MLS GW16 – Tips Fantasy Major League Soccer

MLS GW16 – Tips Fantasy Major League Soccer

This weeks deadline is Sat 2nd July at 1am GMT. (So Friday night basically!)

Before we get into this week’s MLS issues, let’s take a brief look back at some of the craziness that happened to us during DGW15. First of all, we had four teams on a double (LA, NYRB, PHI, RSL), and we thought very highly of the prospects for those four teams. But when you look at the Dream Team for the week, you’ll see that only three DGW players actually made the list. The only LA player on the list is their goalkeeper. The only NYRB player on the list is Gideon Baah, a defender who has played a total of 447 minutes this year for his team. Oh, and the only Philly representative on the list is some dude named Roland Alberg. And this Alberg scored four goals during his double.

Don’t feel bad about not knowing a thing about Alberg, and don’t feel bad that you missed out on his points. Even his coaches didn’t know what they had in him apparently. Until this last match, Alberg hasn’t been allowed to play a full 90 minutes at any point this year. In fact, five of his matches this year were only brief appearances in which he featured under 20 minutes. So in typical MLS fashion, one of the most talented players on the team took a back seat until the exact moment when he could screw your fantasy squad the most.

All of that happened this past week – as well as the writers on this site making RSL admit on Twitter that they don’t care about your fantasy team. For a club in a professional league that monetizes its fantasy game, that’s a pretty bold statement. But RSL did bench a full 10 players for their second game of the double, so they deserve all the ill-will we can muster.

Aside from the DGW madness, Diego Valeri outscored everybody but Roland Alberg with his fine game. Two DC United players made the Dream Team (full disclosure, I didn’t see that coming). Oh, and your best forward of the week was Dom Dwyer. Seriously.

So with all that being said, let’s throw some darts at the board and see if we can’t do a bit better this week.

#1) Know your DGW teams

This is the last time we’ll have a DGW to worry about for the next six rounds – and I think more and more people are coming around to my way of thinking and are finally admitting that’s a good thing. DGW’s are the metaphorical equivalent to beer-goggles. Imagine yourself in a bar, and you start to drink a bit of brew and you’re feeling good about things. That lady down at the end of the bar is giving you the eye, and you absolutely can’t wait to make your move. Going home with that lady is the best idea in the world – she’s an absolute stunner, after all. And then you wake up in the morning sober, and the beer-goggles are off and you realize you’ve made a horrible mistake. The regret and shame you feel should last a lifetime; but the next time you go out drinking again and them beer-goggles come back on, you do the same damn thing all over again. That’s your MLS DGW in a nutshell.

Did any of us really learn our lesson during this last DGW? Maybe one or two of this congregation have seen the light, but the vast majority will still try for big points in a league that simply can’t wait to rotate out their best players. It is what it is, I guess.

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#1A) New England v. MON (A), NYC (H)
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[/three_fourth]New England are quickly becoming the most frustrating team to try to predict – and their results since the beginning of May prove that point. They start out in May losing to LA (away) 4-2. They follow that up by beating Chicago (home) 2-0; but then they follow up that match with another home fixture that sees them lose to Dallas 4-2. They then bounce back and win their next two matches (home and away) by the score of 2-1. Then they round it all out by losing to DC on the road by the score of 2-0.

So let me ask you, what do you think they do in these two fixtures here? In all honesty, they could win both by shutouts or they could lose both by a pair of goals. It’s that topsy turvy with this team right now. When they lose, they tend to lose big, so their defense and their keeper situation doesn’t do a whole lot for me right now. And investing in their keeper could be dicey since Knighton has seemingly taken Shuttleworth’s spot recently, and there’s no telling when that will change again.

The key man in this whole thing is Lee Nguyen – but for $11.8, you really have to like him to pick him up. Nguyen had a great run of fixtures there for a while, but he’s really cooled off in the last two rounds. Who knows though? Against NYC’s defense, anything could be possible. The biggest question mark for me, and he’s not getting a ton of attention, is Kei Kamara. Kamara has played 90 minutes with the Revs now in each of his games, but he hasn’t produced much yet. In my mind, Kamara could be this week’s Alberg if he finally puts the pieces in place in this new offense. At some point, Kamara is going to produce and we’ll all be left slapping our foreheads that we didn’t pick him up sooner. The only issue is how long does he need to get used to this new team before that finally happens. He could be a good gamble this week.

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#1B) NYC v. NYRB (H), NE (A)
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[/three_fourth]NYC finally got a shutout this last week, but keep in mind that it was against Seattle, a team that’s near the very bottom of the league. This is going to be a tough week for NYC defensively, yet even so, there’s never a good reason to own Josh Saunders and Co. for your defensive fantasy needs. I say this every time NYC plays: if you own their defense, you deserve what you get. And that means that if you own them and it miraculously pays off, then good on you for the big gamble. But if you own them and they end up losing by a score of…7-0? You have to own that and you deserve the point hit entirely. Nobody will feel sorry for you losing points if you own this defense.

