Week 6 - Monday & Injuries
I'm furious I missed Petrov on the barndoor & his price has rocketed from £6.5m to over £11m, so that's the end of that one for me. If you grabbed him at 6.50 he's fantastic value in Week 7, even with a tough game at Villa. He used to be a favourite of mine 2 seasons ago & I always wish Spurs had snapped him up. When playing regualrly he's a fantasy manager's dream, corners, crosses, shots, assists, free kicks - the lot.
A lot of people did well last night as I fell exactly 500 places in the overall standings...I'm still annoyed Yahoo credited Bent with 2 goals on Sunday when "his 2nd" was an own goal, but it's probably too late for them to change it now. The Premier League, BBC & every other site/fantasy game has given it as a Mancienne own goal, but Yahoo do stuff like this sometimes.
Moving on to injuries...
The early news from Manchester United is that both Michael Owen and Ji-sung Park missed training ahead of Wednesday night's clash with Wolfsburg - we'll bring you details as soon as we get them. Edwin van der Sar did train but he is still expected to be two weeks from a return after breaking his hand.The news on Pienaar, Duff, Robinho & Bullard is worth noting.
Mixed news for Manchester City, who have conceded that Robinho will be out for another three weeks with his ankle injury, but Roque Santa Cruz finally made his debut against West Ham after undergoing kee surgery.
Now for some clarification on Liverpool. Yesterday we reported that Javier Mascherano was out with a virus and Yossi Benayoun was out with a leg injury - because this is what the Press Association reported. Now it seems they - and by extension, us and just about every other media outlet - were wrong.
Rafa Benitez says that Mascherano is ruled out with a hamstring injury, saying: "He was shooting in training and felt something in his hamstring. He went to see the doctor straight away and we found he had a small problem in his hamstring.
"It could be two or three days, but we are not sure."
As for Benayoun - he is in the squad named on the Liverpool website to face Fiorentina. Not in that squad is Daniel Agger, who will play for the Reds' reserves against Manchester City on Tuesday night after missing the start of the season with a back injury.
Across Stanley Park, the news on Steven Pienaar is encouraging. The South African will almost certainly be out of Everton's Europa League clash with BATE Borisov this week, but the club believe he is not due for a long spell on the sidelines.
The midfielder picked up a knee injury in Saturday's victory at Portsmouth, and has been on crutches ever since.
Physio Mick Rathbone said: "There's no timescale at the moment but hopefully it will only be something short-term. Steven took an almighty knock on the inside of the knee, so he is pretty sore. There's a lot of bruising and a lot of swelling around the area, so we've got him on crutches at the moment."
There's also good news for Fulham, who will only lose Damien Duff for two-three weeks with the calf injury that forced him out of Saturday's defeat to Arsenal.
Struggling Portsmouth are hopeful of getting Steve Finnan off their injured list as he plays for the reserves tonight. A hamstring injury has kept him out of action since he signed from Espanyol this summer.
Finally, Hull have pencilled in Jimmy Bullard for a reserve game against Bolton next Tuesday night, but we're not holding our breath.
Moving on - a reminder that The Blog Cup starts this Weekend for all members of the 3 Blog Leagues. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please click here. It's going to take a hell of work so the 1st Round results will take a few days for me to sift through once all games are completed (which won't be until Villa v Man City on Monday 5th October)...hopefully by Wednesday 7th.
Also, remember we have the Facebook Group which is continuing to grow in numbers & helpes me put faces to names & have some additional chat.
Week 7 Player Picks will be up tomorrow at some point.
Cheers,
AM
21 comments:
AM - thought about BDing Petrov but, notwithstanding his great performance yesterday (the guy has to have one of the best left foots in the Prem, if not the world), I don't think he will get significant playing time for Man City once Ireland returns (or, for that matter, Robinho). So not a huge missed opportunity. What should be more interesting is whether Tevez goes on a tear now (and what Hughes does with his frontline now that RSC is healthy and K2's suspension is over...this coupled with Bellamy's form).
Sounds to me as if Pienaar will be out for at least a week or two, no? I still feel confident Billy will start this weekend.
Hi DT - Yeah I agree Petrov probably won't keep his place for long, but I still would've liked him for Week 7...I'll probably go with Kightly instead now.
Agree 100% on Billy, Pienaar sounds like it'll be a 2 weeker...Everton have a Euro game on Thursday so we'll all be keeping a close eye on that!
