilst only Norwich, Newcastle and Sunderland can boast more goals conceded than Chelsea. Jose’s man have been particularly poor away from home with just the one victory so far, conceding 10 in the process. West Ham haven’t exactly been great at home with just one victory themselves and having collected 13 of their 17 points on the road. Both sides to lose then anyone?!

3) Sunderland v Newcastle
If you are rock bottom, without a win and hold the joint 2nd worst defensive record in the league then probably the last thing you need is a local derby, especially when your rivals have just scored 6 in their last game! Don’t let those 6 goals lull you into a false sense of security though as Newcastle had only managed 6 in their previous 8 attempts and just 1 of those was away from home. Combined these two teams have conceded 38 goals which is at least 9 more than any of the other combination of teams offered above, (27 and 29 respectively). Yes, there should be goals in this one.

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Fixture Fun
European football returns this week to add yet another complication to your potential picks and transfers for GW10. It’s Champions League up first and Chelsea feature on Tuesday with a long trip to Dynamo Kyiv whilst Arsenal have no such travel worries as they ‘welcome’ Bayern Munich on the same evening.

Wednesday sees the Manchester clubs in action with Utd having a similarly long haul all the way out to Moscow to face CSKA which leaves City enjoying home comforts against Sevilla.

The dreaded Europa League is back on Thursday. Spurs have a relatively short trip to Anderlecht and Liverpool play host to Rubin Kazan.

As ever be sure to check on your players health and availability once these games are over.

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Game-week 10 – Fantasy Premier League 2015-16. This article was written by Inittowinit and NIN

Follow @AdamalcockFF247