PLFantasy

After two more miserable performances from Ronaldo over the Christmas period, many owners are getting close to dumping Ronaldo and the net transfers for the week are in a small outflow position. I myself was considering dumping him for Gerrard until Gerrard's off the field antics cast doubt over his future for the coming weeks. Three points need raising though before any rash decisions are made: 1. Ronaldo still leads all fantasy players with 6.67 points per game ( PPG ) which equates to a Points Per Million Spent ( PPMS ) of 0.457, which is ahead of Deco (o.444) and Fabregas (0.424) among others. If you have captained Ronaldo every week (or even just a few of his 15 point+ performances) then his PPMS will be up with anyone else in the league. It is also important to remember that value for money ( ie PPMS ) will only carry your team a certain distance and it is actual points ( PPG ) that really matters. 2. United have two double gameweeks in the next 5 and then have a 3 g...

I've managed to steal some time away from the food, presents and terrible TV to have a few wandering thoughts on this week's football. The early game on boxing day sees Stoke take on United at the Britannia as United will look to get back on track in the league after their travels to Asia for the World Club Championships. I've brought Ronaldo back for this one after Gerrard did little in his place last week. Look for a full strength United to excel here and use this as a great week to get your first United player before the double gameweeks in 21 and 25. O'Shea is the best value at the moment in Evra's absence though Evra himself looks to be good value when the suspension is over. Fletcher and Carrick remain decent mid-cheap Midfielders and the likes of Berbatov and Rooney become more attractive premium strikers in the double gameweeks . The second lob-sided game of the day is at the Bridge where Chelsea take on bottom placed West Brom . Chelsea are missing a...

Not too many new injuries this week, which is lucky considering the need for many us to move United and Wigan players around. Some long term casualties are staring to become fit ( Martin Skrtel , Fernando Torres and Eduardo) and these situations should monitored in terms of both buying bargains and your current players losing value as they find their way to the bench. Without any further delay lets go around the week's games for a quick injury update: United and Wigan are of course not playing which may lead to some of us having to pay for transfers this week (I just coughed up 4 points myself). Some potential benefactors of the above injuries are Alex/ Ivanovic who will continue to deputise for Carvalho . Agger / Hyypia who will stand in for Skrtel for at least one more week. Steven Gerrard should continue his advanced role against Arsenal likely playing behind Dirk Kuyt in Torres' absence. Bernard Mendy could also be a sneaky pickup as both Dawson and McShane will ...

The Slovakian international is back in training and could be the must have buy this Christmas. We all got excited about Alex and Agger as cheap members of a legaue leading back four but each of them were only ever going to be stop gaps. Skrtel however is a bona fide starter and at 5.6m is incredible value. With Skrtel in the side, Liverpool conceded 4 goals in 6 games, keeping 3 clean sheets in the process. 3 of these goals came against United and City, two of the better attacks in the league. Skrtel is tipped to return to the first team on Boxing day at home to Bolton in time to face Stoke, Everton and Wigan as well the aforementioned Wanderers. This run should be good for 3 clean sheets and points a plenty for the big centre back. When he was fit he was averaging 3.83 points per game for a very healthy 0.685 points per million spent. Anyone still clinging to Agger , Alex or Kompany should look to Strkel to solidify their back line in time for the Christmas period, much in...

Traditionally these features should come BEFORE a big scoring week and I can hear the cries of horse, bolted, close, gate already. However, I urge you to consider that last week was not a blip for the speedy Englishman but a sign of things to come over the next 8 weeks. Agbonlahor has had three monster weeks (1, 9 and 17), scoring 15 or more points in each, but has failed to crack 6 every other week. This can be frustrating for managers who find it hard to captain him, especially considering that at Wigan and home to City are only considered to be medium games in which to play your attackers. A look ahead though sees 4 green and 4 amber games on the horizon for Villa including @ WH , @ Hul and WBA in the next four. Villa are back on form (despite their second stringers losing to Hamburg tonight) and I look to them to win 5 or 6 of the next 8, scoring a bagful in the process. The only downside to Agbonlahor is that he is widely held (23%) though I wouldn't let this stop you fr...

No not an invitation to a christmas party but rather a fantasy conundrum. As I have three Wigan players, a lame duck (Agger) and Ronaldo I need to make two transfers to ensure I can even field a team this week. I am therefore transferring Ronaldo out on the assumption that if I act quickly I can initially lose 0.3m which will be cut to 0.2 as I expect his price to fall by next week and Gerrard's to rise due to all the Ronaldo sellers. I have all but settled on Gerrard as the replacement which, on the assumption that prices don't move, leaves me 0.2 to spend upgrading somewhere else whilst still leaving me with 3.1 to get Ronaldo back next week for the Stoke game. The question therefore is how to spend that 0.2m. I need to use it on one of my players who are off this week so the choice is Figueroa or Agger (I'm still holding Zaki and Valencia). Agger (5.9) This gives me 6.1 which doesn't buy a great deal these days as you cannot touch the big boys apart from Alex or O...

