Fantasy Football FF247 Team Gameweek 4 WILDCARD!
Ok, so errrm, well, how do we put this, we have a small confession to make! We are on a WILDCARD! It wasn’t planned and it took us a bit by surprise to be honest but when we settled down around the boardroom table and took a look at our squad, or rather what was left of it after the international break had done it’s worst, there was a unanimous verdict and only one answer. And so ensued the usual mayhem. You think it’s difficult wrestling with yourself on these matters, but when it’s a committee decision it can get funny, ugly and surreal all in the space of a short hour. Anyway we are pleased to say that the majority of people came out alive. Some scarred for life, more mentally than physically we hope. We await the police and psychologists reports though. The end result is this. Our wildcard team…
Why a wildcard?
On the face of it we’ve actually had a pretty decent start to the campaign. We have 179 points and we are ranked in the top 1.5% overall. 46,529 in old money to be exact. So while we are fairly satisfied with that – well, we have had a few issues to say the least! We had Jovetic and Sturridge succumb to injury over the break which meant 2/3rd’s of our ace strike force were probably out which wasn’t a great start. We had Ramsey who looks like he or may miss out or is at least a minor doubt. We had Caulker who is away at Man Utd this week but also doesn’t look a great prospect going forward with QPR’s form so far. We had Dummett who lost his place last week. And to round it off we had El Ahmadi who disliked our team that much that he actually upped sticks and left the FPL altogether! That all seemed too much to attend to within the standardly accepted bracket of a -4 or -8 hit and so we hit the wildcard button with reckless abandon! It wasn’t reckless to be fair, it was well thought out and considered and we are not alone this week as many have done the same. Here’s what we landed on after much debate…
Goalkeepers
We wanted a pair of keepers who would rotate nicely with home and away fixtures, who had a fairly solid team in front of them and held a good chance of keeping some clean sheets along the way and who weren’t too expensive! Krul and Mannone fit all of the above and come in at £9.0m for the pair.
Defenders
Our first port of call when considering the defence was to see which teams had the best or more favourable run of fixtures in the short to medium term. Liverpool have a great run and we were uber impressed with Moreno last week and feel he will be good for more goals and likely to be chipping in with assists. Whether Liverpool can actually keep any clean sheets is another matter but surely their comedy defending from last season will be helped with the addition of two new full backs both of whom are fairly experienced. Southampton, Stoke and Swansea likewise have decent fixtures. Ideally we would probably have gone for Clyne and Pieters but our budget was a tad constrained which you can appreciate given our midfield and forward lines! So we are giving Southampton new boy Alderweireld a chance along with Wilson, who seems to have cemented a slot in the Stoke team and is a budget £4.5m as is Taylor of Swansea. Moore makes up the backline as Leicester haven’t got the worst run but obviously we hope he sits on our bench for the most part anyway!
Midfield
We had Ramsey. We like Ramsey. We agonised over Ramsey. We no longer have Ramsey. The reasoning was fairly simple in the end. He’s a doubt for the weekend but may play and we hope he does for those that have him but we decided to take the opportunity to give Angel Di Maria a run out or a trial if you like. He’s got QPR at home, will play for sure, he’s had an outstanding international break with three assists and a goal in that Germany game so he’s in form and he has a new look team around him. The positives outweighed the negatives for us and in reality if he stinks the place out he’s an easy switch back to Aaron. Sigurdsson needs no explanation, he’s going nowhere. Fabregas is a world class player playing for one of the best teams. He will get goals and assists all season and we envisage keeping him for the duration. Sterling is red hot at the moment and cannot be ignored especially with Liverpool’s favourable run of fixtures. We had £4.5m left for our 5th midfielder and in all honesty there’s not a great deal out there but we hope to never see whoever it is in our team anyway! Anyway, we went for King.
Forwards
To Aguero or not to Aguero, that was the question. We expected this to be a hard fought battle but the reality was that there was little resistance. He’s prolific, he’s almost fixture proof and you’d probably have no hesitation in captaining every week if there were no other more outstanding cadidates. Those were the reasons given and so Kun takes pride of place in our team. Costa was an easy one of course. He’s on fire, even when he’s definitely not playing! We will add a caveat to this though – he’s still not been confirmed as fully fit for the game and was having a training session this afternoon to ascertain whether he was or not. We suspect he’s fine but we will be keeping our eyes peeled and eyes to the ground this evening and in the morning for any news. The final piece of the jigsaw is Arsenal new boy Welbeck. This was one that possibly we could have sat and taken a view on, especially as Arsenal’s fixtures aren’t ideal but we felt that we would be transfering him in eventually anyway so in for a penny, in for a pound.
