Fantasy Football Tips Game-week 26

Fantasy Football Tips Game-week 26

Tips, with a difference! We’ve decided to mix things up a bit for the remainder of the season. We like to keep things fresh and interesting but also without veering too far off the well trodden and proven pathway. And so from here on in this is how things will pan out. We will be alternating our tips article between Kop and Inittowinit. Kop’s Tips article usually takes a short to medium term view and looks at who we should be buying with a view to the wider picture and with the next three weeks or so ahead in mind. This is invaluable and will of course continue but every other week we are now going to mix it up with Inittowinit looking at who he fancies for the week ahead in isolation. He will be picking an 11 that he would field that week alone. Kind of like ‘one week wonders’ but in a team format. We hope you like the new approach, but if not, don’t worry, Kop’s back next week regardless!

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Goalkeeper
Fraser Forster
If ever one man has transformed the fortunes of an ailing team it may well be big Fraser. It may have been looking like a coincidence that they had lost three on the bounce and then he returned and they suddenly kept three clean sheets in a row. His performance at Arsenal put paid to that though and illustrated his importance to the Saints rearguard as he almost certainly single handedly denied Arsenal, time and time again. For a keeper to notch 12 points in a single game, without a penalty save, is almost unheard of but he did just that due to his 10 saves, and a subsequent 3 bonus points. He has since repeated the feat against West Ham to record five straight clean sheets. Right now he’s an impermeable man mountain of a keeper. It’s Swansea this week away from home, who have the joint 3rd lowest goals at home record and are up against a side in Southampton with the joint 3rd best away from home goals conceded record. And most of that was without big Fraser…

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Defenders
Scott Dann
Dann is swiftly becoming the Ivanovic of seasons past. Two goals in his last two games takes his total to five for the season which is four more than Wickham, Campbell, Chamakh, Gayle and now Adebayor have combined. Yes, COMBINED. And they are supposed to be ‘strikers’. Come on Alan, just play the lad up-front, you could do worse. And clearly have. This weeks opponents Watford have lost their last three away games and failed to score in any of those so a clean sheet alongside his customary goal may be a distinct possibility.

Cameron Borthwick-Jackson
No, we aren’t introducing an episode of Porridge or indeed calling out a posh public school boy for the cane. What we are doing is highlighting a potential FPL bargain. At just £4.0m you can have your very own Man Utd defender. One whose team is one of the meanest in the league in terms of goals conceded. One whom looks set to start for a good while yet given the absences of Rojo and Shaw. One who faces a Sunderland team who have the second worst record in the league in terms of goals scored at home.

Branislav Ivanovic
Did someone mention Ivanovic?! Why settle for a cheap imitation when you can buy the man himself. Not a single goal or assist under Mourinho probably says more about his old boss than it does the man himself as he’s had a goal and three assists since the ‘Special One’ left. We don’t know why, let’s call it a hunch, but we feel that he may be about to call on some previous years form and go on an FPL points run. Regardless of attacking returns, this week should in theory, provide defensive ones at the very least.

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Midfielders
Roberto Firmino
This one may be a boat missed if you didn’t manage to hop on board last week but if you did then well done and you may well be rewarded again this week as Liverpool visit a Villa side who are bottom of the league and sinking fast. They’ve shown signs of life lately but we would still expect Liverpool to have enough and put a few goals past them and if they do then Firmino will more than likely be involved as he has had a hand in 7 of Liverpool’s last 10 goals. The big ‘boat missed’ warning here is because he has a blank game-week next week. Buy him or play him by all means but just be aware that he will be on your bench next week.

Ross Barkley
Eight goals and eight assists means that young Ross has now had a hand in over a third of all of Everton’s league goals this season and this sees him now sitting 3rd in the midfield table of FPL point scorers. Everton have scored the 2nd most goals at home this season and have already put three past this week’s opponents in the reverse fixture earlier in the season. West Brom are the visitors and they are without a win in their last seven away games and have conceded six in their last three, whereas Everton have scored nine in their last three games in all competitions. Please do note though that he, like Firmino, has a blank game-week next week.

