Want an Arsenal midfielder in your team but not sure who to pick? Here’s a few thoughts which may help you make a decision on whether to go with Sanchez, Ramsey or Ozil. We’ll look at each of the players analysing different aspects of their game and their prospects for the season.
Fantasy premier league players to pick – Sanchez, Ramsey or Ozil?
FPL Price and Ownership
Sanchez £10.5m (33.8%)
Ramsey £9.0m (20.8%)
Ozil £9.0m (9.9%)
At the moment Sanchez is the 2nd highest priced midfielder in the game behind YYT. He also the most owned player in fantasy premier league. This means that if he does get off to a cracking start then he will hurt your ranking. Conversly if he gets off to a bad start (especially in a relatively good fixture home to Palace) then he maybe sold in numbers for other options reducing his value.
Ramsey’s ownership is quite high but won’t have nearly the same effect. Ozil’s positive is that his low ownership will mean that any successful start will be handsomely rewarded ranking wise. Obviously thats at the risk of Sanchez starting well.
Fixtures
Here’s Arsenals first 6 fixtures:
Crystal Palace (H)
Everton (A)
Leicester (A)
Man City (H)
Aston Villa (A)
Spurs (H)
So not the easiest set of fixtures thats for sure. I’ve rated their fixtures as 13th in the fixture ease schedule.
Do you need to own any of them?
Certainly the fixtures could be easier which helps any “wait and see” decision. However only Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea scored more goals than Arsenal last season. It’s likely that they will be scoring more this season given the addition of Sanchez and the fitness of Walcott plus the likelihood of a new striker. On the reverse side though they have the potential to share goals around. If you followed my 10 top fpl managers articles you would have seen that all of them only had 1 maybe 2 players over £6.0m that were outside the top 4 challenging teams. So an Arsenal player should be in your thoughts as a possibility. If you believe in coverage of various teams then again Arsenal is one generally you would want to cover.
I will be following the coverage theory to start with and I will put an Arsenal attacking player in my team.
Strengths and position
Sanchez
A strong quick player with a great shot conversion rate and an ability to beat a player. Position is uncertain and will need preseason monitoring. However the consenus seems that he will start in Theo Walcott’s RWM position and when Walcott is fit move over to the LWM position. There has been some talk that he could play upfront either with or replacing Giroud. I would be surprised at the moment if thats the case.
Ozil
Should play behind Giroud in the 3 of 4-2-3-1 as the play maker in the side. A creative player who’s strength is creating chances and in particular through balls. Should benefit greatly from having Sanchez in the side and then Walcott back.
Ramsey
A box to box player that latterly became part of almost an attacking 5 for Arsenal as he got more and more forward thinking. Fantastic on the counter and able to find space against packed defences at home. Started fantastically last season. Then got injured and returned even stronger at the end of the season.
Stats
Sanchez
19 goals and 12 assists in 34 games at the rate of a goal/assist every 77 minutes. Thats a sensational stat and only Gerrard as a midfielder last year did the “double double” of goals and assists. La Liga is generally perceived as a less even league than the premier league and Barcelona tend to dominate lower placed teams. That does distort the stats.
Ramsey
10 goals and 9 assists in 23 games at the rate of a goal or assist every 93 minutes. With YYT was the outstanding midfield returner last season.
Ozil
5 goals and 10 assists in 26 games at a rate of a goal/assist every 142 minutes. Started strongly but faded late in the season.
Set pieces responsibility
This is likely to be of benefit only to Ozil. He will have some corner and indirect free kick responsibility to help with assists. Last season he was 2nd in line for pens after Arteta. Whether that is the case still after his Bayern miss remains to be seen. The best case scenario here is that Arsenal buy a proper CDM and sell Arteta putting Ozil at the top of the list for pens. There’s a lot of “ifs” in that but we’ll certainly monitor it.
World cup effect
Club games played
Sanchez played 54 games for Barca last season and 3412 minutes. Plus the last 16 of the World Cup
Ramsey played 34 games last season for Arsenal and 2718 minutes. No World Cup.
Ozil played 42 games for Arsenal last season and 3355 minutes. Started for Germany to the World Cup final.
Ramsey has a distinct advantage here. Not only did he play less minutes last season but he is now already in pre-season after being fully rested.
New player effect
If you read my article “were the new players successful” you’ll know that very few players last season were successful over the whole of the year. Very few started well either with only Ozil and Negredo getting good starts. That was in contrast to the previous season when Hazard and Michu got off to flyers. However Sanchez is a World Class talent and has strenghth, pace and power that is suited to the premier league. If anyone can change that then he can but there definitely is some risk. He may find the physical approach of Palace in GW1 a bit of a shock.
Rotation prospects
With The Ox, Cazorla, Podolski, Rosicky and Gnabry all able to play in the advanced midfield zone the prospects for rotation for Sanchez and Ozil in particular are strong. Probably less of an issue until the Champions league games come again in the latter part of the year. Ozil is the most likely to be effected given his long World Cup and fatigue issues last season.
Ramsey also does have players who can rotate for him in Wilshere, Flamini and the Ox. However given his positive effect on the team and a proper rest and preseason he seems the least likely to be rotated. Again though this may not be an issue to the Champions league later in the year.
Injury propensity
Sanchez
Has played 54, 46 and 41 games in the last 3 seasons so looks likely to be able to play multiple games. Will be used to a winter break though.
Ramsey
Had a reasonably long injury spell last year and is definitely prone to injury. However a proper pre-season and a rest over the summer should at least mean Wenger will not feel the need to proactively rotate him to protect him from injury early on in the season.
Ozil
Hard to see that after fatigue last season and a long World Cup that he wont be managed carefully. It’s just whether Wenger feels the need to do it straight away.
Benefits of changes to the team
Ozil is likely to be the main beneficiary to the Sanchez transfer. Sanchez’s pace will mean that defenders will not be able to push up and condense the midfield as they did last year when Walcott was injured. Ozil is the master of the through ball and he will find the additional target of Sancez invaluable.
Summary
- Sanchez the most expensive but with high ownership it’s a ranking risk not to own him if he is successful
- Fixtures could be better, may tempt some for a “wait and see” policy on the best player
- Sanchez outstanding La Liga stats, Ramseys also best mid with YYT last season
- Ozil will have some set pieces and maybe pens if Arteta leaves
- Ramsey has great benefit of no World Cup.
- Ozil the biggest rotation threat after WC and fatigue last season.
- New players last year struggled at start apart from Negredo and Ozil. Sanchez World Class though
- Ozil and Ramsey have injury history. Sanchez played min 41 games last 3 seasons
- Ozil will benefit from Sanchez pace for through balls and creative space
What will FFG do?
I will definitely have an Arsenal attacking player in my team. They are too strong attacking wise not to have coverage of some sort. In my first draft team I have Ramsey. Hard to look past him after last season and his finish plus rest just had. However Sanchez as the highest owned player scares me and I may change the team to avoid losing ground if he is succssful. Preseason will be interesting particularly with Sanchez’s position.
I hope that helped your thought process.
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Fantasy premier league players to pick
Fantasy premier league players to pick
