Gameweek 13 Fantasy Preview

The man in deep shit: Andre Villas-Boas

Overview
Arsenal was the only team that has made it through the knock-out stage this week in the Champions League, with the other three still on doubt of progressing the group stage especially for Manchester City. Bad year for English clubs on the European tournament?

Gameweek 12 Mini Review on the Top 7
Manchester City: Still unmatched upfront, but defence has slightly deteriorated.
Manchester United: Earned 3 points in ugly style. Either they wake up or expect poor run of results coming in.
Tottenham: As long as Adebayor and Van der Vaart take turns to hit form, Champions League is highly probable.
Newcastle: Hatem Ben Arfa should be a major fantasy force soon after a great performance against City.
Chelsea: Get rid of them. Terrible defence. Not looking sharp upfront neither.
Liverpool: Hard to pick them as they are not consistent enough. Defence is reliable though.
Arsenal: You can never go wrong with Van Persie.


Game of the Week: LIVERPOOL v MANCHESTER CITY

Charlie Adam has shown
great vision on the game
against Chelsea.

Wealthy City will travel to neighbouring city Liverpool as they try to demolish Anfield with Sheikh's money.

With annual losses of  £194.9m, City owns one of the highest wage bill across Europe with the likes of Silva, Aguero, Nasri and more. With that kind of money, City has the ability to challenge for titles this season, and has topped the Premier League table currently with a comfortable 5-point lead. Massive, massive season for them.

The Blues travelled to Naples for a Champions League tie against Napoli and that definitely took away some of their fitness, so do not be surprised by rotation. Silva should start though, as he had only played for 30 minutes in the game against Newcastle and less than 45 minutes for two international games before that - might be a strategy that Mancini prepares to play him against both Napoli and Liverpool.

On the other side, Liverpool will have no fitness problems when they host City, and Dalglish had clearly stated that Premier League is their top priority despite having a League Cup tie with Chelsea two days after that. However, Suarez trouble over racism allegations will make their chances of winning this game gloomy, especially if his match ban penalty starts from that game. Big doubts.

Manchester City might just be too tough for the Reds so I'll go for an away win. A narrow one though.

Prediction: LIV 1-2 MCI
Pick: Silva, Aguero


Fantasy Game of the Week: NORWICH v QUEEN'S PARK RANGERS

Heidar Helguson has picked
up 39 fantasy points from
his last 5 games.

With all the big clubs having European tie and League Cup tie before and after this week's game, let's focus on the battle between two promoters of the league.

Both teams are poor in defence, so offensively I can see a big scoreline.

Expect the likes like Pilkington, Holt and Morison to battle all out against Helguson, Barton, Wright-Phillips and Taarabt to grab three points from the tie.

Helguson might be worthy for your captain armband with his spectacular run of form currently.


Prediction: NOR 3-2 QPR
Pick and Captain: Helguson
Pick: Pilkington, Holt, Morison, Barton, SWP, Taarabt
Drop: NOR and QPR defence

Pick and Drop
Pick and captain:

1. Van Persie - Might play only half of the game, but still too good to refuse.
2. Walters - Blackburn should be leaky enough for him to perform.
3. Van der Vaart/ Adebayor - West Brom's defensive qualities won't be enough to stop them.

Pick:

1. MUN defence - Should be formidable with captain Vidic leading the line.
2. SUN defence - Solid and cheap. Against Wigan it's highly possible for another clean sheet.
3. Agbonlahor - If he can get enough chances, he should defeat Vorm.

Drop:

1. NEW defence - A clean sheet at Old Trafford? Negative for me.
2. FUL defence - RvP is unstoppable.

Transfer Traffic

Green light (buy):

1. Van Persie - Simply too good.
2. Hoilett - Cheap. Solid.
3. Walters - Ultimate influence.
4. Richards - Seems to outperform Kompany at the moment.
5. SUN defence - Some good fixtures ahead.
6. MUN defence - Showing great resolution.
7. Ben Arfa - Extremely threatening.

Yellow light (hold):

1. Ramsey/ Arteta - See if something develops to make one of them more superior than the other.

Red light (sell):

1. Suarez - Should be match banned soon.
2. MUN offence - Shaping into a 1-0 team.
3. NEW defence - Collapsing against big teams.

Gameweek 13 Dream Team

De Gea

Shawcross -- Brown -- Walker

Van der Vaart -- Walters -- Pilkington -- Barton

Helguson -- Van Persie (C) -- Holt

Subs: Vorm -- Taarabt -- Hutton -- Weather

Kick-Off: Gameweek 10 Fantasy Preview

Suarez with a wonderful curl in Carling Cup against Stoke.

