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Everton won this battle of Merseyside sending Liverpool spiraling further out of control. For Everton, goals to Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta as well as a clean sheet made it a day remember for those fantasy football players who selected them. As we mentioned on Friday, the duo of Cahill and Arteta always provide good value and yesterday’s game was no different. They were in everything.
As was Carlos Tevez who bagged another two goals. He is now the leading South American scorer in the Premier League. He overtook Gus Poyet for this record. He is also now the leading scorer for the season with seven.
Chelsea – Aston Villa didn’t result in a single goal which wasn’t much of a surprise as Chelsea don’t have the best record at Villa Park. For one of the few times this season, you would have received superior fantasy football value from the Chelsea defenders than the guys up front.
Manchester United scored three times on Saturday, except one of them was an own goal to Patrice Evra. Nothing stings like an own goal especially if its the goal that ruins the clean sheet.
There is still a match to go tonight to complete the weekend’s round. That is Blackburn vs Sunderland with Blackburn playing host to the Black Cats. When it comes to Sunderland, Darren Bent is the guy to look for. He is the classic example of someone who stands out in a smaller team as opposed to go to a bigger side and being one of many options in attack. Sunderland has scored seven goals this year of which he has scored five!! So if Sunderland are to score, chances are that he is going to be the one doing it.
Liverpool has hogged all of the headlines but for off-field reasons and it will be interesting to see given all that has transpired what happens on the pitch. The side is in 18th spot and how crazy is it that after the week the club has had, it heads straight into a Merseyside Derby. With Everton just ahead of the on goal difference, both sides desperately need the three points and given the stakes, it would be harder to imagine a bigger Merseyside Derby. And this is before all the drama which is going to happen today!
This has all of the ingredients of the most incredible match. Liverpool have a good record at Goodison Park with eight wins from their last 10 including the last three. In terms of the sides, Everton look likely to be missing Phil Jagielka who didn’t play in the midweek international while Fernando Torres is doubtful for Liverpool. If he does play, how close to 100% will he be? Liverpool could also be without the services of Paul Konchesky, Daniel Agger and Fabio Aurelio.
If you are looking at Everton players for your fantasy football side the duo of Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta always provide good value. For Liverpool it is difficult to go past Steven Gerrard.
After this game, none of the other matches seem to stand out. Chelsea and Aston Villa normally put on a good show. Chelsea are just irresistible at the moment. They have only allowed two goals and both of those were away at home which is what Chelsea are this week. Chelsea don’t have the best recent record at Villa Park with only one win there from their last 11 games so don’t expect it to be the typical Chelsea goalfest.
Frank Lampard and John Terry could both play despite missing the England game while the trio of Yossi Benayoun, Alex and Salomon Kalou are out. For Aston Villa, note that the tricky Gabriel Agbonlahor won’t be available but in his place, the adept John Carew could be worth a look.
Back to Liverpool and it has been a tough time for their fans. They will be hoping that Sunday’s game can generate something along these lines.
No doubt there will be fantasy football at Euro 2012 so it is interesting now to see how qualifying for the tournament is shaping up. It’s still in the very early stages with a whole year left until the qualifiers conclude. Most teams have played two games but some have only played one.
In Group A, Turkey and Germany are the front-runners. Obviously you would expect Germany to top the group and to do so quite easily. Turkey are a good side but they simply aren’t in Germany’s class.
In Group B, Ireland have come out of the blocks well with two wins from as many games and Slovakia has also done that.
In Group C, Italy looks to be in total control and Serbia will try to make up for their poor World Cup with second place.
With France floundering in Group D it is totally up for grabs. Someone like Belarus or Bosnia and Herzegovina could qualify.
You would expect the Dutch to top Group E although Sweden will make it tight.
Group F should come down to Greece and Croatia.
England are the runaway leaders of Group G while Norway are doing something similar in Group H. Finally in Group I, Spain should top the group.
In terms of the goalscorers it is still too early to tell who is in good form. Jermain Defoe has scored three times but that was a hat-trick against an ordinary Bulgaria.
Another international break means no fantasy football this weekend. This gives the injured players the chance to rest and return when the games are next back on. Despite this, it doesn’t look like Fernando Torres will be back in time for the Merseyside Derby.
There are some interesting matches on.
Iran is playing Brazil in a game in Abu Dhabi. Brazil are still licking their wounds after their elimination from the World Cup to the Netherlands. They haven’t won the World Cup since 2002 and the pressure will be on for them to break the drought when they host the tournament in 2014.
