Here’s some early thoughts on fantasy premier league gameweek 10 and the FFGeek team. We look at gameweek 9, some issues facing the team, transfer thoughts and early captain thinking
FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE GAMEWEEK 10 – SOME EARLY THOUGHTS ON THE FFGEEK TEAM
GW9 PERFORMANCE
GW9 points: 62 (average ) 50 Overall Rank: 95k (green arrow 50k) Team Value: £101.8m
You have to start with Pep
So after seeing the Manchester City team sheet at 2pm Saturday UK time with no Jesus and no Sterling to end up with 62 points and a 50k overall rank rise I have to be happy. It could have been alot worse.
If you purely look at your Man City selections from a tactical point of view Jesus, Sterling and D Silva had become the popular Man City picks among the top 10k according to FPL discovery. While that is a fairly fluid population at the moment it does mean that owning Jesus and Sterling up to now meant that you tended to fail or move forward together with the active FPL managers. Therefore, them being left out isn’t the disaster you probably initially think it is. Silva maybe owned by more active managers but his reduced goal threat means he isn’t the double figure points threat that the other 2 are.
That’s obviously different in mini leagues where it’s more to do with a small number of teams you maybe chasing or leading so your actual score is more relevant if you see what I mean.
However Sane and Aguero are now high up in the transfer ins and Sterling and Jesus being transferred out does change that rank defensive positioning which isn’t helpful depending on how you’re looking at Man City.
Trying to predict Pep is a mugs game unfortunately. All things being equal I’d prefer Aguero to Jesus but I’m not keen on the idea of chasing the latest scorer each week from Man City based on my and everyone elses version of what they think Pep will do. Getting Aguero at some stage isn’t out of the question though. The tricky thing is that the lone striker system has had so much success and he only has 2 out and out strikers so why wouldn’t he continue to play that way? Especially when he has De Bruyne, D Silva, Bernardo, Sane, Sterling and even Yaya Toure as attacking midfielders.
I have 2 transfers and if I wanted to get Aguero I could but I would have to sacrifice Lukaku and another City player as I have 3 which I’m not keen on. At the moment I could upgrade Jesus to Aguero and downgrade Jones to a £4.3m defender. The prices will move against me over the week though I imagine and there’s no one who’s secure at the moment for £4.3m.
So something to dwell on but at the moment I’d be surprised if I get Aguero.
The rest of GW9 and the FFGeek team
7/11 players returning a goal, assist or clean sheet has to be a good week although if you want to be negative only 1 double figure haul is disappointing. I must admit I didn’t think my reluctance to transfer in Otamendi instead of Stones after playing at altitude in Ecuador over the International break would come back to haunt me so quickly.
Salah and Cedric were the positives. Salah continues to impress and continues to post consistently good underlying stats. Cedric has temporarily restored some faith in the Southampton defence with a clean sheet and good underlying numbers. I’m hoping that Van Dijk makes a tangible difference to the team.
Kane obviously was a positive as well but even though I never seriously considered him as a captain option as I thought Liverpool would be alot better his points weren’t surprising . The guy is quality and has continued to post good stats.
PLANS FOR GW10
I didn’t use a transfer in GW9 so I have 2 for this gameweek.
I generally don’t make early transfers unless I’m going to miss out on someone I really want if the rise prevents that move. With the EFL Cup this week I will most likely wait until the end of the week to make a transfer.
The one glaring issue is the injury to Jones. However as yet there’s no statement on how long he will be out. Following behind that is the Ben Davies saga. I’m assuming that he will be fit soon if he’s on the bench now. I can’t believe Aurier was a form based selection. Rose is obviously in competition but I’ll deal with that when I have to.
If it’s a straight swap for Jones I’m most likely to go for either 1 of the following Mertesacker (although too short term and risky probably), Moreno (don’t judge me after the Spurs game their home form is ok), Simpson or Femenia
So I can see myself only using 1 transfer. If Jones is actually ok then I’m not sure at this stage what I’ll do
The GW10 team lineup with no transfer
A tricky gameweek for the attacking players with only Salah having a game that you would describe as easy and so called easy home games can be anything but for Liverpool. City in their current form could roll over anyone but you are at the mercy of Pep’s team selection.
The tricky selection point is Ward or Davies/Jones assuming either is fit. I’m a little wary of Davies’s attacking threat and Mourinho can get a clean sheet against anyone. I could just set up like this and assume someone won’t play so Ward comes in by default.
Captain Plans
So unless I’m taking the view that I captain Kane every week then for me it will be Salah. I’d like to take a look at the polls etc and see if we can glean anything from Pep but putting a City player as captain is just being at Pep’s behest for even more than the 3 players you already have.
That’s it. The usual FFGeek team article will be at the end of the week unless I do something early in which case at worst it will be tweeted
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