1. If I make a captain's suggestion, go another direction . . . my captains have 6,2,4,10,4 points the last 5 GWs. This includes this most recent week when I talked myself out of a 4 point hit to bring in van Persie and captain him. In turn, I have 4 red arrows in the last 5 weeks.
2. I have zero sympathy for anyone who brought in de Gea for Man Utd defensive coverage without also bringing in Lindegaard. Ferguson early on said he would rotate Lindegaard in and he has done so once before, in GW7. If you want Man Utd defensive exposure through the GK position, get both. Lindegaard is 4.4, a very reasonable price for a squad GK.
3. Similarly, I have no sympathy for those who brought in J. Evans. How many times has SAF played a jedi mind game with his lineup ? You can have no expectation, except for a fit Rooney, Vidic, and Evra, that anyone on Man Utd will start from week to week. If you went for Evans on the back of Ferguson's comments about Ferdinand, I would keep him. Evans will probably play his fair share of games, just be prepared for the jedi business.
4. Jamie O'Hara had his best week of the season. He was a fantastic squad player for me for the past 2 years but his case represents the sort of dilemma we face in FF. His excellent FF output in limited on-loan minutes in 2009-10 and 2010-11 suggested this might be a breakout year, given his expected starting role at Wolves as the more attacking of the 2 central Wolves midfielders. As the season started, I came very close to pairing him with Chris Brunt as the 2 rotate home/away perfectly for the first half season. But after GW8, O'Hara stood on 16 points and had dropped in price to 5.7. If you had him you might have been excused for bailing out. But you would have bailed too early. One telltale sign that he might come good is that, statistically, he still showed well, in terms of shots, key passes, crosses. I face the same dilemma (as do a dwindling few others) with Victor Moses. For a midfielder, he's still a leader in shots and shots on frame, and crosses. At this point, he's purely my squad midfielder (although I will probably start him v. BLA (and sit Ramsey @ NOR), but at what point do you say - 'you know, just not happening for him this year' ?
5. It's funny how fast 'form' comes and goes. Between GW6-10 Rafael Van der Vaart scored 6 goals and looked like scoring every time he shot. His price rose 0.8. In GW11 he looked like a Sunday morning pub player on a hang-over. Meanwhile Gareth Bale has had 2 'form' games and now all the FF blog sites are full of managers listing Bale as a must-have. It's tricky deciding when to jump on a band wagon and even trickier when to jump off. Trickiest of all ? Picking a bandwagon player before he takes off.
6. Which brings me to the Robin van Persie bandwagon. This one left the station several weeks ago while I was still holding my place on the Sergio Aguero bandwagon. No more. I jumped on the RvP bandwagon on Saturday to avoid the inevitable 0.2 price rise before the Nov 19 GW12 deadline. It's a ridiculous gamble given RvP's injury history and with a 2 week international break where any of my top players may sustain an injury. But such is my frustration having gone 3 weeks now contemplating but not pulling the trigger on a 4 point hit to bring him in that I swooped, breaking a cardinal rule of FF - never transfer early in an international break. There are 2 consoling thoughts though: (1) the past year is demonstrating that he is fixture proof and unstoppable - with 29 goals in his last 28 games he demonstrates consistency too; and (2) for nearly 3.0M less than Aguero, Edin Dzeko gives you pretty easy access to the Man City front line and he looks a lad that can't stop scoring either.
7. That said, Aguero was unlucky not to have 9 FF points as well - he set up Dzeko for what looked a sure goal which the Bosnian missed, and he had a shot clang off the post - 1" to the left and it nestles in the back of the net. Had Aguero scored and picked up an assist - I had him captained - I probably would not have made the angry manager leap to the RvP bandwagon. Such is football.
8. One for the Watchlist: Clint Dempsey. The American is hiding in plain sight, and while you think, Christ, 8.3 for an American ? - he is quietly going about another strong season which makes 8.3 a decent price. Hear me out. In his only season assured of starts last year, he had 168 FF points, with 12 goals, 3 assists, and 23!! bonus points. In his prior 2 years he had 120 points in 2400 min, and 126 points in 2600 min. This year, for a team that doesn't score much, he has 3 goals, 3 assists, and 3 bonus points so far, and is tied for 5th highest scoring mid, and 13th highest scoring FF player. He has had 2 double figure GWs so far. And he looked Fulham's best player in a losing cause on Sunday to Tottenham where he was unlucky not to have a goal and an assist. It's time to say it: he's one of the top midfielders in the Prem. Fulham don't have a brilliant schedule ahead (sun, ars, LIV, swa, BOL, MNU, che), but compared to the steady American, is, say, Nani, or A.Young, or even VdV - worth the extra 1.7+ ?
Excellent post.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the silly few that doesn't have RvP and my arrows have been red for 4 straight weeks. I had RvP the last two seasons, but bailed out after Arsenal's horror early season form.
