Here’s our Telegraph Fantasy football tips article where 4 FFGeek contributors show their teams. All of them finished in the top 1000 and 2 within the top 500 last season.
Telegraph fantasy football tips – the FFGeek contributors show their teams GW5
Bryan O’Rourke
Bryan finished 37th in TFF last season and 7th in 17/18
Week points: 47 Overall rank: 27,552
A welcome back to domestic football. Last time around this team scored a measly 47 points and slipped to 27552 place overall. Zinchenko with his 13 points was the hero, apart from that not much else to write home about.
I have 3 injury concerns with Martial, Walker-Peters and Emerson. Of that bunch, Emerson looks least likely to play at the weekend but I have resolved to making no transfers this week, hoping that the layoffs are short term.
Of course there are players that I would like to bring in. Had TFF been a squad game I would certainly have De Bruyne, Pukki and Alexander Arnold. The current lineup is good on paper, once teams remember how to keep clean sheets I expect to see a climb up in the rankings. 38 transfers left. Good luck.
you can follow Bryan on twitter here for telegraph fantasy football tips
Sergio Torija
Sergio finished with an overall rank in the 300’s last season
Week points: 45 Overall rank: 23,576 Transfers remaining: 36
A not great last week with 45 points, in line with a slow start to the season. Also not great to have used 4 transfers already, with mixed success only mainly due to injuries to Martial, KWP and now Emerson, at least I drafted in KDB last week.
There is the option this week to remove Liverpool attackers to City ones for two extra games, however at this early stage of the season I’ll hold fire. So not planning any moves, unless KWP or Emerson were declared unfit for a long period of time.
Good luck this week Geekers!
Ben Humphrey
Ben finished with an overall rank of 576 last season
Week points: 59 Overall rank: 70,455 Transfers remaining: 38
Team review
Praise be to the fantasy God’s. Finally, my double Liverpool and Man City defence came good. I will be hoping that is a sign of things to come. Trent even got himself an accidental assist, and Zinchenko came home with 13 points.
I made a late transfer after the Southampton Man United game. After another no show from Che Adams, he had to go before we had a falling out. Knowing that I would want some extra cash in the bank for future moves, I welcomed Lanzini in to my team. He might not be an obvious choice, but he does cost just £2.8m, and is part of an impressive attacking unit at West Ham which are also blessed with good fixtures. Let’s see what he can do for me.
Sterling was overshadowed by Aguero, but hopefully it will be the turn of the Englishman next time. Another pair who like to take turns are Mane and Salah. Mane got a goal, and got the hump with his team mate, but I’m sure it’s all good in Klop village now.
My man Pepe got his season up and running with an assist, and there is plenty more to come. He is ripe for a fantasy explosion. You heard it here first.
Team thoughts
I have had many thoughts about my team over the international break, and this is where I am at the moment.
Jota has to go, and Emerson has to go. With the already mentioned fixtures, and security of starts, I am quite keen to bring in Haller. Also, a reduced to clear bargain has appeared in the Man City shop window, in the shape of Otamendi. He is surely nailed on now after Laporte’s injury, and is available at a very reasonable £3.7m. Call me mad, but that leaves me with a triple up on Man City in my back line. Considering they are the best defence in the league, I’m happy to have three of my fantasy eggs in that particular basket. However, to make this all happen, I need a further cash injection. This can be obtained by changing Robertson to Matip, £3.9m. I am sad to see Robertson go, and would keep him if the funds weren’t necessary to balance my team.
So I will be well and truly reliant on Liverpool and Man City for clean sheets, but to be honest, they are the only teams that look like keeping clean sheets anyway.
I will be shifting to a good old 4-4-2, with Pukki and Haller leading the line. I was also tempted by Barnes, but the creative, attacking talent at West Ham made up my mind.
This does mean I will have used five transfers already, which is way above what I would have been hoping for this early, but sometimes you just have to do something. Fingers crossed, I won’t need to use any further transfers for a while.
Good luck everyone.
You can follow Ben on twitter here
Here is a link to my podcast, “Oh My Pod, it’s fantasy football”.
Here’s Ben’s team
Stephen Troop
Stephen finished with an OR in the 900’s last season
GW4 Score – 49, overall score 192, overall rank 49k
Geek note this was written earlier in the week
So another below par week resulting in a very low overall rank of 49k. It’s also my 3rd team out of 4th in terms of overall points. I have only used 1 transfer, but that’s normal for most season long teams. I don’t think my team is in a terrible shape but a few key players have been punishing me.
In terms of GW4, double Liverpool defence finally paid off and Fraser finally got some attacking returns too (albeit just 1 assist). For me the first 4 weeks are about staying patient and waiting for some trends to emerge so I’m hoping to make some moves over the next few weeks to improve my rank.
Ultimately over the next few weeks I’d like more city attacking coverage and to replace Fraser who has been disappointing and has posted pretty poor underlying stats. I’m hoping for Trossard’s injury to be minor but if not he also will be a priority to replace. Kane I don’t want long term but over the next few I think his fixtures are too good to ignore.
There are a number of good options with great fixtures coming up so my plans are definitely pretty open as I have a lot of notes with good times to get players I want in. Sadly though I can’t have them all.
I will almost certainly be doing Salah>Aguero on Saturday after Liverpool have played for a 2-0 against Norwich and Watford. I will then get Salah back in GW6 vs Chelsea in the late Sunday kickoff but am undecided who will be taken out for this. I can’t see an easy way of also getting KDB in even though I want him (I had this issue when creating my initial team too). If Trossard is injured then I think Lanzini is the best option around the same price bracket but I will wait and see on press conferences and the starting line ups. I want to use as many of my transfers to rotate the premium options around getting extra fixtures and around good runs of fixtures/form.
Fraser plays Friday night in GW6 and early in GW7 for replacements I’m considering. Haller, Pukki, Mount and Barnes are under consideration although Barnes is sadly quite expensive in this game so is probably out of scope.
You can follow Stephen on twitter here
You can see the Geeks TFF teams with this link. If you play sun dream team you can see the FFGeek contributors teams posts in this as well
FFGeek league TFF league code
Telegraph fantasy football tips league: PIN 8000919 passcode 8693. The telegraph have offered £100 for the winner
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