Week 6: IEFSA Fantasy League 2017/18 Preview

A fifth loss to start the season would make you believe I’m feeling the pressure. But things have been positive this past gameweek, as my side posted their second highest total of the year and everyone got on the pitch and contributed their little bit. Beating @wrigavin was always going to be a tough ask, and a Xherdan Shaqiri (of all things!) goal was the difference between the two sides. Harry Kane had a quiet game but still put up 13 points, which would have been the third best score if he was on my team. Which basically means if @wrigavin wanted to trade Kane for any of my better players, then my door would perhaps be open.

Shaqiri loves a long range shot or two

With performances slowly on the up I can look forward with optimism to this week’s matchup. So, who has the IEEFSA/Fantrax fixture computer decide to pit my side against? Oh it’s @FuzzyWarbles. *checks IEFSA league table* Oh…… oh…. @FuzzyWarbles just happens to be top and has scored the highest amount of points in the league. He has scored almost three hundred points more than my team and scored the highest amount of points last weekend. Surely this fixture is just further proof of the IEFSA/Fantrax bias against my side.

@FuzzyWarbles’s Team

Steve has a player who has already scored more goals than my whole squad put together. Liverpool’s Sadio Mane. He has a player who would be my top scorer (2 goals) if he was on my team. Burnley’s new signing Chris Wood. In Midfield things don’t get much better when you compare our sides. The best passer in my side is, obviously, Joe Allen, with 144 accurate passes in Midfield. @FuzzyWarbles’s players would laugh at this stat though. After five games, his three midfielders of Tom Carroll, Andrew Surman and Eric Dier post numbers of 200, 247, and 316 accurate passes respectively.

At the back things look equally as grim. I somehow have six defenders in my squad and between them they’ve played 15 games and have earned a total of three clean sheets. @FuzzyWarbles also has six defenders in his squad, yet they have managed 13 clean sheets between them. Phil Jones (4) on his own has more clean sheets than my whole team! Steve’s goalkeeper is Spurs’ Hugo Lloris, and the Frenchman has three clean sheets this season. I on the other hand have whoever mans the sticks for Burnley, currently Nick Pope, and that side has yet to stop an opponent from scoring.

@FuzzyWarbles also has another player he can call on if he needs a bit of a goal threat.

@FuzzyWarbles will rest him right?

What I Need To Happen

Not many sides can boast a Golden Boy award winner in their squad!

Well, six sides can boast that, including @FuzzyWarbles, doh!

But moving on… I secured the talents of Renato Sanches for a steal of only $45 a few weeks ago. The Swansea midfielder has yet to find his feet in Wales, but surely will find things easier going when he faces Watford on Saturday. This should also be the game where Tammy Abraham bags (conservative estimate) a brace. Looking elsewhere for goals. My best hope is probably Tom Ince. The Huddersfield man has taken 19 shots this season and is yet to find the net. It would be just my luck that he finally pops one in when he is up against my Burnley goalkeeper.

Izquierdo is Brighton's record signing #TheMoreYouKnow

Jose Izquierdo managed 104 minutes for Brighton during the league cup in midweek. Unfortunately, he didn’t use this time by scoring any goals and probably missed his side’s best chance of the game, as the Seagulls were knocked out. Using my crystal ball, I’d say that the Colombian will fail to break the starting line-up again for some time. This means I may have to offload the winger for another promising player on the Free Agency list. I’m hearing good things about this Marko Grujic, maybe I’ll pick him up…

Predictions

Five from nine last weekend, as a number of tight games didn’t fall the way I had expected. @wrigavin against @TRKingston is the tie of the round. Both teams have a record of 4-1 and the winner of this tie could go top if @FuzzyWarbles has a below par performance. *crosses fingers* To keep track of all the goings on of this gameweek, please follow @THE_IEFSA. To hear tales of woe, heartache, despondency, misfortune and the occasional cat meme, please follow @GarryIrwin on Twitter.

