Review of Game Week 17

Best Team 

GW Points: 84
Overall Points: 1,117
Overall Rank: 16,836

Main Blog Team

GW Points: 60
Overall Points: 1,099
Overall Rank: 24,737
Transfers used: Salah out, Kane in

Progress over the last couple of weeks slowed down this week, mainly due to Man Utd conceding in the FA Cup against Everton. It was a really daft goal to give away as well but this wiped out the clean sheet for De Gea and Shaw. I was also let down a little bit by Fernandes, De Bruyne and Haaland this week – although that would be the same for most people with their ownership being so high. The team still made progress on the overall leaderboard but not a significant amount in comparison to the previous two game weeks. Another of my 10 teams has also taken top spot as my “best team”, mainly because I had Mahrez over Saka in this side. Had City gone through in the EFL Cup, I’d have probably put Mahrez in over Saka for the week ahead but I’ve held back making that change for the time being. Fixture volume certainly favours Man Utd and Newcastle players at the moment so I’ll be holding onto De Gea, Shaw, Schar, Trippier, Fernandes, Almiron and Rashford for a while longer. I also can’t see me taking out Haaland or De Bruyne due to their explosive point scoring nature and high ownership. This only leaves me with Kane and Saka to consider this weekend. The obvious move would be to bring Salah back in, with Liverpool having good fixtures. Mahrez would be a good option for Saka despite the lack of EFL Cup fixtures but I can’t make both transfers within budget. It’s a decision I’m going to ponder until the weekend. Other than that, I can’t complain about my team’s recent performance, with the standout player currently being Rashford.

Player watchlist

I’ve got good coverage of the main players based on fixture ease and volume. As a result, my watchlist isn’t huge. However, the players I’m considering are:

Salah- bringing him back in due to easier fixtures than Kane.

Mahrez – could be hitting that time in the season where he goes on a run of heavy point scoring weeks.

Anthony – scored big this week but has’t got a huge total overall. Might be worth considering given Man Utd’s fixtures.

Beyond these three I’m not really considering anyone else at the moment as my team is in good form.

Plan for game week 18

I’ve pretty much outlined my approach for game week 18 above. I’ll just be making a decision on whether go back to Salah or whether to bring Mahrez in. I’m in a good position with a good core of Man City and Man Utd players, as these two have a double game week. It’s a shame Newcastle don’t as well but given the upcoming EFL Cup semi final, I’m not going to take their players out at this stage. On paper, I prefer Salah’s fixtures this weekend but I think Kane is in slightly better form. He does have very tough fixtures though, so I’m swaying toward putting Salah back in. This won’t leave me much to swap Saka out (given how few fixtures Arsenal have) but I may take a punt on someone like Anthony for the short term.

If you wanted to check out the upcoming fixtures, they can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CJdq5SxZqrb7EXOpEBbCtbF0hDulMoL05ULja_ng5nY/

I’ve now added February’s fixtures to this list.

My other teams

I’m only going to touch on my other teams briefly as I’m no longer developing most of them. I’ve got a new top performing team, mainly due to Mahrez having a good week. This leaves with me three teams with over 1,000 points. The rest of my teams are below 100,000 on the leaderboard, I may make some risky transfers in these teams to see if they can catch up with a lucky break but other than that, I won’t be paying too much attention to them. I only really picked the full 10 teams in case one of them got off to a real flyer but I’m now finding that I’ve not got time to maintain 10 teams.

For full transparency, here’s my 10 teams: