PLFantasy

Everton v Fulham No regular first teamers are out for either side. Everton players are a good bet this week with Fulham not travelling too well this year (only 2 goals in 4 games scored). The impressive Fulham defense is less so on the road having failed to keep a clean sheet so far. One to watch: Tim Cahill Chelsea v Sunderland Carvalho is back on the sidelines and could be out for up to three weeks. This makes Alex (5.6) an interesting prospect once more with Sunderland at home this week and decent fixtures after that (@Bla, @WH, New). Ballack and Drogba are also sidelined, though there is a chance Cole could return. If you own him for some reason I'd probably keep him out for one more week. Craig Gordon is also a doubt though you want to avoid him anyway in what should be a win for the home side. One to watch: Alex Man Utd v Hull Hargreaves and Scholes are still out which means Carrick, Fletcher and Anderson will battle it our for playing time. I wouldn't suggest that any o...

A great night of football tonight, highlighted by the amazing 4-4 North London derby, served up a plethora of fantasy points and raised a number of rising stars Rising Stars The Spurs midfielders appear to be getting their act together and could be steals at this point of the season with Jenas (6.8), Modric (6.9), Bentley (7.2) and Lennon (6.7) all notching at least 5 points tonight. The fixture list isn't the best (Liv,@ManC,@Ful) so it might be best to monitor the situation over the coming weeks to see if Spurs really have turned a corner. Ma rouane Fellaini has scored 3 in 4 on his way to a very healthy 0.808 PPMS . Everton have a good looking fixture list coming up ( Ful , @Wes, Mid) and 'screech' may be worth a shot for those looking for someone to differentiate their team held by 0.3%). Michael Turner is a player I alluded to in a previous article and the buy rating remains despite Hull's 3-0 beating tonight by Chelsea. They play Man United next week but af...

So far its been a pretty successful season, having scored 466 points and lying 620th place after gameweek 8. However, having already used my wildcard to get into the Ronaldo sweepstakes, it is vital that I use my transfers wisely over the coming weeks. A quick look at my team in terms of Points per Million Spent makes interesting reading (I have assumed that I will captain Ronaldo every week): E.Van der Sar The big Dutchman has been a great acquisition for me, notching 3 clean sheets in the 3 games I've had him. Indeed he's been great value all season notching 4 clean sheets in the 6 full games he's played. I can't see why he is still 5.9m and I am sure he will rise in value in the next couple of weeks. With United facing only one hard game over the next 5 (@Ars) now is as good a time as any to buy Van der Sar. M.Schwarzer I'm pleased with Schwarzer's value and only Myhill (4m) has scored more points for the same value. Sorenson and Turnbull are also decent buy...

With 8 weeks gone, we now have a decent idea of how the season is going to shake out. One of the things that is becoming clearer is who will take penalties for each team, a good source of points, particularly when defenders and midfielders are given the penalty duties. Below is a list of the players expected to continue penalty taking duties for their respective teams: Arsenal - Emmanuel Adebayour Aston Villa - Gareth Barry Blackburn - Roque Santa Cruz Bolton - Kevin Nolan Chelsea - Frank Lampard Everton - Mikel Arteta Fulham - Danny Murphy Hull - Marlon King Liverpool - Steven Gerrard Man City - Robinho Man Utd - Cristiano Ronaldo Middlesbrough - Stuart Downing Newcastle - Michael Own Portsmouth - Jermaine Defoe Stoke - Liam Lawrence/Danny Higginbotham Sunderland - Djibril Cisse Tottenham - Luka Modric West Brom - Roman Bednar West Ham - Craig Bellamy Wigan - Amr Zaki A couple of these players are purely speculative due to a lack of penalties for a couple of clubs so far t...

This was certainly one of those surprise moves I did not see coming. Turner is now the second highest scoring defender in the game with an impressive 41 points, just one behind Bosingwa and 7 ahead of Terry who costs almost 3m more. This week has seen his price rise again, up to 4.7m and with 23,000 transfers in already, I would not be surprised if this rises to 4.8m before the weekend. The question therefore is will this success continue, and if so, for how long. My concern is the fact that he has snagged two goals already which distorts his points total, hiding the fact that Hull have just two clean sheets. This concern would be allayed if Turner could prove that he will be a weekly threat from corners in the way Laursen and Terry have been in past seasons. In the past two seasons Turner scored 5 and 3 goals which is decent but not enough to support a defender who doesn't keep clean sheets. Having not seen a full Hull game this season, it is hard to say if getting the ball to...

First of all, apologies for the lack of posts recently, its been a combination of work and the international break that has stifled my blogging of late. Before previewing this week's games I thought it might be useful to have a quick look around the league to see who's in and who's out for gameweek 8. Goalkeepers No injuries here of any note, though if for some reason you're one of the 2% of players to own Paul Robinson, you may want to look elsewhere as he is still questionable for this week (@Bolton). His potential replacement, Jason Brown (4.5m) is not particularly good value. Defenders Chelsea are the biggest question mark this week with Terry, Carvalho, Alex and Cole all listed as injured at physioroom.com , and Bosingwa being ruled out of the midweek game against Albania. Carvalho will almost certainly not figure, where as the other four look set to play at this point (all have missed international duty tonight). If you hold them, you are probably safe to start th...

With this week being the international break, there isn't that much to talk about in fantasy land so I thought I would update my predictions from last week regarding potential price rises. Hopefully I can fare better than the world markets have the past week! Buy C.Ronaldo 14.2 (+0.1m) A.Zaki 6.8 (+0.1m) J.Bosingwa 6.5m (+0.1m) S.Nasri 7.5m (-) D.Berbatov 9.4m (-) V.Kompany 5.7m (+0.1m) A.Traore 4.5m (-) Sell M.Arteta 8.1m (+0.1m) D . Bentley 7.4m (-) D.Bent 7.0 (-0.1m) The buy tips were largely successful with 4 tips showing gains and three holding steady (Traore has seen 12,000 transfers in the past two weeks and looks set rise at any point). I think Ronaldo still has plenty of room to run and is one big week (say two goals and 3 bonus points) away from seeing a huge rush to bring him in. I think Zaki and Bosingwa are still well priced and might see another 0.1 - 0.3 gain over the next month. My selling tips were more varied and (as tipped by SilentJay) I was dead wrong with Art...

I've never really considered capital growth as a legitimate reason to invest in a fantasy player, but with the current credit crunch caused by the arrival of Ronaldo , I decided to take a look at those players whose value may increase over the next few weeks. The latest premierleague .com pundit article suggests a couple of players who may be undervalued at this point (Alex, Keane and Bentley). I agree with Alex and have indeed bought him for my team. However, I am neutral on Keane and downright opposed to the suggestion of Bentley. I've set out some ideas for those players whose value looks set to rise/fall over the next few weeks: Ronaldo ( CRON ) is now held by 15.2% of all players but his value has only increased by 0.1. If he has another big week this week you can bet people will be reaching for the wildcard and his value will increase rapidly. Zaki ( AZAK ) has had by far the biggest gain in all of fantasy football and is now owned by 29% of all players. However, at 6...

Teams of the week Blackburn vs Man Utd I rarely recommend players on the road as time has told us that even the best are less productive away from home. However, I get the impression United are simmering right now and are ready to explode over the next few weeks . Rovers have conceded 5 in three home games, though did manage a clean sheet last time out against Fulham . Ronaldo is the obvious choice to capitalise here though I also like Berbatov this week after his brace against Aalborg in mid-week . Despite little fan fair, Berbatov has notched 2 assists and 3 bonus points in his 3 games for United and looks good ton continue this form this week. Blackburn have aso scored just 2 in three home games which makes the United back line a good play. Van der Sar is decent value at 5.9 and I still like Evra at 6.5. The wild card pick could be O'Shea at 5.5, who could deputise in midfield due to injuries to Scholes, Carrick and Hargreaves. I am hopeful that Anderson will break into the firs...

The story so far A figure often cited in the NFL is a team's strength of schedule, referring to the winning percentage of the team's you are set to face in a given season. This is of course useless for the Premier League as all team face other 19 twice. However, in fantasy league, playing the fixture list is vital and if managed correctly can be a real boost to a team and can even give you 12 or 13 players on your side. To get a very crude strength of schedule (SOS) for the premier league I attach a value (1,2 or 3) to each team's attack and defense whilst at home and on the road, then average these for a team's fixture list to date. So if you've played two 3-rated teams and two 1-rated teams, your SOS would be 2.00 (8/4). Comparing this with other teams gives an indication on how well your players have really done in the games they've played. For attackers up to the end of week 6, West Ham and Everton have the lowest SOS (1.33), followed by Fulham (1.40), Ch...

As debate rages on in the presidential debate and on Wall Street , the debate within the Pure Juice clubhouse is over - my wildcard has been played. This was partly a move fuelled by desire to shake things up, but more because of the actions of my competitors. With four players already jumping on Ronaldo last week, I simply cannot afford to let my early lead slip away and have to play catch up. Therefore I have moved my team around to accommodate Ronaldo , and to be honest it probably hasn't suffered all that much, though I don't feel its infinitely better. For those debating on whether to use their wildcard , I would suggest looking at the following points and applying them to your team: Performance to date In fantasy football it is highly advantageous to be out in front by mid season when people's teams start to converge and differentiating between your team and your competitors' can become tricky. For example, another 50,000 players have transferred Zaki in this...