Form versus fixtures. The age-old battle between the two schools of fantasy football thought. Should you pick your players based on how well they’re playing or on how appealing their schedules look?
The answer is as boring as a Manchester derby as it’s somewhere in between, with both form and fixtures providing vital indicators as to who might rack up the points.
Form is the easier of the two to gauge. In fact, there’s even a drop-down menu on the official Fantasy Premier League site that allows you to view each player’s form, i.e. their average points over the past five gameweeks.
Fixtures are a little trickier to monitor as you need to determine how big your window of fixtures is. Do back-to-back home fixtures against a bottom-half side automatically make a player’s fixtures tantalising? Or, does the stretch of good fixtures need to extend a little longer?
The general rule of thumb is to watch out for stretches of five to six gameweeks where a team’s schedule provides a window of opportunity for an upturn in points. It is rarely wise to plump for a player who hosts Bournemouth one week, if he travels to the Etihad the next. When it comes to fixtures, it’s all about the long game.
The reason why we approach this topic now is because two teams have suddenly shot onto our radars due to their upcoming schedules; Everton and Southampton.
Everton
If you’ve been keeping an eye on the fixtures since the beginning, you will already know that Gameweek 11 is when Roberto Martinez’s side would come right into our fantasy thinking. Here’s how their next six fixtures look: Sunderland (H), West Ham (A), Aston Villa (H), Bournemouth (A), Crystal Palace (H), Norwich (A).
An Everton defensive option might well be a good option for this spell. But, with Phil Jagielka’s injury, their clean sheet prospects have dimmed a little, with Seamus Coleman’s 5.9m price tag looking a tad exaggerated (especially given the fact he has recorded just one assist and not a single goal so far this year).
It leaves us with Ross Barkley and Romelu Lukaku as the two most appealing options for this run of fixtures, then. Barkley’s form has been far more encouraging this term and, at 6.8, looks set to challenge the mettle of owners of players such as Andre Ayew and Yohan Cabaye.
But Lukaku is in an even more congested price-range (and position). It is fair to say that his goals have come in fits and bursts this season with his consistency still as unreliable as ever. That being said, if he is going to go on a steady run of goals, now will be the time. The timing couldn’t be worse, though, given Harry Kane’s hat-trick last weekend. Graziano Pelle is also similarly priced to the 8.4 Evertonian.
Southampton
Speaking of Pelle, he will face Bournemouth (H), Sunderland (A), Stoke (H), Man City (A), Aston Villa (H), Crystal Palace (A) in the next six, so a Pelle – Lukaku duo alongside Jamie Vardy may suddenly become the template attack.
Other than the blip of that trip to Man City, Southampton’s attacking prospects look unavoidable for that stretch, with Sadio Mane (7.9) and Dusan Tadic (7.0) looking tempting options, too.
At the back, it’s all about Virgil van Dijk who has racked up 30 points in just six games. He’s nailed-on in Ronald Koeman’s defence, now, and looks bang on worth his 5.5 price tag.
Gameweek 11
To avoid repeating myself, any of the above mentioned players have to start in your fantasy team this week of you own them. With Everton at home to Sunderland and Southampton hosting Bournemouth, it might be wise to use a transfer to ensure you’ve got some Southampton attacking coverage. It has become apparent that Bournemouth are now the whipping boys of the league.
The big captaincy options this week come at Carrow Road as Norwich host Man City. Kevin De Bruyne (10.6) looks the standout option, but all KDB owners will recall a fortnight ago when team-mate Raheem Sterling (8.9) burned him with a hat-trick.
Wilfried Bony (8.3) owners will surely be weighing him up for the captaincy, but it’s probably a good idea to avoid using a transfer to bring him into your team, unless you’ve hatched a masterplan to turn him back into Sergio Aguero in two weeks’ time.
Many will avoid captaining Jamie Vardy this week. While still utterly undroppable, Tony Pulis will undoubtedly have something up his sleeve at the Hawthorns tomorrow to mute his threat. This makes Man City coverage all the more essential.
This remains true when you factor in Arsenal. They, too, face a tricky road test – up against a Swansea side who may on the rebound. Like Vardy, Sanchez can’t be removed from your starting XI but thinking twice about captaining him would be the sensible move. That being said, the injury to Theo Walcott has suddenly bumped Mesut Ozil (8.6) and, especially, Olivier Giroud (8.7) up in our thinking. The latter, at an ownership of 6.6%, could prove a smooth acquisition at this point.
That price range in the forwards has suddenly become the most congested on the pitch, though. With Giroud, Lukaku and Pelle all tempting us, we’ve now got Harry Kane (9.3) to consider. To compound matters, Spurs welcome Villa to White Hart Lane on Monday. Over 100,000 managers have drafted him in this week and it’s easy to see why. Captain material if you’re too hipster for Man City.
Elsewhere, Newcastle’s prospects at home to Stoke look decent so those who knee-jerked and brought in Georginio Wijnaldum (6.9) after his four goals may yet have the last laugh.
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