Hi all, I know I'm a glutton for punishment, but I can't believe this Tuncay situation isn't going to go my way this week? Please Pulis, please play Tuncay! Regardless I could use a little help this week I've been missing the picks a little bit this year although it could be because I've stubbornly stayed away from Torres! So this week I've sold off of the Gerrard bandwagon and now I'm debating a couple of picks in the middle hoping to make up some ground on the Torres faithfuls, which tandem will help me gain ground more?
Cahill & Fabregas
or
Arshavin & Giggs
I could substitute Cahill for Lennon, but Lennon hasn't shown as much since Modric has gone down to injury.
Adebayor is back for the Villa match... I think it means that Bellamy will play as a right winger, replacing Petrov, while Adebayor will replace him as a striker. I thought last night about BDing him, but I wasn't that sure because it was his first start this season, and with Adebayor returning I just can't see him starting again.
SF
From the Fantasy Football Scout:
Rafa Benitez has offered us a big hint that he will restore Steven Gerrard to a role just behind Fernando Torrres in the near future.
Gerrard was dropped back into a central midfield role against Hull, allowing Dirk Kuyt to fill in behind Torres. Recent weeks have seen Gerrard take a back seat to the fantasy scoring exploits of Kuyt and Benayoun, although the Liverpool skipper did chip in with a fortunate looking goal in the routing of Phil Brown’s side on Saturday. Judging by Rafa’s words on the eve of tonight’s Champions League clash with Fiorentina though, it won’t be long until we see Gerrard slotted in just behind Torres once more
“The understanding between the pair, with Torres up front and Gerrard in space behind him, has been the real difference for us. Playing Steven further forward means he can link well and be a real partner for Torres, he still has to help in midfield but he does not have to go back 40 metres, only 15 metres now, no more.”
This will come as welcome news for Gerrard owners, who will be slightly perturbed by the emergence of Kuyt and Benayoun as cheaper alternatives. Gerrard has so far struck 3 goals and 4 assists so far this term, although once restored up with an in-form Torres, his fantasy scoring is likely to increase. Liverpool do face three away games in the next four however, with Chelsea and United amongst their opponents.
@Sf - Barn dooring someone is simply a way to make sure you get the player at a lower price IF you decide you want him. A lot of the players I barn door I get rid of 1 or 2 days after, because I decided against them.
What I wanted to say was, BD'ing someone is never a bad move as long as the player you replace is @ full price.
douchebag,
i would stay away from arshavin. as an arsenal fan i love him, but fantasy-wise he needs to show us he is worth it.
cahill is a good pick/ fabregas might get 20 points this week, but why not pair milner with fabs.
giggs is a great pick/ why not pair lennon or mtay with him. i think that lennon's production went down more to the schedule difficulties. this will be the game for lennon to show if he is going to benefit from more of the flow going through him or not. i don't know which pairing is better cesc and milner will be less popular, i figure.
i have a question for all y'all:
i would leave bridge in with a small price difference if this was a normal week. i have had him since week two and feel comfortable having him in the lineup. he is away to villa, should i trade him out or not? since AM made this a competitive week, i think he is my weakest defender. i have heitinga and verm., of course. should i replace him with more everton like distin or should i replace him with mcshane from hull ( i really wish that zayatte had played last week, anyone know why he didn;t play) or berra from wolves or mears from burnley. i usually don't solicit but AM is making me.
I think one of the biggest gambles this week for those managers worried about making the initial Blog Cup cut is whether or not to start Myhill in goal...his price will allow you to spend exorbitantly elsewhere, he has a home fixture (albeit against a team that just beat Chelsea) and he has looked good/produced good fanatsy points in other games this year. But, does anyone have the feeling that Phil Brown's team just doesn't want to play for him anymore? Hull has won one game in the Prem since December 6th of LAST YEAR...and they are getting creamed lately. Jimmy Bullard can't return from injury soon enough (remember him, guys? he was arguably the darkhorse, best value MF of YFF last year until he went down 38 minutes into his Tigers career).
I have Given in my side again but am toying with the thought of dropping him for this weekend for the Beast...Burnley's defense has been like Fort Know at Turf Moor this year and only Pompey has scored fewer goals than Birmingham City this year.
Any thoughts on Diamanti's play yesterday? I think he showed a lot of potential but committed too many fouls. Got him on the BD two weekends ago and he seems like a good value forward to go with my usual Drogs/Torres or Drogs/Rooney front.