I went for Suarez instead. Oh the humanity!
Good point regarding Dempsey. He somehow is too normal for most to buy him but he has been consistent for three seasons now. I am actually considering him or Bale this Gameweek.
Have you looked at Klasnic? He is looking likely to score in each game.
Thanks Gummi. Same here on RvP. I don't know what I was thinking not getting him in after Bolton. I dropped Suarez a couple of weeks ago for Sturridge but that's a move I have some foreboding about; sooner or later you feel a much higher percentage of his shots will end up in the back of the net. Is that 4 goal Uruguay performance coming to a Liverpool shirt soon ?I've seen a lot of Liverpool and some of his misses - shocking. Indeed, I think it's really tough not to have any 3 of RvP, Aguero, Dzeko, Suarez, Rooney, and - I am going to put Adebayor in this category too.
ReplyDeleteKlasnic has shown potential in the past too - look at 2009-10: 8 goals in 1212 min - just project that out to 2400 minutes. I think the issue this year for budget forwards is the big priced guys like RvP, Rooney, or Aguero are producing such monster weeks you feel like you have to have 3 premium guys up front. My model (not that that means anything given my success rate) has always been at least one budget forward. I think Klasnic bears Watch List status, especially with Bolton's good fixtures (wba, EVE, tot, AVL, ful, bla, NEW, WW)ahead. I don't know his int'l status this week, but this is a good suggestion at 5.8.
Suarez has been charged by the FA for racist comments. I think it's time to sell him.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of either getting in Aguero and a budget midfielder or I can go for Klasnic and Bale.
What would you do?
I honestly don't know what the repercussions are for these FA charges. John Terry is under the same cloud. This is purely a guess, but I wonder how difficult it will be to sort this charge between a French speaking player and a Spanish speaking player. The potential for misinterpretation seems rife. That's neither here nor there to your question.
ReplyDeleteSuarez has been a frustrating player to own; you watch Liverpool play and you can't figure out how the guy is not scoring a hat trick every game. And he just scored 4 for Uruguay. That said, Liverpool have a tough 3-game stretch (che, MCI, ful), so it's not the worst time to dump him out. Long term, I think Suarez will still come good and represents good value at 9.5, but certainly I can't argue with dropping him for a while to see if these charges have legs.
I just dropped Aguero this week for RvP, but if you read earlier posts, I am very, very high on Aguero. At the end of GW38 I expect Aguero, RvP, Rooney, and maybe Lampard to have the most FF points. And this week he's probably the only nailed on forward for MNC, given that both Balotelli and Dzeko played 180 minutes. This is probably the safer of the 2 moves you suggest; MNC have some tough games ahead but 4 of 6 at home. The question is, is Aguero fully fit ? He missed the Bolivia game and played 45 minutes v Columbia. So that's a question mark.
I like Bale a lot - last year he was one of those guys who would go for 6-7 weeks with 2 points and then hit for 15. He's 2.0+ cheaper than VdV and I would guess over the season that's a good savings because of VdV's seemingly chronic hamstring issue. I plan to move out VdV for Bale soon myself to create some cash. And you'll probably want 2 of Tottenham's attacking players as their DGW20 approaches. Without knowing your full team, the gamble with your Bale/Klasnic move, is that if Klasnic is not the real deal that his form so far suggests, then you are probably in 2 transfer mode to get him out for a higher priced forward with prices running the other way.
I think you've got to cover yourself with at least 2 of RvP, Rooney (I can't imagine the midfield experiment carrying on), Aguero, Adebayor, Suarez, Dzeko - unless you've got that, I think Klasnic is a gamble.
I would probably go Aguero/budget mid and hope Aguero's groin problem is behind him.
Excellent response. Thanks for the analysis.
ReplyDeleteI currently have Rooney, Adebayor, and Suarez. My brain is telling me to listen to your advice but my heart desperately wants to go the Bale/Klasnic route. It could be because of wanting to unearth a diamond in the rough.
Aguero's stats are also frightening. He hasn't played a full game yet and has only fired blanks in two of the games he started (plus one he came on as a substitute). The argument against, for the short run, are the games against Newcastle and Liverpool.
I could also go for Bale and Dzeko, but I'm scared that Dzeko will be rested.
2 things - (1) don't take a hit and (2) Dzeko is long term, so you can't get bogged down in whether he will be rested in any given GW. PLF Chris has a really good perspective on Aguero, Silva, Dzeko in today's post. With Rooney and Adebayor, I think if you are really feeling Klasnic - go fot it, then bring Dzeko in in a week or 2.
ReplyDeleteI had two transfers this week so I went with my gut and brought in Bale and Klasnic for Dyer and Suarez.
ReplyDeleteI now have Adebayor, Rooney, and Klasnic. That's a heavy gamble, not including RvP and Aguero/Dzeko, but I'm pretty far down and need to play a little differently.