Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 11

Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 11

The main question surrounding GW10 was how many goals Chelsea and in particular Diego Costa could plunder against QPR. Well the answer was a rather disappointing two for Chelsea and none for Costa. GW10 instead proved to be the week of Alexis Sanchez again, as was GW9. The Chileans price tag of £10.6m certainly tests many fantasy manager’s ability to balance their squads but sometimes you do just get what you pay for (are you listening Diego) and with seven goals and two assists he is becoming hard to ignore. Amazingly he was actually outscored this week by Calum Chambers as the young full-back grabbed himself a goal, an assist, a clean sheet and all thre bonus points. At £4.8m you don’t get much better value for money than that! Arsenal don’t actually make the cut this week in either the favourable or less favourable sections of the article as they have a mixed bag of games ahead so it may be a case of looking at the others to see if that can help make your mind up as to how you can accommodate either in your teams. So without further ado let’s get our crystal ball out and see which teams we feel will fare well and which ones not so much in the coming weeks.

Before we examine the fixtures ahead, here is a reminder of a couple of essential Fantasy Football tools that you may wish to refer back to.

Mito produced some outstanding and detailed analysis on the best rotation pairs for the season which can be found here –
Rotation Analysis Home and Away and Favourable fixtures

Calvin Clyne devised an ingenious interactive fixture tracker which can be found here –
Fixture Tracker – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15

[divider_1px]

And so onto the teams and fixture themselves. Let’s begin with a very straightforward 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_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.

[divider_1px]

FAVOURABLE FIXTURES

Chelsea – Liverpool (a), West Brom (h), Sunderland (a)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]Chelsea may be a mainstay in this section for the remainder of the season regardless of the actual fixtures themselves such is their relentless march at the moment. Jose insists that they cannot do an ‘invincible’s’ and go the season unbeaten. He may, and probably will, be proved right but we are over a quarter of the way through now and they have a record of P10 W8 D2 L0. That looks ominous and would have been even better but for that last minute RvP equaliser. Against QPR this past weekend they were nowhere near their best by any stretch but that happens and the mark of champions they say is if you still win such games and they did. Oscar and Hazard were the heroes with Fabregas chipping in with his usual assist. Costa was the villain of the piece from an FPL point of view. He didn’t do anything wrong to be fair to him, he just didn’t do anything right. His imminent return against a supposed weak team was greeted with a transfer clamor and many hits were invoked as a result. The end result was 2 points. Oh Diego!

On the bright side he was always going to have a game like that at some point and still will in future weeks, all players do, but given the fixtures ahead we wouldn’t bet against him or Chelsea very often. They go to Liverpool next who are on the crest of a slump. Hammered 1-0 by Newcastle (yes, that’s a hammering when the words Newcastle and defeat are associated)  Liverpool are clearly not the same Liverpool as last season and Chelsea will fancy their chances of breaching their comedy defence especially if ‘Moreno assist’ is faced with the likes of Hazard, Oscar and Willian in full flow. On the back foot Moreno doesn’t do full flow, he does pause, stop and assist.

Beyond next week Chelsea still look great value as they have West Brom at home and Sunderland away. Two games that you would fully expect to see them win. One note on Costa that is worth considering is that he is rumoured to be in need of surgery at some point despite playing on at the moment. One plausible theory is that Chelsea may look to get this done during the international break which proceeds GW11. Chelsea don’t have a game from the 8th November until the 22nd. This may seem an ideal opportunity for them to get this issue sorted whilst in the process allowing Jose to give two fingers to the Spanish F.A and still have his main man fit for the important part of the season. It will probably mean he will miss a few weeks after the break. It may all be hearsay but it’s one to monitor.

[divider_1px]

Southampton – Leicester (h), Aston Villa (a), Man City (h)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]For Pelle this week, read Costa. On fire striker, ‘must have’, in a winning team, against a weaker team, scoring freely and notched two in midweek. Blanks at the weekend. As we said, it happens. Don’t beat yourself up over it and certainly console yourself with the fact that he has Leicester at home this week and is playing as the main striker for the team that is second in the league, has scored the second most goals behind Chelsea and are most certainly in form. As per Chelsea a narrow 1-0 victory sometimes has to suffice and that’s what they got this week away at Hull. We all thought the floodgates were set to open after Wanyama opened the scoring with a worldy after just 3 minutes but it just didn’t happen and credit Southampton for seeing the game out away from home with such a narrow margin.

Certainly the next two games look good for them and we would all probably want some mix of Pelle, Tadic, maybe Mane and a Southampton defender for games against Leicester and Villa. The next one up is Man City but even that may not be beyond Southampton at this present time. It’s definitely worth pointing out that their two games after City are Arsenal (a) and Man Utd (h) but again whilst they aren’t great on paper we feel that the way they are playing at the moment the opposition may be just as concerned. If you choose to hold through those then the reward is a game against Burnley on the other side.

It may also be worth noting that whilst Southampton have the second best goals scored record in the league (possibly skewed a little by the freak 8-o vs Sunderland) they also have by far and away the very best defensive record with just 5 conceded so far. Their nearest challengers in this respect are Chelsea and City with 10. Is a double up on Saints defenders against Leicester and Villa out of the question? You could do worse…

[divider_1px]

Manchester United – Crystal Palace (h), Arsenal (a), Hull (h)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]Man Utd jump straight from our ‘poor’ fixtures list to our ‘good’ one this week despite having lost at the weekend. It wasn’t a surprise defeat by any means and even less so when you consider they had to play for so long with just ten men and actually ended the game with an incredibly makeshift back four that included a winger, a defensive midfielder and two teenagers! Given all that, it has to be said that those out there showed tremendous character and the fact that they came away with such a slender defeat to City who are one of the title contenders and have such a potent attack, is surely testament to that.

