Gameweek 7 my team review

It's been a disastrous week for me, scoring way below the average score, even after making 2 transfers. (which i thought was a good one) Having my overall ranking dropped from 3598 to 38104, and with my team unlikely to score high in the next gameweek, has raised the alarm. Maybe it's time to utilize my wildcard! One more slump will see my team ranked below 100000 and it'll be hard to accept after the early season's good work.

The main problem in my team is that the midfielders are very weak and overdependent on Lampard's performance. So I'm going to spread the value abit to bring in more quality midfielders. But forwards remain my top priority.

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Now to analyze this week's failure:

Hart: I expected Birmingham to win the home game, but looks like I was wrong. In fact, their only home win was against bottom club Portsmouth. I think it's time to bring in a good keeper.

Evra: The only player who got clean sheet in my team.

Johnson: Had not performed since I brought him in. Vermaelen looks to be a great replacement.

Lampard: 2pts is just not acceptable for the most expensive player in fantasy game. I'm offloading him.

Rodwell: Due to his defensive position, maybe I should not expect too much from him, but the yellow card doesn't help.

Muamba: He's in the team purely because he's cheap.

Delap: replaced absent Zayatte. But only score a mere 2pts.

Rooney(C): a very disappointing outing with only 2pts. But I believe he will bounce back next week.

Saha: scored the sole winning goal, though I expected more from him. But 9pts is just fine.

Drogba: continued his scoring streak and held on to his top fantasy scorer place. But having perform in 7 successive games, I worry that his form could come to an end anytime from now.

Plans for GW8: Most certainly I will use my wildcard and restructure my team. October fixture will be a very important reference as I would like to hold my changed squad for a longer period.

Gameweek 7 Preview

The season starts to get busy as teams played League Cup games in midweek and continue EPL this weekend. All the Big Four won their game 1-0, except Arsenal 2-0. Everton continued their revival with a 4-0 win at Hull City, while Portsmouth tasted their first victory of the season with a 3-1 win at Carlisle United.

Agenda for this preview:
1) Results prediction.
2) Short term analysis.
3) Long term analysis.
4) Hot cake of the week.

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(1)

Last gameweek we have 5 team who get a clean sheet. Maybe we'll see more this gameweek?

Champions League continues again next midweek. Let's see if the big 4 will reserve their strength.

Gameweek 7 fixture: (Unguaranteed predictions in bracket)

Portsmouth v Everton [1-3]
Birmingham v Bolton [1-0]
Blackburn v Aston Villa [1-1]
Liverpool v Hull City [3-0]
Stoke City v Man Utd [0-2]
Tottenham v Burnley [3-0]
Wigan v Chelsea [0-2]
Fulham v Arsenal [1-2]
Sunderland v Wolves [2-0]
Man City v West Ham [2-0]

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(2)

The author recommend four teams to look into, if you are searching for a short term transfer.

Liverpool
Hull City scored in the first 5 league games but lost 0-1 at home in their last game and are now languishing at the second bottom place. Liverpool have every reason to capitalize on their opponent's miserable run. I would suggest Torres(11.5) and Kuyt(9.6) as the safest bet.


Torres and Kuyt lead the scoring chart in Liverpool.


Man City
They may have lost their last game, but the team spirits are still high. They could have savoured the point had the referee blown the whistle earlier. Strikers Bellamy(7.9) and Tevez(8.2) are two men to watch out. Barry(7.9) and Wright-Phillips(8.1) will be the midfielder options.


Bellamy and Tevez will lead charge in the absence of Adebayor and Robinho.

Sunderland
After the Home game against Wolves they will face Man Utd and Liverpool. But they looks good to capture victory in this game. Reid(5.3) and Darren Bent(7.4) will be the key performers once again.


Reid and Bent combined to beat the offside trap and score in their 1-3 loss to Burnley last week.

Birmingham
They look good to get another clean sheet in this game. And their defenders are pretty cheap too. You should get keeper Hart(4.1) into your team now, if you hadn't.


Hart and Roger Johnson are the key men in the defence.
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(3)

Let's look over a longer period to pick the candidates for transfer:

Everton - Por(A),Sto(H),Wol(H),Bol(A),AV(H),WH(A)

I believe they will go for a winning streak starting from last week's victory over Blackburn. It's a good timing to bring in Everton players. You can pick defenders Distin(4.9), Yobo(5.8) or Baines(6.3), depending on your budget. Baines, of course, will be the best choice as he takes corner and penalty. I'm not sure if Saha(7.0) will play in every match, but once he's on the pitch, you can count on him. We also have a great bargain in midfielder Rodwell(4.5), but note that he's actually playing in a defensive position.


Saha has scored 4 goals in as much games. Can he score more against Portsmouth?


Tottenham - Bur(H),Bol(A),Por(A),Sto(H),Ars(A),Sun(H),Wig(H)

They have a series of easy games coming up and it's a good chance to surge up again after losing to Man Utd and Chelsea. Don't give away your Tottenham players if you still holding any.


Chance for Defoe to grab more goals.

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(4)



This week's popular choices are Vermaelen(6.7) with 70000 nett transfer ins and Fletcher(5.5) with 60000 nett transfer ins. However I doubt if it's a wise choice to bring in any of them at this point. Fulham will not be an easy nut to crack, and He's pretty expensive if you're just looking for a clean sheet in him. As for Fletcher, the odds are very low for him to score in successive games. You should instead look into Giggs(6.9) who provided all the scoring chances for Fletcher.

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Gameweek 6 Review

Another fantastic weekend for fantasy managers, as EPL teams scored 34 goals in total, and 6 players grabbed a brace. Even if you get 60pts for this GW you still get a drop in overall ranking! You have to perform much better than the GW average score to ensure a fine GW rank.

Also watch out teams in action for this midweek's League Cup matches.

Agenda for this review:
1) Score prediction review.
2) Players who get gameweek score of double figures.
3) Top players performance.
4) Other players looking to pick up their forms.
5) Watch how top managers perform.
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(1)

Let's start the review by checking the score predictions.

Legend: [my prediction] (results)

Burnley v Sunderland [1-0](3-1) correct outcome.
Arsenal v Wigan [3-0](4-0) correct outcome.
Aston Villa v Portsmouth [3-0](2-0) correct outcome.
Bolton v Stoke City [2-0](1-1) wrong.
Hull City v Birmingham [1-0](0-1) wrong.
West Ham v Liverpool [1-2](2-3) correct margin.
Man Utd v Man City [2-1](4-3) correct margin.
Wolves v Fulham [0-1](2-1) wrong.
Everton v Blackburn [1-0](3-0) correct outcome.
Chelsea v Tottenham [2-0](3-0) correct outcome.

