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Each player who racked up 6 or more points this week has been assigned a 'Buy', "Hold' or 'Sell' status. These don't necessarily reflect what I would do, more what I believe to be a reasonable action at this time: Buy - the player can be purchased immediately taking consideration of his playing time, fixtures, injury status etc. This status does not necessarily mean you should buy him now as it depends who else you own, only that it is reasonable to do so. Hold, and/or monitor - if you own the player you're not in a rush to ditch him but there's sufficient risk here to justify potential buyers holding off. Sell - the player has too many risks and should either be sold or not purchased. This does not mean he might not have value in the future, just not right now. Note that I don't generally include defenders as so much of their value is tied to their team's success rather than their individual skill set. In the interest of time I...

Goalscorers are highlighted in bold , players with an assist are underlined Arsenal Szczesny, Sagna, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Wilshere, Arteta , Cazorla , Oxlade-Chamberlain , Gervinho, Giroud Subs: Martinez, Rosicky, Podolski, Ramsey, Squillaci, Coquelin, Jenkinson Podoloski only managed a spot on the bench here but you have to think that's more of a fitness issue than anything, and so despite the win I'd expect him to replace Gervinho or Oxlade-Chamberlain next week. The back line is likely to be fairly settled now with Mertesacker remaining the best combination of upside/security (Gibbs might have marginal attacking value but I'd prefer Mertesacker's security for the same price). Aston Villa Guzan, Lowton, Baker, Clark, Lichaj, Herd, Holman, Westwood, Bannan, Benteke, Agbonlahor Subs: Given, Ireland, El Ahmadi, Bent, Delph, Weimann, Williams No changes here and this lineup now looks to be pretty settled with El Ahmadi now cast aside aster a promisi...

Attacking Rankings Powered by Tableau Clean Sheet Rankings Powered by Tableau Individual Rankings Powered by Tableau A couple of quick notes on player rankings which will likely cause some consternation: At City, United are forecast to register just six SiB which gives van Persie a couple, based on his 36% share to date. On those numbers the model just isn't going to forecast big returns for the Dutchman this week. Ba's ranking over Berbatov looks a bit odd given that you would fancy the home team in the contest, but the ranking accounts for each player's share of their team's shots to date, and Ba simply dominates in that metric (53% SiB vs 26% for Berbatov). Berbatov's assist potential makes it close and the risk that Ba doesn't play would likely make me pick the Bulgarian here, but the model doesn't account for injuries. The Reading players get the edge of Sunderland due to the other game, as while the model likes the extra fi...

Arsenal Szczesny, Djourou, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Arteta, Song, Ramsey, Walcott, van Persie, Gervinho Subs: Almunia, Rosicky, Arshavin, Frimpong, Chamakh, Benayoun, Miquel. No surprises in this lineup, and we shouldn't overreact to the lack of goals when playing a very good City side, no doubt refocused by their sloppy defensive work of late. Walcott owners will be nervous about how quiet he was but Arshavin looked pretty terrible off the bench and Chamakh got the nod over Benayoun. Competition therefore appears to be somewhat thin and with Gervinho set to depart for the African Nations in the the not too distant future, Walcott remains a (frustrating) option. Aston Villa Guzan, Hutton, Dunne, Collins, Warnock, Albrighton, Delph, Petrov, N'Zogbia, Heskey, Delfouneso.  Subs: Marshall, Clark, Cuellar, Bannan, Weimann, Johnson, Burke. Guzan continued to deputise in goal with Given still out until the early new year. Villa have tough defensive fixtures betwee...

Captain Picks There was a time when playing Arsenal was a bad thing but, at least defensively, that is no longer the reality. Current and prior year stats suggest City will bag a couple this week, while current year only stats suggest they'll get three. With Santos, Gibbs, Sagna and Jenkinson all missing for Arsenal, you have to wonder how they will cope with the likes of Silva, Nasri, Milner or Johnson attacking them down the flanks. The expected beneficiary of that kind of exploitation is Aguero , who looks like the safest play this week. There's some concern given that he hasn't be rotated for a while now, but he only tends to play ~70 minutes so he shouldn't be too tired. He's scored 7 goals in 7 home games and City have totalled 24 goals over that period. It'll be hard to look elsewhere for anyone who owns the Argentinian genius this week. The next best bet in the City side is Silva , given Dzeko's rotation and Balotelli's, erm, shall we say ...