And let’s not forget that during the last NY Derby, NYC did lose by 7 goals. It’s hard to see that happening again, but the potential is still there. The New England game for me is a coin toss simply because every game New England plays is a coin toss, but I think that NYC will get some goals during this DGW, so let’s look at your attacking options. First off, everybody is going to key in on David Villa. For being $12.0, he’s actually proving his worth sitting on 11 goals coming into this week. He’s a solid buy regardless of the DGW. But in the midfield, I’m looking at Frank Lampard as my sleeper pick for this week. I threatened that I was going to do this, and even after sleeping on it, I still like the pick. After finally getting fit, Lampard has been given 70+ minutes in each of his last two starts, and he’s scored a goal in each match. Will he be better than Pirlo this week? I have no idea. What I do know is that after selling Poku and shopping Mix Diskerud, NYC are probably going to need minutes out of their DP players this DGW, and Lampard still has the freshest legs of the entire group. Call me crazy, but I’m pairing Lampard and Villa this week and I feel good about it.

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#2) Prepping for wildcards and bye weeks

Here’s the problem with getting too many DGW players this round, in GW18 we’re going to have 8 teams on a bye, and 2 of those teams are going to be New England and NYC. You still have GW17 to drop some of these players if need be, but don’t back yourself into a corner or anything crazy.

The good news for all players is that starting in GW18, the second-half wildcard becomes available. Obviously you don’t want to burn your wildcard in GW18, but it will be nice knowing that you have your safety net in place as we get into the second half of the year. Also, in recovering from the byes in GW18, all players will get unlimited transfers in GW19 to start you off on the second-half on the right foot. And Round 19 starts off three straight rounds of single-game fixtures with no bye weeks. There might not be a more important round to get right than that week right there. Without the crutch of a DGW guiding the masses, people will have to look at fixtures differently and we’ll start to see some very varied teams that could provide some real mobility in the rankings (for good or bad). Just keep that in the back of your mind.

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#3) Quick hits

With his superb performance on Sunday, Diego Valeri surpassed all other players and is now the highest scoring player in the fantasy game. Valeri is sitting on 130 points, 6 more than Giovinco right now. In fact, only six players in the entire game have surpassed 100 points so far, so he’s really in an elite class right now.

Copa America players (and Robbie Keane from Euros) will be making their way back to rosters this week. Darlington Nagbe, Michael Bradley and Gyasi Zardes will all be changing the way their club teams operate again (some for better or worse). In all of the frenzy to pick up Giovani dos Santos and Gerrard, for example, you now have to factor in how those goals will be shared amongst the team again. For the most part, the reintroduction of these players will be a benefit to their clubs, but some may have an adjustment period as things get back underway. And also, we’d like to congratulate RSL for getting Kyle Beckerman back, because they obviously need another option to completely rotate out in the future.

Philadelphia will be travelling to Houston this week – and Houston still haven’t figured out how to stop conceding goals in bunches. Granted, Houston are better at home, and Philly are worse on the road…but this is the first place team in the East playing the last place team in the West, and sometimes that’s all that really matters. So if you’re wanting to grab Alberg and not take any chance on DGW players this round, you could do worse than picking him here.

Colorado are still in first in the West, and they’ve only conceded 11 goals all year. They are absolutely destroying every other team in the league in that category. But now that the Copa America is over, we have photos of Tim Howard training for Colorado in what may be the most monumentally unfair move in the history of the MLS. When Colorado negotiated for Tim Howard, they were still…bad Colorado. But nobody could’ve predicted how good MacMath (the leading fantasy GK for points, by the way) was going to make his team. MacMath and that defense propelled Colorado to first place, not their offense. Nobody is sure how this is all going to play out, but Tim Howard is coming into an impossible situation because if he plays, he’ll be asked to maintain perfection from the start. In all honesty, I hope that Howard is benched until MacMath gives them reason to lose his job. If Colorado dumps MacMath, it will be the most Colorado move of all time.

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#3) Captain picks

David Villa tops the list because he’s David Villa and he scores at the right pace for his price. Will he play 180? I seriously doubt it. We can only hope that he plays enough of the New England game to give him a chance to put shots in on a defense that’s currently in flux with a keeper rotation.

Lee Nguyen will be capped by a great many people, maybe even more than David Villa will be. So either go with the herd, or purposely swerve and avoid the pitfall. Kei Kamara, or even a cheeky pick like Fagundez, might be better here. With these DGW’s the obvious pick isn’t always working out, so feel free to find your inner-Alberg this week and captain another role player from New England or NYC and find a hidden gem.

Lastly, Diego Valeri is crushing it lately. But Portland play away to Colorado – so don’t bank on Valeri to do anything. Instead, look for Giovinco to take back the points lead this week as Toronto entertain Seattle. Seattle are garbage on the road (1-5-1) and this game should be easier for Giovinco with Bradley coming back in.

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Don’t forget to stop by mlsfantasyboss.com to catch up on their great weekly articles that lead into the deadline.

Or if you are after listening to more of Guy himself then be sure to drop in and give his Married Man’s Guide to Sports Addiction a listen!

To play the MLS game itself it’s fantasy.mlssoccer.com that you need.

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And last but not least, don’t forget to join the FF247 MLS League, Code is: 123-361

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MLS GW16 – Tips Fantasy Major League Soccer This article was written by Guy Sanchez (FootyFantastic)

Follow @Guy_M_Sanchez