Gameweek 36 Preview

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Milner really bailed my team out last week, thus keeping me in the running for my office championship. I hope your teams are still alive and with 3 weeks to go there is still time to score some major points and make up ground.

This week is pretty vanilla with just the 10 standard games and with Ars-MnC and MnU-Tot squaring off, it makes fantasy selections tough again this week. Villa, Liverpool and to an extent Chelsea have good fixtures though the continued absence of Torres and Fabregas along with the uncertainty around Drogba, make it tough to field a dominant side this week.

Defensively there are quite a few good options and I can see several team playing 4 or 5 at the back to maximum their exposure to the clean sheet opportunities.

Clean Sheet Rankings (projected goals conceded in parenthesis)
  1. Chelsea (0.34)
  2. Everton (0.55)
  3. Wolves (0.55)
  4. Bolton (0.56)
  5. Man U (0.67)
  6. Aston Villa (0.68)
  7. Burnley (0.84)
  8. Blackburn (0.90)
  9. Hull (0.98)
  10. West Ham (1.04)
  11. Liverpool (1.05)
  12. Arsenal (1.17)
  13. Portsmouth (1.71)
  14. Sunderland (1.93)
  15. Fulham (2.00)
  16. Birmingham (2.18)
  17. Stoke (2.26)
  18. Tottenham (2.64)
  19. Man City (2.65)
  20. Wigan (2.87)
Clearly there is a massive divide between the best and worst teams this week and plenty of high profile teams have really bad defensive fixtures. I think the best strategy is to either role the dice with 5 cheaper guys from the top ranked teams (who should give you a differential) or just accept that you aren't getting clean sheet this week, play three at the back and try and outscore your opponent. I think Everton are the best buy now as with Ful, @Sto and Por they could easily get two clean sheets and provide decent differential value. Of the teams at the bottom of the rankings this week, City, Fulham, Stoke and Spurs are worth holding for their double gameweeks coming up so I wouldn't rashly dump all these boys just yet.

Captain Rankings
  1. James Milner
  2. Wayne Rooney
  3. Frank Lampard
  4. Robin van Persie
  5. Darren Bent
  6. Tim Cahill
  7. Nicolas Anelka
  8. Emmanuel Adebayor
  9. Ashley Young
  10. Florent Malouda
I have excluded Drogba here as I have been burned too often with injured premium players this year and I'm not willing to take the risk. I don't love the options this week as many of the best players remaining square off against each other. I think Villa give good options while Lampard always seems to chip in with goals when his team needs him (which they will without Drogba). Elsewhere I have gone for a couple of form players like Cahill and Bent who remain solid options. Perhaps the biggest risk is Van Persie but he looked very strong against Spurs and I think with nothing to play for Arsenal might open things up and that game against City could be 3-3 (hence the inclusion of former Arsenal player Adebayor, who will look to avoid his previous antics against his former employers).

Stay tuned tomorrow for last minute injury news, as well as @plfantasy where I share stories and news from around the league.

Comments

Mish said…
Hi Chris,
i'm gonna prepare my team for GW37 from now, this is the only chance i can catch the leader of my league.
So i decided to sell Drogba and Song and get Adebayor(i also have Tevez) and Bale due to their double GW.
And next week i'm thinking of getting Defoe and Fulham defender.
What do you think?
Is there any other options for me?
April 23, 2010 at 1:24 AM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
April 26, 2010 at 7:12 PM
Ryan said…
Hi Chris,

If I have no choice but to bench one of these 3, who would it be:
- Malouda
- Milner
- Adebayor

Cheers
April 28, 2010 at 11:51 PM
Unknown said…
@Ryan Liverpool are going to roll over for Chelsea so Man U doesn't win the title, so play Malouda. I don't know how serious Adebayor's injury is so its a tossup between him since he has the double and Milner... I'd personally go with Adebayor.
May 1, 2010 at 3:59 AM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
May 2, 2010 at 1:51 AM
Anonymous said…
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May 7, 2010 at 2:07 AM
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