Finally a staurday afternoon with a decent tally and wouldn't you know it, I had to miss it for the dreaded christmas shopping! Therefore I was not on hand to see Valencia and Young terrorise opposition defenses to give the Juice a decent 52 point haul on Saturday. In absence of my weekly diary and general ramblings, I'll review each game below noting any key trends and scorers and suggesting where future sleepers may lie: Middlesbrough 1 - 1 Arsenal Middelesbrough: Turnbull, Huth, Pogatetz, Riggott, McMahon, Arca, Downing, Johnson, Digard, Alliadiere, Tuncay Arsenal: Almunia, Clichy, Djorou, Gallas, Sagna, Denilson, Fabregas, Diaby, Song, Adebayour, Van Persie. I think Adebayour has staked a claim for the best premium striker around with his 11th goal in 20 games (in all competitions) and the return of Drogba to potentially limit Anelka's minutes (more on that later). With just one clean sheet since week 9, players are abandoning the Arsenal defense and the likes of Clichy...

Defense As I haven't had much time to mull over my transfer this week, I've simply brought Paintsil in for the in-out Traore to play for the next few weeks (@Sto, Mid, Bla and @WH in the next 6 weeks). I still want a new premium defender for Agger but until Liverpool's fixtures are harder than Chelsea's in coming weeks and so I really want to get another Chelsea defender. However, until Carvalho returns there is no one I can afford who is anymore certain to play than Agger. I'm gonna stick with Agger then until Carvalho is back and fit and ready for a long run in the side which has just one top rated game in the next 8. Midfield I currently have 45% of my cash invested in my midfield, which aside from Young's 15 points last week has been terrible in the past month. Lampard and Ronaldo have failed to notch an assist or goal between them in the past 3 games, and Ronaldo has looked miserable and was playing extremely deep last week, which gave me my first thoughts ...

Apologies for the lack of updates over the past week, a combination of both computer and biological viruses have set me (and my team) back a few days. So lets get right down to business with the injuries for the coming week: Aston Villa v Bolton Liverpool v Hull Man City v Everton Middlesbrough v Arsenal Stoke v Fulham Sunderland v West Brom Tottenham v Man Utd Wigan v Blackburn Portsmouth v Newcastle Chelsea v West Ham

I am a huge fan of the system implemented in US sports such as the NFL, where players are given official ratings as to how injured they are ranging from probable to questionable to out. Unfortunately we do not enjoy such a system in the Premier League, so I will try and implement one by collating all the varying info available on players and assessing their status accordingly. Note that this list is not exhuastive and will not include (a) long term casualties unless they occurred recently and (b) players will zero fantasy impact (such as Sunderland's third keeper etc. I will try to keep the list updated right through to 11:30 tomorrow when the transfer deadline passes. Gameweek 16 Status (updated 10:28am Saturday) Sources Physio Room Fantasy Football Scout BBC Sport Goal.com TheFA.com Suspension List

I made reference to this new strategy earlier in the week, which to be honest isn't all that new or clever, just something I wanted to sound out to see what people think of it. The idea is to forget the likes of Torres and Drogba, and even Anelka and Keane. The plan is to get 3 strikers for around 7m each which should then leave sufficient money to get 4 quality defenders and midfielders, allowing a rotation of the front three. The argument behind this strategy is that these mid range strikers, if selected based on form and fixtures, can all but match the bigger names, which just isn't possible with defenders and to a lesser extent midfielders (where exceptions - Ireland - can be found). Candidates The best candidate so far this season is Amr Zaki , who after missing three games lately still heads this list. His value has fallen to 6.9m which makes it a great time to buy the big Egyptian. Wigan's next 7 games are against opponents who all give up more than a goal a game, an...

After suffering through another miserable fantasy weekend which saw me slip in the standings for the 4 th week running and surrender my once solid 120 point lead my work league I have decided to implement two new strategies. The second one to be discussed in a separate article is that I will now be employing a 3-man striking rotation of mid-priced strikers based on match up . The first to be discussed here is that my team selection has gotten too cute and I will now focus on the following key factors when selecting my squad and team lineup: 1. Don't select players who I do not rate as good or better, no matter what they have done in the last couple of weeks. As they say, form is temporary, class is permanent. I've had Carlton Cole, Javier Garrido , Jonas Olsson , Edwin Van Der Sar and Andy Dawson, all of whom I rate no better than average Premiership players (van der Sar once was obviously a class keeper). 2. Don't take avoiding point chasing to a ridiculous degree. La...