Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 29

Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 29

GW28 finally came to a close on Saturday with Harry Kane grabbing a brace to appease the majority who backed him as captain. As Kane rounded Rob Green there was a collective groan that could be heard all over from those who didn’t back the Hurrikane just as he sealed the Spurs victory and his second goal and all three bonus points with it. If you didn’t captain him then we still salute your bravado. A Kun hat-trick was on the cards but didn’t quite materialise. A couple of late Eriksen strikes were anticipated but never happened. Sometimes the bleeding obvious is just the way to go and right now that spells Kane, Kane, Kane. Let’s go and take a look at how we feel the next few weeks look and who has decent fixtures and who doesn’t…

Dates for your diary…

GW29 – Nothing of note here, everybody plays and all do so just the once. This is a usual Saturday deadline at 11.30am GMT.

GW34 –  This may be a few weeks away yet but it is certainly worth noting for future planning as it sees our second DGW of the season. There will be other DGW’s and we will be sure to tell you about those as and when but as of yet this is the only one that has been confirmed and it sees both Leicester and Chelsea feature twice –

Leicester play Burnley (a) & Chelsea (h)
Chelsea play Arsenal (a) & Leicester (a)

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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 – West Ham (h), Newcastle (a), Liverpool (h)
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[/three_fourth]Since we last spoke Arsenal have played twice and won twice, scoring two goals in each game. Keeping up with the theme Olivier Giroud notched two goals over the piece whilst Kieran Gibbs and Mesut Ozil grabbed themselves a pair of assists. Perhaps the most notable occurence though came in the form of a single as Alexis Sanchez ended a six game drought to remind managers why they have invested over £11m in him and perhaps made a few think twice about transferring him out had they not already lost patience with the Chilean.

Those two victories kept Arsenal well in the hunt for their annual trophy – a top four slot. They sit 3rd currently, four points behind Man City in 2nd and four points ahead of Spurs in 6th. Unless anything dramatic happens it’s probably where they will end up come May. The fixtures ahead look good enough to maintain the position. The next three are all certainly winnable and they have Burnley and Sunderland beyond those for good measure.

It’s West Ham at home up next who are on the crest of a slump. In fact you have to go back to January to find their last victory and they are without a win in their last six games on the road. Arsenal then go to Newcastle who themselves have only one victory in their last five and even that doesn’t really count as it was against Aston Villa. Liverpool at home will be unpredictable and will depend largely on which Liverpool team shows up – the one which has won their last four league games, including a notable victory over Man City, or the one that lumbered to a 0-0 draw with Blackburn on Sunday afternoon.

You would have to feel that Arsenal can score in all of those games so we would recommend keeping any attacking assets you have from them. Unless it’s Walcott, as he can’t seem to buy a game as of late. The likes of Giroud, Cazorla, Ozil and Sanchez should continue to flourish. At the back Bellerin seems to have cemented his place again after a brief hiatus and affords the cheapest route into their defence at just £4.6m.

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Man City – Burnley (a), West Brom (h), Crystal Palace (a)
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[/three_fourth]City were lucky to escape from their first leg Champions League tie with Barcelona with just a narrow 1-2 defeat as they could, and probably should, have been thumped in that one but went and compounded matters by getting beaten at Anfield in the following game. The jungle drums were out after that with the media quick to line up potential replacements for Pellegrini. Whether he survives the summer or not will largely depend on closing down a five point gap between them and Chelsea. Chelsea look relentless whilst City just look inconsistent. Chelsea also have a game in hand so it’s potentially an eight point chase with just ten games left. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the next few games shouldn’t present too much a problem for them.

They begin this week with Burnley away. City are the league’s top scorers away from home with 31 so far and are second only to Southampton in terms of away goals conceded with 15. Burnley for their part have managed just 13 goals at home. City should win this one and comfortably so. It’s then West Brom at home who have just two wins on the road all season and have scored just nine goals away from home. Anyone with City defenders should be playing them in these two. The third game is perhaps the trickiest as Pellegrini renews touchline niceties with Pardew after one 53 year old called another 60 year old a “f***ing old c**t”. Nice. Classy. Anyway the 53 year old Pardew is apparently performing wonders at Palace. According to the 53 year old Pardew himself. Sure enough he got off to a decent start but the reality is just one win in their last five and three defeats in that spell.

David Silva has racked up 30 points in his last three games with three goals, an assist and six bonus points clearly earmarking him as a man in form. For a man with 17 goals and 7 assists Sergio Aguero feels like a slow burn as of late having blanked in his last two outings. Those are some seriously good numbers
though for someone who has managed just over 18 games this season and are the reason that most are happy to stick with the Argentine through thick and thin as his explosive nature tends to mean that the next monster haul from him is always just around the corner. Yes Burnley, we are looking at you.

