Gameweek 31 Rolling Wrap Up

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With all the action this week, stretching through Wednesday evening I thought I better get formulating some thoughts on the weekend's happenings now or face an essay deadline on Thursday morning.

Saturday

Play the Fixtures
The games in the books so far have illustrated just how important it is to play the fixture list each week. Of teams who faced opponents that concede more than 1.5 GPG, all but Wigan managed to net twice leading to big fantasy weeks from budget players like O'Hara, Pienaar, Denilson and Carew. Some of the stars in these games also managed to shine, notably Fabregas, Bent and Arteta (all in my captain rankings this week). Tougher fixtures for Birmingham and Stoke limited the fantasy contribution of their players this week (though Birmingham have a chance for redemption on Wednesday at Blackburn).

The clean sheets for the week served to illustrate this point further with 3 of the 4 best fixtures yielding clean sheets despite neither Everton (11th) nor Wigan (18th) ranking in the top 10 in goals conceded this season. Arsenal, by the way, quietly notched their 11th clean sheet of the season and have only conceded just 3 goals in the last 6 games.

Sunday
From both a fantasy and reality perspective, Sunday was pretty disappointing. No clean sheets (giving just 3 in 10 games for the weekend so far) along with goals from fantasy lightweights like Park and Diouf ensured that the spoils were limited to an unassisted Rooney goal, a first half Torres header and a Drogba goal at Ewood Park. I suppose this scoring underlined my key trend for the season that top strikers are more valuable than top midfielders but nevertheless I expected more points from the big boys, especially Chelsea.

Looking ahead
Plenty of action still to come this week so do not despair if things haven't gone your way so far. Looking further ahead to gameweek 32 the teams to target are Liverpool, City and Spurs who all enjoy a great fixture in terms of both attacking and defensive point potential.

Check back after the midweek games for a final wrap up before next week's preview on Thursday. Thanks for reading and please post your thoughts/comments/questions below or @plfantasy.

Comments

Unknown said…
finally getting the hang of this. up to 4th in my mini league. 43rd on this site thanks to ohara, arteta and fab, the surprise differential at the top of my league. bummed about gabbie tho, fail, otherwise i would be on a mad score right now. also hope rooney can make that bolton game. i foolishly brought him in to beat the price rise and now i realise torres is better value for the run in. rookie error, i know . . .
March 23, 2010 at 6:32 AM
Chris said…
Good effort David. I think the opportunity of the double gameweeks has rewarded those who properly planned, while not overreacting and spending 20 points on a new team. I was really pleased with Arteta this week and since his return he has been one of the better options available. I'm dissapointed by Agbonlahor in the last few weeks and he really cannot be relief upon as a 8m fantasy striker anymore. Bringing in Rooney was no foolish decision so don't beat yourself up based on hindsight (I'm doing the same though after I almost sold Ivanovic two weeks ago). Thanks for contributing.
March 23, 2010 at 1:47 PM
Ryan said…
@David - I'm quite sure we're not the only "fools" who blew 2 or 3 transfers just to buy Rooney ahead of the Bolton match. If Rooney ends up crocked, I'm considering Van Persie.

@Chris - Do you feel owners of Pienaar should switch to Arteta if they could afford to do so? Also, are you really going to take the gamble and hop on the Rooney bandwagon?

By the way, Wolves are starting to produce some bargain fringe players just like Portsmouth in the recent weeks (eg. O'Hara). But yeah as you say, we must play the fixtures to win our mini-leagues!
March 24, 2010 at 12:25 AM
Unknown said…
thanks guy, in that case i predict King Wayne will become the ulmtimate-differential like arsenal right now as players start witching to torres. rooney is already down 0.1.
March 24, 2010 at 4:18 AM
Chris said…
Ryan - I still like pienaar alot and could easily see teams being successful with him and arteta. I rate arteta higher and do consider him an upgrade but I would replace players like Barry and even milner (to differentiate) before I started dumping good value like pienaar.

I'm afraid I'm still on the rooney bandwagon and having considered a torres-drogba combo to differentiate I fear David is right and many will jump to torres pushing all three's ownership up. I will re-rank my top 3 in this week's preview.

Totally agree about wolves. I was on jarvis too early and have had him st on the bench through 3 games of solid production. Based on fixtures he and Doyle warrant starting consideration.
March 24, 2010 at 5:52 AM
Unknown said…
@ chris, in reality, Kevin Doyle is the most underrated striker in the league. When he moves to a stronger club he'll be a real fantasy gem of the future, maybe even next season, the new Bent,Zamora, etc.
March 24, 2010 at 6:17 AM
Chris said…
I always fear for players like Doyle that they will float around 3 or 4 lower level prem teams and never really get a chance to be become stars (Beattie, Ashton) or get a short break a big club but are given up on too early (bent, Carlton cole). Luckily for bent it worked out, I hope Doyle gets a chance at a solid team like everton or villa where he can establish himself and play every week. As for the most underrated striker, I'm afraid I am horribly biased and give that award to kevin davies but no arguments that Doyle is up there.
March 24, 2010 at 10:12 AM
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