Overview
A very exciting League Cup should be expected as five of the Premier League giant clubs, namely Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal have all progressed to the last eight of the tournament. With so many clubs capable of challenging titles in Premier League, surely every cup counts - expect intense competition even if this is just Carling Cup.

Game of the Week: CHELSEA v ARSENAL

Will there an immediate
impact by El Nino?

Timed to perfection? Chelsea, who seemed to struggle with their form recently, will station at Stamford Bridge to await the challenge from fellow neighbours Arsenal, who are slowly rebounding from their catastrophic season start.

The Blues will be without Drogba who was suspended on last game, but will welcome the return of £50mil Fernando Torres, Ashley Cole and Jose Bosingwa who are all released from suspension. Surely FT9 will pair up with red hot Sturridge to shatter the Gunners' fragile defence.

Defensive wise, Chelsea are obviously struggling at the moment and playing against on form Van Persie certainly would not help them. Van Persie's 30 goals in last 36 games for Arsenal surely is something, and he's got better record on the road as well. Big trouble surely for Terry and co.

At the middle of the field Chelsea will have some slight edge with Lampard, Mata, Ramires (doubtful) and Meireles all available to crush the Gunners defence. It does wonder me whether the midfield composed of Arteta, Ramsey, Song and possibly Benayoun will be able level them.

On the back of Arsenal only Szczesny can be counted, so I am really looking forward for a big scoreline by both sides. A big scoring draw, if not a narrow victory by Chelsea.

Prediction: CHE 3-2 ARS
Pick: Torres, Sturridge, Van Persie, Mata, Meireles
Avoid: Defence


Fantasy Game of the Week: MANCHESTER CITY v WOLVES

David Silva is simply unstoppable.

When one team is capable of winning 6-1 at Old Trafford, surely it's irresistible to feature it almost every week in this column. And that's Manchester City.

The Blue Moon have just demolished their forthcoming visitors 5-2 in Carling Cup encounter with their team B, and you can only expect team A which composed of Silva, Aguero and Balotelli to do even better.

Mick McCarthy will probably try to hold them off with "park the bus" tactic, but with a very different team to face compared to days ago, it probably will be too hard to them to sustain all the attacks especially when there Silva and Aguero are both very good in dribbling across stubborn defences.

The points ceiling for the players might be low with Mancini's mind surely on for the coming Champions League encounter, but still it's a risk worth taking. Captain Silva, Aguero or Balotelli if you have any.

Prediction: MCI 4-0 WOL
Pick and Captain: Silva, Aguero, Balotelli
Pick: MCI defence, Milner
Avoid: WOL defence


Pick and Drop
Pick and Captain:

1. Van der Vaart/ Adebayor - Hosting against QPR without goalssssss? Hard to imagine.

Pick:

1. Suarez - The floodgate opened? Well he just scored over one goal in a single game for the first time this season, good sign.
2. Pilkington/ Morison - One thing that Blackburn never fails to do is leaking goals.
3. Rooney - Surely he wanted a rebound from slump even if it's against his mother club.

Avoid:

1. BLA defence - Never trust them. And I mean NEVER.
2. EVE defence - Man Utd are surely finding a sandbag.
3. QPR defence - Leaked 6 goals last time on the road.

Transfer Traffic

Green light (buy):

1. Adebayor/ Van der Vaart - Two of them will take up over 60% of Tottenham's goals.
2. Aguero/ Silva/ Balotelli - All on form.
3. Cleverley - With Fletcher and Anderson doing poorly last week he is set for an immediate start in the centre of the park.
4. Walters - Very very influential in the attack of Stoke.
5. Graham - Ultra cheap 3rd forward with form at the moment.

Yellow light (watch):

1. Torres - Still not trustworthy until he proves consistency and discipline.
2. A Young/ Nani - Losing some form currently.
3. Best - Offensive influence has been taken over by Ba.

Red light (sell):

1. Long - Injured.
2. Drogba - Suspended.
3. Bannan - Suspended by club following his drink-drive incident.
4. Rio Ferdinand/ Evans - Terrible defensive form.

Gameweek 10 Dream Team

Begovic

Kompany -- Walker -- Enrique

Silva -- Van der Vaart (VC) -- Sinclair -- Pilkington

Suarez -- Aguero (C) -- Adebayor

Subs: Vorm -- Cleverley -- Barnett -- Brown

Cruising City: Gameweek 9 Fantasy Review

"Why always me?" Balotelli just never stops creating chaos. Both on
and off the pitch.

Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City
MUN: Never can I imagine there'll be worse loss than Liverpool 4-1 demolition of Old Trafford to United. BUT the calamitous performance by United defenders has successfully renewed such embarrassing record.

The biggest question is of course "Why Johnny Evans but not Vidic or Jones?" Always and always I rate Jones as the best youngsters on the back among the young blood of Red Devils. Evans? Obviously the worst. And he just did it again.

The decision to not sub Phil Jones in immediately after Evans' red card is yet another disastrous decision. No matter how good Ferdinand is it's impossible for him to guard two forwards altogether - and Ferdinand was poor, if not terrible. That's just ridiculous.

To sum it up it's really the rare bad tactical decisions by Sir Alex Ferguson that made the team looked awfully awful.

MCI: Play calmly and shown resolute defence before the red. Tackles were timed to perfection and Richards has really locked Young very well. He did well up front too.

All three of Aguero, Dzeko and Balotelli scored. The latter is showing some exceptional form despite having just burned his home recently. However, with the habit of Mancini to keep his forwards when he's sure of victory, their fantasy ceilings will be affected.

Silva as usual is the most consistent and important performer for the team, so grab him quickly before he becomes unaffordable.

Pick: Aguero, Balotelli, Silva, Richards
Drop: Ferdinand, Evans


QPR 1-0 Chelsea
QPR: Surprise surprise! QPR won but did they really play well? For sure not!

They are up by two men before half time and yet? It was Chelsea who's more adventurous and nearer to the second goal of the game.

All I can say is disgrace to Neil Warnock's team. When you are two men more than you opponent you should attack like a monster. Not only the didn't, they are struggling to defend in the second half.

Worth noting though is the fact that Helguson somehow squeezed through the starting XI and is capitalising his chances well.

CHE: Nothing much to comment as two red cards had effectively limited their performance.

Drogba's red pretty much mean that Sturridge's position in starting XI is almost certain, while Bosingwa's red should give chance to Luiz. Unfortunately, the Blues are struggling to keep a clean sheet lately and thus making Luiz not worthy as a fantasy defender.

Pick: Sturridge
Watch: Helguson
Drop: Bosingwa, Drogba


Liverpool 1-1 Norwich
LIV: They got 20+ shots and yet only a goal - finishing ability remains a big problem for Dalglish to be solved. Suarez just never stops wasting chances - that has to be stopped.

The team certainly needs a layoff man like Zamora and Carroll's inability to blend into the team certainly won't help.

NOR: Pilkington assisted this time as the young man continued to impress. Holt scored his second goal of the season surprisingly and I do wonder whether he is a big game guy.

Watch: Suarez, Pilkington


Arsenal 3-1 Stoke City
ARS: It's really all about Van Persie at this team. The captain came from the bench to decide the game with two goals. Incredible. Unbelievable. C Ronaldo-esque fantasy performance.

Ramsey is as productive as always and should be bought as direct replacement for Arteta who played to deep to score. Gervinho is good as well up front for setting up both Van Persie's goals. Great attacking selections at Arsenal.

STO: The team just never stops revolving around Walters in offence. Their sluggish away form just couldn't improve, however.

Pick: Van Persie, Ramsey, Gervinho, Walters


Fulham 1-3 Everton
FUL: Not their day really with Zamora missed a golden chance.


EVE: 16 points from Drenthe from his first Premier League start. He certainly looked must more offensive than I had imagined and is set to become a hot fantasy bargain.

Pick: Drenthe


***I am not giving full game by game reviews as I am very busy recently.

Kick-Off: Gameweek 9 Fantasy Preview

Aguero returns wonderfully.

Overview
Both Manchester clubs have finally earned themselves their first victory in Champions League group stage respectively as they set for the first grand match of the season at Old Trafford in this coming Sunday. A pretty good Champions League midweek for Premier League clubs in fact as all four participants won. Rooney, Aguero, Ramsey and Torres (still not available) were the big man from respective teams.

Game of the Week: MANCHESTER UNITED v MANCHESTER CITY

Can De Gea pass the second
test after passing the first one
against Liverpool?

The first decisive game that can alter the direction where the Premier League trophy will go at May next year. Manchester United will take on the challenge against league leader and also their "noisy neighbours" Manchester City at Old Trafford.

City are really cementing themselves as a giant club currently, sealing 22 from possible 24 league points so far. The money spent by the Sheikhs has really given them incredible squad depth - players like Balotelli and Adam Johnson can easily make it through the starting XI of any other Premier League clubs, but yet they sit on City's bench frequently.