At the back things are always uncertain with City as Clichy and Kolorav seem as interchangeable as George and Zippy but somewhat surprisingly George seems to be winning the day as he’s played the last four PL games with Zippy not having seen any action since GW24. Bungle comes into the equation here too as he (Kompany) was benched last time out against Leicester having been culpable for Liverpool’s opener and generally looking decidely and uncharacteristically dodgy as of late. Zabaleta seems the most assured to start from the City back-line and even that’s said with a pinch of salt as he found himself rested against Leicester! Yeah ok, probably best to just stick to their attackers!

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Spurs – Man United (a), Leicester (h), Burnley (a)
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[/three_fourth]Spurs were the main talking point ahead of GW28 as they had a DGW and the most favorable one at that and they duly delivered. Sort of. Five goals in total wasn’t a bad return but the fact that there were four different scorers and five different ‘assiters’ hepled to dilute the points. Given that Rose, Eriksen and Kane seemed to be the most popular choices, the holy trinity would have given you a total of 45 points assuming you captained Kane which isn’t too shabby from just three players! Breaking it down though it could have been a whole lot better as Rose only played one game, Eriksen weighed in with just one assist and Kane himself did nothing in the first game.

Having possibly loaded up on Spurs players then the question now is whether to keep them. The fixtures suggest it may be wise from an attacking point of view. The stats suggest that from a defensive point of view you may want to cut loose as they have conceded more goals (39) than any other team in the top 10. They have recorded just six clean-sheets all season and just the one this year so far. You have to go back to GW23 for their last one and they’ve conceded nine goals since then in just five games.

As we say though as an attacking entity they are fine and are the 5th highest scorers in the league with 46 so far and Mr Kane has had a hand in 22 of those with 16 goals and 6 assists and has 8 goals in his last 6 appearances alone. If for some reason you haven’t got him yet then it’s never to late. Well ok, it’s a bit late but…

As for their fixtures Spurs go to Old Trafford this weekend and that will be the trickiest of their run as they then have two very inviting games as they face the two bottom clubs, hosting Leicester before going to Burnley. The game after that is nearly as good as they then have Villa at home. All of that would suggest it’s certainly worth sitting on your Spurs players for a good while yet.

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Chelsea – Southampton (h), Hull (a), Stoke (h)
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[/three_fourth]While City were busy slipping up at Anfield, Chelsea were busy lifting their first trophy of the season by beating Spurs in the League Cup Final thanks to goals from John Terry and Diego Costa. They resumed their league campaign with a hard fought 0-1 win at West Ham courtesy of a rare headed goal from Eden Hazard. That was his 10th goal of the campaign and sees him maintain his spot as the games overall top scoring fantasy player with a cool 170 points to his name.

As we mentioned earlier Chelsea have a DGW on the horizon in GW34 so many will be planning transfers ahead of this to maximise their Chelsea coverage. A word of caution here though as whether they will indeed have a game in GW33 depends on the outcome of this evenings FA Cup clash between Man United and Arsenal. If United progress then they will play in the semi-final that weekend rather than playing Chelsea in the league. Likewise if Arsenal were to progress then their game against Sunderland would have to be re-arranged.

As for their fixtures things look fairly healthy for them. They begin on Sunday by hosting Southampton in a clash of the league’s two tightest defences. In fact Chelsea having conceded the fewest at home (5) and Southampton the fewest away (10). 0-0 anyone? Probably not actually when you consider Chelsea’s home form as they have won 11 out of the 13 played at The Bridge, drawing the other two. It’s then a trip to Hull followed by another home game against Stoke. After that they go to QPR before we get to that GW33 game which may or may not happen!

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LESS FAVOURABLE FIXTURES

Burnley – Man City (h), Southampton (a), Spurs (h)

Despite a valiant effort at making themselves difficult to beat it’s looking increasingly likely that Burnley’s stay in the top flight will be short-lived. They are without a win in their last seven -a sequence that may continue for some time yet as a quick glance at their schedule above would suggest. And it doesn’t get much better as after City, Southampton and Spurs it’s then Arsenal at home followed by a trip to Everton.

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HULL – Leicester (a), Chelsea (h), Swansea (a)
Hull have three away games in the next four and they are without a win in their last four trips and the home game is against Chelsea, none of which sounds great. Perhaps Leicester away this week is their best chance of three points but it’ll be close and it’ll be scrappy. That’s followed by hosting Chelsea before going to Swansea. Beyond that they then have to go to Southampton before welcoming Liverpool. Those two recent victories over Villa and QPR will be valuable points in the bank for them as their schedule is tough.

Fixture Fun
There are some games to navigate ahead of GW29 as Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton and Man United all have games this week –

Monday sees Man United and arsenal square in the FA Cup.

On Wednesday it’s Chelsea’s turn in the Champions League as they host PSG.

Thursday then sees the our one remaining representative in Europa League action as Everton host Dynamo Kiev.

Be sure to keep an eye out for any injuries or suspensions that may arise as a result of these. Any suspensions or yellow cards that occur in the FA Cup count as domestic and so affect the Premier League. Any that occur in European games do not.

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 29 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by Inittowinit

Follow @Inittowinit