All set for GW25

Son IN
Martial OUT

Quick post this week. In short, not getting any City attackers as I can’t find a good way to bring Sterling in without compromising expected points from my existing team. (Sane is good but not worth a transfer in for Hazard/Salah for eg.) One thing I urge everyone to consider is how your squad will deal with the blank in GW27 and you have to factor in the fact that you have to set aside a transfer in 2 weeks to remove them.

Best 5 options for this week in order:

Sterling
Aguero
Sane
Sigurdsson
Richarlison

All the best!

Plans for GW24 and moving forward

We now have the confirmed fixtures list for GW25 and GW27.

Double Gameweek 25 – Everton and Man City
Blank Gameweek 27 – Everton, Man City, Chelsea and Brighton

As for Gameweek 31, these are the only teams that are guaranteed a fixture that week*, Huddersfield, Burnley, Bournemouth, Leicester, Liverpool, Fulham, Newcastle, West Ham

All the other teams not mentioned above will then have a double gameweek in GW32.

*pending the results of the 5th Round of the FA Cup, there will be more teams that join the following list.

For Gameweek 33, these are the only teams that are guaranteed a fixture that week**, Huddersfield, Burnley, Bournemouth, Leicester, Liverpool

All the other teams not mentioned above will then have a double gameweek in GW35.

**pending the results of the QF of the FA Cup, there will be more teams that join the following list.

With that, we have a much clearer idea of how we should set up for the last part of the season as well as how to optimally use our chips. At the moment, my plan is to set up my team to negotiate the blanks in 27 and 31, using my Free Hit to get in all the DGWers for GW32, then Wildcard in GW34 to again maximise the DGWers for GW35. Of course, a lot can change and once the fixture list is finalised for GW31 and GW33, I will be updating my plans to navigate those weeks.

What we have to do for now in order to maximise the use of our chips later in the season is to ensure a strong squad moving forward especially in the blank GWs. It’s often easy to concentrate all our efforts into maximising points during the DGWs and then neglecting the other weeks, losing ground overall in the process. Here’s my team and how I will be setting up for the next few weeks and hopefully this gives you guys an idea of how to best play the next few weeks as well.

I will be saving my free transfer this week, not only because it’s one of my favourite things to do but also because my squad sets up really well this week in terms of fixtures. City and Spurs have pretty good fixtures this week but bring in someone like Sane, Son, Sterling etc would mean sacrificing someone from my midfield who could score just as well and typically not worth the transfer. It also allows me to buy more time to decide who I want for DGW25 in addition to having more flexibility to make moves and deal with injuries that occur during GW24.

Captaincy is clear-cut this week again. Feel free to connect with me on twitter as always if you have questions or would like to know some good options to bring in from this week onwards. All the best and I will be back with another update with my plans for DGW25.

Post GW23 thoughts

Apologies for not updating the past week or so, I made 2 moves last week bringing in Firmino and Robertson for Kane and Balbuena. Firmino is a great option due to Pool’s fixtures while they are also the only team guaranteed to not have a blank gameweek in both GW27 and GW31 (which i plan to write an article about shortly). Bringing him in instead of someone like Aubemeyang also allows me to upgrade my defence and bring in the essential Robertson, who is the top defender from my projection in terms of the next 8 GWs.

There is a good chance I will be saving my transfer this week but I will not be making any moves till the FA Cup round is over as we will likely have way more information with regards to who plays in GW31. As I am typing this, we already know that Chelsea will join City in the Carabao Cup final and that means that both teams will miss GW27 together with Everton and Brighton and the first thing we need to do right now with our teams is to ensure we have a decent 11 put out for that week. There is still a chance that Chelsea may have a Double GW in 25 so let’s not be too rash in selling our Chelsea assets prior to 27. I will likely be holding Hazard till GW26.

We shall see how the FA Cup unfolds and once that round it over we will have a much clearer picture of our plans for the upcoming weeks and I will post an update prior to GW24. For now here are a few things we need to do

– Do not bring in any Chelsea/City/Brighton/Everton players
– Ensure we have a competitive 11 without players from those 4 teams by GW27
– Do not make any moves till after the FA Cup (new injuries, able to plan further ahead after)

Top 3 Expected Points for GW22

Top 3 Captains

1st Place: Hazard

2nd Place: Salah

3rd Place: Sterling

Top 3 Strikers

1st Place: Aguero

2nd Place: Aubameyang

3rd Place: Kane

Top 3 Midfielders

1st Place: Hazard

2nd Place: Salah

3rd Place: Sterling

Top 3 Defenders

1st Place: Alonso

2nd Place: David Luiz

3rd Place: Rudiger

Post GW21 and team for GW22

Worst week of the season, everything that could have went wrong went wrong. We all get these at some point and it’s important to just take a break from the game when this happens. We will be able to make good decisions again when we are able to assess the team with a fresh perspective and not act on tilt.

Planning ahead for the second half of the season

As we have gone past the busiest part of the season, we are now approaching the critical stage of the season where every move needs to be carefully worked out as our transfers become increasingly precious and the reason for that is the Blank and Double Gameweeks coming up. With City 9-0 up after the first leg, their fixture with Everton in GW27 will be moved and either Spurs and Burnley or Chelsea and Brighton will have their fixtures moved depending on who gets through to the EFL Cup final. Bringing in those who do not play in GW27 now will not be wise and if you team is stocked with many players from those teams then it would be wise to remove most of team in the coming weeks.

Moving on to GW22, my plan is to save the transfer as I cannot find a move that I would like medium/long term and all the moves I would like to make all require me to take a hit. With the Ings injury, I was looking at the Deeney move but that would leave me with the same amount of room to manoeuvre next week which is almost none. So this will how I will be rolling for GW22, with the armband on Eden.