FPL Ramblings

FPL Ramblings

Welcome to FPL Ramblings: Hey look, the site needed someone to distract readers for a day and obviously there was only one person for the job. The master of disguise and king of saying a lot while actually saying nothing. With no Monday games, we needed a filler article and I am like a good lazy substitute teacher. I only do enough to keep my job and not a bit more because I don’t want to raise expectations. So what to talk about? Well, there were a couple of things that caught my eye and I am sure some that caught yours also. Let’s talk about what interests me, I am selfish like that. Crouchy standing tall, Defoe the ageless wonder, Heaton the bonus point machine, Spurs and their magnificent three and other stuff that pops into my head as we go along.

FPL is not an exact science and most weekends we kick ourselves about the decisions we made. Why didn’t we stick with our gut? Why did we listen to Init and buy Rooney? How could I score worse after playing my wildcard? However, we don’t always get it wrong. Maybe Heaton was our #1 this past week. Maybe we bought Kane when we heard Costa was out. Maybe, we even bought Crouch this week. Ahem, well that last one might be pushing it. If the decisions we made always went the way we expect, this game would not be worth our time. I for one smile a little when one of my guys get a red…well, after I throw the baby out with the bathwater in a tirade. I love chaos, what can I say. Love seeing a big star benched, the top player in the captaincy stats missing a penalty, a player scoring a hat trick after 100K sold him. Yeah, I enjoy the cries of managers as their teams fail miserably, even if it means mine also gets dragged through the mud with them. I just read that last paragraph back, I need help. Anyway, onto the actual rambling and enough of the Pre-ramble.

Crouchy Tiger, Hidden Dragon. What does Peter have to do with this movie? Nothing at all, I didn’t watch it, I just liked the sound of it. Listen, if you are a proponent of a 5 man midfield, you can certainly do a lot worse than hiring this stick figure to take up your last forward spot. At 4.8 he won’t hurt your budget all that much and he can sit on the bench and come in when you need him. With 3 goals and 2 assists in his last three games, one could say that he should start on your fantasy teams if you own him, not just be the “in case of emergency” guy. It is possible that we missed the boat already on this one, but if you are on a WC or simply have a transfer to blow, this is not the worst investment you can make. He facilitates money to invest money in other players and as long as he is starting for Stoke, you can throw him in there if the match up is good or one of your guys goes Costa on you.

Spurs magnificent three Alli, Eriksen and Kane. Incredible form from these lads. Dele has seven goals and one assist in his last five. The great form of Christian extends much further out with five goals and eight assists in his last nine. And Harry himself is not chop liver either as he maintains pace with six goals and one assist in his last four. A glance though their fixture list says that investing in Spurs over the coming weeks could be essential. They play City next GW, after that though it is almost complete clear sailing until game-week 35. Having one is an absolute must, two is probably wise, three might be pushing it, but no one is calling you crazy right now and your ranking has soared if you did. If you don’t want 3 attacking Spurs, because they are Spurs and the meltdown is coming, perhaps a look towards Kyle Walker is not a bad idea. He has three assists and three clean sheets in his last five starts.

Michail Antonio you bad boy. There is a chance that you have owned this fella at all of the wrong moments. He hits a run of form, you wait a bit and then you buy him too late. Then you sell him in frustration and guess what he does? Lather, rinse and repeat. Don’t get caught in this terrible loop. If you invest in him, ride it out for a while and take the bad that comes along with it. The man has eight goals and five assists on the season for a reason. At less than 7 million he is great value and when you miss an open goal but have a mate to tap it in like he did yesterday, then luck is on your side.

The Fossil Defoe, ageless wonder. At age 34 this man just keeps knocking them in. Twelve goals on the season so far. What I find incredible about him is that he seems to be an afterthought of an afterthought. I hate that every time he scores, I think “REALLY, AGAIN”
But maybe it is just me, he is owned by almost 30% in FPL, so people are taking notice and have confidence in him. I guess I just have to stop writing his football obituary in my head and realise that Defoe is still alive and is he ever kicking!

