It’s a proper IEFSA Fantasy League week of fixtures this
week. Last week I managed to gain a cheeky win thanks to an Arnautovic goal
despite having only four players playing! This leaves me on thirteen wins and
thirteen losses, a model of middle of the road consistency.
This week I will face @DanRiccio590, who himself sits
comfortably in midtable, just one place and three points above me. So this
really is a massive game for my squad. Win and things start to look up. Lose,
and there are three or four teams waiting behind me for any kind of stumble. Last
weekend’s FA Cup affected fixtures left @DanRiccio590 nursing a loss. But if our
two sides met then, Dan would have been celebrating a victory.
@DanRiccio590’s Team
Dan has a quality squad that has been unlucky with injuries
and inconsistencies of form. Eden Hazard has struggled to find the form that
saw him be crowned last season’s player of the year. He is injured for this weekend’s
fixture though as Chelsea host West Ham. He does have a fit and inform Hammer
though in Dimitri Payet. It looks like he will only have Payet, Antonio (both
West Ham) and Imbula (Stoke City) to fill his three midfield positions this
weekend, as Shaqiri is due to miss another game for the Potters with injury.
Up front he will be hoping that Graziano Pelle’s recent glut
of goals was not a once off, because his other forward options are the injured
Connor Wickham, and the out of favour Wilfried Bony. Remember him! He probably wouldn’t
want Bony to play anyway as he has a Man United duo in Smalling and De Gea
aiming for some clean sheet points when the Red Devils head to battle local
rivals Man City.
What I Need To Happen
As I have Courtois in goals, I will need West Ham to be kept
quiet at Stamford Bridge. If two of his players are shut out, it will go a long
way to me getting the three points. Clean sheets could be crucial this week.
Unfortunately most of my defenders will be playing at different times this
weekend and this mean a lot of scrutiny of lineups come three o’clock on Saturday.
Three defenders play at home in games that are surely ripe for clean sheets.
Olsson of West Brom will host Norwich. Nyom of Watford will entertain Stoke.
While Angel Rangel of Swansea will welcome Aston Villa to Wales in the Saturday
evening kickoff. Swansea will not have a better opportunity to keep a clean
sheet for the rest of the season.
 |
| Still unbeaten in league, but what have they to play for now?? |
Predictions
There was no post last week because most of the sides were
missing players. To make up for that, here is an in-depth look at each of the
fixtures in the IEFSA this week. Don’t forget to follow @THE_IEFSA on Twitter
to see how each team is doing. And to also follow me, @GarryIrwin, to find out
what, specifically, my team isn’t doing!
@FuzzyWarbles will be looking to bounce back from last
week’s defeat when he faces bottom of the table @DFS_hambazaza. He will be
sweating over the fitness of Nicolas Otamendi as Man City host an often goalshy
Man Utd. But will probably look further up the pitch in that game for points as
he has Silva and Mata in that game. @DFS_hambazaza is pretty much reliant on a
bumper game from Sergio Aguero again, but I can’t see him getting too many
against Man U when LVG parks the Fellaini bus at the Eithad.
Baba Rahman, Benteke, Remy, Walcott, Pedro, Navas. This
sounds like a list of players you would rarely put in your fantasy team until
they actually did something consistent on the pitch. Unfortunately for Andrew,
these players make up the bulk of his squad. @nikarg can keep pace with the
leaders here thanks to players like Rondon and Eriksen.
Six wins on the trot has seen @RotoZroik move up to second
in the table. A number of his players
have red flags next to their names and are doubts for the weekend. This could
see him shuffle his pack and introduce some players from the bench. Tom’s side
on the other hand is relatively injury free. He doesn’t have many superstar
performers though (Kante, Drinkwater and Schlupp for Leicester are playing
well, but not huge point getters) so perhaps wont have enough to upset the
inform side this week.
The fixture computer shows it’s continuing bias against
@GarryIrwin by making him face a team which contains two of the most inform
players in the league at the moment; Payet of West Ham and Pelle of
Southampton. Garry will have to play this fixture without one of his top scorers
in Andre Ayew too. This all points to @DanRiccio590 picking up the win.
This is the matchup of the weekend as leader @wrigavin face
off against third place @Smokey_Loogy. Both sides got back to winning ways last
week, but who will pick up the crucial three points this week? Looking at the
two squads and the fixtures of each player, my opinion would probably fall on
the side of Harry Kane, @wrigavin, over deeney and Ighalo of @Smokey_Loogy.
Now that Arsenal’s season is virtually over, it’s probably
around the time that Olivier Giroud starts scoring goals again. He loves
midtable teams and dead rubber games, and Arsenal versus Everton ticks both
those boxes. Of course if he does @nealjthurman will be very happy. @BenDinnery
on the other hand will be without Diego Costa due to suspension and will be
reliant on Patrick Bamford to get the points. Norwich strikers seem to have
some sort of hoodoo over them and I can’t see him getting off the mark away to
West Brom.
Last week’s loss has dropped YIRMA back to sixth. In a
desperate effort to get back into title contention he looks like he will deploy
Divock Origi upfront when Liverpool head to Southampton. Origi has two goals this season, but that’s
twice as many goals as his other forward Emmanuel Adebayor. With all these
crucial stats in mind, it will more than likely be his midfield of Alli, Toure
and Ozil will get him over the line this week. @GalinDragiev could cause an
upset if Raheem Sterling or Adam Lallana start justifying their high transfer
fees. But between you and me, they won’t start doing that this week.
@cjradune is the other team still in the title race. He has
been having a Vardy party for most of the season, though the party has been
dying down somewhat of late. There should still be enough partytime left to
overcome @SportsByGotti. @SportsByGotti’s team has suffered a weird affliction
where if his top scorer got to five goals they would go down with a crippling
injury (De Bruyne, Wilson, Redmond). His current top scorer has four, Diafra
Sakho, will probably not want to score this week. Plus, Sakho-Party, doesn’t quite
have the same ring to it.
