PLFantasy

The Christmas period was tough for many managers (me included) who suffered through unexpected injuries and then the disruption to the fixture list. This will also be the first gameweek without the departed African players thus testing many managers' squads further. The defensive fixtures aren't too bad this week and with the frigid weather not going anywhere one may expect a few defensive struggles this week and playing 5 at the back might be worth considering. Clean Sheet Rankings Fulham - BUY Burnley - HOLD Man Utd - BUY Arsenal - HOLD Man City - BUY Aston Villa - HOLD Chelsea - HOLD Birmingham - HOLD/SELL Sunderland - SELL Wigan - HOLD West Ham - HOLD Liverpool - HOLD Stoke - HOLD Portsmouth - SELL Hull - SELL Bolton - SELL Wolves - SELL Tottenham - BUY Blackburn - SELL Everton - SELL Defensive fixtures don't get much better than Fulham at home to Portsmouth to the point where if you're squad is thin, Fulham defenders might even warrant some captaincy consideration....

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 b...

The Juice scored a solid 53 points this week, hindered somewhat by the Benitez-like blunder of benching not just James Collins (10 points) but also Michael Turner (6), instead favouring Cole (0) and Assou Ekotto (1) at the back. A look down my local league showed a sight familiar from last year, but unexpected at this early juncture: consistency. Now this can mean one of two things: either everyone is suddenly making great individual decisions each week, or teams are starting to merge and its becoming harder to differentiate yourself. I think we can safely say that option A is the likely truth. Up front, Drogba (32%), Bent (31%) and Torres (30%) have all cracked the 30% ownership barrier along with Fabregas (31%) and Sorensen (42%). Gerrard (28%) could well be there on return from injury while the likes of Shawcross (27%) Lennon (26%) are also knocking on the door. Injuries to Rooney, Torres and Gerrard along with the continuing struggles of Lampard could well see ownership of Drogba a...

As a few of you may have gathered from my tweeting and comments over the weekend, I playing my wildcard this weekend, as I am sure a few others are considering doing. Otis posted that it might be fun to run through my thoughts, so here is my old team, followed by the proposed new team: Expired Juice Thomas Sorensen Second among all keepers (playing a game less than many) and first in PPMS (1.585), Sorensen has been this year's Schwarzer and pretty much a must own. Unfortunately most people identified this before the season so we haven't see a meteoric price rise for the former Villa man. He should return from injury this week and he will be staying in the Juice ranks as long as he remains fit. Ben Foster Fourth in points among keepers but only 10th in terms of PPMS, I am satisfied if not thrilled with Foster but with Vidic and Ferdinand back from injury the clean sheets should be more frequent for United, and with Van der Sar still a way from returning, and Foster aiming to ho...