Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 21

Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 21

Welcome to 2015 everyone and a Happy New Year from all of us at FF247! The Christmas period promised so much after the bonanza that was Boxing Day but in truth the next couple of GW’s after that flatered to decieve somewhat with relatively low average scores for both GW’s 19 and 20. Worry not though as the January wildcard is in full swing and so we will begin the year with an eye on that and try to guide you through the next set of fixtures to help you decide which teams are worth investing in, which players have the best and worst runs ahead and hopefully help you decide when best to deploy the bad boy.

January Wildcard
As we have alluded to it is now active but just to clarify the rules –

– So any transfers or hits you incur in any given week will be wiped out if you play your WC in the same week.

– You can play it whenever prior to GW24 and it’ll be active for the start of GW’s 21, 22, 23 or 24. It’s available now and can be deployed for any week up until GW24 but not after that. Use it or lose it basically.

– It does not impact on your ‘season long’ wildcard, that will still be available if you haven’t played it yet.

All basic stuff but worth going over we feel.

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Just 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

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And so onto the teams and fixtures 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.

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FAVOURABLE FIXTURES

Chelsea – Newcastle (h), Swansea (a), Man City (h)
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[/three_fourth]So we begin this year’s favourable fixtures with a team that’s fresh off the back off a 5-3 hammering! Yes it looks bad and wasn’t overly pretty but we wouldn’t put too much weight behind that result though and we would actually look to the take the positives from it more than the negatives – namely Eden Hazard. If ever a player shone in a 5-3 defeat it was him. He was majestic and scored his eigth goal of the season to make it three goals and three assists in his last five games and scores of 14, 7, 6, 10 and 7 speak volumes for his consistency and form. We doubt there will be many wildcard teams that don’t have him in there and that goal saw him overtake Alexis Sanchez as the games overall top points scorer so far. Hard to bet against him remaining there the way he’s playing.

Talking of consistency the rugged one notched again to make it just the 14 for the season for Mr Costa. Hard to argue against that record despite the lack of bonus points and the obvious propensity to get both yellow carded and / or injured with equal consistency. Speaking of ’14’, you’ll be equally less surprised if we tell you who assisted Hazard. Yes it was Fabregas again and we could see many a manager opt for the whole holy trinity in their wildcards and we couldn’t blame you as we are looking at three players who are all playing for the potential champions and all arguably at the top of their games.

Another Mr Consistency at the moment is John Terry as he got his third goal in four games. Now we aren’t suggesting that will continue forthwith but he’s their top point scoring defender and he’s played every game so far and isn’t likely to be dropped or rotated any time soon which is more than you can say for the left backs and certainly more than you can say for any defender plying their trade at Man City.

Fixture wise it’s all looking healthy for Chelsea with newly managerless Newcastle up at home next followed by a trip to Swansea. City at home is obviously the sticky one but beyond that it’s Villa, Everton and Burnley. We would have no hesitation in taking in a full compliment of Chelsea players in any wildcard with that fixture list.

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Man Utd – Southampton (h), QPR (a), Leicester (h)
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[/three_fourth]A few away draws recently have halted what has otherwise been a fantastic turn around in Utd’s fortunes and results as of late and even those were at Stoke and Spurs, where Arsenal and Chelsea have recently come unstuck in spectacular fashion, so perhaps that puts those results into perspective as decent points gained. At home they’ve won their last five games and two of the next three are at home and even the home game after that is against Burnley. The away game in the next three is hardly a shocker either as it’s QPR away.

We wouldn’t shy away from a couple of Utd players at least for these upcoming fixtures as they are generally kind for quite some time to come and in fact you could foreseeably say that’s the case up until around the middle of March when they meet Spurs and Liverpool again.

At the back Utd have the 4th best defensive record in the league and are particularly strong at home having only lost one and conceded just seven goals. David de Gea will no doubt make his way into many a WC team due to the fixtures and also some fantastic form as of late. 80 points sees him sit as the 2nd highest in the keeper section so we can see the attraction. Maybe a more frugal punt on Phil Jones at £0.6m cheaper wouldn’t be the worst shout either as he’s now started the last five games. He does have a tendency to stumble, literally, from one injury or disaster stricken gurn to the next though.

