Here’s my barclays fantasy premier league wildcard – well the imaginary one I would use if I could now for GW24. By the way I use a little artistic licence with my value. Its a way of giving a practical application to my “ones to watch” article
- Bunn
- £4.1
- Budget keeper who plays as a reserve in case of injury or rotation of primary keeper.
- Szczesny
- £5.3
- Good fixtures good defence despite what you’re told.
- Azpilicueta
- £5.7
- With Luiz injured Azpilicueta now looks the best value at £5.7m and seems to hold favour with Benitez give his recent consistent selection.
- Demel
- £4.0
- Budget filler in a defence that an get clean sheets at times. Had a dire game against Arsenal so may lose his place when Collins back to Tomkins unless improves
- Harte
- £3.8
- Budget filler with set piece potential. An old slow Baines without the selection guarantee but half the price.
- Zabaleta
- £5.9
- With Maicon and Richards injured and neither with a return date on Physio room, Zabaleta looks to have the RB position sewn up. Definitely the best defence in the league and apart from the certainty of Kompany at £7.1m this is the best option. Has experienced a strong upturn in attacking returns this year as well. Nastastic and Clichy at £5.6m also look an option at a slightly cheaper price but you need to accept more rotation with thes
- Wilson
- £4.0
- Budget filler who will be a great bargain when fit.
- Puncheon
- £4.9
- still the best cheap midfielder even with Southampton having poor fixtures. 4th in the last 6 shooting stats and 6th overall
- Michu
- £8.1
- 2nd in the overall shooting stats and 2nd in the last 6. Playing as a striker a reasonable amount of the time or just off the striker and seems to be a clinical finisher. Fixtures are only ok, 10th in the fixture ease schedule and although apart from a couple of exceptions returns better with the easier teams its still a buy for me.
- Walcott
- £9.1
- Even with Giroud looking back as striker Walcott almost looked like he was a second striker in the West Ham game and certainly on form and fixtures its still a definite buy in my mind. Will need monitoring to see how Giroud affects his position but at the moment looks nailed on. Top of the last 6 shooting stats and 5th overall.
- Mata
- £9.9
- Has just creeped in to 7th in the last 6 but is one of the few players who also is in the creating chances overall table. Returned in his last 8 starts apart from the saints game and if you ignore the jaded first 3 games to the season has returned in every game he’s started apart from the City and Southampton games. RVP type consistency. Fixtures are ranked 12 of all the teams in terms of fixture ease
- Fellaini
- £7.5
- An assist and a 5 point bonus since his return from suspension but quiet on the stat front despite playing Newcastle, Swansea and Southampton. Spent the 2nd half of the Southampton game in CM which was very worrying. However, he is top of the shooting stats for the season despite playing far less games than anyone but isn’t as lethal as Michu in 2nd. With Everton having some of the best fixtures of everyone (WBA home this week) he’s worth keeping the faith for those days when he’s unplayable but he definitely needs monitoring as the last 3 games stats are worrying.
- Van Persie
- £13.5
- RVP looks like he should be locked in to everyone’s team. 3rd in the overall and 5th in the last 6 shooting stats. Fixtures are strong. Has returned in 19/21 starts.
- Ba
- £8.7
- Looks like he will be significantly rotated given Benitez’s talk about being “managed” but to me the next few fixtures make it difficult not to have him. As expected Torres played against Brentford which will mean Ba starting away to Reading which despite some improvement has goals for Ba written all over it. For that reason its still i would buy him even as a short term fix but to be honest I see Mata as the Chelsea coverage of choice when there’s no reason to hold.
- Suarez
- £10.5
- The Norwich home game was much more positive for Suarez and he also looked more like a 2nd striker although Sturridge definitely occupied the central zone and got the tap in that Suarez should have got if he was the lone striker. I said I wouldn’t buy at the moment with the position issues and terrible fixtures and wouldn’t sell just yet but the Oldham FA cup game showed him constantly swapping the most furtherest role with Sturridge and has convinced me otherwise.
- Here’s the link to my barclays fantasy premier league “ones to watch article (sorry copy and paste in to browser)
- http://www.fantasyfootballgeek.co.uk/barclays-fantasy-premier-league-ones-to-watch-game-week-24/