Got 7 correct outcome again this week. How about you?

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(2)

Next we'll have a check on players who get more than 10pts this gameweek.

A special mention for keepers: Brad Friedel and Joe Hart are the top keepers this GW with 8pts each. 4 other keepers get 6pts or more.

19pts: Vermaelen (6.7)
Arsenal's newly joined defender has scored 3 goals so far, showing he's good for pts even when Arsenal do not keep a clean sheet.

14pts: Milner(6.9), Giggs(6.9)
Milner scored a goal and an assist, while Giggs contributed 3 assists. Both players also grabbed 3 bonus pts. Both are good transfer choice if you're looking for cheaper midfielder in big teams.

13pts: Torres(11.5), Saha(7.0)
Both of them scored 2 goals, Bringing their total to 5 and 4 respectively. I reckon they will continue to score for next week.

12pts: Fletcher(5.5), Drogba(11.0), Ashley Cole(7.2), Yobo(5.8)
Fletcher scored 2 header goals, both crossed by Giggs, while Drogba made a cross for Ashley Cole to score, and get one himself in a quick solo breakthrough. Yobo grabbed one from a corner kick attack.

11pts: Wade Elliott(5.1), Nugent(5.2)
Elliott made two goals for Nugent in Burnley's 3-1 win over Sunderland. It must be a great feeling for Nugent as he proved Paul Hart wrong for loaning him away from his troubled Portsmouth.

10pts: Bellamy(7.9)
Scored 2 good goals to make his season tally to 3. With Adebayor banned for next game he's sure to play an important role again.

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(3)

Now we'll look at how the top players performed this week. This is important as most fantasy managers will have them in their line-up so you might fall behind when they combined to perform in the same gameweek.

Sorting by price:

Gerrard: 6pts from 1 assist and 1pt bonus.
Lampard: 7pts from 1 assist and 1pt bonus.
Torres: 13pts from 2 goals and 3pts bonus.
Rooney: 8pts from 1 goal and 2pt bonus.
Drogba: 12pts from 1 goal, 1 assist and 3pts bonus.
Arshavin: Injured and did not play.
Fabregas: 8pts from 1 assist.
Anelka: 2pts for 88 minuts of appearance.
Adebayor: Suspended for 3 games for stamping on van Persie during last game.
van Persie: 8pts from 1 assist and 3pts bonus
Berbatov: 2pts for 77 minuts of appearance.
Kuyt: 6pts from 1 goal and subbed at 59th minute.

Drogba and Torres are the top performers this gameweek, but most of the others also did fairly well.

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Now let's check out a few cheaper players you may want to fit into your team.

Pick-up from the lot:

Legend: Gameweek score/Season score

9/25 Baines(6.3, Eve)
He's the corner taker and also penalty taker for his team. As Everton plays easier opponents for the next few games, he has the potential to get more points from those set pieces.

8/22 Graham Alexander (4.5, Bur)
Scored a penalty this GW. Could he continue to take penalties for his team?

5/13 Eboue (5.4, Ars)
Has 2 assists so far this season. He's playing constantly as many Arsenal's midfielders are still injured.

5/23 Keogh (4.9, Wol)
Has 1 goal, 1 assist and 5 bonus pts so far. Can be a good sub for you team.

8/22 Kitson (4.9, Sto)
Same as Keogh, is playing an important role for his team and available at cheap price.

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Wondering how the game's top managers managed to keep a high score for every gameweeks? You may take a little study on their teams, check out what's the difference between their teams and yours. Try to figure out who are the players that helped them to get more points than other people.

From what I observe, most top managers own Milner and Torres, which help them to maintain consistent GW pts. Meanwhile a few of them have Vermaelen or Fletcher which help boost up their score for this GW, but you probably won't depend on them too often.

There's one thing that will always make the difference in the overall pts battle: the Captain. When you make a correct captain choice, it can potentially bring you more than 10pts. So, learn how the top managers pick their captain for each GW.

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Gameweek 6 my team review

Having scored only 20pts on Saturday, I'm glad to be still able to get more than 60pts for this gameweek. However, with GW average pts as high as 54, marking a high scoring GW, my overall ranking has dropped from 2725 to 3598, 91pts behind overall leader, adn 35pts from top50. My last week transfer (Carragher for Glen Johnson) didn't help much as Liverpool continued to concede goals. Would have been great if I had bought Vermaelen!

With most of my team value spend on the trio of Lampard, Rooney and Drogba, I'm now short of money for more quality midfielders. May consider selling on of them in coming weeks to spare out more money.

Please tell me too if you have any good ideas to help improve my team!

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I had 3 GW dream team players in Hart, Ashley Cole and Drogba.

Hart: great keeper choice as he got 8pts compare to Sorensen's 3pts.

Zayatte: only 2 pts as Hull lost to Birmingham 0-1.

Evra: got an assist in the Manchester derby match.

Cole: scored a great diving header and got a clean sheet.

Johnson: only 1pt as Liverpool conceded 2 goals at West Ham.

Lampard: got an assist and 1pts bonus.

Young(C): ended with nothing again even though against bottom club Portsmouth. My captain gamble backfired. Am selling him this week.

Koumas: subbed at 56th minute.

Delap: didn't have any expectation on him. Ended up with 2pts.

Rooney: scored a goal and 2pts bonus. Now leads the top scoring chart with 6 goals.

Drogba: a goal and an assist plus 3pts bonus makes him star player of the week. Now leads the fantasy score chart with 51pts. He's making great contribution to Chelsea's 6 matches unbeaten run this season (11 successive matches since last season).

Plans for GW 7: I'm going to bring in a few Everton players as they face some easy opponents in coming fixture: Por(A) ,Sto(H), Wol(H), Bol(A), AV(H), WH(A).

Gameweek 6 Preview

It's the first fixture right after European league season had started. All the big 4 expectedly won their matches, giving them a morale boost. The other teams are also expected to deliver wins this week.

Note that Fulham and Everton are participating in Europa League, meaning their games will be played later on Sunday.

Agenda for this preview:
1) Results prediction.
2) Short term analysis.
3) Long term analysis.
4) Hot cake of the week.

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(1)

Let's do this again. Make your own results prediction and define teams who have the best bet for a win.