Silva and Nasri will continue to act as the dual-core processor at City - their supplies will be the very crucial factor in determining the outcome for City at Old Trafford. Aguero, who just scored the winning goal for City coming on through bench, shall give some hard time to United's defence.

The host Manchester United are doing fine too this season, but their form has dipped a bit recently. A lucky win against Norwich plus a difficult draw against Liverpool clearly shown that they are starting to struggle as the fixtures get more compact for them.

Rooney will lead the line as usual with Nani and Young providing the width. But will they play 4-5-1 or 4-4-2 against the ever threatening City? Hard to tell.

Vidic will really have to be in 100% focus if he starts. He has bad discipline history in big games (remember the red card hat-trick against Liverpool) so he simply has to be more alert about that.

I would have gone for a home victory a week ago, but the recent performance by United simply doesn't give me the confidence for that. Mancini has quite a chance to break United's 100% Premier League home record.

Prediction: MUN 1-1 MCI
Pick: Rooney, Aguero


Fantasy Game of the Week: QPR v CHELSEA

Meireles surely hopes to lock in
a first team place at Chelsea.

Sure, Liverpool are at home against Norwich, but with Norwich on form and Liverpool not so solid on the back so far, I'll rather go with Chelsea who just won 5-0 in the Champions League.

Torres scored more than one goal for the first time for Chelsea but is still unavailable for this week's Premier League action. No worries though, as both Sturridge and Drogba are more than ready to fill the Spaniard's boots, with on form Meireles providing the supplies behind them.

Lampard and Mata are perhaps the most safe player to start, but you do need to pay some good premiums for them (Lampard is super expensive and Mata don't seem to have a high ceiling yet). Ramires' injury has certainly paved a way to Meireles for a sure-starter, so you should really consider him who comes at a much cheaper price.

Defensively I still don't trust Terry and co, so it's really the Blues' attackers who matter.

Prediction: QPR 1-3 CHE
Pick and Captain: Sturridge, Meireles, Lampard
Pick: Mata
Drop: QPR defence, Ramires


Pick and Avoid
Pick and Captain:

1. Suarez/Adam/Gerrard - Against Norwich it's always a good choice to pass the armband any one of them.
2. Adebayor/Van der Vaart - They are against one of the worst defence of the league.
3. Van Persie - A no-brainer for his form.
4. Demba Ba - Scored 5 goals in 3 games and should score again against Wigan.

Pick:

1. Ramsey - Good form.
2. Best - Form is not as good as Ba.
3. Agbonlahor - Never fails to shine.
4. NEW defence - Rock solid.

Avoid:

1. NOR defence - Don't think they can escape from Anfield with no damages on the back.
2. BLA players - Awful all the way.

Transfer Traffic
Green light (buy):

1. Van der Vaart/Adebayor - Both are dictating Tottenham's offence.
2. Ba - Newcastle are playing extremely fine with him the key player upfront.
3. Ramsey - Cheap and productive.

Yellow light (watch):

1. Pilkington - Not really a good time to bring him in despite the form.
2. Adam - Watch whether he will be sacrificed to make way for Gerrard.
3. Arteta - Playing too deep.

Red light (sell):

1. Dzeko - Out of favour.
2. Downing - Played decently but somehow failed to contribute anything up till now.

Gameweek 9 Dream Team

Krul

Enrique -- Warnock -- R Taylor

Adam -- Van der Vaart -- Ramsey -- Meireles(VC)

Suarez -- Adebayor(C) -- Ba

Subs: Vorm -- Eagles -- Assou-Ekkoto -- Boyata

Stevie G Is Back: Gameweek 8 Fantasy Review

Nothing is feeling better than to score a goal after returning t the
starting XI for the first time in over 6 months.

Liverpool 1-1 Man Utd
LIV: They must be blaming themselves for not taking care of their rivals. They did play well, especially in the last 10 minutes of the game, but the finishing was basically... sucks. Until Andy Carroll hit the expectations on him Liverpool will continue to struggle with this fact.

Adam played extremely well - one of the best game I've seen so far, and is WITH Gerrard on the field. No coexist problems. Great sign to hold him, and certainly bad sign for Carroll.

MUN: Ferguson benched most of his aces - while it's understandable, it's surprising as their opponent is none other than Liverpool. Played overly defensive in my opinion as they were pressed by Liverpool throughout the game.

