PLFantasy

In case I can't get a full preview up in the next day or two, I have posted below my clean sheet and captain rankings for the week. The clean sheet rankings use a new tweaked formula to give a weighted average to both the teams average goals conceded at home/away and the ranking of their opponent for the season. Hopefully this will lead to better decisions for the future. Clean Sheet Rankings Chelsea Man City Man Utd Wigan Liverpool Birmingham Burnley Arsenal Fulham West Ham Tottenham Sunderland Portsmouth Aston Villa Blackburn Bolton Stoke Everton Hull Wolves Captain Rankings Fernando Torres Cesc Fabregas Didier Drogba Steven Gerrard Wayne Rooney Darren Bent Hugo Rodallega Ashley Cole Antonio Valencia Carlos Tevez Apologies for the brief post this week, I will try and flesh this out in the next day or so. I will be on twitter and my iPhone though so please post questions below or @plfantasy and we can all discuss our plans for the week.

It's been widely noted that clean sheets have been hard to come by this year and no team has really arisen as a dominant force whose defenders deserve captaincy consideration on a weekly basis (like Vidic last year and Laursen in the past). On an average week, 25% of teams are keeping a clean sheet which gives you around 5 chances at success on a weekly basis. The graph below shows how these trends have moved through the season so far: After the severe dip in weeks 5-12, we have seen a general trend towards an increase in clean sheets and the last 5 weeks have given us at least 25% of teams keeping the opposition out with a peak of 35% in week 15. However, goals per game are also up from the start of the year at around 1.44 from 1.20. This suggests that the when teams are conceding they are conceding heavily, a stat that has probably been adversely affected by the 9-1 drubbing of Wigan by Spurs and the high score draws seen in the past couple of weeks. So how does this compare to l...

I'm currently feeling pretty sorry for myself and my team after a miserable fantasy weekend to follow up on the dismal midweek stretch of games. Let's start with the good: of the 6 clean sheets this week, 3 of the teams were ranked in my top 5 so hopefully you were able to rack up some defensive points this week. My captain picks were weak with only Arshavin, Lampard and Dunne providing any kind of contribution for their teams. The premium players this week were generally poor with Drogba, Torrer, Rooney, Gerrard, Anelka, Adebayor and Defoe all having off weeks with only Lampard and Arshavin giving any kind of production. The big points once again came from mid price or even budget players like Abou Diaby, Bobby Zamora and Damien Duff. It is becoming almost as important to get these budget picks as right as your premium players such is the gulf between the best and average budget picks. Having lost ground on other managers in the past few weeks am I firmly in differentiate mod...

Gameweek 18 Fixtures Portsmouth v Liverpool Aston Villa v Stoke City Blackburn v Tottenham Fulham v Man Utd Man City v Sunderland Arsenal v Hull City Wolves v Burnley Everton v Birmingham West Ham v Chelsea Wigan v Bolton Alot of us suffered a tough gameweek over the midweek games and will be looking to bounce back here. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool all face comparatively weak opposition and so there should be plenty of goals to go around. The premium players should be back in force with Drogba expected to be fit and Torres should surely get a start after his midweek goal. Fabregas appears likely to miss out but his injury is less serious than expected and he could figure next week. Clean Sheet Rankings (adjusted GPG in parentheses) Aston Villa (0.6) - HOLD Arsenal (0.8) - HOLD Man City (1.0) - BUY Man Utd (1.1) - BUY Wolves (1.3) - HOLD Blackburn (1.3) - HOLD/SELL Liverpool (1.4) - BUY Portsmouth (1.4) - SELL Wigan (1.4) - HOLD Birmingham (1.4) - BUY Chelsea (1.5) - BUY Everton (1....

My transfers and tips this week were about as successful as Chelsea's set piece defensive training. I really liked Drogba this week who was ruled out after a failing a late fitness test, and then my replacement captain Fabregas limped off and will miss at least the Hull game this week. Having mentioned in my preview that it was vital to field 11 men this week, I used a double substitution and still ended up having Drogba, Brown, Torres and Jarvis all starting and out of their team's first team lineup. The bright spot was Torres' goal and El Nino is now my top rated player alongside Drogba, though considering Torres is owned by half as many owners and Drogba leaves for the African Nations Cup soon, I really like Tores as my top transfer target. Injury Replacements If you wish to replace Fabregas then Arshavin is the logical replacements if you are looking for a short term solution. If you are looking long term then you might need to re-arrange your whole team as no similarl...

Gameweek 17 Fixtures Sunderland v Aston Villa Birmingham v Blackburn Bolton v West Ham Man Utd v Wolves Burnley v Arsenal Chelsea v Portsmouth Liverpool v Wigan Tottenham v Man City The most important issue this week are the four teams on a buy and what you should do with their players. To briefly sum up my thoughts: Stoke - Sorensen has b een in incredible form (35 points in 4 games) of late thanks to 3 penalty saves in that period. The defense hasn't actually been that good with just 3 clean sheets in the last 11 games though the Stoke defense as a whole remains okay value for the time being. The next two games after the bye are tough and so you might consider selling but unless you need to play them this week or next, I would simply bench my Stoke defenders and hold them for the double gameweek 20. I don't like the attack as much and I think Etherington is the only legitimate fantasy option for now. Sanli Tuncay intrigues me for the future but until he proves his ability to ...

