PLFantasy

Whether you're lucky enough to still have your original wildcard stashed away in your back pocket or not, as we approach the second wildcard window, it's worthwhile putting together a transfer plan to best exploit the fixtures on offer. We have at least four transfers before then (GW16-19) followed by the important period right after we play the wildcard, so with that in mind, let's try and identify a few fixture streaks during which we might want to target specific players. For simplicity I've only looked at streaks of four gameweeks here. In reality we might want to dig deeper into streaks where you like three out of four games, or four out of six, but this is the starting point, for better or worse. Double gameweeks will also likely cause chaos at some point too, but without knowing where or when they'll strike, their impact is ignored for now. The below table shows the expected goal total over the four highlighted games above or (below) the team average. So...

Yesterday I gave a couple of big name players who have received negative attention during the opening couple of weeks, but who I feel have a good chance to rebound almost immediately. I intended for the list to be much longer but quickly ran out of names. The same problem does not occur here. Below are some players who I have lost, or never had, faith in and who, for me at least, should be considered for sale now. The priority with which you make the moves will depend on how many other issues you have (ie sell your injured/benched players before someone who is occupying an overly defensive position) but in all cases I believe the below list of players to be held by too many managers: Juan Mata - There is obviously a huge difference between scouting players for fantasy purposes and for real life. I'll often give a snap opinion about a player on Twitter after just a couple of games (as anyone who has seen my swooning for Hazard will attest) but would not dream of suggesting that...

I could open here with an inspirational quote about experience simply being the name we give our mistakes, or that the Chinese symbol for crisis incorporates the brush stroke symbolizing opportunity. However, I'm neither (a) smart enough or (b) in a perky enough mood to do so. The deployment of my wildcard in gameweek 3 is not me seizing an opportunity, it is full blown damage limitation in what has been a disaster of a season to date. I normally scribe a few random thoughts on wildcard usage as we approach the double digit gameweeks but seeing as I'm going through the thought process as we speak, I may as well add my rambling thoughts to the pages of the interweb for all to see (and based on the success of my preseason selection, ignore). Scouting your own team: who to dump and who to keep The exciting part of playing your wildcard is deciding who you want to bring in. Most likely you will have a couple of names in mind because they've impressed to date, have great f...

With the new rankings tables doing a lot of the legwork, and with no games this weekend, I've got some extra time for a post, and with no ideas immediately springing to mind, I thought I should use the time to catch up on some reader questions. As it's wildcard season I am just looking at team reviews here (whether wildcard or not) which will hopefully allow me to cover off all the players I like/don't like for the remainder of the year. Wildcard Reader:  Ramzy Proposed team : Mignolet, Vorm : BAE, Richards, Simpson, Evans, Kelly : Silva, Valencia, Dempsey, Sessegnon, Bale : Aguero, RVP, Helguson I love the entire defence and I'm not sure I'd do anything different. If I did I'd say that I'm not crazy about the Newcastle defence for the short term, so I might look at Brown or N Taylor for the next few weeks. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's important to consider what your next couple of transfers will be and given the rest of your team lo...

I played my wildcard this week and a few readers on Twitter asked where I finally landed. Here's the new team and the rough thought process behind each player. Goalkeepers Vorm kept his place and is almost undroppable at this point as (a) he's awesome and is one of the best value players in the game and (b) it'll cost me 0.6m to get him back if I sell him. Barring injury he's on board until at least GW36 (his last two game are tough so if I'm desperate for GK health I could ditch him). I almost went with Lindegaard, and may well land there long term but decided that at least in the short term, Mignolet was the better pick. Even after this week's clean sheet, Sunderland still get Nor (H), Sto (A) and WB(A) in the next four weeks so Mignolet should prove to be a nice mid-term option. Defence I stuck with Jose Enrique, Richards and Assou Ekotto  as I couldn't find too many premium options to warrant the loss of money I'd suffer ditching any of ...

As we approach the time of the year when managers are increasingly interested in playing their wildcard, it's time to start thinking about some of the key principles and themes to bear in mind when making those all important transfers. In Part I we looked at the importance of looking forward and not dwelling on the past successes of players to date. We now turn our attention to the importance of building a squad, rather than a team, and how this can make the difference between average and bad or great and good weeks. By my count, only six players managed to play every game last year, four of which were goalkeepers (Baines and Skrtel were the other two). As the chart below shows, the majority of 'keepers played a lot of minutes but the other positions (particularly midfielders and forwards) were less predictable. Just 29% of forwards played in 26 games or more and only 49% even managed to appear in half of their teams' games. So what does this mean? Well, in shor...

