PLFantasy

The last two weeks have illustrated the randomness of fantasy football, where even when you predict the outcome right, your team can wind up with no points. For example, as forecast, the two Manchester teams have kept two clean sheets over the past two gameweeks but despite owning P Jones, Richards and Evans, I've come out of it with zero clean sheets after Jones limped off and Richards was subbed after 59 minutes in GW17, then Jones and Richards missed out altogether and Evans was withdrawn at half time in GW18. The same can be said for Rooney owners who picked up just 8 points despite United scoring 10 goals over that same two week period. You calculated the odds right but the house still won. This shouldn't have large repercussions on how you pick your team though. Rooney was an outstanding pick these past couple of weeks and deserved captain attention in both. Trying to predict when players kept rested for the odd game is a fools errand and unless we have strong evidence

Captain Picks We have the deepest pool of legitimate captain options here. Insert Christmas cliche here! Manchester is once again the place to be and both the red and blue side of the City enjoy a fixture this week as appetizing as, well, something appetizing at Christmas. With the home fixture, Rooney is the obvious pick for the week and United really seem to have turned the corner since they hit four past Wolves in GW15. 11 goals in three gameweeks have put the Champions right back among the fantasy elite and Rooney is obviously well placed to capitalise. Over the last four gameweeks, Rooney has 15 shots, 11 of which were on target to support his 4 goals. With Wigan coming to town, it's almost impossible to look elsewhere. Rooney's teammate Nani has been in great form himself with three goals and four assists in the last four games. Of the ~10m midfielders on offer, Nani possibly has the best goalscoring ability and history, though a slight word of caution would be

Captain Picks With the short gameweek I'm going to keep this brief. Your basic choice is to either captain your City players, or, if you are worried about rotation (which is a concern) then stick with a proven asset with a somewhat tricky fixture (ie Van Persie and Rooney). City's fixture is just too good to avoid and if you hold Aguero or Silva it's tough to look elsewhere. As with prior year weeks I think Silva is the safer option, though Aguero probably has the higher upside. Aguero looked sharp early against Arsenal but drifted out of the game a bit as it went on (though I don't really understand why he was stripped of his assist). At this point I am leaning towards Silva, who appears less likely to be dropped (Dzeko must be due a start soon) but it really is a coin toss and I don't have anything concrete to help you make a decision either way. Outside of the City stars you're left with Van Persie who had a rare off week at City but faces a Villa

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

@thatbensonguy I have 1.1m, looking to upgrade a DEF (probly Ass-Ek > Kompany) or MID, I have Brunt (5.8). What's the better move? Spurs defensive prospects looks pretty sound over the coming weeks including 5 home games in the next 7 GWs (including the double gameweek). While I still have faith in City's defensive unit too, I would not be ditching Assou Ekotto at this point, and in fact rate him as one the better players to target. Brunt has been a huge disappointment and there is a real lack of talent in that WBA side. For 6.9m your options a bit limited. I guess I still like Ramsey and Walters but I'm not sure either are worth 2.0m more than the group of players on offer in that 4.5-5m range. If you can use the money elsewhere I'd go cheap, if not then I'd look at the aforementioned pair or perhaps Cabaye. @Yitzeroo With newcastles defence on the down should I play Simpson this week, or have Morison up front? Will Norwich carry on scoring? That's a t

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 

Mark Schwarzer has been ruled out for anywhere up to 6 weeks with a spinal issue and given the nature of the injury, you wouldn't be 100% confident that those timelines will be accurate. In short, he needs to be replaced and given that a large portion of his owners will have been pairing him with Vorm, that move needs to be made quickly given Vorm's away trips this week and next (@New and @Eve). If you don't own Vorm then barring a total mismatch of fixtures, the Swansea keeper is your ready made replacement, and hey, you'll even get a bit of change. So, who should Schwarzer/Vorm owners target? Well the defensive fixture rotation stats point to a number of options whose games will fit in nicely with Vorm (who can now be option 1a in rotation option rather than 1b as expected given Swansea's start to the season): Tim Krul - 4.9m Krul would have been the pick 6 weeks ago but with S Taylor out for good and Coloccini also sidelined, Newcastle's recent defens

