Here’s the fantasy premier league news shorts for Tuesday 22nd January 2013 including De Gea, Ballotelli, BAE, Coloccini, Walcott and price rises/falls
- De Gea. After being slated by Gary Neville on Sky Sports there’s much paper talk about De Gea being sold with Barcelona keeper Valdes as the replacement. I personally can’t see it with the transfer window closing in little over a week. I actually see De Gea as a reasonable option now that Vidic back seems to have given them some stability at the back. He’s only £5.5m and has played the last 8 and Utd have had 2 clean sheets in the last 4 plus. In addition, they have a reasonable schedule coming up. There’s also really no certainty in the line up apart from Evra who’s just far too expensive at over £7m. So I think he’s a reasonable buy option at the moment especially as SAF seems to have lost faith in Lindegaard.
- Ballotelli – Doesn’t look like he will be leaving in the transfer window which would have been the good news for Dzeko owners as he is a natural rotation target for easier games. Still Dzeko is worth the gamble to me after Tevez was substituted for Aguero on the weekend rather than Dzeko. Here’s Ballotelli’s agent‘City don’t want to sell Mario. At the minute there is a zero per cent chance of a move.
- BAE – Dismisses Naughton as ‘not a real left-back’. Good to see him mentoring the young players and helping them develop! To be honest though he made such a difference in the Man U game being left footed as opposed to Naughton who’s right that I expect him to continue. Its just then whether you hop on the Spurs CB rotation train. Dawson is worth the risk at £4.5m though for me.
- Coloccini – no resolution in the so called showdown talks with the Argentinian CB. With S Taylor fit cheapie Williamsons place will not be secure if Coloccini stays.
- Walcott – admitted new deal talks were distracting and affected his form. Well he returned in 3 out of his last 4 including a hat trick so maybe Arsenal should have stalled more. Lets see what a fully focused Walcott can do then. Arsenal have good fixtures and there’s no other attacking Arsenal option worth holding so he’s a BUY for me thats for sure.
- price rises and falls – here are the rises
 | Lukaku | WBA | 6.6 | 0.1 |
| Dzeko | MCI | 7.5 | 0.1 |
| Pogrebnyak | RDG | 4.4 | 0.1 |
| Walcott | ARS | 9.4 | 0.1 |
| Federici | RDG | 4.4 | 0.1 |
| Mignolet | SUN | 5.3 | 0.1 |
| Sagna | ARS | 5.2 | 0.1 | |
| Davies | SWA | 4.3 | 0.1 |
Federici and Mignolet are the surprising ones. There are far cheaper options in the defence than them and Mignolet is only slightly cheaper than Gibbs and De Gea who are both much better buys. Sagna is a little surprising given his poor performance on the weekend (Jenkinson must have skipped in to training!) although in the context of Arsenal he is cheap.
price falls are as follows (all £0.1m)
Steer NOR 3.9
Senderos FUL 4.7
Baird FUL 4.1
Riise FUL 5.3
Wilkinson STK 4.3
Figueroa WIG 4.3
Garrido NOR 4.7
Lallana SOU 5.6
Ireland AVL 5.0
Guilherme SOU 4.7
Arteta ARS 7.6
Gera WBA 4.9
Kightly STK 5.2
Granero QPR 5.2
Benteke AVL 6.5
Berbatov FUL 7.0
Hernandez MUN 6.9
Defoe TOT 8.2
Mirallas EVE 6.8
Surprising ones are Mirallas who’s just coming back to fitness, Defoe who will have a short term benefit with Adebayor at ACON and Benteke who I totally don’t understand.
