Gameweek 13 Wrapup

Okay, I'm not superstitious: I don't cross the street to avoid ladders, I'm not scared of black cats and I routinely open my umbrella inside the house. However, when you tip a player as your third best captain pick of the week, and post a message hours before the transfer deadline about not signing him in favour of a player you didn't rank in your top 5, and he goes on to score 5 goals in a game, you could forgive me for feeling slightly unlucky especially in week thirteen!

I do not however think I was unlucky, as Defoe had the best matchup of the weekend which I why I rated him so highly in the first place. I decided to play the long game and City have better fixtures than Spurs over the next 5 weeks. What I failed to account for is the fact that sometimes a single fixture or gameweek is so appealing for a player that you should consider bringing a player in for that week alone. Now while Defoe's five goals were an amazing return, I don't consider Wigan to be such a game and I therefore don't regret the process I used to make the decision.

For me fantasy football is all about playing the odds and if you continue to do so over a season you will likely come out towards the top of the pack. In order to win you clearly need some luck but chasing points and over committing to fixtures by paying for transfers is a sure fire way to lose track on the early leaders. That being said, I couldn't help but feel cheated every time the little striker smashed the ball into the Kirkland's goal.

Return of the clean sheet?
Six clean sheets in ten games is not a bad return, especially in light in of what we have seen so far this season. Even more encouraging is that 3 of my top 4 picks kept clean sheets which suggests an element of predictability is creeping in to defensive picks, although Blackburn on the road or anyone against Arsenal are clear aberrations that you just need to accept you will never be able to quantify. With this trend in mind, those who saved money by selling Lampard or van Persie might wish to consider upgrading their defense for the weeks to come.

The mid-range midfield
With me suggesting spending money in the defense, while strongly advocating you keep the likes of Cesc and Drogba, how exactly are you going to balance the books? Well, the top 5 midfielders in terms of points per million spent (PPMS) can be had for less than 6m and each of these are averaging a contribution of over 4.67 points per game (PPG). All these five players contributed at least 6 points this week and all warrant consideration as budget starters/top bench players:

• Jimmy Bullard (6.0m, 1.222 PPMS, 7.33 PPG)
• David Dunn (5.8m, 1.092, 6.44)
  
• Andy Reid (6.0m, .879, 5.37)
  
• Matt Etherington (5.4m, .864, 4.67)
  
• Darren Fletcher (5.6m, .853, 4.78)
  

While I'm not ready to put these in the class of, say, Aaron Lennon or Ashley Young for the rest of the season, I do like them to match the contribution of the more inconsistent highly rated players such as Benayoun (whose place in inexplicably threatened by the inept Babel) and Giggs (who will surely be rotated more and more as the season progresses).

Gameweek 17
Although you have a while to arrange your team yet, note that Everton, Fulham, Hull and Stoke all have no game in week 17. This is particularly important for those of you who loaded up on these players for this week's double gameweek. Fulham's fixtures are good until then so I would sell these last, while Everton have a tough run and you may as well dump these guys as soon as you can.

I'll be back later in the week with some updated statistical analysis and of course the weekly preview for week 14. Also, having neglected it so far this year, I will be performing a weekly write up of the Blog league so check back later in the week to see how you're fairing. Until then, why not post your thoughts below or tweet me @plfantasy.