FPLZ 2012/13 Season Preview: Individual Data Summary

Papiss Cisse is the scorer of goal of the season for last season.
What can FPLZ indices possibly tell you about his performance last season?

After going through with the team data, it's now the time to look at the overall individual data. Before we start, you are welcomed to download the Microsoft Excel sheet (password: "http://p-fplz.blogspot.com/", without the quotation marks) which I have compiled in these few days which contained both the team and individual data summary for your reference. You are advised to read my previous post titled "FPLZ 2012/13 Season Preview: Introduction" to learn about the glossaries that I will mention below to avoid confusion.

For your information, only players from unrelegated clubs with at least 15 points and players from relegated clubs with at least 70 points in Fantasy Premier League last season are classified in the list. Also, bear in mind that these indices take last season's price as the basis of calculations, so adjustments would need to be made to determine players' value this season.

Things That You Can Do By Selling Drogba

Didier Drogba
"What's wrong? Why are we keep losing?"

Drogba has been the most terrible investments over the past two months - costing £13m but hardly contributed any. His has been goalless over the past six premier league games he was playing, with fantasy returns of 2-6-1-2-2-2, barely passing two points per game on average. What's worse? Awaiting Chelsea are seven tough games, which in order are:

• Newcastle
• Everton
• Tottenham
• Man Utd
• Arsenal
• Bolton
• Aston Villa

The Ivorian will still have a fair chance to score in the first three coming fixtures, but I'm not so positive that he will score more than one each. With the aforementioned factors, I think it's time to end the misery of owning Drogba and change him to someone else.

With £13m you can continue to hold an out of form Drogba or:

• Own the best striker partnership in the Premier League currently - K Davies and Elmander. And you can still have a small change for that.
• Change Drogba for the in form luxurious striker Fernando Torres, and spend the additional £1.1m on other areas.
• Change him for one middle price striker (Gyan, K Davies, Elmander, Carroll etc.) and upgrade one £4m defender into a £7m one. Or even two.
• Change him for one middle price striker as above and make one of your midfielder to become Fabregas.
• Buy two luxurious goalkeeper (Hart, Cech, Van der Sar, Reina).

There's so much you can do by selling Drogba. So what's your choice?

Sunday Sparks

Sotirios Kyrgiakos
Fantastic performance at both ends on the pitch.

Congratulations for Manchester United for recording their first away victory this season and Liverpool for securing their second victory of the season. Here are some highlights:

• Javi Hernandez scored both goals of United. The lad is still far from becoming a sure-fire fantasy pick as Rooney will soon be back, but he might be able to squeeze Berbatov out should the latter dips his form.
• Both Nani and Berbatov failed to provide any fantasy returns this week and this frustrates a lot of managers including me.
• Liverpool overpowered a game for the first time this season, against Blackburn. Kyrgiakos has been superb all the while and Hodgson should list him as the first choice centre back of Liverpool as the Greek's reward.
• Liverpool's midfielders has been combining brilliantly during the first half and it was no surprise that Cole and Gerrard were on the assist sheet.
• Torres finally scored his second league goal (and smiled).
• A silly foul by Dedryk Boyata costed Manchester City a possible three points. Joe Hart owners will not be sad though as he caught five points with a precious penalty save.
• Nasri scored again! That is his six out of seven games. Magnificent.
• Tevez limped out with an injury. Stay updated with his status, fantasy managers.

Good night.

Gameweek 6 Fantasy Preview

Samir Nasri
Is the burden of leading Arsenal's offence too heavy for him?

It was Berbatov who led the gameweek score last week, but still, Chelsea's trio of Drogba, Malouda and Kalou are on the top three fantasy podium and they constitute six of eleven of dream team. Spectacular. Here is my last gameweek's score. I am improving fast, don't I?

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PART I: PREVIEWS

Can Joe Hart repeat such an ultimate performance against Chelsea?

Manchester City v Chelsea
The true test for Chelsea begins with a visit to the Eastlands this Saturday.