It's getting to that time of year when fantasy squads start to develop too many common threads and managers begin to longingly look at that 'play wildcard' option when making transfers. With the second wildcard window looming in GW20-23, realistically the two strategies are to: play your first wildcard now, re-load in GW23 and hope to survive the remainder of the year with that team, or hold off until GW20, maximise your squad for the busy Christmas period (possibly taking advantage of the inevitable DGWs) and then switch out to a new team in or around GW30 for the final stretch. There are advantages to both strategies and in all honesty, the fact you have made it this long without using your wildcard puts you ahead of many other managers (even if you have used your first wildcard, you might still pick up a few things to thing about below, so keep reading!)  The choice of when to use your wildcard is going to greatly depend on the idiosyncrasies of yo...

I have touched on the double gameweeks earlier but I think we need more analysis if we are to fully enjoy the fruits of them when playing the transfer window wildcard. Let's look at every team who has one or more double gameweeks coming up, who looks set to benefit and how you can maximise the opportunity: Arsenal Who they play and when : GW27 - Wolves and Stoke Who are the best plays : Arsenal look like a very good play both defensively and offensively. The Wolves fixture alone would likely rank Arsenal as the top defensive pick of the week and the addition of another sub-1 GPG team makes them a great play. They've only kept 3 clean sheets at home so I'm not crazy about paying the big bucks for a Thomas Vermaelen (if fit by then) but I would rate Fabianski as a very good pick and Djorou as sensational value if still in the first team. As we know, Arsenal are always a good option to score goals and my prediction tools have them scoring 4.7 goals in the two fixtures. I ...

As we approach the final third of the season, a few issues stand out that should play a major part when settling on your final wildcard lineup: Where will Arsenal's goals come from? Whatever the doomsday merchants say , Arsenal are an elite scoring team, currently ranked second in goals scored (39) and have a league leading 20 goals away from home. From a fantasy point of view though it's hard to know where a steady flow of fantasy points is going to come. I received criticism for suggesting Nasri might not be the answer to all our woes and while his minutes have been solid (he was dropped against Wigan) in the last 5 games he's added just 15 points to his total. Five players have four or more goals for Arsenal, and that doesn't even include van Persie or Fabregas. It seems that Chamakh is the odd man out in the front five, having been dropped for three of the last four games. Arshavin also seems to be out of favour and behind Walcott on the depth chart. With van P...

If my fantasy team was a TV show then Bear Grylls would be waist deep in freezing cold water while being chased by a hungry, pissed off bear. The season was going relatively well but starting to sputter so I did what any fantasy obsessive would do - blow up the team and replace them with too many spot starters (O'Shea), players on the decline (Berbatov) and injured stars (Fabregas). Four of my five best weeks came in GW1 -5 and I haven't topped 50 points since GW10. My points per week are on the decline and my overall position in the game is taking a beating. However, all is not lost. My team is fit (outside of Fabregas who has been sold) and I'm hopeful for the weeks ahead. My plan is to survive until I can play my second wildcard, and then reload for a push for the final third of the season. We have 9 gameweeks until the wildcard window opens so let's take a quick look at who looks to be valuable between now and then (for those not looking to use their wildcard the...

I'm not sure there are many things in the fantasy world I enjoy more than tinkering with my team and seeing what I can get by using my wildcard. In previous years I have been forced to use my wildcard early but this year my team is still fairly strong so I could delay if I want to. However, there are pros and cons to holding onto your wildcard: Pros You can use the wildcard at a later date to take advantage of double gameweeks or if your team falls prey to numerous injuries. You can play your wildcard towards the end of the season when fantasy teams tend to get stale but real teams can hit runs of good form. We are still not totally sure which teams and players are for real and so using your wildcard now might result in you bringing in a load of in-form but ultimately overpriced lemons. With the other wildcard in your back pocket, you can select a team now based purely on the next 15 gameweeks and then redo your team again during the transfer window. Cons If you fall too fa...

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...