Avoiding the Drop

Every Friday I’ll be taking a look at our fantasy league, a few fantasy players you might want to drop, and a few fantasy players you might want to pick up, as well as some talk about tactics.

Things are starting to pan out: We’re far enough along in the season to see which players are getting plenty of playing time and performing, and which players might not be fantasy studs just yet. Surely you took a risk on one of your favorite players and perhaps he hasn’t panned out the way you thought he might, or maybe he took an early injury. If you can hold onto him and keep him on the bench, it’d serve you well to do so to see if he might do something.

As I mentioned last week, don’t look to dump someone good just because they’ve been underperforming, more than likely they’ll bounce back, and in a few weeks if they haven’t then you should look at dumping them.

Now seems like a good time to FREAK OUT!: There are a few players who have topped the table for the number of transfers in based soley on their week 1 performance, but they haven’t done anything of note since:

Sebastian Bassong, Tottenham: Bassong scored a goal and got 3 bonus points in week 1 to score an impressive 10 points. He’s scored 2 points in the following 2 matches just because he played over 60 minutes. He’s been transfered onto 130,000 teams.

I’m not saying that Bassong is going to be terrible this season, and he’ll probably do pretty good behind a good Tottenham squad. However, he’s a defender and the highest scoring defender last season scored 4 goals, so at best he’ll have about 3 more games like that, and I’d be shocked if he gets the 3 bonus points very often. He’s not a bad pickup, but I’d look at BAE or Corluka first as they’re probably the better Spurs defenders.

Jason Koumas, Wigan: The exact same story as Bassong, 10 points to first week, 2 the next two weeks. He’s a midfielder so he’ll score more than Bassong, but he plays for Wigan. I don’t think Wigan will do very well this season, I’d look at dropping him quickly. (In full disclosure, I stupidly picked him up, don’t be like me)

Brian Jensen, Burnley: This goes against what I said about players being hot their first week. He scored 1 point the first week, and 14 the next in big part because Michael Carrick is a terrible penalty taker. He did score 6 points the following week thanks to a clean sheet vs Everton, but don’t expect this run of form to continue, he’s on a newly promoted side who will surely do well enough it seems, but Burnley certainly should struggle to pull off clean sheets. If you need a cheap keeper, Thomas Sorensen is a much better option in the long run.

Team of the Week:

…Be Champions: 69 points

In a new feature starting this week, we’ll be taking a look at the best team in our league each gameweek.

Ryan Shawcross is still putting up the points, despite being basically unknown. Dider Drogba has of course become the focal point of Chelsea’s offense and should be scoring quite often this season, and this just proves how massive picking the right capitan can be. Good work …Be Champions.

Players to take a look at this week:

Stoke City’s defense: Abdoulaye Faye, Ryan Shawcross, Andy Wilkinson, and Danny Higginbotham all have at least 12 points so far and all cost under 4.0 million. They’re cheap and come with very little risk and are a great addition to your defense since you’re not wasting a whole lot of money on them.

Jermaine Defoe, Tottenham: Defoe has already jumped from costing 8.5 million to 8.8 million, but thats no reason not to take the striker, he’s the second leading scorer behind Drogba but costs just under 2.0 million less. As a bonus, Spurs play Birmingham City this week, so I really doubt he’ll have much trouble getting chances.

Ashley Young, Aston Villa: Young scored a whopping 1 point in the season opener and was then dropped by about 59,000 teams, well he then went on to show those teams that he could score 12 points this past week. He’s also dropped in price to 8.3 million, so he’s really not a terrible buy and will probably figure to have a lot of the Villa offense run through him this season.

Players to stay away from this week:

Abou Diaby, Arsenal: While he did score 14 points last week, the last thing you want to do is pick him up thinking you’re going to reap the reward of him every week. Arsenal seems that they may be operating on a midfield of Cesc and Arshavin, and a lot of rotation among the rest of the midfield. Plus Diaby doesn’t really have a track record to prove that he can score consistently, keep an eye on him, but this is one of those freak out transfers that will net you 2 points a week for the next 5 weeks.

Nicolas Anelka, Chelsea: Like I said above, this is Drogba’s season at Chelsea. While there isn’t any doubt that Anelka will be getting himself goals from time to time, he costs just .4 million less than Drogba, and they’re both pretty expensive so there is no reason to have both. Drop Anelka and pick up Drogba, even if it is going to cut into your surplus.

Any Portsmouth player: Pompey might turn it around some time this season and go on a hot streak, but don’t go holding your breath. Niko Kranjcar might be the only one worth having a look at but he’s the best player on a very bad team that will struggle to score goals this season.

As always, feel free to ask questions about your team in the comments.