Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 26

Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 26

GW26 is all about whether to captain AB de Villiers or Dale Steyn and if India can overcome arch rivals Pakistan in the derby. Oh no hang on… sorry. Cricket cap off, football scarf back on. Yes, yes, we know and we make no apologies for spending a few bored FPL-less days talking about fantasy cricket but hey we are just addicted to fantasy games and it’s probably just as well as that one goes on for 7 weeks and involves roughly two transfers and a captain dilemma every single day. Hardcore. Anyway back to the bread and butter after we were rudely interrupted once more by the FA Cup. GW25 was one to forget on the whole and to illustrate our point if you somehow captained Chris Smalling by accident you’d have bagged 34 points from last weeks top scoring player whilst the likes of Nasri and Willian overshadowed their more popular team mates with 13 and 11 points respectively. And to top it all off your top scoring forward was none other than… Dame N’Doye. We shall give you non Hull fans a few minutes to look him up! Fear not GW26 is upon us and we begin the week with our usual look over the fixtures ahead… 

Dates for your diary…

GW26 – GW26 begins on Saturday 21st Feb with a normal deadline of 11.30am UK time.

GW27 clashes with the League Cup Final so you need to keep an eye on this as Chelsea, Leicester, QPR and Spurs all miss this one.

GW28 then sees our first DGW of the season as the QPR vs Spurs fixture has been moved to this one and so sees both teams play twice in GW28. Chelsea and Leicester could potentially now be in the mix for a DGW28 too with Villa having knocked Leicester out of the cup and thus freeing that weekend up for them in theory.

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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_blue]Blue[/highlight_blue] – These teams have either a double or a blank game-week to consider.

[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

Arsenal – Crystal Palace (a), Everton (h), QPR (a)
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[/three_fourth]That Arsenal team sheet last week was probably one of the most eagerly anticipated ones of the whole season. Being an early midweek game of course it allowed a rare glimpse of the teams prior to the deadline and being a supposed easy fixture also meant many a captaincy decision hung on who played. With hindsight we probably shouldn’t have gotten so excited as the expected goal rush didn’t quite happen and Arsenal limped over the line as 2-1 victors. The only contributions of note really were two assists for Ozil, a goal from Walcott, a benching for Giroud and a battering for Sanchez. At the time of writing Alexis is still yellow flagged but it is worth noting that he played this afternoon in the FA Cup against Middlesbrough and chipped in with an assist for Giroud, who himself netted twice. Yes we know, that was supposed to be last weeks script.

The upcoming games see Arsenal play three sides all in the bottom half of the league. There are no guarantees as that Leicester game showed but at this stage of the season the league table rarely lies. Arsenal are and should be capable of winning all three of these. Palace have benefited from the ‘Pardew effect’ whatever that is (misplaced arrogance is our best guess) but that may have cooled now as they have lost two and drawn once in their three home games.

Everton will come and pass and pass and pass.  And pass and pass and pass. And lose. QPR are supposed to be good at home, or at least better, but that’s not saying much in comparison to their away record and they have still only won 5 out of 13 at Loftus Road.

Much like last week any future Arsenal team sheets will be scrutinised with interest. Ozil, Cazorla, Sanchez and even Welbeck were all handed starts in the cup game with Walcott being reduced to a cameo role late on. Young Theo has been warned by Wenger that he faces a fight to regain his place and seemed to suggest that it was between him and Sanchez for a place, “Walcott can score goals but Sanchez has had the biggest offensive impact up to now. Theo’s fitness is there now but we will see game by game”. He did of course manage to squeeze the pair in together last week but that was seemingly at the expense of Giroud but he won’t be dropped much when fully fit. As ever, good luck figuring this one out.

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Man City – Newcastle (h), Liverpool (a), Leicester (h)
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[/three_fourth]Stoke away is meant to be a tough fixture regardless of who you are and what you’ve spent but City proceeded to make a mockery of this belief last time out with a resounding four goal thumping of the hosts. It was a much needed victory and result too as they found themselves without a win in the league since New Years Day with three draws and a loss against Arsenal since the turn of the year which had many questioning whether they had the desire or indeed personnel to push Chelsea all the way. Personnel wise they will be boosted and bolstered by the return of Yaya Toure this week after his ACON exploits and he will bring with him in his suitcase new recruit Wildfied Bony to add power to their attacking options.

Two favorable home fixtures in the next three against Newcastle and Leicester should in theory bring up six points. The trip to Liverpool in the middle is trickier but we wouldn’t be too worried about playing any City assets in that one, especially attacking ones as City have scored 30 away goals this season which is the most in the league.

Sergio has taken his time to reignite since returning from his latest injury but he lit the blue touch paper last week and notched a brace against Stoke to finally announce his return as a must-have fantasy player once again. Well we say must have. Must have for a little bit maybe. Given his history he will be on fire for a few games now until his tightly strung legs go snap again as is almost inevitable. If he was a mid priced player then he would almost be easy to manage but given that he is is at the premium end of premium at £12.8m he takes a lot of working out to fit in, but on the plus side he also leaves a lot of money spare once that hamstring goes. Again…

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Spurs – West Ham (h), NO GAME in GW27, Swansea (h) & QPR (a)
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[/three_fourth]Spurs are a tough one to include in any ‘favorable fixtures’ article as they come with a major health warning here – they have a decent enough fixture in GW26 but then DON’T HAVE A GAME IN GW27. So why the heck are in here? Well it’s mainly to do with them then having the most favorable of favorable DGW fixtures. Many people will have at least Harry Kane in their line-ups by now and feel free to play him against West Ham this week who have just been beaten 0-4 at West Brom in the FA Cup. Come GW27 though Spurs have no game due to their involvement in the League Cup final. We would simply recommend that you bench any Spurs players for their blank in GW27 as you will surely want them playing in GW28 as they then have Swansea at home and then QPR away in their double GW28.