Olivier Giroud keeps scoring. That makes it four goals and two assists in his last four. The concern is with the ankle injury he picked up in yesterday’s game. He got hurt right before he scored, but the positive was that he carried on to the 59th minute. One would have expected him to come off at halftime if the injury was a bad one, but he carried on and then trolled us by coming off seconds before the 60th minute. Watch for the assessment of his injury before you do anything with him though.

No Costa, no problem for the Chelsea squad. They keep plugging along and while many of us were thinking, ok hoping, that the apparent controversy with Diego would in some way throw them off their game, unfortunately they just seemed to shake it off with no apparent problem. Nathan Ake might at some point challenge Marcos Alonso for his starting spot like many have thought possible, but for now enjoy the ride with the Spaniard. Alonso has delivered a clean sheet, assist or goal at the very least in 13 of his 15 starts this season. Only two games he failed his owners were the two games versus Spurs and they don’t play them anymore. So if you think Alonso can hold his spot, he is great points wise. He is now the top scoring defender with 104 in the season all the more impressive when you realise it took him until GW7 to crack the starting line-up. One last thing, since GW7, Alonso has only 5 points less than Alexis Sanchez and is outscoring Hazard by seven points. Yowzers!!

Tom Heaton is a machine. This bonus point hog is only one point behind Courtois for the most points by a keeper. Considering he was out for two games, one could easily say that he would be ahead of the CFC keeper if they had an equal amount of games played. Init elaborated on this cheap points dynamo last week and that was before he got another 3 bonus points and another double digit score. You are welcomed to read his take on Tommy boy here> https://fantasyfootball247.co.uk/fantasy-premier-league-tips-gameweek-21/ I second his point about Heaton. You just can’t argue with his consistency and as a proud owner of the 4.5 version of him, he has saved me on a couple of occasions since I bought him in GW4.

City can look clueless at times. Kun Aguero is not the type of player that can deliver if his team is not dominating the match. He really does depend on his mates to get him the ball in good positions. Next game is versus the white hot Spurs, so things might get uglier before they get better. However, after the Spurs clash the fixtures do get tasty, so don’t go swearing him off just yet because there is too much attacking talent at City for Kun not to hit a good run of form again.

The Toffees have navigated through some difficult fixtures, well on paper City was supposed to be difficult. Now Romelu Lukaku might come into play again. Yes, he can be infuriating at times, but he is pretty much keeping pace with the highest scoring strikers and has scored 3 goals and has 1 assist in his last four. Everton’s fixtures look good until March, so if Romelu is not in your plans perhaps an interest in Baines or Coleman who might be able to get some clean sheets on top of whatever attacking returns they throw in, might suffice. Buyers beware though, they won’t be playing John Stones every week. 😉

Just watched that United vs LFC game. Wasn’t great in terms of chances, but there were some takeaways from it. Coutinho made his return, it was Origi that made way for him when he was subbed in. Guessing this could be the actual change in the starting eleven as LFC go forward, but there is some wiggle room there. Wijnaldum could also be dropped, with Origi retaining his spot, although I am inclined to think that the substitution was also a glimpse into the future. Phillipe didn’t look rusty, his first action seconds after he came in led to a very good opportunity for Firmino. His price is now 8.3, it actually went up 0.1 this GW already. Guess some people couldn’t wait to get the Brazilian back in. Certainly would be keeping my eye out for him and if the 8-9 priced mids Alli and Eriksen start to cool down, he can slot right back in. Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored again, yes it was offside on Valencia, but it still counts. That is now 10 goals and 4 assists in his last 10 games. Safe to say with his form and his upcoming fixtures, he should be on your team already or you should be buying to stop the relentless punishment he keeps putting you under.

Thanks for reading FPL Ramblings. This article was written by Mito21

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