Football365 summed up the weekend simply as ' wow '. Chelsea conceded 3 goals at home having conceded one in the previous seven fixtures, while United lost at home to Villa for the first time since 1983. The weekend served up 5 clean sheets (ranked 3rd, 8th, 12th, 17th and 20th in my weekly preview) including Wolves and Blackburn on the road who had conceded a combined 37 goals in 14 games on their travels to date. The randomness of the clean sheets was exacerbated by goals from players who were rightly benched based on their matchup leaving their managers frustrated with fantasy points sitting on the bench (offenders included Saha, Gary Cahill and Villa defenders). It was also one of the worst days for the premium players in a while with only Drogba and Anelka delivering more than 5 points of the 9m+ players in action on Saturday. This was improved somewhatby Fabregas, Arshavin and Kuyt who all had decent contributions on Sunday afternoon. It has been noted by a few readers th...

Gameweek 16 Fixtures Stoke City v Wigan Birmingham v West Ham Bolton v Man City Burnley v Fulham Chelsea v Everton Hull City v Blackburn Sunderland v Portsmouth Tottenham v Wolves Man Utd v Aston Villa Liverpool v Arsenal In true Mark Lawrenson style, I will reach for an overused cliche and describe this week's fantasy contest as a game of two halves. While fantasy filled squads like Chelsea, City and Spurs all face very intriguing opponents, United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Villa have tough opponents and their fantasy production is likely to be somewhat limited. Spurs at home to Wolves (2.29 GPG conceded) looks very appetising as does City's trip to the Reebok to play Bolton (2.14 GPG ). Chelsea are the pick of the big four as they welcome an Everton side that have conceded 10 goals in their last 4 road trips. The physio rooms across the country are starting to get full with injured players Michael Essien the latest big name player to go down. I will follow this post u...

This season I have used a combination of two keepers (Hart and Sorensen ) playing the one each week with the the best matchup and factoring in Birmingham's comparative home advantage (4 goals conceded in 7 games). I think this gives you the best chance to win as regardless of how good your top 'keeper is, you must still invest 4m on a sub. So, why play Petr Cech every week including when he faces United and Arsenal when you get a pair of budget 'keepers and never play anyone in the top half of the table? Let's look at how this strategy has fared so far this season: To date I played each keeper as highlighted in green, based on the matchup rankings I post each week. This has led me to score 69 points through 14 weeks out of a possible 79. If I had simply played Sorensen every week I would have scored 64. Compare this with scores of 59 for Given (25% owned), 58 for Cech (14% owned) and 53 for Reina (7% owned) and the value of the budget keeper becomes clear. While I...

Portsmouth 2-0 Burnley Burnley's woeful away form continued, while Portsmouth continue to get better, especially at home. The game saw Boateng lose his penalty duties to Dindane who squandered the chance suggesting Boateng might be taking them again soon. Dindane did manage to hit the net later in the game though, along with Hreidersson to give Avram Grant the 3 points. The popular fantasy pick Jamie O'Hara picked up an assist while one of my favourites Boateng came away empty handed. The game confirms that Burnley at home is about as good as it gets for a fantasy team while travelling to Fratton Park is perhaps not an easy game these days. Arsenal 2-0 Stoke Many thought this would be a banana skin for un der fire Wenger but Arsenal bossed the game from the off, finishing with 59% of possession. The disappointment of the game was the penalty miss by Fabregas, who rebounded somewhat by adding an assist for Arshavin's opener. Fabregas looked threatening and should have had a ...

A few of us have turned our attentions to longer term replacements and transfer targets to fill our rosters into the Christmas period and beyond. A factor to consider is the 2010 African Cup of Nations that runs from 10 - 31 January. However, recent reports suggest that some players could leave as early as 27 December to allow for them to prepare for the tournament. Players will miss gameweeks 20-22 for the group stage and up to gameweek 24 for teams that reach the final four. Below is a list of players likely to miss at least some time due to the tournament: Alex Song Emmanuel Eboue Andre Bikey Michael Essien Jon Obi Mikel Solomon Kalou Didier Drogba Joseph Yobo Yakubu John Paintsil Seyi Olofinjana Kamel Ghilas Daniel Cousin Kolo Toure Emmanuel Adebayor Aruna Dindane Nadir Belhadj Hassan Yebda Mamady Sidibe John Mensah Sebastien Bassong Benoit Assou Ekotto The headlines are of course the Chelsea and City players but the loss of players like Assou Ekotto, Bikey and Bassong will be blo...

Gameweek 15 Fixtures Portsmouth v Burnley Arsenal v Stoke City Aston Villa v Hull City Blackburn v Liverpool West Ham v Man Utd Wigan v Birmingham Wolves v Bolton Man City v Chelsea Fulham v Sunderland Everton v Tottenham In a week where many focus their attention on tomorrow's world cup draw, there are some excellent looking fantasy games that should see some big points after a couple of up and down weeks for many of us. Villa and United each provide plenty of fantasy options and face opponents leaking goals a plenty this season (2.57 GPG and 2.14 GPG respectively). Three excellent defensive opportunities arise this week, with three teams given predicted to concede less than 0.5 GPG (Villa, Fulham and Arsenal). After a flurry of big name injuries over the past month, the situation is starting to improve and we may even get Torres back this week . Of course as the fantasy Gods giveth they also taketh away with Carlton Cole out for 'several weeks' and Dunn's status unko...