I liked Diamanti's play yesterday and I was watching him specifically because you talked about him last week. I have a hard time choosing West Ham players due to the fact they are such a difficult team to predict.
I'd stay with Given Dr. Teeth. You picked him up (as did I) because over the course of the year he will put up value. I won't be dropping Given from this point on unless of course he gets injured.
I plan on picking up Gerrard again, although I thought this would be the week to stay away and maybe his value drops again. I'll be in trouble in my league if Torres doesn't stop his unbelievable play. He is clearly proving to be the class of the Premier league this season.
Greghino - Thanks for the advice but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't fit Lennon, Cesc, and Cahill in. I had spent a good chunk of units on Gallas because I fancy Arsenal over the Rovers and Arsenal defenders seem to be the most consistent point scorers this year. But I'm interested in maximizing my mids...
I would be switching from:
Gallas and O'hara
to
Lennon and Mancienne
Any advice from the masses?
I simply can't find any reason to upgrade O'Hara or Billy. Both of them have the potential to score 10-15 phantom points the upcoming week.
You can look at it this way. Cahill is more likely to score than Billy, but Billy will get more phantom points. And for every SoT and goal Cahill gets, Billy will get a Successful Cross and an assist.
And O'Hara... He's O'Hara and will tear Wolves apart.
Made my first post last night and got a lot of unexpected abuse from Mr.Xyz. I think this will teach me to be more careful to make myself understood - I thought I was congratulating AM on his brilliant idea of the blog cup, but it seems I appeared a bit greedy. Sorry - no intention to do that - I am full of admiration for AM for your very informative blog, but even more for the way you respond to people's comments, including my request for the cut-off score for the cup if it had been this week. AM - You are clearly spending an awful lot of time on this and it is a real credit to you. I think you are doing a brilliant job and are certainly helping scores this year to be much higher - that 84 points wasn't in the top 2/3 of scores in the blog groups is a clear example of that. I scored 87 last week and went down 2000 places last week - last year that would have been at least a break-even week.
I think my comment about it being a shame you were offering a premier league shirt as a prize was what irritated Mr.Xyz so much. What I meant was that as a supporter of a team that isn't in the premier league, the prize on offer wasn't quite so attractive. Honestly, I don't think you need to offer a prize - the Qdos of winning such a prestigious trophy would be enough. So AM, you can root for me now in the competition since I won't trouble you for the prize at all. It's just a shame me winning is about as likely as Crewe winning the FA Cup!
@ Guy -
Sorry mate!Mis-understood ya!!(My bad)
You should've specified it a bit more clearly.
The way you commented , it was like -
"These people are useless!!Only a EPL Replica jersey..Ughh!"
That's the way i presumed it... Sorry coz i did'nt know you had a fav team that was NOT in the Premiership.
And you were right ,
It was the comment about it being a shame that AM was offering a premier league shirt as a prize was what irritated me so much.
No hard feelings mate!!
Hope i didnt hurt ya!!
Let's jus put this behind us,shall we??
Again,
Im Sorry
Cheers,
~ Sam
Early Week 7 lineup:
Jensen (Yep, he's back)
Heitinga / Vermaelen / ??? (With 5.92 to spend could be Berra, Sonko)
O'Hara / Bily / Fabregas / Giggs
Drogba / Diamanti / Rooney
Seven or 8 on my team who I'd be happy to have week in, week out (need to start thinking about replacements for Drogba and O'Hara, though)
And six potential set piece takers, no?
Going for a third 100 point week in a row, something that was unimaginable last year, when I relied mostly on "Choose 'em or Lose 'em." This blog is helping me to see YFF in a whole new light (The Zen of FF, if you will). It's almost as much about who you NEVER want on your side as who you do want. Also, the time you put in in research pays off in higher scores. Fortunately my GF (the General Manager) seems to be enjoying this almost as much as I do.
Guy - Welcome to the blog, thanks for your kind words. I took no real offence. If the winner of the cup supports a non Premiership team then ill look to try & get them the shirt of their choice but it could be tough, which was why I stated that it would be a premiership shirt in the first instance.
