Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 9

Fantasy Football Fixtures Gameweek 9 – Fantasy Premier League 2014

We’ve had a few drab game-weeks recently but GW8 bucked the trend for sure! Whilst Aguero and his four goal haul made an early dash for ‘story of the week’ he was soon eclipsed by Southampton and their amazing 8-0 drubbing of a Sunderland sides sorry excuse for a PL team. Names like Pelle and Tadic will be on the lips of every fantasy manager this week to accompany those uttering Aguero. Or more likely ‘Aguerooooooo’, for those that had him. Or ‘oh craaaaaapppp’, for those that didn’t! It’s all very well and good to go chasing ‘lost’ points but before you jump in on the latest good news stories it may be wise to check whether the aforementioned players have good fixtures ahead (they do). Or whether you are jumping into a trap (you’re not). We also take a look at those teams that have less favourable fixtures ahead…

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 both 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 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.

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FAVOURABLE FIXTURES
Manchester City – West Ham (a), Man Utd (h), QPR (a)
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[/three_fourth]City cruised past Spurs as if they weren’t there and at times it felt like the Spurs midfield literally weren’t. And that was without Yaya who was rested due to his international travels. You don’t need Yaya though when you have a certain Mr Aguero. The signs were ominous on Saturday as he grabbed an early goal and those that had him would probably have settled for a brace and let’s be honest, those that didn’t would have settled for a brace too at that point! Whichever camp you fell into the fact is that he went on and got himself an amazing 4 goals. He also missed a penalty in the process. He won’t do that every week of course but it certainly bodes well for City to know that their main man is fit and in form. He and Silva looked like they could create chances at will and it was a surprise to see that Silva actually ended the game empty handed as such but don’t be deceived by this – he was instrumental in their attacks and will surely have better fantasy days than his 2 point haul this week suggests.

City have two trips to London in the next three and the small matter of a Manchester derby in-between. West Ham away this week will not be a cake walk but we expect they will have enough to defeat the progressive Hammers. The next two are against teams that have major defensive deficiencies and that’s not a trait you want when City come calling. We expect they will score and score well against both Man Utd and QPR. Even Liverpool managed to get three at QPR and they were awful.

Arsenal – Sunderland (a), Burnley (h), Swansea (a)
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[/three_fourth]Danny Welbeck grabbed a late equaliser to spare the Gunners blushes as they came perilously close to a home defeat against Hull with their new striker securing a point in injury time at the weekend. Arsenal are struggling to find consistency at the moment and are blighted by a long injury list. Aaron Ramsey managed a cameo appearance which will hopefully be an indication that he is back once more. For how long is anybody’s guess though as he is having an unfortunate run of injuries it would seem. It may be wise to wait until he can string a few games together before even considering him again for your teams.

This week Arsenal visit a Sunderland side that is suddenly under immense pressure having been mauled at Southampton in an astonishing 8-0 defeat. These things often go one of two ways. The chastened team shut up shop in the next game – which may be bad news for Arsenal. Or the underlying problem persists in which case – happy days for Arsenal. The reality will probably be somewhere in-between. The next game is Burnley at home. Now if this isn’t an open goal then we don’t know what is. If Arsenal don’t stick at least a couple past Burnley then we would suggest you just step off any coverage from them and just pretend they don’t exist. The third game in the sequence is actually the most difficult, away at Swansea. We would wait to see how Arsenal fare in the first two before making any calls on this one.

Everton – Burnley (a), Swansea (h), Sunderland (a)
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[/three_fourth]Given Evertons less than impressive start, Villa at home was a must win game and they duly delivered with an emphatic 3-0 victory. Leighton Baines racked up an impressive 15 fantasy points with 2 assists, a clean sheet and 3 bonus points. Baines is getting so cocky he even gave an assist with his right foot this week which is the one he usually reserves for standing on only.He’s fantasy gold, especially when Everton can keep a clean sheet which hasn’t happened often so far. His oppo on the right Seamus Coleman made a welcome return and offered a reminder as to why he was a ‘must have’ last season and a viable alternative to Baines again this season with a late goal. Ross Barkley finally got his season off to a late start after an unfortunate injury just prior to GW1 and got himself an assist to a much needed Lukaku goal.

Everton go to Burnley this week then with the confidence hopefully restored and two key players back in the team, namely Coleman and Barkley. Whilst it will be tough we expect they will have a great chance to come away with the spoils. Swansea at home is next and Everton have an unbelievable record against them. They have lost just the once, ever, a record that stetches back to 1930 and that solitary defeat came in this seasons Milk Cup when Everton put out what could best be described as an experimental line-up to ensure they were eliminated and help ease their fixture pile-up. The third game is Sunderland away. We have already detailed Sunderlands recent struggles and if Everton can build some form and momentum on the back of the Villa victory then we think they will have a great chance at the Stadium of Plight.