Gameweek 6 fixture: (Unguaranteed predictions in bracket)

Burnley v Sunderland [1-0]
Arsenal v Wigan [3-0]
Aston Villa v Portsmouth [3-0]
Bolton v Stoke City [2-0]
Hull City v Birmingham [1-0]
West Ham v Liverpool [1-2]
Man Utd v Man City [2-1]
Wolves v Fulham [0-1]
Everton v Blackburn [1-0]
Chelsea v Tottenham [2-0]

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(2)

The author recommend three teams to look into, if you are searching for a short term transfer.

Arsenal
I believe Wigan won't be able to stand their attacks so a bet on Arsenal players could be fruitful. Both defenders and attackers are favorable. But if you are short on money, let's move on to the next.

Aston Villa
They are facing Portsmouth this week. A good chance for them to grab a 4th successive win, and also for a scoring spree. Attacking players are more recommended. Top picks will be, of course, Young(8.4) and Agbonlahor(8.2).
Still finding Villa players expensive? Never mind, now for the last recommended option.

Bolton
Having scored 5 goals in the last two games, they look good to continue the form. With Stoke's keeper Sorensen recovering from a back injury Bolton surely gain some advantage. Check on Cahill and Steinsson(4.7) who both have scoring record in the past seasons, and also midfielder Tamir Cohen, who had scored in the last two games.

You can refer to gameweek 5 review for more recommendations on cheaper players.

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(3)

Let's look over a longer period to pick the candidates for transfer:
Eve - Bla(H),Por(A),Sto(H),Wol(H),Bol(A),AV(H),WH(A)
Bur - Sun(H),Tot(A),Bir(H),Bla(A),Wig(H),Hul(H)

I have already mentioned about Everton in last week's review. They failed to win their last match at Fulham. However the coming fixture still looks good for them to start winning points. If they failid to grab at least two wins from the next 7 games, I think we can already list them as a relegation favourite.
Saha(7.0), Cahill(8.3), Rodwell(4.5) will be the men for attacking choices. In defence, Distin(4.9) will be a good bargain as he has the potential to pick up bonus pts.

As for Burnley, the only recommendation would be the keeper Brian Jensen. He managed to get 20pts from the three match against Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea. I believe he will continue to collect points from clean sheets and also number of saves.

Also, have you gotten the two "must have players" I mentioned in last gameweek review? Worth a thought.
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(4)

Hot cake? What's that? Yeah, it's the most popular transfer target for the gameweek. For this week it will be Darren Bent(7.3) and Benayoun(7.5), each already have more than 40000 transfer ins. Do they worth the buy? From the viewpoint of value rise they surely worth it, but when comes to chance of getting points, sometimes it could be another story. For this weeks, both players look to have only 50-50 chance of continuing last week's form. Personally I wouldn't recommend them as I have better suggestions with higher chance of performing.

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Now, have you decided who you want to bring in this week? Keep in mind that if you do not make a transfer this week, you will be able to make two transfer for free next week. Also when more fantasy managers are tie on same total pts, managers with less transfers made will be ranked higher.

Keep track of player's stats on spreadsheets!

Access the spreadsheets here:
Fantasy Stats Spreadsheets(Updated until Gameweek 11)

The author has prepared an exclusive spreadsheets for all readers to keep track of top fantasy players' game performance.

This is how it looks like:


Yes, I like to do statistics. And I believe making statistics will help you a lot in analyzing the game trend. I will constantly update the spreadsheets content and add in features that I think will be helpful to all fantasy managers.

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How to interpret this spreadsheet?
Right now the idea is to keep track the performance of all leading fantasy players. Points scored each gameweek is recorded in a table so you can view it all at one glimpse. The same idea is applicable on recording goals, assist, clean sheets and bonus points too. In future I will give you more idea on how to realize it.

You will see some figures with highlights. Here's the legend.
Green: Gameweek score of 12 and above.
Blue: Gameweek score of 7 to 11.
Grey: Team not playing.
Black: Player not playing. (suspended, injured, or unselected)

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New feature: added after GW07

Keep track of the top 3 performers of each team.


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New feature: added after GW07

Check on the future schedule and determine teams who have easy fixtures ahead. This idea is from fantasyfootballscout.

Gameweek 5 my team review

A fine week for me as my overall ranking goes up from 3941 to 2725, though my GW score is only 12pts above average. Managed to get 3 goals and 2 assists, plus 1 defender clean sheet and 2 players with bonus pts. My last transfer (Dunne for Wilkinson) was a bad move as Dunne switched club, got straight into first team and get 9pts for this week. I sold him before he made the transfer. Should have replaced Carragher with Johnson. (Maybe I was short of money that time)

Long term plan will be slowly move my team value towards attacking side, maybe invest on another quality midfielder or striker.

Please tell me too if you have any good ideas to help improve my team!

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As Stoke City face Chelsea, I've put all three of my Stoke players on sub with Murphy who has not played a game yet.

Hart: Almost got a clean sheet, until Agbonlahor broke the duck in 85th minute.

Zayatte: Though Hull lost to Sunderland 1-4, He grabbed a consolation goal which is crucial for my GW score!

Evra: conceded an early goal to Tottenham and only have 2pts.

Cole: conceded a goal to Stoke and also got booked.

Carragher: got a clean sheet as expected, but I wish I have had Johnson. Thus I swapped Carragher with Johnson this week.

Lampard: got an assist and 3pts bonus. Made a correct choice for my captain this GW.

Young: I expect him to score some goals or assists but ended with nothing.

Koumas: got an assist. A surprise for me.

Muamba: didn't have any expectation on him. Ended up with 2pts again.

Rooney: scored a goal to continue leading the scoring chart. Looks to be in great form.

Drogba: scored a goal to keep personal lowest GW score at 4pts up to this GW. Though very expensive, the Rooney-Drogba combination is hard to replace unless one of them get injured or involved in squad rotation.

Plans for GW 6: Am bring in Delap to replace Muamba. Ashley Young will probably be my captain as Villa takes Portsmouth at home. I expect my team to get 4 goals and 64pts for me, providing all predictions go well.

Gameweek 5 Review

I believe everyone is feeling excited like me as English Premier League resumes in action. A total of 36 goals have been scored! (With only 3 teams get clean sheet) This is a good news for all fantasy managers who invest more on attacking players. Maybe it also signals time to switch cheap defenders to players from more reliable teams, or those out-of-position defenders who have chance to nick a goal or assist. Let's hope you can gain some team value rise over the past 5 gameweeks, so you could afford more qualities in your team.

Agenda for this review:
1) Score prediction review.
2) Players who get gameweek score of double figures.
3) Top players performance.
4) Other players looking to pick up their forms.
5) Must-have players.

