After a couple of weeks where I just got too busy on Friday and couldn’t get around to it, the fantasy preview is back! I know all 5 of you who foolishly rely on my fantasy advice are happy to have it back! A lot of things have happened since the preview disappeared, but never fear, I’ll try and get you caught up.
The Injury Bug: It’s starting to get rather serious with regards to injuries. No longer is someone out a week because of a strain or something along those lines. Now they’re getting longterm and it’s becoming a fantasy issue. My general rule of thumb is to drop a player when I’ve got the space and it’s not 100% known how long he’ll be out. It’s no good to keep a guy sitting on the bench if he’s going to just be taking up a space in your lineup.
The only time you want to keep a player like that around is if you bought him low and he’s selling high. For example, Richard Dunne’s price has risen from 5.0 million to 6.1 million over the course of the season. You do get 50% of a players increased value when you sell him, but if you bought low and then he got injured, if you wanted to buy him back you’d have to spend .6 million more just to get him back.
One of the little tricks I did pick up on this season is to strategically arrange your injured players on your bench. I got screwed twice by guys who I put at the end of the bench because they were supposedly not playing, only to see both score about 6 points on the bench. If you’ve got an injured guy you’d normally play, stick him at the front of the bench. If he’s injured and you need a sub, he obviously won’t play, but if he happens to play and does well it can pay off.
A couple of injuries you should take note of and what to do about them:
Michael Essien, Chelsea: Essien is supposed to be gone until January, not that bad of a break, but the African Cup of Nations starts in January, meaning he’ll probably be back in February some time. There is no reason to hold onto him for 2 months. Regardless of rise in value no player is worth holding a spot for that long.
Robin van Persie, Arsenal: He’s gone till April at least. Chances are, unless Arsenal are in the title hunt, he won’t play in the League again this season. If you’re reading this you’re probably not one of the people still holding onto RVP.
Jimmy Bullard, Hull City: Jimmy went from not doing anything all season, to picking up 27 points in his last 3 games. That is until he hurt his knee 18 minutes in last week. He’s probably on the same timeframe that Essien is on, so it’s best to get rid of him if you noticed his quick flash of brilliance at the right time.
Pickups of the Week:
James Milner, Aston Villa, 7.6 million, 77 points: Milner is the perfect player to pick up right now. He’s got a very reasonable price and he’s been hot the last few weeks. He’s taken over Garreth Barry’s role as the Villa midfielder who scores a lot of fantasy points. Villa do play Manchester United this week, so he might see a slight drop in point production, but he’s a solid buy right now.
Thomas Sorensen, Stoke City, 4.5 million, 71 points: I know I’ve praised Sorensen in this space about 3-4 times, but he’s gotta be a no brainer for anyone. He’s scored 28 points in his last 3 games, which is a better 3 game stretch than even Dider Drogba’s had this season. Even if he’s just your backup keeper, he’s solid.
Patrice Evra, Manchester United, 6.8 million, 62 points: Evra is the only United defender that’s managed to stay healthy all season. He’s also one of the only defenders in the top 10 who’s managed to not only play almost every minute this season (he’s only missed 8 minutes all season) but he also hasn’t had his stats boosted by a bunch of random high point days. He’s not going to get you those 12 point games very much, but he’ll give you 4-5 points pretty consistently.
Team of the Week
Not too much has changed with this team, but we do welcome Jermaine Defoe back into the fold after he slipped off and went kinda quiet till he scored 25 points in one game 3 weeks back. The one thing I’m weary about with him though is that over 50% of his points come from 2 games, though if he has more games like that it’s just fine.
I’d also go back and make Drogba the captain instead of Cesc. Chelsea plays Everton, while Arsenal are at Anfield. Though Arsenal v Liverpool matches have been known to include a good number of goals, so Cesc probably isn’t a terrible captain.
As always feel free to leave your questions in the comments.
The Milner-Dunne combination last week was fantastic. I’m torn on letting Dunne play (goal scoring threat, good defense) or benching him (because it’s against United). I’ll probably choose option “C” and just forget to update my rosters.
That was a great combo last week, that plus my other 2 defenders (Glen Johnson and Vermalen) got about 75% of my points last week.
Six of my starting eleven players have stars- why is my team still awful?
I guess, given what’s happened in the past, I should know “stars” don’t mean a thing…
Well the stars mean the player is on the “dream team” so they’re part of what would be the highest scoring team of individual players over the course of the season. However this of course doesn’t mean a whole lot because week to week random players score a bunch only to never score again.
It also has a little to do with picking a captain. If you get lucky and get that guy who scores 8+ points as your captain, it can easily make up for a couple of guys who only pull in 2 points.
In summation, the stars are about as useful as stars from other places on the internet.