With game week 16 fast approaching in the knowledge that Sunderland and Reading have 2 extra games should fantasy premier league managers be suddenly loading up on their assets and is their a captain opportunity. These are all things ‘ll consider in this article.
Firstly lets look at the fixtures
Fixtures
Sunderland
Gameweek 13 West Brom (H)
Gameweek 14 QPR (H)
Gameweek 15 Norwich (A)
Gameweek 16 Chelsea (H)
Gameweek 16 Reading (H)
Gameweek 17 Man Utd (A)
Gameweek 18 Southampton (A)
Gameweek 19 Man City (H)
Gameweek 20 Tottenham (H)
Ive gone a little further on from game week 16 so fantasy premier league managers can see the implications of having assets afterwards.
Sunderland are top of my gameweek 13 and 14 next 6 matches fixture ease schedule and looking their you can see why. So fantasy premier league managers purchasing Sunderland assets now purely for fixture reasons is a good thing. its just a question of finding the right players
Its worth noting that the 4 games after are very difficult apart from Saints (A) so I would be only having 1 player, 2 maximum, and I would be tempted to have the 2nd as a rotatble low value defender
Lets isolate the game week 16 games
Chelsea H
Reading H
One tricky fixture and 1 good fixture. There’s at least 1 clean sheet in there and goals at least in the Reading game if not necessarily the Chelsea game, especially if Benitez trys and tighten Chelsea up. Is it good enough for a captain choice ? Potentially with the right player. Now lets look at Reading
Reading
Gameweek 13 Wigan (A)
Gameweek 14 Aston Villa (A)
Gameweek 15 Man Utd (H)
Gameweek 16 Southampton (A)
Gameweek 16 Sunderland (A)
Gameweek 17 Arsenal (H)
Gameweek 18 Man City (A)
Gameweek 19 Swansea (H)
Gameweek 20 West Ham (H)
Readings fixtures are pretty mixed and nothing to make them a compelling trasfer choice. Its really just cheap filler stuff
Again lets isolate the fixtures for game week 16
Southampton A
Sunderland A
Given Readings defensive form I cant see a clean sheet here and a risk of no goals in the 2nd game as Sunderland have a strong home defensive record. Putting defenders in to this game could easily end up with two 1 point returns.
So lets look at the player options
Players
Sunderland
There’s no Sunderland player in my shooting stats and theres only Cuellar in my “ones to watch” . Attacking players seem to involve only the following choices
Fletcher – £7.0m – 60 points -5th top points scoring striker – last 6 games 2 2 2 1 2 12
Laarson £6.1m – 33 points -41st top points scoring Mid – last 6 games 2 4 3 2 2 2
Johnson £6.8m – 32 points -43rd top points scoring Mid – last 6 games 2 2 3 2 8 9
Sessegnon £7.0m – 31 points -48th top points scoring Mid – last 6 games 2 2 1 2 2 7
So nothing really compelling there and if it wasnt for the win against a 10 man Fulham, who’s defence isnt great at the best of times, let alone after their defensive leader is sent off then it would look plain dire.
Ive often voiced my view that Fletcher just doent shoot enough for me plain and simple and the 5 goals in 5 games resulted from 5 shots and this just isnt sustainable and so it proved. Ive delved in to the stats to see if i can find someone comparable but fundamentally filling a gap in my team up front, even with their good fixtures, when Ive got players like RVP, Aguero, Tevez, Suarez, Ba and Giroud to choose from just for 2 games in one game week, one of which is Chelsea just doesnt fundamentally stack up.
Ive looked in to the stats to try and find a comparable player. He’s quite similar to Kone and Crouch but not as strong as say Lambert and no where near say Jelavic. Its just that his shooting accuracy is far ahead of everyone. In my mind its at an unsustainable level. Its way ahead of his own accuracy last year and its even better than RVP’s this year and lets face it he’s no RVP. So in my mind he’s overperforming. That doesnt mean I wouldnt have him in my side given a great set of fixtures and little alternatives its just now there are far better alternatives.
As far as the midfielders are concerened none are in the chances created or shot tables. Laarson and Johnson are totally assist based midfielders and are ok on the chances created front but nothing that compels me to select them even with good fixtures. Sessegnon shoots more but if you comapre him to say Michu there really is no comparison. However if I was forced to pick one I would go for Sessegnon.
The defence has merit its strong at home and should look for a clean sheet in the Reading game. I would go with Cuellar as he is the best value with certainty of selection. Bardsley has more historic attacking potential but has recent injury problems so I wouldnt take the risk
Overall I would have Cuellar and Fletcher is the only other player I would even consider
Reading
One of the worst defences and with a mixed run of fixtueres I wouldnt be looking to add any Reading player to my defence.
Its even trickier as far as attacking players are concerned as they are going through an uncertain selection period. McAnuff at £5.1m is the only certain selection but he just isnt creating chances and definitely has no goals scoring potential. The other midfielders who seem to play with some regularity of Tabb and Leigertwood have little attacking potentialalthough Leigertwood has the better all round stats if youre looking for a £4.5m filler.
Up front selection changes have made it impossible to pick anyone with Hunt, Roberts, Pogrebnyak and Le Fondre all getting spells. There’s no point at picking anyone at the moment until selection becomes clearer
In summary I wouldnt necessarilty sell any Reading player but I wouldnt buy any either at the moment.
Captain for GW16
Here’s where it becomes interesting. With Man City home to Man U and Everton home to Spurs only Arsenal home to WBA (Cazorla or Giroud) looks like a natural captain fixture which does potentially bring back in to play Fletcher.
Personally, Im not rushing in to anyone although I may pick Cuellar up. I’ll leave anythoughts on Fletcher closer to GW16
Hope that gives everyone some food for thought