So whilst their defence may be in tatters the real reason they are in this section, and let’s face it the only reason you would consider any Utd coverage in a fantasy team, is the attack. Home games against Palace and Hull look like ideal opportunities for the likes of Rooney, RvP, Di Maria and co to show their class. Sandwiched in-between is a slightly trickier trip to Arsenal but worse teams than Utd have gone there and scored this season.  If you have Utd attackers we would recommend you hold onto them for this run. If you have any Utd defenders give LVG a call as he hasn’t.

[divider_1px]

Manchester City – QPR (a), Swansea (h), Southampton (a)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]City certainly haven’t got going yet and seem to be stumbling through games rather than being the ultra slick outfit we have become used to over the past couple of seasons. Quite what the issue is exactly we just aren’t sure as the personnel hasn’t really changed, the manager is the same, the system is the same and injuries aren’t exactly piling up. Maybe it’s desire. Maybe it’s Yaya’s birthday. (It isn’t, we checked. That’s May 13th). Whatever is going on the fact is that they aren’t firing on all cylinders but still look to be Chelsea’s only credible opposition for the title, assuming the Southampton bubble bursts soon. They sit in 3rd, 6 points adrift of the leaders but you have to feel that they will surely get it together at some point given all of the talent at their disposal. And James Milner.

Their immediate fixture is QPR away which is surely winnable. QPR have conceded as many as City have scored (20) and have the worst defensive record in the league. Yes they ran Chelsea close but Chelsea were off the boil as we have alluded to already. If City are 75% on their game they will win this and Aguero will likely be a popular captain choice this week given the fixture. Beyond this week City host Swansea and then go to Southampton. Neither will be overly easy of course but Swansea have only won once on the road and have accumulated 12 of their 15 points at home this season.

Sergio Aguero is almost certainly the main City draw from a fantasy perspective and rightly so. He is top of the points for strikers with 66 and second only to Sanchez overall who has had a ridiculously good couple of weeks. If you have him, keep him, obviously. If you don’t then we would suggest you look to get him in if possible. He’s pricey but he’s hellishly consistent and is the one City player liable to go off on one at any given moment and get you a monster haul.

[divider_1px]

LESS FAVOURABLE FIXTURES

QPR – Man City (h), Newcastle (a), Leicester (h)
QPR have clearly improved as an outfit even if the results themselves don’t necessarily reflect this. Despite good performances at home to Liverpool and away at Chelsea, where they were expected to get hammered, both still resulted in defeats and that’s where the problem lies for them. There was a home win against Villa in-between those games but if you can’t beat Villa then you really do need to just pack your case and label it ‘Championship bound’. Man City at home next will be a loss for sure, Newcastle away will likely be the same given their sudden resurgence and perhaps that Leicester game at home will be their salvation but either way you don’t want or need any QPR coverage in your fantasy teams any time soon.

Crystal Palace Man Utd (a), Liverpool (h), Swansea (a)

Palace went down 1-3 at home to Sunderland this evening and are mired in 16th in the table. They didn’t even manage to have a scorer of their own but you seldom do when the opposition are Sunderland. Wes Brown (who’d have thunk) was once again the culprit and is the proud owner of the unenviable record of having now scored six own goals against just four at the correct end. Yep that’s a -2 goal difference for him! Anyway back to Palace. Managing to lose to Sunderland so poorly is a feat in itself and they lost Jedinak late on to a red card which won’t help matters. Their next three games look very tough for them as they travel to both Man Utd and Swansea and host Liverpool. Lose those three, which is certainly possible, and they may find themselves in the relegation zone heading into December.

[divider_1px]

Swansea – Arsenal (h), Man City (a), Crystal Palace (h)

A very good point away at bogey team Everton this week was a bonus for Swansea as they were outplayed for the most part and actually out passed for once. 0-0 seemed fitting though for two teams that pride themselves on ball possession but sometimes forget that the ultimate aim is to actually score and therefore win. Swansea are sitting pretty in 6th place but this may be as good as it gets for a few weeks as they have Arsenal and Man City up next. Palace at home is the third game but we would question whether any Swansea coverage is worth it given the fixtures. The main question mark will be over Siggy. He began the season on fire, plundering 29 points in three game but has returned just 27 in the subsequent seven games. He hasn’t scored since GW1 and four of his seven assists came in that early period. Given the fixtures is it finally time to ditch the Ice-man?

[divider_1px]

FIXTURE FUN

Europe beckons this week for many of your FPL stars as we have midweek Champions League and Europa League games to contend with. Arsenal host Anderlecht on Tuesday and Liverpool go to Madrid on the same night for football lessons from Ronaldo et al.

On Wednesday Chelsea go to Maribor whilst City host CSKA.

Thursday sees Everton entertain Lille whilst Spurs reserves have a away trip to Greece’s Asteras Tripolis. (No still never heard of them either, Spurs are certainly giving us a football lesson in lesser known world teams this year).

Be sure to check out the availability of your fantasy players once these ties are over and eveybody has returned home, hopefully in full health.

Good luck this week everyone!

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 11 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by Inittowinit

Follow @Inittowinit

[divider_1px]

Please Vote – Fantasy Football Blog Awards

As you may have noticed (!) we have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Best FPL Football Blog award (FBA). The finals take place on November 13th at the National Football Museum in Manchester. Voting closes in exactly one week and it’s looking a close run thing so every last vote counts at this stage. If you could take just 2 minutes to vote via one of the links on the left here it would be massively appreciated. We would love nothing more than to bring home an award for you all!

[clear]