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(1)

Let's start the review by checking your score predictions. And I'll check mine.

Legend: [my prediction] (results)

Blackburn v Wolves [1-0] (3-1) correct outcome.
Liverpool v Burnley [3-0] (4-0) correct outcome.
Man City v Arsenal [1-2] (4-2) wrong.
Portsmouth v Bolton [0-1] (2-3) correct margin.
Stoke City v Chelsea [0-4] (1-2) correct outcome.
Sunderland v Hull City [2-0] (4-1) correct outcome.
Wigan v West Ham [0-0] (1-0) wrong.
Tottenham v Man Utd [1-3] (1-3) CORRECT SCORE :)
Birmingham v Aston Villa [0-1](0-1)CORRECT SCORE :)
Fulham v Everton [0-2](2-1) wrong.

Not bad for my first prediction of the season! Have you done well too?

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(2)

Now let's check on players who get at least 10 pts for this gameweek.

A special mention about keepers: Only Reina, Kirkland and Friedel kept a clean sheet and all 3 of them claimed 7 pts.

24pts: Benayoun(7.4)
The second hat-trick of the Premier League season, plus an assist and 3pts bonus earned him an unlikely highest gameweek score of this season. This is also his 3rd hat-trick for Liverpool.

Though not a regular starter, he has appeared in every game so far. Having his price cut by 0.1 means he's not really a popular choice. Thus you can sigh a relief that not too many fantasy managers will get the suprprise advantage. Having proved himself in this game he may have more chance to start from now on and improve his goal tally of 8 lasst season.

12pts: Reid(5.3)
Played an important role in Sunderland's win over Hull City. Finding himself down the pecking order at the midfield so far, Cattermole and Malbranque still look to be better options if you are looking for a Sunderland midfielder.

11pts: Roberts(6.0)
Not advisable to pick him as your main striker, as he won't be scoring too often.

10pts: Anderson(4.8), Wright-Phillips(8.1), Dunn(5.4), Gary Cahill(4.8), Darren Bent(7.2), Duff(5.5)
Many people may have forgotten his existence in the fantasy game as he's tagged at 5.0 price only. (starts at 8.0 in 2007/08 season) While Man Utd is rich in midfielder options, we're expected to see a lot of rotation going on. So it's not advisable to bring in any United midfielders as you main players, but it's a good idea to have him as a sub, if you still have slots for United players.

SWP has been as steady as Adebayor so far and is the best pick out of Man City's midfield. As City's facing United at Old Trafford next game, you may want to wait another week to bring him in.

Dunn has been Blackburn's key player during their better days. However with tough fixtures coming up it's not advisable to bring him in.

Cahill had scored 3 goals and 4 assists during last season and has established himself as an attacking minded defender. It's good to have him as he could rake in some goals, but don't expect him to score from clean sheets too often as Bolton still looks like a relegation favourite so far. Steinsson(4.7) is an equally good option, having scored 3 goals and 5 assists last season.

Darren Bent is looking to be a better option over Jones now, having started every game so far, and scored 4 goals. You should grab him fast as he's sure to price up soon, and Sunderland have two fixtures favoring them coming up - Bur(A) and Wol(H) before facing MU(A) and Liv(H).

Duff scored on his third game for Fulham. The current overall no.2 manager bought him in on GW4 and got a payoff. Maybe you would like to emulate him too.
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Now we'll look at how the top players performed this week. This is important as most fantasy managers will have them in their line-up so you might fall behind when they combined to perform in the same gameweek.

Sorting by price:

Gerrard: 7pts from 1 assist and 1pt bonus.
Lampard: 8pts from 1 assist and 3pts bonus.
Torres: 2pts and subbed at 74th minutes.
Rooney: 7pts from 1 goal and 1pt bonus.
Drogba: 6pts from 1 goal.
Arshavin: Injured and did not play.
Fabregas: 5pts from 1 assist.
Anelka: 4pts from 1 assist, coming on as 63rd minute sub.
Adebayor: 8pts from 1 goal and 3pts bonus, booked for celebrating in front of Arsenal fans. Has scored in 4 successive games.
van Persie: 6pts from 1 goal.
Berbatov: 5pts from 1 assist and subbed at 61st minute.
Kuyt: 8pts from 1 goal and subbed at 68th minute.

Most of the top players has scored good points and it tells you why you should have them in as your main players. It's the best if you can fill them up in your attacking slot! (Impossible, ok :P)

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(4)

Are your sub players also scoring as your first team does? Or just filling up the seats? If you think that you already have a good enough first team, maybe you can try improve your sub players quaity so that you can change your team formation to suit the gameweek fixture, especially when lowly teams find their chances to get a rare win.

Pick-up from the lot:

Legend: Gameweek score/Season score

6/18: Kaboul (5.0, Por)
Is a little pricey for his team, but has scored 2 goals so far. He's certainly a player to watch.

5/8: O'Hara (4.5, Por)
Got an assist in his first match for Portsmouth, coming on season-long loan from Tottenham. A great bargain at 4.5 and is good to fill up your subs.

7/14: Cohen (4.4, Bol)
Scored in 2 successive games and could strike again in coming matches against Sto(H) and Bir(A). Also a great bargain. Oh. Maybe you want to bring in Taylor(6.7) if you have more money to spend.

4/18: Cattermole (5.1, Sun)
Picked up 6 bonus pts and 1 assist so far. A popular choice too at 9.1% selection.

5/18 Ghilas (5.0, Hul)
This guy may score again in next game against Birmingham.

9/21 Dunne (5.0, AV)
So far two out of three players that the GW5 pundit suggest is correct. Dunne get full 3pts bonus for his defensive performance. With Villa looking back on winning track he turns out a great buy, even though being dumped by Man City.
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(5)

The author has reckoned the following two players as MUST-HAVE players based on the season's progress so far. You may probably have find out this too. For those who hadn't, quickly make your decision now.



Legend: Gameweek score/Season score

9/40: Johnson (7.8, Liv)
Playing as right back, he has constantly joined in his team attack against their oppositions. Having 2 goals and 3 assist under his name so far, he's looking good to match Benitez' expectation on him. 7.8 is still a good price for a top class "attacking" player. I suggest you to get him fast as he's going to price-up more.

7/38: Rooney (11.1, MU)
Joint top scorer with Defoe on 5 goals from 5 games. Now playing at his favourite striker position, he's sure to score more goals than previous seasons. Maybe he's already taken over Ronaldo's task as the club's main goalscorer. Also note that he gets bonus pts everytime MU wins, totalling 10pts now.

