PLFantasy

Clean Sheet Rankings I'm changing things a little but this week as along with the standard statistical predictions for goals conceded, I have also worked in some of the goal trends that I noted earlier in the week in order to generate my weekly rankings. I have looked for concrete trends based on statistical fact so these are not 'hunches' but more tweaked facts to incorporate the wider trends. Newcastle v Sto 0.34 Birmingham v Wig 0.44 Liverpool v Sun 0.43* Arsenal v WBA 0.50 Aston Villa @Wol 0.79* Man Utd @Bol 0.93* Fulham v Eve 0.71 Blackpool v Bla 0.77 Wolves v Ast 0.91 Chelsea @MnC 1.36 Man City v Che 1.47 Everton @Ful 1.48 Tottenham @WH 1.57 Wigan @Bir 1.93* West Ham v Tot 1.67 Stoke @New 1.81 Blackburn @Bll 1.82 Bolton v MnU 2.04 Sunderland @Liv 2.79 West Brom @Ars 4.17 *denotes a team whose ranking has been altered based on specific trend analysis noted below. I have capped these movements to 3 positions to avoid basing the rankings on ‘gut’ r...

Due to a lack of time I am going to cut short this week's preview to give you an idea of which players to target this week. Clean Sheet Rankings Birmingham Stoke Liverpool Tottenham Man Utd Everton Portsmouth Arsenal Fulham Sunderland Aston Villa Burnley Man City Bolton Hull Chelsea Blackburn West Ham Wigan Wolves Captain Rankings Bobby Zamora Mikel Arteta Samir Nasri Danny Murphy Matt Etherington James Milner Carlos Tevez Fernando Torres Didier Drogba Frank Lampard The choice this week is really between your elite players against a top side (see Chelsea and United) or your form players against weaker opponents (see Arteta and Zamora). The exception is Arsenal who get Wolves at home but with Fabregas and Van Persie out, it's tough to be totally sold on any of their fantasy prospects. As always, why not post your thoughts below or @plfantasy .

As the season heads into the home straight, I get the feeling that this week could be an important one in our quest for the top of our respective mini leagues. With 6 teams (including Chelsea, Villa, Spurs and Fulham) out of action I think several teams will be starting with just 6 or 7 men while many others will splash 12 points or more on transfers. Hopefully we all have had plans for the week in place for the last couple of weeks and only need to make a transfer or two to rectify the situation. For advice on which players you should hold and which you should dump, check out my earlier post. Clean Sheet Rankings Everton Arsenal Man Utd Liverpool Sunderland Wigan West Ham Stoke Burnley Portsmouth Birmingham Bolton Wolves Hull I think the top four teams rank significantly above the rest and if you can secure 4 defenders from this pack you will be in great shape. I think Everton and Arsenal defenders are worth paying for due to their favourable schedules with Baines and Vermaelen being ...

After another disappointing 41 point week, I have finally pulled the trigger and made a risky play - I am putting my faith in the Mancini's frustratingly inconsistent City side. I have brought in Adebayor to play alongside Tevez in time for their double gameweek this week. I can then add N'Zogbia, Sorensen and Huth to this pair to give me 5 double gameweeks. Do I really trust this City side? No. However, as another Rooney goal hit the back of the net with me not owning him, it was time to make a move before it is too late. United have a double gameweek of their own next week and so Rooney will be a must, so I'm hoping to gain some ground this week on those who can't/won't sell him by hitching my cart to the Adebayor bandwagon. Clean sheets were fairly easy to come by last week with no less than 8 teams keeping the opposition at bay. Six of these ranked in my top 10 and four of my top six were able to keep a clean sheet. Playing the numbers, only Fulham (15th) and Vi...

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....

I'm currently feeling pretty sorry for myself and my team after a miserable fantasy weekend to follow up on the dismal midweek stretch of games. Let's start with the good: of the 6 clean sheets this week, 3 of the teams were ranked in my top 5 so hopefully you were able to rack up some defensive points this week. My captain picks were weak with only Arshavin, Lampard and Dunne providing any kind of contribution for their teams. The premium players this week were generally poor with Drogba, Torrer, Rooney, Gerrard, Anelka, Adebayor and Defoe all having off weeks with only Lampard and Arshavin giving any kind of production. The big points once again came from mid price or even budget players like Abou Diaby, Bobby Zamora and Damien Duff. It is becoming almost as important to get these budget picks as right as your premium players such is the gulf between the best and average budget picks. Having lost ground on other managers in the past few weeks am I firmly in differentiate mod...

Gameweek 18 Fixtures Portsmouth v Liverpool Aston Villa v Stoke City Blackburn v Tottenham Fulham v Man Utd Man City v Sunderland Arsenal v Hull City Wolves v Burnley Everton v Birmingham West Ham v Chelsea Wigan v Bolton Alot of us suffered a tough gameweek over the midweek games and will be looking to bounce back here. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool all face comparatively weak opposition and so there should be plenty of goals to go around. The premium players should be back in force with Drogba expected to be fit and Torres should surely get a start after his midweek goal. Fabregas appears likely to miss out but his injury is less serious than expected and he could figure next week. Clean Sheet Rankings (adjusted GPG in parentheses) Aston Villa (0.6) - HOLD Arsenal (0.8) - HOLD Man City (1.0) - BUY Man Utd (1.1) - BUY Wolves (1.3) - HOLD Blackburn (1.3) - HOLD/SELL Liverpool (1.4) - BUY Portsmouth (1.4) - SELL Wigan (1.4) - HOLD Birmingham (1.4) - BUY Chelsea (1.5) - BUY Everton (1....

