Here’s an update to the FFGeek team plus some words on the fantasy premier league team selection thought process going through my head at the moment. Hopefully this will help your thought process
fantasy premier league team selection – another draft team and thoughts so far
So not many changes to my team but loads of dilemmas and things going on. Only 3 transfers made and at the moment just around the fringes:
Hojberg £4.5m Southampton mid out – Fletcher £4.5m WBA mid in
Lenihan £4.0m Hull def out – Cathcart £4.5m Watford def in
Heaton £4.5m GK out – Jakupovic £4.0m Hull GK in
Here’s the team:
The transfers
The Hojberg out transfer was just due to pre-season making me nervous that he won’t be in the starting lineup so I’ve gone for a bit more security in Fletcher of WBA. He also has good fixtures so would work well if landed in the team
I thought when Odubajo got injured then Lenihan would get the nod but it doesn’t seem to be happening. Add to that the loss of Bruce and other injuries and he didn’t look like a good option. I made some cash with the Heaton transfer out so used it to buy Cathcart. Watford have terrible fixtures and I could swap it to Fernandez of Swansea or Souare of Palace if I think they will start. They both have better fixtures. However I have reasonable faith in Watfords defence when called upon and the 3 teams rotate reasonably well.
Heaton out Jakupovic in was really to raise a bit of cash but with WBA getting more clean sheets away than home and Foster a good shot stopper I just didn’t want to go through the whole choice every week and points on the bench. I may put in either Gabriel of Arsenal or Lovren of Liverpool and go for 3 certain defenders. They’re both £5.0m and I could make it by speculating on a £4.0m defender. Brad Smith of Bournemouth has to be in with a shout Charlie Daniels or not at the moment.
The team
It should be noted that I haven’t considered players that played in the later stages of the Euro’s as they ahve been late back after time off and could be doubts for GW1. That includes Payet, Koscielny, Giroud, Ramsey and Ozil.
The team is divided up into 3 areas
- The Core
These are the more fixture proof players who will be your captain choices and not be as sensitive to fixtures. At the moment these are:
Mkhitaryan, Eriksen, Aguero, Ibrahimovic in Attack. Shaw, Otamendi and Foster in defence.
Ideally I would like to have more of a team spread with the core attacking players. Aguero is a no brainer. Ibrahimovic I’m not so sure about given his age and his poor Euro’s but given his ownership and him likely to be a captain favourite I feel like it’s less risky to have him and then ditch him rather than not have him and see him score as a captain against Bournemouth and Hull, greatly affect my early ranking.
Spurs have good fixtures to start and with Eriksen having a good rest and preseason plus good set piece representation then I’m banking on him producing.
That leaves Mkhitaryan. I don’t really want 2 United players and this is made worse by them both being new to the league. However, they do have good fixtures. Mkhitaryan I’m finding hard to let go of. 23 goals and 32 assists plus Bundesliga player of the year is just hard to ignore. Plus no Euro’s so well rested with a good pre-season.
That means no Leicester, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal player. Personally I’d like a core of 5 players from this group all with different teams but having Aguero and Ibrahimovic makes that impossible. The mitigation though is that with the money coming into the league and the evening out this generates the likes of Payet maybe more repeatable.
I’ve gone for Man Utd and City in defence but value maybe crucial here and changes may come as I said above. Stones to City would be great as I just can’t see Mangala as a Guardiola CB.
2. The fixture based players
Swansea have great first 2 fixtures in the first 3 as do Palace over the first 6. Sigurdsson is a proven FPL player with goals and assists and set pieces in his locker. Llorente joining would be a big boost. The worry with Siggy is the lack of preseason after the Euros.
Puncheon has good set piece representation and likes to shoot and could be in that CAM position. I’d probably prefer Townsend but don’t have the cash.
The anomaly in this is Charlie Austin as the fixtures aren’t great. He’s still a bit of a placeholder as I want to be sure he starts. 18 goals in the premier league with QPR 2 seasons ago says alot. I possibly could go for Gray of Burnley as an alternative who’s had a good preseason but I don’t want 3 of my front 7 and 2 of my strikers being new to the league. Here’s our article on fixtures (copy and paste into browser if link doesn’t work)
fantasy premier league best fixtures – fixture ease schedule GW1
3. The rotation defence
I talked about that up above so won’t go over it again. The 3 teams rotate reasonably well but I could switch Cathcart as I said above.
That’s it hope you found it useful
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