Now what about these two?



6/39: Drogba (10.9, Che)
8/34: Adebayor (10.1, MC)

Remember something? Yes. Angola 2010. Most probably both Drogba and Adebayor will be call up for the tournament at the end of the year. Make sure you have this in mind when you pick them. Both are good choices but over long term, I think Rooney will get more points.

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More gameweek reviews to follow after Sunday's game.

Internationals break: Tired legs or continued form?

Over the two weeks period we saw two international matchdays with players tried to turn their club form into something helpful for their countries. Let's check out all the Premier League names who had score during their international duties.

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Netherlands: van Persie scored against Japan in friendly.
Denmark: Bendtner scored against Portugal and again at Albania.
Germany: Ballack scored a penalty against Azerbaijan.
Russia: Pavlyuchenko scored at Wales.
Spain: Fabregas scored against Estonia.
England: In the match against Croatia,Lampard scored a penalty and a header, Gerrard two header goals, and Rooney also grabbed one. Eduardo pull one back for Croatia. In earlier friendly against Slovenia, Lampard scored a penalty and Defoe scored the winning goal.
Ecuador: Valencia scored at Bolivia.
Ghana: Essien scored against Sudan.
Ivory Coast: Drogba scored two against Burkina Faso
Turkey: Tuncay scored against Estonia.
Ireland: Keane and Doyle scored at Cyprus. Liam Lawrence also scored one against South Africa in friendly.
USA: Dempsey scored against El Salvador.

As for Man City, they just lost Tevez and Robinho to injuries in their preparation for home match against Arsenal. Both players injured themselves in the match between Brazil and Argentina and are struggling to recover.

Note that the next World Cup Qualifier games is on 10 and 14 October.

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Let's see what the game pundits had said for this week. GW5 pundit talks about a few final day transfers, highlighting Michael Turner(4.5)(Hull to Sunderland), Krancjar (6.9)(Portsmouth to Tottenham, apparently to cover injured Modric) and Richard Dunne (5.0)(Man City to Aston Villa). All three players are available at fairly cheap price and being started the season at a weaker team had helped the fact. I bet at least one of them is going to perform well in this weekend.

In the last part the pundit shows the leading total score table. This is almost same with what made up the Dream Team so far, but it is a really good reference.

Over these two weeks I observed that fantasy managers are not as active as last season, with top target Lennon only garnered 96521 nett transfer ins and also being the only player to gain 0.2 price-up. Stephen Hunt is the second hottest transfer target at 60407 nett transfer ins so far. We probably going to see more transfer activities over the last two days before GW5 starts.

Gameweek 5 Preview + transfer tips

After a week's break EPL will be back on action again this weekend. However bear in mind that we still have a round of international duty this midweek. Be sure to check on players' form and health status.

I used to play in "I know the score" game (also run by Official Premier League site), however it seems that I'm not so good in predicting the match score. (Or the game has become more unpredictable?) If you are a good score predicter, it surely helps you to be a good fantasy manager! You can practise to predict scores and see how well you can do. (I'll practise mine as well! let's do it together.)

Anyway, let's have a quick view on the coming fixture.

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Gameweek 5 fixture: (Unguaranteed predictions in bracket)

Blackburn v Wolves [1-0]
Liverpool v Burnley [3-0]
Man City v Arsenal [1-2]
Portsmouth v Bolton [0-1]
Stoke City v Chelsea [0-4]
Sunderland v Hull City [2-0]
Wigan v West Ham [0-0]
Tottenham v Man Utd [1-3]
Birmingham v Aston Villa [0-1]
Fulham v Everton [0-2]

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Bear in mind that when you bring in a player, take into account whether you are having short term plan or long term plan.

Short term plan means you are sure a player will score high for a specific game, but will flop again for the games to follow, and you're going to switch him away again. This usually applies when you think you already have an almost perfect team, say 10 season players and 1 uncertain player. This will be a more difficult decision to made as your change has to show result in just one game. After that you know you won't benefit from him again and have to change him again.

There is another condition when people will consider this plan: when a "Derby" team shows up. People tends to buy the the player whose team is facing the weakest team for the gameweek. Of course you have a high chance of getting a correct hit, but, make sure you really did. Else you're losing big. Getting a fringe player into your team, score none, become a burden, and you have a few other badly selected players to change, how's that.... Eventually you'll be force to make multiple changes.... (I knew it because I've been in the same condition many times before)

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Long term plan means you want to bring in a player and keep him in your team for long, as you have other changes to made, in order to gradually transform your team into a stronger line-up (We are doing it slowly to avoid being deducted points for extra transfers made in the same gameweek).

To identify suitable choice for your long term plan, you need to take into account a player's past games performance, and more importantly, his opponents in the coming few games (usually 3 or more). The difference to short term plan is that even though in the first game you bring him in he didn't score, he still have chance to make up the loss in the next game and the next next game. Example, this player gets 2pts for game1, then 12pts for game2, and 5pts for game3, does this considered good buy? Yes, since in 3 game he brings you 18pts, which means average 6pts a game. But, make sure you don't sell him just after he played game1. And, from here we know the best timing to bring in this player is game2. By doing more observation you'll gain experience and make better selection at better timing in the future.

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Back to the main topic.

So have you managed to identify the player for short term and long term at this moment? It will help a lot if you refer to the fantasy stats. Player with higher score always give you more confidence, right?

Let's identify teams with clear advantage first. I'll have my choices in bold:

Blackburn v Wolves
Liverpool v Burnley
Man City v Arsenal
Portsmouth v Bolton
Stoke City v Chelsea
Sunderland v Hull City
Wigan v West Ham
Tottenham v Man Utd
Birmingham v Aston Villa
Fulham v Everton

Now we have 3 teams that looks really good for three points this week. Next we'll check on every team for their coming fixtures and look for teams capable of delivering collective results. I'll show out what I gathered:

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Big4: Must take a look!

Ars - MC(A),Wig(H),Ful(A),Bla(H),Bir(H).
Che - Sto(A),Tot(H),Wig(A),Liv(H),AV(A),Bla(H).
MU - Tot(A),MC(H),Sto(A),Sun(H),Bol(H).
Liv - Bur(H),WH(A),Hul(H),Che(A),Sun(A).

Looks good. Each team have at least 3 good fixture coming up. Personally I suggest you to bring in Chelsea or Liverpool players as they have easy game right away. I bet you don't need me to tell you which player to look into.