Chelsea, the old time big money spender, experienced almost the same of the new millionaire army. They both got knocked out from the League Cup and suffer from injury crisis. Ancelotti's side is offensively impaired with the absence of Lampard, Kalou and Benayoun, while Mancini's side is even worse with only three healthy defenders ready for action on Saturday.

We all know how unstoppable Chelsea is currently. The defeat to Newcastle is a misfortune rather than a panicky sign as the Blues were downed to 10-men due to unforeseen injury. While the absence of Kalou will certainly hit them in terms of goals, they will still have too much of offensive quality to not score.

City, on the other hand, has been far from impressing this season. David Silva has a long way to adapt to English football, while the likes like Kolarov, Boateng and Balotelli have yet to show their abilities due to their injuries. Joe Hart has been a genius up till now, but you can't expect the English stopper to perform godly saves week in week out.

While both sides have quite the similar fate this week, the difference between them is Chelsea still has their top scorers Malouda and Drogba healthy, and they have big advantage in charging against the defensively weakened City. They need to beware on Nigel De Jong though.

Prediction: MANC 1-3 CHE


The Rest

• Arsenal v West Brom (2-0) - Arsenal will experience some difficulty in offence in the absence of Fabregas. It should not be tough though. Nasri is the clear first choice from the team.
• Birmingham v Wigan (2-0) - Hleb has a good start with the Brums, and I expect him to repeat the feat again.
• Blackpool v Blackburn (1-2) - I think Blackburn's defence is brutal enough to stop Blackpool.
• Fulham v Everton (1-0) - With Everton's poor season start, I doubt if they can score any goals.
• Liverpool v Sunderland (1-0) - I don't have much confidence on the Reds. Torres is one of the good captain this week.
• West Ham v Tottenham (1-2) - Tottenham is still pretty unpredictable but I think Van der Vaart should be able to offer some stability to the Spurs' performance.
• Bolton v Man Utd (0-2) - The Red Devils should have no problem of winning this one but do expect for rotation as soon as they achieve a two-goal lead.
• Wolves v Aston Villa (0-1) - All I can predict from this game is it should be a low-scoring one.
• Newcastle v Stoke City (2-1) - Another tight match-up which I have no clue.

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PART II: SQUAD SELECTIONS

Fernando Torres
Can you afford to have him given that Drogba is the clear first choice forward?

Captain Picks

• Nasri - He takes over Fabregas role temporarily.
• Torres - The Premier League top star is starting to find back the best of him.

Buy-Ins

• Torres/Gerrard/Konchesky - The next five games of Liverpool are relatively easy with three games at home.
• Berbatov/Nani/Scholes - Despite mostly away, Man Utd also has a good run of fixtures.

Sell-Outs

• Baptiste - Haunted by injury.

Squad of XV

GK: Foster

DF: Dann, Konchesky, Clichy

MF: Hleb, Nani, Nasri(C), Malouda, Van der Vaart

F: Torres, Chamakh

Subs (in order): Robinson, O'Shea, Luke Young, Carroll

Captain: Nasri

Emergency Captain: Value

Starting XI Value: £78.5m

Total Team Value: £99.6m

Two Pretenders?

Congratulations for Tottenham and Manchester City who spared one point apiece and got the first points of EPL 10/11 season. However, their performance is really disappointing.

Let's have a look at Tottenham. Brilliant exchanges, numerous chances, POOR FINISHING. POOR. Added with the wonderful performance from Joe Hart, their 21 total shots and 13 shots on target became nothing.

Now turn the camera to Manchester City. Awful formation (why the hell is Yaya Toure on the right?), added with bad understanding between the players had made them played like a bunch of school kids at first. The situation did improve after the break but sadly, not threatening enough.

While Tottenham still have a fair chance of playing for another Champions League season, I don't think that Manchester City is close to that currently. Their teamwork needs to be heavily bucked up before they talk about finishing with a good rank, let alone the title.

The biggest winner of this game is surely Joe Hart. NINE fantasy points before bonus valuation! Great job from Tottenham attackers.

Oh Mr Hart, please get back to Birmingham......