Captain
Now this was a close call. Aguero had many suitors but was narrowly ousted by Sterling. The fact that he’s in form and at home against Villa swayed it plus there’s a small chance he may be deployed even further forward in Sturridge’s absence. Even if he’s not we felt that he had as good a shout as any at getting in on the goals and assists this week and Liverpool looked like they may be hitting some serious form if last weeks demolition of Spurs is anything to go by and he will be central to that.
So as a weekly update of my choices rather than a RMT, here are my decisions and why for GW4.
I’d put off using my wildcard all international break, however, I’d toyed with the idea and looked at teams I could achieve. It was tempting, but I could yield the same sort of line-up with 2 or 3 transfers over the weeks. What forced me into using my wildcard then? Well, Mourinho. I despise the bloke and not just because he manages Chelscum. The doubt over Costa, Ramsey, and I also had Jovetic out, sort of meant I felt I had to make some moves. Having a good start to the season I didn’t want to start taking hits just to field a decent side, so here’s my wildcard squad.
I kept my keepers, for £9m I feel Krul and Mannone are the best options all season.
Moreno has been impressive, had he not scored in his previous game I’d have still looked at him in the near future, Liverpools fixtures are great and he shows real threat going forward, unlike good old Glen. All the talk about Ivanovic makes me wonder, since van Aanholt has stats that are equally as impressive (ish) and a lot cheaper. I kept Clyne, Taylor, and Duff.
Sigurdsson and Sterling stay, for good reason. I swapped Davis out for Ward-Prowse as my cheap mid option as WP looks great and dangerous on set pieces. Now, the forward line of United I can’t call, I had Rooney and he did sod all, Di Maria looked sharp in his debut and I expect him to perform well in the near future. Costa was a doubt, so the only other option I was looking at for Chelscum was Fabregas, believe me he’ll only get better too. It pains me to say he’s still a fave of mine even at that team.
Removing Ramsey was difficult, however, Welbeck could shine at Arsenal. I really can’t wait to see how he performs, Ozil will have a field day with some pace to play balls to, Walcott returning in the near future, it looks good. Aguero is a must, I held off to check his fitness but he looks set. Adebayor, well, statistically is sound. He’s been a workhorse under Pochettino, creating chances and taking decent shots.
Any thoughts?
Costa looks a season keeper for me. Otherwise looks good.
Yep.
And I’ve held on to Ramsey for now.
He was fantastic last season, I think he will be again
Though time will tell…
Good luck though, I think you’ll pick up a decent score with those.
Flingy
I like it. Very well rounded and balanced. My only concerns would be van Aanholt and sunderlands ability to keep a clean sheet and Adebayor, if he goes a few games without scoring soldado could come in and the Europa league means he may be rotated.
Flingy, some interesting deferential’s in there. Personally id have Costa in some how, he’s too good not too and, unless we hear he’s out for a long time, a season keeper. Good luck pal.
Love these updates Flingy, good luck man.
Liking the thought process and analysis,dont like adebayor !!!
Anyone else seeing these Twitter reports that Ramsey has passed his fitness test and will start today? Rumours seem to have originated from Goal.com so make of the what you will….
I’m expecting costa and Ramsey to start.
Though I’ve not seen said tweets.
Okay. Whatcha think?
Good up go?
Also…. Anything you’d change in selection?
Haha I just got this message after trying another reply
I will not be silenced FF247!!
All set I’d think James
Cheers D.
You feeling confident?
Iffy James. Hoping Ballotelli does well n Aguero doesn’t.
Morning, how is everyone set and who should I start out of these 2, Moore (Leicester) or Duff (Burney)?
Form says duff, right?
But seriously, a coin toss.
Yeah probably Duff Floydy, he had 8 on my bench last GW. He may not play anyway but I’d put him in first.
Yep. From a clean sheet last match.
What makes you think he won’t start CC?
He possibly/probably will start, but I’m worried about his game-time now they brought Keane in on loan.
Cheers J101. Got Pieters playing as well so prob best to start Duff, not many games ended in 0-0 this season. (only 3 so far)
3 Liverpool players n captain. Feels a lot…
Great fix though Dreamers! I had 3 United and 3 Chelsea for the start of the campaign (though the former didn’t pan out too well!), and would be happy with Lovren, Sterling and Balo now if it were possible. Good luck.
Cheers CC. You too
Am I mad going with Lallana as captain??? Like a good gamble!
You are called madhatter 😉 For me it’s a too large of a risk, just back from injury and not a guaranteed starter. Who else have you got as potential captains?
Loads, Sterling, RVP, Ivanovic… Not enough risk for me lol
That is mental MadHatter haha. Someone was touting Bojan for captain last night too. I say go for it if you want