For other teams:

Sun - Hul(H),Bur(A),Wol(H),MU(A)
Eve - Ful(A),Bla(H),Por(A),Sto(H),Wol(H),Bol(A)

Two good teams for your reference if you're short of money. Both teams look like having a bright chance to shine. For Sunderland, by looking at total points, Cattermole(5.0), Jones(7.1) and D.Bent(7.2) look like the best candidate, with Malbranque(6.0) an unproven option. For Everton, Baines(6.3), Pienaar(6.5) and Saha(7.0) are the obvious choice. Cahill(8.3) and Fellaini(6.9) are more expensive yet unproven this season, so will be riskier. You can have a shot at Rodwell(4.5) too, considering he's available at cheapest price.

Reverse Way:

Por - Bol(H),AV(A),Eve(H),Wol(A),Tot(H).

This is, provided you believe that Portsmouth will continue to flop for the rest of season. You can continue to invest in their opponent and earn some fast points.

For Bolton, defenders can be good option(but only for short term). For attacking option, you can try Taylor(6.8) and Davies(6.7). Anyway, personally I do not recommend Bolton players, as they are not good choice for long term.

If you're planning to bring in Aston Villa players this week, it's a good choice too. Generally you can select anyone in Villa as they looks equally good, but Ashley Young(8.3) will be my best pick, added with the fact that he's 0.2 cheaper than starting price. (I have him in my team right now)

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How about the unmentioned team? Not meaning you must neglect them, but you have a relatively lower chance to hit it right. Every transfer is precious so let's invest on something you can have higher confidence.

We'll have a topic on form players after wednesday's international round, from which we will try to identify form players where we can ingore whoever opponents they are playing against. (I bet you already have a few names in your mind right now. Yes, you're becoming smarter now.)

Get 11 stars for your first team, would you?

I've spent two years observing the dream team chart, and guess what I've found, they always provide you with a GW score higher than 50pts!

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Following is the Dream Team after GW4:



Have you tried to add up the GW4 points from the dream team? No? Here you are. It's 87pts! (Form 76.6) Plus captain's score it could have been a 3-figure points!

Yeah I know some of them just jumped in soon after GW4, since the season just started not long. However based on what I observed for the past 2 seasons, it can't be wrong. Buy all the "star" players (Dream Team players are labelled with a star above their name) and you are assured with a fine score every gameweek! Of course the Dream Team change from time to time, so you also need to adjust your selection accordingly.

Why is it important to raise your team value? It's because you want to fit all the star players in your line-up and don't have to make those meaningless transfers every gameweek anymore! Who else you want when you have Rooney, Torres and Drogba as your strikers, or when you have Gerrard, Lampard, Arshavin, Fabregas all in your team?

Here is one of the playing method and proved to be useful: Try to raise you team value and ultimately aim to own all 11 Dream Team players! Make the minimal changes to your team for the rest of season and watch the points flowing into your pocket. Though practically you may not possible to get all, but it's possible to own 8 or 9 of them (minus the most expensive one) since the dream team not necessarily consists of the most expensive line-up. Last season the likes of Ireland(5.5) or Bosingwa(6.0) also made it into the dream team at some stage.

I bet you have an idea now on who to bring into your team. Oh, I forgot another important tips. If the dream team members are to change, who do you think they will be? Yup, those right behind on points! Check whose has the easiest fixture ahead, he'll be the best man to replace the out-of-form DT player. So do keep an eye on the likes of Upson, Toure, Ballack, Kuyt, Hunt, Adebayor, Torres, Jones, and many more. You might find a real gem out of them.

Learn from the world's best fantasy manager!

What human is most capable of is the "Copy exactly" ablilty. We always learn from other people by doing exactly what they do. It's the fastest way of learning, isn't it?

The August month is over with 4 GW past. We've seen some fantasy managers get really excellent result, and some also looks good from coming gameweeks. How did they achieve it? Because they had picked a correct line-up at pre-season (and some used their wildcard already to switch into a form team). Are you doing well too?

You must be wondering how they manage to pick such a perfect combination and can do so well for every gameweek. Now lets take a look at the team of August leader, Liverpool's No. 9.:

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Here you will notice most of them already did well in the previous gameweeks, except for Baines, Jimenez, Jarvis(sub) and Bent. This means he had 7 players capable of delivering. Also prior to GW4 9 of his starting players have a form of above 4.0.

Now for his transfer history:

Out	In	GW
Shawcross (4.6)	Baines (6.3)	4
Evra (6.6)	Warnock (4.9)	4
Mullins (4.5)	Jarvis (4.5)	2

Looking into his transfer history, not too impressive. Jarvis doesn't bring too many points, Warnock has not played a game since his Transfer to Aston Villa. Baines did score 11pts but Shawcross and Evra scored 7 altogether so after minus 4 for the additional transfer he didn't earn anything, instead let go Shawcross who is potential of further value up.

Now what's the success story here? Though without any significant transfers he keeps an average GW score of 79.3. This is because he picked a team capable of delivering points over the first 4 GWs. 3 Liverpool, 2 Chelsea, 2 Stoke, 2 for Bolton, 1 each for MU, Portsmouth, WH, Sunderland, and Birmingham. For Liverpool though he didn't pick Gerrard, still picks 3 players delivering more than 20pts each. A very wise choice. Meanwhile Sorensen and Shawcross are top2 point scorers for Stoke. Cole and Drogba also top2 point scorers for Chelsea so far (excluding out Lampard is again a good bet!). Ok, I bet you already see it by now. This team only have one of the 5 most expensive players (in Torres). Therefore he has a lot money to spend on moderate players such as Kuyt, Lennon, D.Bent and also good defenders like Evra and Johnson. A good distribution of team value that you might want to emulate!

Now let's look at another team, ThunderFrogs, who leads the chart for GW2 and GW3 before dropping into 4th on GW4, 27pts behind leader. Yes, we'll try to understand why he couldn't hold on to his lead.

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First let's check his points history:
GW1 94
GW2 84 (wildcard used, 10 changes made)
GW3 55
GW4 57

Changes made after GW2:

Out	In	GW
Fletcher (5.5)	Duff (5.5)	4
Jerome (4.5)	Blake (5.5)	3

Picture shown above is his GW4 result. Just 2 changes made from the GW2 team but why the points go down so much, while Liverpool's No. 9.'s team continued to get high points?