Welbeck and Chicharito combined for the equaliser. Both are good but I can't see them on the field together frequently with Rooney certainly will dominate one of the two starting forward spots.

Pick: Adam, Welbeck, Chicharito
Watch: Gerrard


Man City 4-1 Aston Villa
MCI: Splendid even without starting Silva, Nasri and Dzeko. Balotelli played an important part in it with an instinctive bicycle kick. Talented but fierce competition upfront will continue to limit his playing time as Aguero returns.

Same goes to Adam Johnson and Milner. Cheap in fantasy, super productive, but will spend a lot of time on the bench.

Captain Kompany scored a goal and a bonus. Still the best City defender to own in my opinion.

AST: Outclassed by Man City. Agbonlahor got a good one-on-one chance but somehow failed to score. His speed and form should continue to produce more fantasy scores though.

Warnock scored the consolation and had another good chance before that. But don't get blind to own him as Villa's defence is not as solid as expected.

Pick: Kompany, Agbonlahor
Watch: Warnock, Balotelli


Norwich 3-1 Swansea
NOR: Great game by Pilkington and Morrison after they squandered so many chances at Old Trafford last week. Pilkington certainly has good finishing. Holt can only blame himself after failing to impress. He lead scorer last season really has no place to stand currently.

SWA: Scott Sinclair continued his fine form as he assisted one for Danny Graham who scored in two games in a row. Both deserve to be monitored.

Pick: Sinclair
Watch: Pilkington, Morrison, Graham


QPR 1-1 Blackburn
QPR: Two rather unpopular players (Helguson and Mackie) combined for the goal. Nothing much to tell here.

BLA: 11 points for Samba, but you must be gutted to pick him based on just one game.

Stoke 2-0 Fulham
STO: Britannia continues to become an untouchable stadium. I believe that owning a Stoke defender (or more) is a must at this point. Shawcross and Begovic are the best choices.

In terms of offence, it's heavily focused on Walters and Etherington - nothing much to confuse you once you've decided to pick a Stoke attackers.

FUL: Not very similar to the level they played last week. Perhaps due to the frightening Britannia's aura.

Pick: Etherington, Shawcross, Walters, Begovic


Wigan 1-3 Bolton
WIG: Al-Habsi's owners must feel happy as the stopper picked up 8 points thanks to his fantastic performance which includes a penalty save.

Having said that, nothing else in Wigan has really impressed me.

BOL: N'gog is showing some great football here with a goal and a foul which earned Bolton a missed penalty. Give him some more time and he might push Klasnic away from starting XI.

The same goes for Eagles. He overpowered Wigan on his own feet. Tremendous.

Pick: Eagles
Watch: Al-Habsi, N'gog
Avoid: WIG players


Chelsea 3-1 Everton
CHE: Sturridge has once again become the key man to the victory. Incredible. Ramires scored one too as he continued to provide good fantasy return with his great runs.

No clean sheets again - Bosingwa owners will surely be frustrated.

EVE: Osman played some good football there. Drenthe was more offensive than what I'd expected. And Vellios' 2 goals in just merely 35 minutes of Premier League exposure is just admirable.

Pick: Sturridge, Ramires, Mata
Watch: Vellios, Drenthe, Osman


West Brom 2-0 Wolves
WBA: Clean sheet are never bad but I doubt people will actually pick their defenders.

Brunt was the main man of the show as he finally showed the display of a key offensive midfielder should have.

WOL: They lost for 5 consecutive games after a great league opening. Big troubles, big confidence crisis.

Get rid of them.

Pick: Brunt
Watch: Odemwingie
Avoid: WOL players


Arsenal 2-1 Sunderland
ARS: Hail captain Van Persie for his great all-round performance. A quick opening goal and a free kick goal are enough for the victory.

But the team in general are still very disappointing - the cohesion is not good enough.

SUN: Seb Larsson scored through a free kick as he once again shown why spot kick takers are worth to be held in your team.

Pick: Van Persie, Larsson


Newcastle 2-2 Tottenham
NEW: Rock solid. I certainly like the way they play. Dominated despite not earning 3 points.

It's also a must to hold a Newcastle defender or goalkeeper at this point, and I think Krul is the best choice.

Ba scored 5 in 3. From a possible flop at gameweek 1 he has developed into a monstrous presence.

TOT: Hail those who didn't drop Adebayor as he started and earned 8 points after being classified as doubtful before the game.

Van der Vaart and Defoe were the usual suspects again, nothing too surprising.

Pick: Ba, NEW defence, Adebayor, VdV
Watch: Defoe