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Every week, our panel of Fantasy Premier League experts look back at the previous Gameweek and ahead to the next one.
Following the international break, here’s what they had to say.
Put simply, Gameweek 3 wasn’t ideal for me. That said, it was nice seeing one of my transfers pay off instantly. I sold Kevin De Bruyne for a -4 in place of Dele Alli. The England international duly repaid my trust with a goal and 2 bonus points against Burnley. However, he is now one to monitor for different reasons as his shenanigans during the international break could lead to some sort of punishment by the FA, such as a suspension.
My pick of the week has to come from the Liverpool side which comprehensively dismantled an extremely poor Arsenal team at Anfield. A lot has been made of the performances of Mohamed Salah’s arrival with good reason however it feels very much that Roberto Firmino is undervalued with a starting price of £8.5m (now £8.6m). His positional switch from midfield to forward in the official game provides more scope for FPL managers and allows teams to play Firmino up front and have a high value Liverpool midfielder.
Kyle Naughton – the top scorer in the @FPLSecrets team this GW. The full-back has now racked up 19 points from the opening three GWs, keeping two clean sheets and providing one assist. Naughton has averaged an FPL point for every 14 mins played so-far this season. Priced at £4.5m, and with favorable fixtures over the next five GWs, Naughton continues to be a great value pick.
Firmino, Naughton and Alli
Allan-Romeo Nyom was a mainstay in my team at the turn of this year due to his status as a cheap enabler. Unfortunately, he repaid the favour with numerous 1-2pts performances. However, this season he’s been completely different, like a new signing. with two clean sheets and an assist in his first three games, along with 6 bonus points are testament to his new found prowess. Best of all, his ownership is less than 3 percent. He faces a goal shy Brighton next.
An international break often brings pain, frustration and multiple unnecessary transfers for Fantasy managers. I’ve decided for my one to watch for GW4 I’ll avoid players who’ve had to travel extensively for qualification matches. Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil recently posted a long appeal to fans and pundits to get behind the club and support the players and in doing so he needs to put in a big performance against Bournemouth in GW4. Ozil is often made the scapegoat in a team where few of his teammates have performed. His key passes so far this season (12) is second only to Man United’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan (13) so there is no questioning his ability. With Alexandre Lacazette seemingly returning to the lineup for GW4 Ozil has a decent fixture to step up and put in a performance desperately needed to bring a bit of a feel good factor back to the Emirates.
Harry Kane. August is over and Kane is back scoring, having bagged two goals and an assist while on international duty for England against Malta there are no excuses in GW4. Kane has had more shots on goal (24) than any other forward this season, 18 of which have been inside the box, with a 46 percent shot accuracy.
Kane, Ozil and Nyom
The non-transfers of Philippe Coutinho, Alexis Sanchez and Diego Costa to some extent overshadowed deadline day. In terms of actual transfers, Swansea’s purchase of Wilfried Bony was a cracking bit of business. Yes, his career has been on a hiatus for the past two years when he was a backup striker at City. But with no Gylfi Sigurdsson and no Fernando Llorente, Bony will arguably be Swansea’s star attacking player. He scored 17 Premier League goals for them during the 13/14 season. Now aged 28, this may be Bony’s last chance to rediscover his scoring touch and become viable again in FPL.
There is no doubt that the loan move of Renato Sanches from Bayern Munich to Swansea raised eyebrows. Swan’s boss Paul Clement used his little black book to bring in one of Europe’s hottest prospects from Euro 2016 and Sanches will surely be afforded more game time than back in Germany. Elsewhere, Crystal Palace fans will be delighted to see Mamadou Sakho return to the club. The big French defender made a big impact on loan at Palace last season and if he can get himself match fit will walk into Frank De Boer’s starting 11 who need a catalyst to help kickstart their season. From a fantasy perspective he’s dropped to £4.9m and is well priced on his return to fitness.
One to watch is Wilfried Bony. The Ivorian striker has returned to the Swans with whom he enjoyed two highly successful season from 2013 to 2015 – scoring 26 premier league goals and providing seven assists in 56 premier league appearances. Since then Bony has struggled for form and fitness, but at £6m represents a viable third striker option. One to be weary of is Renato Sanches and 61,000+ FPL managers have brought in the former Bayern Munich midfielder since his transfer to Swansea. The midfielder failed to score or assist last season in 25 appearances for Bayern Munich (903 mins played) and has only managed 2 goals and 1 assist in senior top flight football to-date.
Sanches, Sakho and Bony
FantasyYIRMA.com started in 2012 as one of the early Fantasy Football blog accounts focused primarily on news and previews for the Premier League. Now after providing coverage across 191 consecutive Fantasy Premier League gameweeks we still haven’t a clue what we’re talking about however feel we could’ve qualified as an astronaut if the time had been spent more productively.
