Here’s some early thoughts on fantasy premier league gameweek 9 and the FFGeek team. We look at gameweek 8, some issues facing the team, transfer thoughts and early captain thinking
FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE GAMEWEEK 9 – SOME EARLY THOUGHTS ON THE FFGEEK TEAM
GW8 WILDCARD PERFORMANCE
GW8 points: 51 (average 41) Overall Rank: 145k (green arrow 39k) Team Value: £101.7m
Brief overview
So overall I ended up glad I used the wildcard which wasn’t really the case in my FFGeek team article at 11am going into the gameweek. Without it I wouldn’t have had Sterling or Jones so that’s 22 points so it could have been worse.
A 39k green arrow isn’t as much as you’d probably want for a wildcard and 3 players returning a goal or assist out of 11 certainly isn’t but the situation would have been so much worse if I hadn’t of wildcarded. That’s the long and short of it. Would I have made that up if I did it later on, who knows?
One thing is certain, at least for the moment, I made the right choice between Jesus and Hazard.
What do I regret?
I probably regret 3 things:
Cedric – my head says that the Southampton defence isn’t what it’s cracked up to be but I made an 11am decision on Saturday to spend the money I had in the bank and at the time that seemed to be the right decision. I may have let the fixtures blind me. It was bad planning on my part as I should have planned for that scenario as I knew I had the money to get Silva if I chose that.
Sticking with 1 playing GK – I remembered from my e book that analysis showed that 2 rotating GKs were better than 1 and in hindsight I should have spent the £0.5m on another GK
Ward – I think I’ve been blinded by the clean sheets to what the Burnley defence really is. A team with really poor defensive xG.
Again it’s easy to say this after 1 match and just focus on perceived negatives. Btw I don’t regret the captain choice there was no way I was doing anything else.
What 50/50’s did I luckily choose right?
Again hard to judge on 1 match but:
Sterling instead of Silva – my pick could have gone either way. For the moment I’m 8 points better off
Jesus instead of Hazard – thankfully I listened to the stats and not the emotional pick
50/50’s are so difficult and I say luck not judgement because so many times there’s a very fine line between what transfer you make.
Plans for GW9
So this week is a European fixtures week so I wont be doing anything until the end of the week. Not that I would make an early transfer anyway. It’s also a Friday night UK gameweek deadline which is a complete pain in terms of getting articles done in time.
Here’s how the team looks without a transfer:
Looks ok I think. Only Salah and Davies have a tough fixture although you could argue that Spurs present a better fixture for Liverpool as they will at least try and win the game. Davies for all his good points doesn’t have the pace of say Walker and Rose. I remember a game vs Liverpool when Mane absolutely killed him and I was surprised Davies ever played again it was so bad. Salah doesn’t seem quite as quick but he’s no slouch.
The problem with having 3 City players is that your team performance is at the mercy of Pep’s team selection every week which is where you don’t want to be. However in their current form you’re damned if you don’t have 3 and shaking at the sight of the team sheet every week if you do.
So no matter what happens selection wise with City in midweek I won’t be taking hits to get Aguero in. I’ll just ride it out and see what it looks like after the week. At least I’m saying that with conviction at the moment. I was so impressed with Jesus against Stoke. The guy can finish. It surprises me on the limited data we have for him that he’s pretty much bang on his xG. He looks so deadly I thought he would be outperforming. Don’t get me wrong I think Aguero is the better FPL pick it’s just I’m not set up for an immediate flip to Aguero. I tried to set that up but it wasn’t easy.
Given Jesus’s form I’m also going to find it hard to flip to Morata which was also a possibility for this week.
Captain plans
Unfortunately the whole Pep selection thing means it’s difficult to put Jesus as captain and I’m a little wary of Kane this week even though Liverpool shouldn’t park the bus like other teams. Lukaku seems the safer choice this week but I’m willing to see how the week plays out on the polls etc.
I think this is the one game that those FPL managers who transferred out Lukaku will be scared stiff of. His ownership is 58% and if he’s captained by most of those managers then the rank downside will be huge if he is successful. Whenever I say this though it has to be balanced out by the fact that if you don’t have him and your alternate captain scores well and Lukaku fails then your rank benefit will also be huge. It just depends on your view of risk and to use Troy Deeneys words how big a “cojones” you have.
That’s it then. I hope you had a good gameweek and if you wildcarded it, you’re glad you did it
Play a new kind of fantasy football
Follow us on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news
Geek Leagues
Fantasy Premier League: 5379-1967
Sun: FantasyFootballGeek SGDKX9Y3
TFF: FantasyFootballGeek PIN 8000919 Passcode 1159
Sky: FFGeek 8310511
UCL: 18664FKG
TFF UCL: FantasyFootballGeek PIN 8137738 Passcode 1210