You can easily understand why he used his wildcard at just GW2. He started his team with 2 Arsenal, 2 Wigan, 1 each from MU, Chelsea, Stoke, Fulham, MC, Liverpool, West Ham, Villa, Sunderland, Everton and Birmingham. Obviously he spread his selections over teams, HOWEVER note that 6 of his starting line-up during GW1 does not play on GW2! And yet these 6 players had already brought him 48pts (including Fabregas 22pts). Yes he get his investment paid back, but with an additional price of wildcard, an inevitable one. Had he not do a total rebuild he would have only 5 first team players left.

Now there follows another clever move. he used his wildcard. Means the conpensation of buying in players who miss GW2 is taken off! And this combines with player stats gathered from GW1! He knows who is the form player, he knows who is likely to get a value up. He knows he can make very good transfers based on the infos. Now let's see who he brought in:

Player	GW2 score
Jerome (4.5)	1
N'Zonzi (4.5)	sub
Fletcher (5.5)	sub
Defoe (8.5)	17
Palacios (5.5)	7
Lampard (12.5)	10 (made captain)
Bassong (5.0)	2
Wilkinson (4.0)	--
Johnson (7.5)	18
TOTAL POINTS	55 (65 with captain score)

Pretty accurate, right? With 2 successive good GW result he straight went top of the overall table. BUT, not too good right after this. Drogba becomes his only real point scorer at GW3 and only Lampard reach double figure at GW4. He also made bod choice on captain selection on GW3 (could have scored 9pts more). 55 and 57 may not be a bad score, right? But COMPARATIVELY it was low among the people ranked right below him (an average of around 75pts per GW). Thus, he lost his lead and fell quite far behind in points, albeit still in a very good 4th place.

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Given both fantasy managers do not change their team, who would have a better run onwards? Well, it's really hard to tell at the moment. The points gap made out from GW3 and GW4 doesn't really give us the conclusion. What we can learn from this is two different pre-season approaches that can bring you good starting result.

The game had provided us the convenience to spy on other manager's team. So let's make good use of this ability. Spy as much as you can! Stop complaining why other can get high score while you get a petty one. You can become a team to be spied on too.

EPL 2 weeks break: time to make BIG decisions!

Usually Premier League season will start with a double-game-week and then go for a 2-weeks-break. This is one of the most critical time in fantasy game. How important is it? Let's find it out.

Agenda:
1) Prefect time for wildcard
2) Check out players' international performances
3) Should you wait until the deadline to make transfer?
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1)Perfect time for wildcard

Yes. Why not? When you found yourself too far behind after just 4 gameweeks, and having a shit team not look like going to provide you any points for the coming fixture, why not rebuild your squad with the informations gathered from these 4 gameweeks? For my own experience sharing, I was ranked 417834 after GW3, then entered 2 weeks break for internationals. I used my wildcard immediately after GW3, refreshed my squad, and gained 1.7 in team value by GW5! My ranking also rose to 25557 by GW6, and went steady for the rest of season. (peaked at 6901 on GW13 and finished 18042, my best finishing so far) It's a great gift that the game introduced wildcard, a magic item that secures your season when you think you had a poor start and feeling hopeless.

Oh. And now you know the importance of picking your starting squad. It's the best if you are able to continue with confidence on your current team, saving the wildcard for the worst.

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2)Check out players' international performances

No rest in getting infos for the improvement of your fantasy game! International games provide good info of players' form too. This also makes early transfer comes with a risk: players might get injured with national team, or even loses his current form after a poor international outing. That would cause you to have made a useless transfer. So, don't miss the coming 2 matchdays!

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3)Should you wait until the deadline to make transfer?

Unless you're waiting for my tips...ha ha...
If you're trying to snap up hot item, like for now (Bracket shows transfers in GW so far) Lennon (80k), Hunt(51k), Shawcross(36k), Johnson(29k), Defoe(24k) and others, better get it as soon as their last match ended. With 2 weeks to go before next GW their price tag are likely to go up 0.2 and more. Combine this idea with wildcard you can make a great fortune, and they are equally good buys.

Another reason to make quick transfer: when the player you're going to dump is rapidly losing popularity which means price drop is inevitable. Rather than losing your team value, dispose them as soon as you could. Of course this should combine with a good buy, not another rubbish. A transfer must be made quickly when a player is no longer a first choice, get injured for long period or get suspended.

Note that I say, "player that you're going to dump". If you feel that a player, though losing popularity, is going to bounce back in next game, keep him and you may me making an edging move! The last thing you want to see is the player you've just sold score a hat-trick in the following game (that happens to me numerous times in the past). A good example here is, a nett total of 21071 people gave up Rooney after GW2, what happens next? Rooney grabbed 2 goals and 3 bonus points! Imagine how much you lost by switching him away. (You should put him captain too)

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Yes. We got a lot of things to do for the coming 2 weeks! Keep an eye on the fantasy transfers condition, check the fixture list, view the player's form, come out with the best transfer choices. And I'm going to provide you with a few more tips in coming week to help improve your game.

Pre-season team build-up: How important is it?

Check out what had you missed in the first 4 gameweeks.

Having a good start means alot of things. You won't have to make extra transfer to adjust your squad; you gain price-up for form players in your team, you can save your wildcard for better use. You don't make unnecessary changes due to player not selected in first team or missing out through injury. While other people rushing to purchase hot items, you are setting a good example for others to emulate. It always feels good to be up front in the title race, isn't it?

Let's look back again to how you prepare your squad during pre-season. There are a few things to look out:

1) Which of the big 4 teams have the easiest opponents in the coming 3 games?
2) Which of the outsider teams have 1 or more sure-win games coming soon?
3) Which teams will be missing a mid-week game due to European participation?

Well, the first two criterias apply for the whole season too. The third one means to remind you to make the best use of the fixture list.

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Yes, we're not selecting our favourite player, we're selecting players that will help us get points. When you build your team always start by determining the key players, who usually cost the most but are sure to bring you a lot of points. Who will they be? Of course the big 4 teams players. They don't dubbed big 4 for nothing. They score more goals, have better defense, and are more consistent in performance. Let's make use of the fantasy stats and see if I'm correct.

Team score after GW4:
*1 240 Chelsea
*2 197 Man Utd
*5 183 Liverpool
*7 167 Arsenal (1 game less)

It's pretty clear. The big 4 are performing well so far! So you get great score by selecting players from big 4 teams. BUT...out of these 4 teams, which one to choose? So let's check out who their opponent was:

Chelsea: Hul(H),Sun(A),Ful(A),Bur(H).
Man Utd: Bir(H),Bur(A),Wol(A),Ars(H).
Arsenal: Eve(A),------,Por(H),MU(H).
Liverpool: Tot(A),Sto(H),AV(H),Bol(A).