Germany meets Turkey in a Euro 2012 qualifier. Turkey are now managed by Guus Hiddink who knows the Germans well. He was in charge of Russia who missed out on qualifying for the World Cup after being in the same group as Germany. Also there are footballers such as Mesut Ozil who is of Turkish heritage.
Portugal plays Denmark and its time for Portugal to get their act together otherwise it will be too late. Paulo Bento is the new manager and he has his work cut out for him getting them to qualify.
Paraguay is going all the way to Australia to play a friendly. Both are decent sides so this should be a fair match. There are a number of Premier League players in both sides so this will be an interesting match to watch from that perspective although it is unlikely that Tim Cahill will fly all the way for it. Mark Schwarzer wouldn’t have the qualms about it. Fulham isn’t exactly the most pressing thing on his mind at the moment.
How are you feeling after the latest round of fantasy football? As euphoric as David Moyes’ after Everton’s first win of the season or as low as Roy Hodgson after another loss leaves Liverpool in the bottom three?
As fired up as Roberto Mancini with a win that took them to second or as despondent as Arsene Wenger after their loss to Chelsea?
This week was an interesting week. There were goals to Didier Drogba, Carlos Tevez and Tim Cahill. Rafael van der Vaart scored twice for Tottenham and he looks to be a quality signing for Spurs. Likewise, he would be a great selection for your fantasy football side. With three goals, he is their leading scorer in the league.
With an away win and a clean sheet, it was a great weekend for those who selected Everton players. Not so much for Liverpool players especially Fernando Torres who limped off with an injury of sorts.
Manchester United had a frustrating 0-0 trip to Sunderland. The same kind of tenacity that Steve Bruce had as a player, he now has as a manager.
International games means there is a week off until the next round of matches. Already the standout looks to be the Merseyside Derby which will be taking place on Sunday at Goodison Park. With both of these sides on six points and in the bottom four of the ladder, a loss to either couldn’t come at a worse time. For Roy Hodgson, he could be facing the sack should they lose to their blue rivals. That’s how high the stakes are.
Stakes are always high in fantasy football but as a manager, that is something you don’t have to put up with.
Reports have emerged today that Manchester City have losses of £121 million. This is what it would be like to play fantasy football in real life – simply buy any player you want. Even in fantasy football there are rules. Last year Manchester City bet the house on making the top four – they missed out by the narrowest of margins and that would have been one of the most expensive failures in the history of sport.
Still they are continuing on from where they left off last year with big signings and are currently in fourth spot. They are home to Newcastle this week in a game they would be hopeful of winning. They have a massive squad but they need it because of injuries. Pablo Zabaleta tweaked his hamstring in the game against Juventus; Jerome Boateng looks to be over his knee injury but would need to be given some game time. It would be a risk to throw him straight into the fray. Then you have Mario Balotelli, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Wayne Bridge and Micah Richards all suffering from various ailments.
For City, it will feel like deja vu, given the similarity in tops between Juventus and Newcastle. Carlos Tevez is leading the way with four goals and you should pick him for your fantasy side. He is playing well and should be good for either a goal, an assist or both.
The big game of the weekend is the Chelsea – Arsenal one. Both sides had good wins in Europe midweek and now is the time when teams have to shuffle between domestic and European play. These games are always feisty as this clip demonstrates:
Again you need to take injuries into account. Chelsea will be without Frank Lampard while the likes of Salomon Kalou, Jose Bosingwa and Yossi Benayoun are doubtful. The Gunners will be missing Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Robin van Persie, Thomas Vermaelen and Aaron Ramsey who all leave big boots to replace.
Manchester United are away to Sunderland who are a difficult nut to crack at the Stadium of Light. United will be without Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs while Michael Carrick is doubtful.
Steven Gerrard is back for Liverpool after being rested for the European tie. He is definitely worthy inclusion in your side. Just ask Manchester City!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/m/man_city/9051136.stm
When playing fantasy football you can go for your Gerrards, Lamapards, Giggs, Fabregas’s, Drogbas and the like but what is the fun of that? It should be more than your three Chelsea and three Manchester United players against his three Manchester United and three Chelsea players. If you are prepared to do some research and look a little deeper into things you will find some players who can really provide great fantasy football value.
You don’t hear much about them because the media concentrate on the big clubs. Spend some time at the 11 Kicks Stats Center and it can prove quite beneficial.
Have you heard of Birmingham City’s Sebastian Larsson. The Swedish midfielder has three assists. This is the same number of Matthew Etherington who plays for Stoke.
Do you know who else has three assists? Fernando Torres, Andrey Arshavin, Cesc Fabregas and Paul Scholes.
