The most important thing to note this week as the title says, Villa and West Ham play each other on Wednesday and it counts for this week. While I wouldn’t reccomend transfering half your squad away for players from either team, it’s not a bad idea to look at 1-2 players from those teams, especially if you’ve got dead weight on your team you want to rid yourself of.
I mentioned this to someone in the comments last week about when the best time to bite the bullet and make a -4 point transfer was and this is one of the times it’s ok. Provided the players you pick up start both games, you’re really only losing 2 points and then that guy has a better chance at picking up a few points in one of the games.
Villa/West Ham players to look at:
Richard Dunne, Aston Villa 5.7m: Dunne should be looked at regardless of this matchup. He’s been outstanding and in 6 of 8 games this season he’s scored at least 6 points. He’s gotten a little expensive lately but he’s been worth it thus far. If you don’t have the available cash for Dunne, James Collins is a suitable replacement and costs almost 1 million less at 4.9m.
James Milner, Aston Villa, 7.2 million: Milner has made himself a suitable fantasy replacement for Gareth Barry, and has actually done better than Barry this season. He’s been the second highest scoring midfielder who costs under 7.5 million so he’s surely worth a look.
Alessandro Diamanti, West Ham, 6.0 million: Diamanti seems to be coming into his own lately for West Ham. He’s certainly not a sure thing at striker, but if your other options have been suffering, it’s not a bad idea to look at the Italian and hope he can score a goal or two this weekend.
Non Villa/West Ham pickups of the Week
Hugo Rodallega, Wigan, 6.5 million: The young Colombian has slowly started to prove his value recently and is not a bad pickup, especially at his price. Wigan aren’t as terrible as they’ve been in recent seasons and they’re actually playing some decent looking football compared to recent years.
Andy Reid, Sunderland, 5.6 million: Reid has had an excellent run of form lately. He’s scored at least 5 points in 5 of his last 6 games (he got 3 points in the other one). Prior to that he had only scored 2 points in Sunderland’s first 4 games. Ever since then he’s been given a starting spot and has really shown a lot in that role. He makes a perfect 5th midfielder on any team right now.
Martin Petrov, Manchester City, 6.7m: Petrov hasn’t really been given the chances this season, but he’s performed when he’s gotten them. He’s only played more than 20 minutes three times this season, but when he has he’s scored at a pretty high rate. He’s averaging 10 points per 90 minutes and if you remember my preseason rankings that is pretty outstanding. Still I wouldn’t fully count on him since his minutes have been spotty (but more consistent of late) but if he can fit into your squad he’s a good pickup.
Team of The Week
Team of the week remains rather standard as it has, partially because I was lucky to keep so many Villa and West Ham players on it ahead of this. Agbonlahor is the only addition to the mix. I suspect out of one of the 4 players I’ve got double dipping on this squad at least 1 will strike it big, and that’s really all you can hope for.
Can I get rid of Koumas yet? He doesn’t even start half the time. He just sits there on my bench doing nothing.
I thought I told you to get rid of him a long time ago! Yes get rid of him.
No, you told me to keep him because he’s cheap and blah blah blah. Okay, I’m thinking of doing a double:
Timmy Cahill out, Matty Taylor in
Koumas out, either David Dunn or Andy Reid in
Both are fairly cheap and pretty consistent on pulling in more than 2 points a match.
Thoughts ‘o wise one?
I’d probably pick up Dunn and Reid for both of them, they’ve all got the same amount of points but Dunn and Reid have had slightly better runs of late, plus they’re cheaper.
Nice post. Chck out my preview to this week…