Jesse Lingard
A sparkling diamond may have finally emerged amongst the dark and dreary coal field that United’s season has become. Since starting back in GW21 Lingard now notched three goals in five games and at just £4.2m (at the time of writing) looks like a steal as a 5th midfielder. One that will frustrate the hell out of of you in fact as you struggle to fit him in each week and he smiles at you proudly from the bench with yet another goal to his name. No such worries this week though, if you go with him then just play him as he’s up against a Sunderland side with the worst defensive record in the league – 49 conceded, which is just shy of 2 per game over a 25 game period.

Dimitri Payet
Never before has so much been expected of someone who has produced so little! That may be a little unfair on a guy who’s missed a fair chunk of the season and still sits with a respectable six goals, six assits and fourteen bonus points but the fact exists that he’s only produced double digits on three occasions this season and has completely blanked in his last five games straight. So why even include him? Well, potential. All reports suggest that he’s been in fine form in those blank games and that returns are just around the corner. Plus it’s Norwich away who have lost their last six games in all competitions and conceded a shocking nineteen in the process!

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Forwards
Diego Costa
Mr Fighty seems to be another that has recovered his mojo and some modicum of form since Jose left. Coincidence? Probably not. Either way he’d scored three prior to it happening and has six in nine games since and two assists also. He’s also gotten seven bonus pints in that run as opposed to four in the rest of the season prior. Coincidence. Surely. This week he’s up against Newcastle at home who have lost their last four away games and are ranked 18th for goals against away from home with 26 conceded in 12 games. Chelsea themselves aren’t faring too bad in that respect as despite their lowly league position they have scored 21 at home which is the same amount as league leaders Leicester.

Wayne Rooney
Much like Costa, Rooney seems to have turned a corner and is finally hitting the net with a degree of consistency. He’s now on a run of five in six games with three assists also and nine bonus points to accompany that. Prior that that he had two goals, two assists and two bonus points. All season. We don’t know exactly what’s changed but something has clearly triggered a wake up call but with Sunderland away this week we wouldn’t bet against him continuing the hot streak.

Romelu Lukaku
Another one to have and hold but maybe not necessarily buy. Romelu broke a five game scoring duck with a penalty against Stoke last weekend but the reality is that was his first goal in this calendar year and it was from the spot. Has he returned to his previous frustrating ways? Maybe. This week may be an opportunity to prove such doubters wrong as it’s West Brom at home and as we’ve alluded to previously that may be manna from heaven to a free scoring Everton side.

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Blank weeks, double weeks and GW30!
A few of the above, whilst good selections for this week, have a blank game-week to follow and that may be a good opportunity to remind you of the facts on that one. The following teams will miss GW27 but then will subsequently have a double game-week later on in the season, most likely in GW34 or GW37 –

Everton
Liverpool
Newcastle
Man City

Mito produced a table a few weeks ago that is a more than handy guide for reference when looking at how things will possibly pan out over the coming weeks in relation to DGW’s so we thought we would pop a reminder of that on here –

With all the talk of GW27 and future double game-weeks the one that seems to have gone under the radar is GW30. What’s significant about GW30 is that it is scheduled as both a Premier League weekend and FA Cup 6th round weekend. The FA Cup games take precedence and so any teams who make it through the 5th round (and of course those teams that they are scheduled to face in GW30) will subsequently have a blank GW30 for the purposes of FPL. The 5th round itself takes place between GW26 and GW27 so we should hopefully have a clearer idea by then but of course one or two may cloud the issue by going to a replay.

As it stands currently only the Stoke v Southampton and Leicester v Newcastle games are 100% certain to take place that week. So start planning for Fraser Forster plus 10 Leicester players!

We caught a neat tweet from @fplbet earlier which may help explain GW30 a bit as it shows the occurrence odds of each game happening that week. The %’s are based on bookie’s odds converted to implied chance of each happening but if nothing else it gives a visual reminder of how that particular week is looking –

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Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Tips Game-week 26. This article was written by Inittowinit

Follow @AdamalcockFF247

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