Saturday, April 22, 2017

Week 34: IEFSA Fantasy League Preview

A Win! And with those three points the title race is not over yet! For another week at least. A Marko Arnautovic goal helped my side to the victory over @jforquer11 last gameweek. Unfortunately all the other big guns won, so my side is still positioned fifth on the league table. Being 15 points off the top means I need a little bit of a miracle in order to win the title. A loss this week and all those dreams will be shattered, leaving my side having to fight over the (probably more) coveted fourth-place trophy.

Preparations for this week have been thrown into chaos though with the news that Jack Wilshere has been ruled out for the rest of the season with injury. He gets injured at just the wrong time, as all of my injured reserve slots are full. This means he will be cast to Free Agency like so many other anonymous England internationally capped midfielders. And speaking of random England international midfielders, I have drafted in Tom Huddlestone of Hull City into my side to replace Wilshere.
Get your boots on Tom you're in!

This week will see all the Premier League matches stretched out over the whole week and not just the weekend. This means some sides will play twice (Man Utd, Middlesboro, Crystal Palace) and one team doesn’t have any fixture (West Brom). In Fantrax scoring, players can’t gain points from two games. Therefore, players will only earn points from the first game they play. Probably? But whatever way the IEFSA/Fantrax works out the points, it will probably be the way that impacts my team negatively the most. And my opponents this week? Second placed @FuzzyWarbles. A team that has already beaten me this season.

@FuzzyWarbles’ Team


Two West Brom players and only Luke Shaw means @FuzzyWarbles will not be impacted too much by the fixture kerfuffle. Shaw should only gain points from the game against Burnley on Sunday. That’s if Shaw plays at all, with rotation being a problem because of Manchester United’s Europa League commitments. A lot of Steve’s players don’t play until midweek. He has three Man City players, Tadic of Southampton, Vertonghen of Spurs, and Januzaj of Sunderland. The only player that represents his side on Saturday will be Tom Carroll of Swansea. Because I could have five players playing on Saturday, and will have built up such a lead, @FuzzyWarbles could be panicked into wholesale changes to his squad on Sunday as he frets over the fitness of Sergio Aguero.
Aguero faces a tough (really?) game against Arsenal in the FA Cup this weekend

Aguero has scored 17 goals this season and averages a healthy 16.92 points per game. He strangely hasn’t registered any assists so far though. Which is strange because, he had contributed 26 assists in the five seasons before this one. A sign of dropping standards? Or of Man City’s change of style under Pep? The other City players in @FuzzyWarbles’ side are Yaya Toure in Midfield and Nicolas Otamendi in Defence. Toure averages 14.12 and Otamendi 15.94 points per game. They do face a home derby with Manchester United though, which should hopefully blunt their normally heavy passing attacking style.

What I Need To Happen


Huddlestone is not exactly the quick fix I need at this stage of the season. But he does average over ten points a game and will be playing Watford at home this gameweek. He will, hopefully, be partnered in midfield by Kevin Mirallas, who is in good form at the moment for Everton. Luka Milivojevic of Crystal Palace will only have his points counted from the game against Liverpool on Sunday, I presume. While Henrikh Mkhitaryan can only gain points from the game against Burnley in the early Sunday kick-off.
Marko Arnautovic has scored six goals in the league this season

Burnley will face an injury hit Man Utd who have been heavy on ball retention but light on penetration. (Tell me about it! Story of the season) My goalkeeper Tom Heaton and Defender Michael Keane will hopefully rack up the points when the Red Devils visit Turf Moor. Last week’s hero Arnautovic will travel to Wales to play Swansea. He will have to score without the help of Stoke’s best player Joe Allen though, who is still side-lined with injury.

Predictions


A perfect set of predictions in the last gameweek was ruined by one of the upsets of the season. @DFS_Hambazaza picked up only his fourth win with victory over @jwl_15. This week @DFS_Hambazaza will be hard pressed to repeat the trick when he faces table topper @RotoZdroik. The tie of the round is probably @EPL_MOstradamus (4th ) against @wrigavin (8th). Don't forget, to follow all the action you need to be watching the Twitter feed of @THE_IEFSAHere are this week’s predictions.

Good Luck Everyone.


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