None of those are ‘givens’ of course but Spurs look in fine form despite that late Balotelli goal at Anfield. We shall forgive them that one as they probably saw him coming on and simply switched off assuming the game was therefore effectively over. What it does mean is that Spurs are in a 5 team battle for those two remaining Champions League places so there will be little or no rotation as points are at a premium which is good news.

Kane & Eriksen will be the double act that most people will be going with ahead of the DGW28 and you could probably make a decent case for having a 3rd Spurs body if you can find one. Those two are by far and away Spurs’ biggest points scorers with 126 and 124 respectively and next in that pecking order are Nacer Chadli and Hugo Lloris on 105 and 93. In fact beyond those two the next best is way back on 63 (Vertonghen). Chadli was becoming a very popular pick a few weeks ago but unfortunately his flow was interrupted as he had to return home for personal reasons and his game time has been affected since but if he looks to have regained his spot against West Ham and in the League Cup final then he could be your man at just £6.5m.

If you fancy Spurs keeping some clean sheets then Lloris is your best bet but the reality is that they have kept only six all season which is the bad news. The good news is that two of those were against West Ham and QPR in the reverse fixtures earlier in the season.

One thing of note, and it should be startlingly obvious but still seems to take many people by surprise, is that much like that ‘ a dog is for life, not just for Christmas’ advert, once the DGW is finished you will have all of those Spurs player left in your squad for the subsequent games. They’re not for life of course and you can transfer any unwanted ones out but even so it may take time. With that in mind a little look ahead sees the next three shape up as – Man United (a), Leicester (h) and Burnley (a). So all in all, perhaps the Man United game aside it’s not too bad at all.

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LESS FAVOURABLE FIXTURES

Leicester – Everton (a), NO GAME in GW27, Man City (a) & possibly Chelsea (h)
At the time of writing Leicester have just two games in the next three gameweeks and they aren’t good ones. Trips to Everton and Man City probably won’t do much to improve manager Nigel Person’s mood. Should their game in hand be re-arranged for GW28 then it actually makes their run look even worse, not better, as it’s against leaders Chelsea. Whether it’s two or three games is fairly irrelevant then as you won’t be rushing to include any Leicester players in your team any time soon if you can help it.

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Burnley – Chelsea (a), Swansea (h), Liverpool (a)
Burnley sit 19th in the table and one win in their last ten games probably tells you why and even that was at home to QPR. Their fixtures aren’t kind either so all of that is unlikely to improve much in the near future. They’ll be the nominated whipping boys this weekend as they visit Chelsea and the best they can hope for there is to park the bus and hope it doesn’t leak too much but it surely will. An away trip to Swansea may be their best hope of points here as the other game is against an improving Liverpool side complete with an actual striker or two now.

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QPR –  Hull (a), NO GAME in GW27, Arsenal (h) & Spurs (h)
Since we last spoke to you good old ‘Arry suddenly developed a knee complaint the morning after the transfer window in which QPR signed nobody and so had to resign post-haste in order to get it fixed. Yep, all seems perfectly plausible that. The usual list of hapless candidates was trawled through and seemingly dismissed. Anyway in typical QPR circus fashion Chris Ramsey has been appointed for the remainder of the season having been placed in temporary charge for the Sunderland game. Having somehow overseen their first away victory of the season, everybody, presumably including poor Chris himself, was surprised to find him being appointed the new boss on the back of this.

Whether it’s a good move or not remains to be seen but he’d better make sure he makes it two away victories out of two at Hull because they then have a week off followed by a DGW from hell! We wouldn’t totally dismiss them for the double but as ever it’d really just be Charlie Austin that would be of any interest or perhaps even Joey Barton if you were feeling particularly desperate. Or lucky.

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West Ham – Spurs (a), Crystal Palace (h), Chelsea (h)
It looks like Big Sam is back in the bad books again! Having enjoyed a wonderful start to the campaign the fickle fans of West Ham have turned once more. Maybe with justification though as they have won just twice in the last 10 games and were humbled 0-4 at West Brom in the cup this weekend. Losing Andy Carroll to injury for the remainder of the season won’t help but nor is it such a surprise given his record. Three derby games in quick succession may well make or break Big Sam’s season or indeed tenure as a whole if things go badly wrong.

Fixture Fun

European football returns this week starting with Chelsea in the Champions League on Tuesday and a trip to PSG. Thursday sees the Europa League teams back in action with Everton going to Young Boys while Spurs and Liverpool are at home against Fiorentina and Besiktas.

To avoid any confusion Arsenal and Man City are both still in the Champions League of course but their ties aren’t until next week as UEFA split the rounds now to maximise TV revenue.

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 26 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by Inittowinit

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