Picking a player from a smaller side is a doubled-edged argument. There is less chance of someone else scoring the goals or making the assist but then there is also less chance there are goals to be scored or assists to be made. It is no coincidence that the two players with the most assists are Didier Drogba and Nani – both of whom have five. No clues guessing which teams they play for.
But therein lies the rub of the green. You have to make sure you select them in the week they do the assists or score the goals.
The more you play fantasy football; the better your gut instincts will be.
Not the best weekend for the big 5 teams (Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham) with them just taking two of a possible 15 points.
That meant that from a fantasy football point of view it wasn’t a case of the usual suspects except maybe in the case of Steven Gerrard who scored again.
For the first time this season, the incredibly reliable and consistent Chelsea failed to deliver. In their loss to Manchester City, obviously they didn’t keep a clean sheet, but what was even worse than that was that they didn’t score a goal.
Did anyone have Samir Nasri in their side? Although Arsenal lost, he was still good for two goals.
Among the goal this weekend were Michael Owen, Emil Heskey, Carlos Tevez, Dirk Kuyt and Darren Bent. Bent started off slowly but with another two goals against Liverpool his tally has grown to five. This is as many goals as Didier Drogba and just one behind the six of Demitar Berbatov and Florent Malouda.
There were only 24 goals on the weekend which is an average of 2.4 per game. While this isn’t a small amount most people were probably relying on goals coming from the Big 5 clubs who only scored 6 goals between them. This wouldn’t have been the expectations given their opponents were Bolton, WBA, Sunderland, Manchester City and West Ham.
This again shows why fantasy football isn’t just about making the right decisions; it’s about making them at the right time.
Like who would have thought that Nani would be capable of scoring a goal like this?
We are only 6 weeks into the new season and already there are more players in the physio’s room than on the training pitch. In turn you have players who will play under the duress of an injury and who haven’t been training during the week.
When it comes to your fantasy football side, you have to do everything you can to monitor the status of your players. If you hear or read that someone picked up an injury of some description then you need to be on top of that. There could be the chance that he doesn’t start or that he plays and has next to no impact on the game.
Taking a look at the injury lists can see that the likes of Frank Lampard, Asamoah Gyan and Tim Cahill have niggles of some description. So take the extra few minutes – it could be extremely beneficial to your fantasy side.
Looking at this week, Manchester City – Chelsea looms as the big match. First plays fourth and the game is the early Saturday one. Could City be the first team this year to take some points off Chelsea?
With Arsenal playing West Brom; Manchester United against Bolton and Tottenham against West Ham you will most likely be picking the majority of your players from these three sides.
Liverpool is at home to Sunderland and this would normally be penciled in as a Liverpool win but given the problems Liverpool have been having followed by the midweek loss, things aren’t going so swimmingly at Anfield. Still Steven Gerrard is in such scintillating form, you can select him without any second thoughts.
Will the Liverpool faithful be wishing back to days like this when they defeated Sunderland in the 1992 FA Cup Final?
Things used to be so much rosier back then.
Fantasy Football is a numbers game but you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt. Consistency is important when selecting someone for your fantasy football side. You want to be assured that they are going to be a regular contributor. Thus something like average points per game is an important indicator. Go there now and you will see the likes of Malouda, Berbatov, Drogba and Walcott in the top 10. Who is on top of the list? Alan Hutton. Who?
The Spurs player scored and had an assist in his first match of the season for them. If you want to be really picky, his average points per game should be 18 as he came on just before half-time. Nine points in 45 minutes is a fantastic result but the more he plays, the more likely that is going to settle down at a number around 3-4.
You need to look at the numbers and decipher them as opposed to simply thinking that Alan Hutton is the best player in the Premier League. What is sure is Chelsea’s class. They have six players in the top 10 in terms of average points per game and another three players in the next 10 meaning 9 of the top 20.
Are there any major surprises? Apart from Hutton not really. Take away him and the Top 10 consists only of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United players. What about after that? In 11th spot, you have Fulham’s Moussa Dembélé. His two goals and two assists see him averaging 4.8 points per game. Also from Fulham you have Carlos Salcido but his average of five points per game is just from one game.
Again it may still be early to look at the numbers with that much confidence because of the small sample size. Once everyone has played 10 games, that should be more of an indicator especially of players from the smaller teams who you wouldn’t have heard so much about. You need to remember that the past can only help you so much in terms of predicting the future. Still maybe for the moment stay away from Lee Cattermole. The Sunderland player has two red cards from three games!