Glad you boys have kissed & made up :)
Cheers,
AM
@billthegrunt:
If I were you, I would have BDed Given for your GK since he will be an amazing, season-long performer at a price in the mid 6s (which is the same as Jensen's valuation right now). Now that Given has gone up a bit in price, I actually think that Jensen is a pretty decent selection, at least for the next month or so...Burnley plays three out of the next four games at home (against bottom half teams) and plays Blackburn on the road. Pretty enticing match-ups. I can't believe that he has returned the points that he has this season and Burnley has already conceded 15 goals.
As for your defense, Heitinga and Verms need no commentary. If you drop Giggs (see below), I would use the extra cash to pick up another Everton defender...double down with Distin, I don't think Stoke scores at Goodison Park (Potters only have one away goal this season).
Giggs has certainly been the Ponce de Leon of the Prem so far this season, running past defenders ten years younger than him with ease and looking absolutely lethal on set pieces. But I still don't think he is worth his price right now, largely b/c I just don't have the confidence that he will get regular starts for United. I know, I know - Giggs picked up the points that he did last week after coming on at halftime but I think that that is the exception to the rule and I just don't feel it's smart managing to spend nearly 14 million for a player that you don't have a high degree of confidence in playing close to 90 minutes each game. I woud drop him and pick up Lennon and use the extra cash on defense. Love O'Hara and Billy and I think Cesc could blow up this weekend. (he's a bit expensive though...maybe sub in MTay who should have had a set piece goal last week but found the goal post instead).
Drogs and Rooney need no explanation...I have both of them and El Nino on my side right now but may ultimately drop one of El Nino and Rooney (too much cash spent up front) and I'm leaning towards dropping Torres at this point. Wayne Rooney does not have back to back bad weeks - period. Although he had flashes of brilliance, I think Diamanti played like a buffoon yesterday and sems to be really petulant and immature...kind of like Rooney with less skill. Personally, if I was looking for a value striker I would opt for Nugent or Chucho...or, if you want to dig even deeper, pick up Ebanks-Blake (after getting comfortable that he will start over in form Doyle and Keogh).
@teeth
Thanks for your advice -- always appreciated.
I'm having fun with picks like Jensen and Diamanti, players that no one else wants. I agree that Diamanti looks like a bit of a hothead, and if he continues that way without scoring points he'll be a liability. But he's a cheap set piece taker with obvious talent, and worth keeping for at least another week.
I BD'ed Nugent after his brace but let him go. He burned me several times with Pompey last season, and he didn't return his value last weekend. He's on my watch list but not a starter.
I had SEB on my side in Week 1, then he got hurt. Would certainly BD him if the chance came up but think he needs to score a goal first. Same with Chooch. Too soon to tell if he'll be back from Ecuador in time to play, and if he is he may be jet-lagged and stressed-out by his father's accident. He's also been called up by his country for WC qualifiers next month.
As for Giggs, he was simply amazing last weekend. He'll need another whole game off eventually, and with Park out he may play vs. Wolfsburg Wednesday and be rested against Sunderland (unless they need him, of course). I hate picking ManU players exc for Rooney but Giggs is a special case.
But hey, it's only Tuesday (in the States, that is).
I must say though that Distin has been impressive and is still relatively cheap. Food for thought.
I'm wary of picking defenders from the same team. i feel i want to keep everything pretty spread out (in terms of clean sheets)
i'm grappling with the cesc/lennon or mtay/milner combo. still haven't decided.
any comments? i think someone commented that cesc/lennon was their preference but i'm so wary of lennon as he's burned me in the past. i was thinking reid but he's at old trafford so i wonder if he'll get a lot of phantom points.
timmyg
For the price both Jensen and Given are good picks. Jensen has been getting about 10 points a game, minus last week.
score: 20.5, 12, 11, 8.5, 7, -7
Given has been about the same, except for week 5.
score: 20, 14, 12, 6, -6, 9
Also up there is Foster who again has put around 10, but also is more expensive.
@Timmyg, looking at the players, Cesc has been close to 10 or over it every week:
Score: 31.5, 5, 7.5, 14, 12
Milner has been pretty good the past two weeks (19.5 and 20), in the first 4 weeks was hit or miss it looks (8.5, 2.5, 7.5, 3). Gotta look at the match-ups in those games though.
Lennon the last two weeks hasn't been the best (1,6) but started with near 20 point weeks. Against Bolton he could do good, but being lennon he might not.
MTay has been pretty consistent so far, not sure i trust him again Tottenham though.
hopefully that helped a little bit, tough decision.
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