Southampton – Stoke (h), Hull (a), Leicester (h)
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[/three_fourth]Well, wow. Just, wow. 8-0! We tipped Tadic and Pelle as potential stars at the beginning of the season but in all honesty we thought they may take a while to adapt and adjust to the rigors of PL life. Nonsense! They have hit the ground running that’s for sure and are verging on ‘must-haves’ already! Pelle has 6 goals, 2 assists and 9 bonus points. Tadic now has 1 goal, 7(!) assists and 3 bonus points. Both are just a couple of points behind Costa and Fabregas overall and cost a combined £6.4m less at todays prices. Saido Mane is a viable option too having climbed off the bench to get amongst the goals in the rout. A word of caution on him though as he was rested having come back late on Friday from his international exploits. We would expect him to start most games but just be aware that this scenario is likely to happen again next month and he will likely be disappearing off to the Africa Cup on Nations in January.

Whilst that victory obviously added heavily to their goals scored column it is also worth noting that Southampton now have the leagues best defensive record too having conceded just the 5 goals. Nearest challengers in this respect are Chelsea and Man City and they have both leaked 8. This bodes well for the likes of Bertrand and Clyne who both like to attack as well and each has a goal and an assist so far to add to their 4 clean-sheets.

Southampton are undefeated at home and two of the next three are at St Marys against Stoke and Leicester neither of whom can be classed as easy opponents but we feel they will struggle to contain the Saints fast flowing attacks. The away game in the middle is Hull who have been inconsistent and again we foresee goals in that one.

LESS FAVOURABLE FIXTURES

Sunderland – Arsenal (h), Crystal Palace (a), Everton (h)
It would be easy to lay into Sunderland here but we aren’t going to do that (we already did it earlier to be fair!) we are actually going to praise them! Vito Mannone in particular. The beleaguered keeper had to pick the ball out of his net eight times on Saturday but hats off to the guy as if todays news reports are correct he has asked his team-mates to have a whip round and refund the tickets and travel expenses for those fans unfortunate enough to have made the 11 hour, 650 mile journey to the south coast. We sincerely hope they do this and fair play to them if they do. We estimate this bill may run to something like £200k all told.

They’ll be hoping it doesn’t set a dangerous precedent though and their bank managers will probably be nervously reaching for the fixtures list. They need not as we have done it for them. The good news for them is that two of the next three are at home. The bad news is that they are tough games against Arsenal and Everton. The worrying one is that Palace game. To save them the job we checked, it’s 583.6 mile round trip. Roughly. So pro rata about £90k.

From a fantasy perspective many will have a Sunderland defender or indeed our hero Mannone and will be wondering whether they can ever trust them again. If you do drop us a line and let us know how it works out as we probably don’t!

QPR – Aston Villa (h), Chelsea (a), Man City (h)
QPR were involved in a highly entertaining and at times comedic 3-2 defeat at home to Liverpool in a game that they really ought to have come away from with at least a draw if not indeed all three points. The signs were certainly promising but the bare fact is that they conspired to lose once more and if you cannot even get a point from games in which you’ve play fairly well (it’s all relative) then you have to think that relegation is a near certainty. They are rooted to the foot of the table with the worst goals against record (18) in the league.

We don’t expect many if indeed anyone has a QPR player anywhere near their fantasy squad right now and as such it’s probably time to start looking at them from the point of view of ‘who’s playing QPR this week’ if you catch our drift. The lucky ones this week are Villa. This one in fact probably represents QPR’s only hope of any points over the next three as let’s face it they won’t be getting anything against either Chelsea or City other than a hammering.

Manchester United – Chelsea (h), Man City (a), Crystal Palace (h)
LVG had a relatively gentle introduction to PL life, certainly fixture wise. The results have been mixed but improved somewhat recently and as such they see themselves in 6th place. Monday evenings clash with West Brom ended in a hard fought 2-2 draw courtesy of a late Daley Blind strike after an earlier Marouane Fellaini equaliser. Little of fantasy interest there then! Di Maria did chip in with an assist but was later substituted having being limping around for about five minutes previously. Keep an eye on that one.

Things get much tougher for them now as they now face the heavyweights of Chelsea and Man City back to back. Palace at home looks much more enticing but it is worth noting that they then go to Arsenal the week after that. Then just to compound the up / down nature of their run they follow the trip to the Emirates with two more decent looking home games against Hull and Stoke. This will be a testing time for those owners of the likes of Di Maria, RvP and Falcao. We would imagine most will stick with Di Maria and hope to ride out the next two games but beyond that we think there are much better options with much better fixtures. Anyone who hopped on Mata for a little ride in Rooney’s absence needs to get off soon as the little big man returns from suspension in GW10. Mata was ineffectual again against West Brom and will surely be replaced in due course once more.

As for their defence, don’t even go there. They have the joint worst goals against in the top 10. We shall illustrate how poor that is – they are joint with Liverpool.

FIXTURE FUN
Six teams have European hurdles to clear this week. Man City get the short straw and travel to Russia on Tuesday. Chelsea have home comforts and an easy ish game against Maribor.

On Wednesday Arsenal go to Anderlecht while Liverpool will be hoping to avoid doing a ‘Sunderland’ as Real Madrid rock up at Anfield.

Thursday sees Everton going to Lille and Spurs host Asteras Tripolis (anyone? No, us neither).

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 9 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by Inittowinit

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