Football365 summed up the weekend simply as ' wow '. Chelsea conceded 3 goals at home having conceded one in the previous seven fixtures, while United lost at home to Villa for the first time since 1983. The weekend served up 5 clean sheets (ranked 3rd, 8th, 12th, 17th and 20th in my weekly preview) including Wolves and Blackburn on the road who had conceded a combined 37 goals in 14 games on their travels to date. The randomness of the clean sheets was exacerbated by goals from players who were rightly benched based on their matchup leaving their managers frustrated with fantasy points sitting on the bench (offenders included Saha, Gary Cahill and Villa defenders). It was also one of the worst days for the premium players in a while with only Drogba and Anelka delivering more than 5 points of the 9m+ players in action on Saturday. This was improved somewhatby Fabregas, Arshavin and Kuyt who all had decent contributions on Sunday afternoon. It has been noted by a few readers th...

Portsmouth 2-0 Burnley Burnley's woeful away form continued, while Portsmouth continue to get better, especially at home. The game saw Boateng lose his penalty duties to Dindane who squandered the chance suggesting Boateng might be taking them again soon. Dindane did manage to hit the net later in the game though, along with Hreidersson to give Avram Grant the 3 points. The popular fantasy pick Jamie O'Hara picked up an assist while one of my favourites Boateng came away empty handed. The game confirms that Burnley at home is about as good as it gets for a fantasy team while travelling to Fratton Park is perhaps not an easy game these days. Arsenal 2-0 Stoke Many thought this would be a banana skin for un der fire Wenger but Arsenal bossed the game from the off, finishing with 59% of possession. The disappointment of the game was the penalty miss by Fabregas, who rebounded somewhat by adding an assist for Arshavin's opener. Fabregas looked threatening and should have had a ...

With Van Persie (6 weeks) joining fellow fantasy stud Lampard (3 weeks) on the sidelines, a large portion of fantasy owners will be looking to bring in one or two big name players this week. I have therefore ranked the 10m+ players at each position who will provide the best bang for your buck over the next 6 weeks: Cesc Fabregas - his fixtures aren't great but as with Ronaldo in previous years Fabregas is now a must own player and should probably be captained most weeks. He is the natural replacement for Frank Lampard and will even save you 1.1m as an added bonus. You can make this change with confidence and perhaps target the week 17 game against Portsmouth as a good time to bring Lampad back if you so wish. However, with 43% ownership I'm sure most of you already have Cesc, so lets look slightly down the ownership ladder for our next pick. Andrei Arshavin - Arshavin is the least held of the 10m midfielders and is well placed to prosper in the absence of van Persie. Befor...

The headline game this week if of course the clash of the titans at Old Trafford on Saturday evening and it is there that we start the preview for next week's games: Man Utd v Arsenal Arsene Wenger has been criticised for many things in his Arsenal career, one of which has been his side's inability to win the big games. However, a look at the stats though show that Arsenal have taken more points from United than any other team since Ferguson too over at Old Trafford. Before last week's 5-0 lashing of Wigan one might have fancied Wenger's men for this one too but with United get men back from fitness, its looking increasingly tough for the wiley French man. Vidic returned on Saturday to help United to their second clean sheet of the season, though first choice partner Ferdinand is still a couple of weeks away . Evra will continue at right back and has been a great choice so far this year, currently 5th among all defenders. His chalkboard from week 3 (right) looks more li...

My favourite new tool for evaluating player performance is the Guardian's new chalkboard function which allows you to monitor all the passes, shots, tackles and free kicks made by any player, in any game in the Premier League in the last 4 seasons (updated within hours of any games this season). This allows you to see how a player is performing when you can't see the game and whether he is getting goalscoring opportunities and is playing in the right part of the field. For example, if you are choosing between two centre backs and you can see that one had 2 headers per game in the opposition box and the other had six, then it is clear that the team is game planning to get the ball to that defender (like Laursen last year) and he is therefore more likely to score. Equally, if a midfield player (say, Jon Obi Mikel) plays 90% of his passes in and around the centre circle, he is unlikely to ever contribute more than performance points and clean sheets. Modric v Lennon Having only s...

With just one week to go until the big kick off, its time to run through the league, team-by-team, and assess who will play and who presents the best value. Today's post brings you the first 5 teams, with a further 5 to follow each day: Arsenal Projected team: Almunia, Clichy, Gallas, Vermaelen, Sagna, Diaby, Denilson, Fabregas, Walcott, Van Persie, Arshavin It seems that Wenger has turned to the 4-3-3 to try and improve Arsenal's fortunes with Walcott (8m) and Arshavin (11m) the favourites to play alongside Van Persie up front. I have previously stated my admiration for Arshavin , and nothing has happened in the off season to discourage this. I think he provides a striker's tally of goals (getting 5 points a time) and adds enough assists and bonus points to replace Ronaldo in the new holy trinity of fantasy football. Walcott has never really done it for me and I think he will be the first to be dropped if Wenger wants to give Bendtner or blog-favourite Carlos Vela a run o...