Up top it’s a tough one as they all seem to be taking points from each other at the moment. One game Rooney’s the flavour, the next it’s RvP and even Falcao looks to be settling in better now he’s been starting finally. Rooney is occupying a deeper role in midfield but it’s one he looks like he’s relishing and it isn’t stunting his ability to get forward either. We would be very tempted to take one of them, we’ve just no idea which! It’s a bit of the luck of the draw with those three and probably highlights the beauty of Aguero when he’s fit as he just hoovers up all the points for himself, more on him later…

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Spurs – Crystal Palace (a), Sunderland (h), West Brom (a)
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[/three_fourth]Harry Kane. That’s all that’s on everyone’s lips after the last few weeks and that hammering of Chelsea in particular. Some had him, played him and reaped the rewards. Many more actually had him, benched him and cried for the next few days. Many more didn’t even have him and probably shrugged it off in the knowledge that they probably soon will. His fixtures ahead certainly warrant the investment especially when you consider his price tag of £5.5m and rising rapidly. Either way it’s still fantastic value for someone who has amassed 48 points in the last five GW’s. That includes five goals, an assist and ten bonus points. Buy, buy, buy!

Having done that to Chelsea you would imagine confidence will be sky high and so they will be licking their lips at the prospect of Palace, Sunderland and West Brom in the next three.

There is a small caveat with Spurs though as we look beyond those three they have Arsenal, Liverpool and West Ham which is an altogether tougher run than the initial three games. The moral here may be go Spurs, go Kane and maybe even Chadli or Eriksen for now but just be aware of those other games on the horizon and limit it to that if you can.

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Burnley – QPR (h), Crystal Palace (h), Sunderland (a)
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[/three_fourth]Burnley? But they’re second bottom. Are you mad? Well yeah maybe, a little, but let us explain. They’ve managed five goals in their last two games in two thrilling draws and George Boyd has stood out in particular with two goals in those. Which had many fantasy managers praying for one of their starting eleven to not make it on both occasions probably as he’s your perennial sub in all likelihood given that he’s just £4.6m and plays for Burnley. Prior to those two games they’ve actually kept things fairly tight and are often the source for the odd unexpected but welcome clean sheet too.

The point here really isn’t that you should load up on Burnley as a priority by any means but if you need some cheap squad fillers they are certainly a viable option with the odd goal from Boyd, Danny Ings is showing glimpses at £5.6m and most of their defence is cheap as chips still, with keeper Heaton at £4.6m being only eight points off being the top scorer in the GK section.

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LESS FAVOURABLE FIXTURES

Man City – Everton (a), Arsenal (h), Chelsea (a)
Most teams will likely include a City player or two at the moment. If it’s Yaya then you need to be shipping him regardless as he’s off the the ACON this week. If it’s Silva then you have decisions to make ahead of the next few weeks especially if you are wildcarding as there are possibly better options with better fixtures. That said once the Chelsea game is out of the way City will be firmly back in the ‘favourable’ section as they then have Hull (h), Stoke (a) and Newcastle (h) so you need to consider that too. The good news is that Aguero should be back by then and if you are playing a late wildcard that could be perfect timing for you and if you are playing an early one we would recommend you be careful to leave room for manoeuvre in order to bring him in should you so wish and let’s face it most will.

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Everton Man City (h), West Brom (h), Crystal palace (a)
This isn’t perhaps so much about the opposition as it is about Everton themselves. Rumours of dressing room unrest never bode well and they’ve lost their last four on the bounce which included a home game against Stoke and an away game at Hull. You really wouldn’t expect much against City at home then and the next two are against teams with new managers and with it a whole host of players with plenty to prove to their respective new bosses. We expect any wildcard trends regarding Everton players will be strictly one way – to the exit door. While Baines and Coleman once felt like cheap ‘midfielders with clean sheet potential’, they now just feel like mid priced ones with none.

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QPR – Burnley (a), Man Utd (h), Stoke (a)
They’re strong at home they said, only play them at home they said. That was the theory! Well two relatively enticing home games produced two relatively dull draws with star man Charlie Austin returning a massively disappointing four points from the pair. Well the bad news then is that two of the next three are on the road and the one at home is Man Utd. Trips to Burnley and Stoke are on the ‘could be worse, could be better’ scale. You’ll probably only have Austin anyway and surely if anyone’s going to do anything for them it’ll be him so we wouldn’t be overly concerned but if you are wildcarding then perhaps there are better options to consider given their fixtures.

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Fixture Fun
It’s FA Cup weekend or indeed FA Cup week due to the TV’s insistence on playing it over five days so pretty much all of your players teams will be involved at some point this week so keep an eye on the news to make sure they have survived unscathed. Team Talk will be back this Friday as normal to give you all of the latest.

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 21 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by Inittowinit

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