Arsenal Szczesny, Djourou, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Vermaelen, Arteta, Song, Walcott, Ramsey, Gervinho, van Persie Subs: Almunia, Rosicky, Arshavin, Frimpong, Chamakh, Benayoun, Miquel. Djorou was the emergency right back and did okay after picking up a knock early on. This Arsenal side is very settled now and you feel that the likes of Arshavin, Benayoun and Chamakh are recalled only when a player absolutely needs a rest, rather than to simply rotate the squad. There is an argument for owning 5 of the 6 offensive players (probably not Song despite this week's assist). Van Persie's goal was unreal and while Rooney announced himself back on the stage, the Dutchman is still very much the default captain pick each week, all else being equal. Aston Villa Guzan, Hutton, Collins, Dunne, Warnock, N'Zogbia, Petrov, Herd, Albrighton, Agbonlahor, Bent Subs: Marshall, Ireland, Delfounso, Heskey, Clark, Bannan, Weimann. Aside from the odd change in midfield this is a very set

@K0n0s Quick question for upcoming weeks, at 9.3 isn't Suarez the best buy now given his fixtures? Suarez is a tough player to evaluate this year. He's obviously a talented player and his underlying stats (shots on goal) are excellent. However, he hasn't scored in 2 months and Liverpool aren't really a great attacking side at the moment. In a vacuum I do like him but if money is no issue I'd still much prefer to have Van Persie or Aguero and if money is tight, I'd go Adebayor over Suarez, especially given Spurs' great fixtures. @SyncJS If you have Vorm and Schwarzer, who would you pick for next week? knowing Vorm is good at Home, still hesitating who to line up Both are good options but in most cases I would side with the home side and that is certainly the case here. Swansea have been dominant at home and while you wouldn;t necessarily project that to continue all year, I'm happy to ride that bandwagon for now. @MindOfANerd If you had to bench on

One of my main regrets with this blog is my inability to keep up with all the injury news. I've tried sharing links from the local papers and the main sites but I just don't have time to keep up. Hopefully everyone knows where to look for the important news but I do want to point out that, for me, the best sources are  Fantasy Football Scout's excellent team news section  and the  Guardian Squad Sheets  which don't get everything right, but at least stop you making silly mistakes (signing a suspended player etc). Anyway, I guess that is my way or shirking some responsibility for the clangers I dropped last week (I forgot to mention the S Taylor injury and totally missed the injury to Sorensen). I hope though that you get enough alternative info to make the blog worthwhile. I'm pleased with where the blog sits in the world but I'm always looking for ideas to freshen things up so I open things up to the readers for any suggestions. What decisions do you strugg

We often talk about the different strategies we can use to assemble our team or squad and in the past there have been a number of different options. For a couple of seasons it was essential to own at least one (preferably two) of the holy trinity of midfielders (Ronaldo, Lampard and Gerrard) and play/captain them every week regardless of their fixtures. At other times, the difference between elite defenses and everyone else was huge, making it necessary to double down on United defenders (remember those 12 straight clean sheets!) or pair John Terry with Ashley Cole just to keep up. We've had elite forwards, must-own budget midfielders (Chaz Adam anyone?) and spot start subs, all of which provide a different number of ways to go each year (at least until the late stages when teams start to look pretty homogenous). This year has been different so far. Good defenders are starting to dominate the listings and no one from either Manchester team or Chelsea come at a discount. The midf

Arsenal Szczesny, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Santos, Ramsey, Song, Arteta, Walcott, van Persie, Gervinho Subs: Fabianski, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Djourou, Arshavin, Chamakh, Benayoun, Coquelin. No real surprises in this side, who have really blossomed into a good attacking unit after a rocky start to the year. Aside from the defensive Song, the front six all deserve at least some fantasy consideration though I'd probably suggest that Arteta and Gervinho remain a bit overpriced at the moment. As always I don't know what to make of Walcott, who has turned in 5 straight quality fantasy performances but yet still frustrates anyone watching him regularly. If you can't stretch to the ~10m range though he looks like a decent option. Oh, and Van Persie is awesome, that is all. Aston Villa Given, Hutton, Dunne, Collins, Warnock, Herd, Jenas, Bannan, Albrighton, Agbonlahor, Bent Subs: Ireland, Delph, Heskey, Petrov, Clark, Guzan, Cuellar. We're seeing some rotation