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.)