Here are this week’s predictions. Good Luck Everyone.

@EPL_MOstradamus over @TAMc10

@jwl_15 over @nikarg

@RotoZdroik over @FantasyYIRMA

@TRKingston over @wrigavin

@jasonuk17 over @SmokeyLoogy

@RotoWireAndrew over @BenDinnery

@jforquer11 over @TomSunderland_

@SportsByGotti over @nealjthurman

@cjradune over @DFS_Hambazaza

Week 5: IEFSA Fantasy League 2017\18 Preview

“A life spent defensively, worried, is a life wasted”                         -                      Lance Armstrong

Four weeks, four losses. Times were getting desperate. I couldn’t field a whole starting roster, injuries were mounting up as Tom Heaton injured his shoulder which would necessitate a lengthy absence, goals were becoming a rarity (two in four games), and an assist had yet to be seen. Something had to be done. I could not just ride it out and hope Dwight Gayle battles his way back into the Newcastle starting eleven, or that Victor Lindelof would finally usurp Phil Jones from the Man Utd back-line. Actions needed to be taken before I was cut adrift at the bottom of the table.

Shoulder surgery will keep Tom Heaton sidelined for months

That those actions would entail me spending almost my entire budget on three players who probably won’t start for their respective teams this weekend, was not something people could have foreseen. In fact, I didn’t even see it that way, as I had expected to be outbid on at least one of the three players I now possess. Zlatan Ibrahimovic had a value of $68 last season, so I assumed he would go for slightly higher this time around and I had initially bid over $70. But I kept notching up the value until I settled on $85. I probably could have acquired him for a fair but less. The Swede can’t come back from injury fast enough. My other two players each cost me $40 less than Zlatan, but I vastly overpaid. Serge Aurier becomes the most expensive Spurs defender in the game and is fighting with $1 Kieran Trippier for a spot in their line-up. Renato Sanches was made the fifteenth most expensive Midfielder in the league. Not bad for a player who completed 90 minutes only once during a year at Bayern Munich, where he was largely anonymous. While signing these players I had to let go Gayle and Shelvey, what with the earlier release of Jose Fonte, means I’ve basically thrown away nearly $100 since the draft. This sounds like doom and gloom, but my new team get their chance to prove themselves this coming gameweek against @wrigavin. Gavin has three wins this season and would have beaten my side handily if we had met on any other gameweek. Thanks IEFSA/Fantrax fixture computer!

@wrigavin’s Team

 

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What I Need To Happen

Zlatan is injured. Heaton is out for months. Rojo is also still injured. Lindelof might as well be injured. Izquierdo (who?) can’t seem to start a game. Tammy Abraham has less accurate passes in 330 minutes of football than Renato Sanches managed in 70 minutes last weekend. Joe Allen is off form. Keane and Cook are defenders in name only as they don’t seem to want to keep clean sheets anymore. Gareth Barry is……. still in my squad??? My only hope this weekend could be the longshot of my Bournemouth and Brighton players outscoring @wrigavin’s Anthony Knockaert (a tough ask in itself), followed by some sort of nuclear war that gets all the other games on Saturday and Sunday cancelled.

Kim Jong-Un has won every season of the North Korean Fantasy League

Predictions

An improvement from the week before sees six correct predictions from nine. It was the tough-to-call games in the Primary League that were my undoing. To heap praise on this week’s predictions, feel free to follow me on Twitter @GarryIrwin. Also, feel free to badger @THE_IEFSA to ease up on the fixture congestion my side unfairly has to face every week.

Here are this week’s predictions. Good Luck Everyone.

@TRKingston over @TAMc10

@jwl_15 over @RotoZdroik

@FuzzyWarbles over @FantasyYIRMA

@nikarg over @EPL_MOstradamus

@jasonuk17 over @cjradune

@SportsByGotti over @jforquer11

@RotoWireAndrew over @nealjthurman

@SmokeyLoogy over @TomSunderland_

@DFS_Hambazaza over @BenDinnery