You have to agree with me. The bolded fixture are considered easier game for them. Note that Chelsea have the most easy opponent among the 4 teams. This means that you get the maximum advantage by having 3 Chelsea players in your team. Meanwhile Man Utd face all three newly promoted in the first 3 game! This is clear enough: You should own maximum numbers of Man Utd players in your team as well! Life is easy then.

Why not Arsenal or Liverpool? Note that Arsenal will miss a game in GW2. This is a big disadvantage as Arsenal players don't come cheap and it's a very wrong move to have your key players sitting on the bench at the early stage. What about Liverpool? They have a stiff test against Tottenham in the first game and it's harder to judge their form afterwards. A buy-in during GW2 will be more recommended (yes, a home game against Stoke City is considered easy meat).

So how accurate am I on this? We already saw just now that Chelsea and Man Utd are currently top 2 fantasy point scorer. While Arsenal are 7th because they played 1 game less. Liverpool DID predictably fared less impressive compared to the others. So far we're getting the expectations correct.

Now let's look at the predicted and the unpredicted:

Predicted:
- Chelsea won all 4 games, with 4 goals from midfielders and 5 goals from forwards.
- Man Utd played around Rooney with him scoring 4 times.
- Rotations occurs more often at Arsenal as they plays in Champions League qualifier.
- Liverpool played around Gerrard and Torres, scoring 5 times between them.

Unpredicted:
- Man Utd lost at newcomer Burnley. Many people placed their captain bet on Rooney that particular gameweek.
- Arsenal win 6-1 at Everton, compensating for the 1 game missing.
- Chelsea failed to keep clean sheet for the first 2 games, causing some people to lose confidence on their defense.
- Liverpool, one of the best defence team, conceded 7 goals in 4 games.

Now what do you see? Working on the predicted items and it's sounds easy. Right? And what about the unpredicted? The risk are fairly high and you might possibly lose out big meat or fire blanks by betting on it. We have other sure things to bet on. Let's read further.

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Outsiders. Yes. We're referring to those teams that are not so likely to challenge for the league title this season, mainly because of the lack of consistency. While fantasy game is all about form, we have to make the most out of it and buy the cheaper players at the best timing.

How to determine which outsider teams or players to invest on? Two things to check, one is by player, another is by team. Both methods coming with some risk.

By player: every team will have one or two key players that can make differents, even in disadvantage situation. How to identify them? Even beginners can figure them out. Yup, just check out their last season's performance. A few examples: Young(AV), Gamst Pedersen(Bla), Matthew Taylor(Bol), Cahill and Arteta(Eve), Dempsey(Ful), Jones(Sun), Carlton Cole(WH). You will also notice that they are usually the most costly players in their team (Because they worth it!) With this you know which players to look for when you pick on a team.

By team: check the schedule. Look out for easy meat. Identify the relegation favourites and pick players from the teams that face them. Now lets get an example from the fixture list of first 4 gameweek:

AV: Wig(H),------,Liv(A),Ful(H)

Yup, you will easily think that Villa will excel in the bolded games. Well, not quite accurate for this one, as they lost to Wigan but won at Liverpool. But basically that's the idea we're looking for. Let's say that we judge Villa to have easy fixtures coming soon. Who will you invest on? Pick the cheapest from first choice defenders, and then influential players, which, in this case, Young, Agbonlahor, or Milner.

Other teams that I judged to have relatively easier fixture in the first 4 gameweeks:
Tot: Liv(H),Hul(A),WH(A),Bir(H)
Sto: Bur(H),Liv(A),Bir(A),Sun(H)
Por: Ful(H),Bir(A),Ars(A),MC(H) (Alright, wrong judgement)

Worth a bet, right? You know who to pick.

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Missing fixture. Yup. Every season we have the same dilemma. You have some players you really wish to choose. But they miss second gameweek due to European matches, which, for this season they are: MC,Ars,AV,WH,Ful,Eve,Bla, and Bol. In my opinion, it's a wise decision not to pick from these teams until GW3. It's good if they score. But if they don't, You'll lose further in GW2 and nothing to compensate, as half of your team will not be playing. Not worth it. definitely.

Anyway, there's still teams from the lists which performs extremely well. Man City and Arsenal. Excusable as they are considered big teams. But for the rest, the risk is too high.

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Now for the wrap-up.

Maybe you had heard people said this before: "Don't put all eggs in one basket." Does this applies here? I've seen people buying Cech, Terry and Bosingwa in the start of last season and went on to win lots of points, as Chelsea got 10 clean sheets out of first 14 games (Bosingwa scored a few goals too). And remember Man Utd once went 14 games without conceding a goal. This is an exceptional case. When you do it right you get an edge over teams who spread their eggs. For this season we saw a good example on Stoke City and Burnley. Nice and cheap, aren't they? 4.0 each for the defence and then save the rest for star players. How nice! It might be risky to invest on Burnley(You don't even know who's playing) but Stoke City did have an easier fixture ahead. Discover it earlier and you are in front of many others. HOWEVER, do not think that you can hold on to them forever, unexpected situations happens. Make necessary change when time comes.

What choice had I made for the season-start? I picked 3 Chelsea, 3 Man Utd, 2 Portsmouth, 2 Stoke, 1 Liverpool for my first team. Chelsea, Man Utd and Stoke players are doing great, while Portsmouth and Liverpool are wrong bets. Add it up I still get a fine score. Would have fared better if I trust on Stoke more. Failing to identify Man City and Tottenham as great season-starter also costs me a lot.

Gameweek 4 my team review

3941 rank is my personal high in 6 years participation. A great achievement. But it could have been higher as Dunne didn't play in Man City's 1-0 win at Portsmouth. Team value is my main concern. The current players don't seem to be popular choice. Is keen to find a solution to reduce the total costs of defensive line.

Was expecting to get 90pts for this gameweek but 68 is a fine score. Carragher conceding goals again and Dunne didn't play are situations that out of my expectations. However Ashley Cole's goal for Chelsea and Rooney's penalty against Arsenal are both bonus results for me and made good compensation for the missing points. The exclusion of Koumas from Wigan starting line-up also surprises me. Might need to remove him from the squad soon.

Premier League will now enter a two weeks break and will resume on 12 Sept. Other Cup fixture:
5,9 Sept - World Cup qualifier and International Friendlies
15 Sept - European Champions League Group Stage 1st match
17 Sept - Europa League Group Stage 1st match
21 Sept (week beginning) - English League Cup 3rd round

Look out for player's form and any injury news.