Here’s my fantasy premier league team selection GW34 article. As is normal, I review GW33+, share my transfer thoughts, captain choice and the lineup dilemmas.
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Introduction
Firstly if you’re new to the site my last 3 seasons overall ranks are 36k, 17k and 21k.
GW33+ review
GW33+ points: 63 (FPL average 50) Total points 2,029 Gameweek rank 1,635k, Overall Rank: 13k, red arrow 1k, Team Value: £103.1m
Here’s the points:
So a bit of a disappointing gameweek although it’s hard to complain too much about a 1k rank drop to 13k overall. A gameweek rank of 1.65 million isn’t a disaster.
Luckily I did the transfer of Son to Martial which would have really been a problem if I didn’t.
Fernandes was also a big point earner. Readers will know I’m sceptical about Fernandes and his over performance of his underlying stats. However, as he is defined as template by my method then I bought him anyway as Football is unpredictable and I’d be the first to admit that I don’t know everything. Sometimes you need to hedge yourself against dangerous players not to own rather than get into a game of FPL chicken with a template replacement player.
Other than that it wasn’t particularly exciting although Soyuncu with 15 points in his last 2 starts for my FPL team has been a nice little surprise.
The joy of rotating keepers again got me with Martinez outscoring Pope after the reverse I also missed last week. I can’t complain this week though as there was no way Pope home to Sheffield was going to be benched for Martinez at Wolves.
Salah failed as a captain. The polls were weird last week with The FFGeek one favouring Salah and the others Fernandes. I don’t like changing at the last minute which is when this became obvious so it was never going to happen unfortunately.
Transfer thoughts
2 free transfers and £1.5m in the Bank.
Wow actually some cash. I feel like those weekend millionaires that my son felt a part of when he got his first job. Although it is a Tuesday so not really accurate.
I have flirted with a Free Hit but in the end decided not to do it. I’ll show the team I came up with later. I’m focused more on GW36 at the moment although knowing my procrastination when it has a way of postponing a decision to next week I can see it being a GW38 Free Hit.
I did think about Maguire and Nketiah out for a defender and Greenwood but I think I’ll stick to the 2 attackers and 1 defender despite the obvious attraction of Greenwood. A triple attack is just too much for me even if Greenwood is such good value.
I did think about replacing Calvert Lewin but I’m not wild on the alternatives even with the additional cash. Chelsea maybe but the Giroud/ Abraham job share isn’t great.
I then focused on a change to Holgate who is an injury doubt and doesn’t have decent fixtures until GW36 or Soyuncu who doesn’t have much in the way of good fixtures left. I have looked at Azpilicueta of Chelsea and Aurier of Spurs. Chelsea seem to be good against the better teams defensively but have the ability to put up truly awful numbers against the poorer sides which is what really spooked me. The West Ham loss being a good example. Also Azpilicueta must surely be ready for a rest with Reece James being a ready made replacement.
Spurs can just be truly awful at any moment but Aurier can attack and they don’t have many options at RB.
In the end I went for Aurier for Holgate rather than just waste the transfer. As I’m in NZ at the moment I’ll have to make the transfer now to avoid getting up just before the deadline which is 4am here
Lineup thoughts
It felt like the main thing the transfer did was come up with a benching headache and in the end I decided to bench Calvert Lewin.
Captain choice
You may have seen my captain analysis article. I’ve gone for De Bruyne with Fernandes vice
The Free Hit option
I did really think about this and came very close. But I just couldn’t push the button. As I said above my old adage of never do something now if you can put it off came to the fore.
Here’s the Free Hit team I came up with if you’re interested.
The actual team lineup
Here’s how it looks:
Good luck everyone
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