After my post on the team psychology of Leicester, we’re back to normality with talk of Sky Fantasy Football. With almost all the fantasy big guns misfiring and my differential transfers shooting blanks, gameweek 39 turned out to be a non-event. Having spent all my transfers and my team in slight disarray, I’m not overly hopeful for the last 2 weeks.
0 transfers left
0.5 banked
Where to start? Robles could be benched, Alderweireld could be injured, Fuchs and Mahrez could be rested, Bellerin and Iwobi face a tough fixture, Sturridge is highly unlikely to play both of his fixtures and Kane may be part of a demotivated Spurs outfit.
This coupled with just 2 captains means I’m expecting the worse. Still, there are reasons to remain optimistic. I somehow climbed a few places last week and with transfers in the top 100 down to just 0.58, many will be in the same boat. I’m also not trying to catch anyone either, just defending my lead, so it’s up to others to take a gamble.
Double trouble
With 6 teams having 2 fixtures this week and opportunity to have up to 4 captains, those with transfers in the bag could make a significant move up the rankings. Payet, Smalling, Robles and Sturridge will have a double for me, but I’m far from convinced the latter 2 will play both. Sitting duck comes to mind!
Captain strategy
Kane is locked in as Spurs play hosts to The Saints at white hart lane. I have to hope that Tottenham and Kane aren’t too deflated as Southampton have picked up real form recently. Hopefully Kane will be gunning for the golden boot and manage to nick a couple of goals. I’ll then probably switch it to Payet, or possibly even Sturridge if I think he will start against his old club.
Your strategy
What’s your strategy this week? Any transfers left? Let me know in the comments.
Don’t forget you can follow me on twitter and join in with discussion on our facebook group.
Sky Fantasy Football Forum 
Good luck, its all I can say. It’s hit and hope now.
Thanks for the work you’ve put into this. You could do one of these on the fpl game, it might make more come to this site. Nothing too complicated just a discussion of future gameweeks and future strategies would be good. Fpl will always have more complicated websites that people will go to, so a little chill out website/discussion might be a good idea.
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Thanks, appreciate the kind words. I do enjoy fpl but it’s very much secondary for me and I take way more punts (-12 this week and Carroll triple C).
If I was just looking for traffic, I would definitely make some fpl related posts as there is way more interest in that game.. but my goal was to create somewhere to discuss Sky. Thanks to you guys this has been achieved on here and also on the Facebook group.
Am I right in thinking you make those great posts “what the fans say” over on FFS? Maybe you could set up an fpl site that is similar to this? Or, if you want, I would be happy to let you post on here…? I do enjoy the more chilled out discussion compared to some other sites, and it would be nice to have something similar for fpl 🙂
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If I’m around to play fantasy next year I could do a few posts here. I don’t like doing posts if I’ve got nothing good to say, but I’m good at fpl there’s a few tricks. So I could have an offshoot corner to discuss my team etc. There’s a trick where if an opponent has spent loads of money on a defender, then just get a midfielder from that team. So next season most will probably get a Man City defender, midfielder and striker which looks good but having two midfielders(if they’re good) will make you lose only 3 points if they keep a cleansheet and give you a good chance of picking cleansheets better with rotation.
Fantasy has a lot of luck involved but it can be played well too. At around december time there was about a million people with the same team. The only movements during that stretch were people who owned Butland. So that’s where playing the game well comes in handy, I understand everyone loves the ‘form over fixtures’ thing but it won’t work if everyone has the same team. I’m 16k in fpl and I haven’t tried at all as I’m not playing for money but there’s always new things to discuss.
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Looks like you have some interesting things to say and a fresh perspective is always nice to read. Lets see where we both are next season and we can go from there 🙂
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I’ve enjoyed following this site, Will. There aren’t any others that follow the Sky game that I’ve come across, so I hope you do it again next season! Good luck in the last few matches….it’s always a bit of luck needed at this stage. You’ve had a great season. I have gone for Costa as captain. No more transfers now, so I hope he stays in the pitch for 3 games……
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Thanks Horneto, always good to hear people are enjoying the site, keeps me motivated to write more! I can’t make any promises, but I plan to keep it going next season.
Costa got you some points today at least!
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Fabregas (c) for me, then switching to Sturridge for Sunday and Wednesday.
One transfer remaining, which is likely to be Sanchez/Aguero for Sturridge next weekend.
Have really enjoyed the site Will. Hope you bring it back next year 🙂
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Sturridge looks the best move for you, although don’t be surprised if he doesn’t start both.
Thanks for all the encouragement and the input you have had. Those captaincy strategy excel sheets you produced have been a nice take also, and popular by the looks of it (I can see how many clicks they get!)
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Can only echo the sentiments of the guys above. Following this site and the advice of everyone here has seen me climb the rankings to within the top 200 – my best ever since playing the game, so a huge thanks is in order. I’ve made good use of those excel sheets too Ian 🙂
Onto my gameweek, yesterday did absolutely nothing for my rank. Fabregas (c) got his basic 4×2, the Hammers shockingly fell flat, and that late Everton goal cost me a double Leicester clean sheet. A measly 13 points with Cech, Ozil, Sanchez & Kane to play today.
Therefore I ask for one last piece of advice to see my season through if I may? 1 transfer left and yesterdays events mean I now have no idea what to do with it. Do I follow through with Fab > Aguero and then a (c) swap to Payet on Tuesday? Or do I attempt the Liverpool route knowing full well I’ll be lucky to get 2 games (can’t see any of the EL final team getting a game at West Brom on the final day). Maybe there’s an option I’m missing?
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Cheers Paul, thanks for the kind words and glad its helped you out.
The only other option would be Kane(s) > Defoe(t). Defoe got motm yesterday, Sunderland need a win to survive and they are playing a woeful Everton who seem to want to get rid of their manager.
I don’t fancy the Liverpool route myself, so it would be between kun and defoe for me.
I find it helps to write out the difference between the 2:
Aguero (ARS) Aguero (ARS) Payet (MUN) Aguero (swa) Kane (new) = 6 players
Kane (SOU) Defoe (EVE) Defoe (EVE) Defoe (wat) Fab (liv) Fab (Lei) = 7 players
Tough choice, I marginally prefer the Defoe route, although Aguero could easily explode.. good luck whichever way you go!
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Thanks Will. Despite fancying Defoe to outscore Payet midweek, I was unsure on Kane for today so went for the explosiveness of Aguero in the end.
Worked out today at least!
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Nice, good call by the looks of it.
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Would also like to say thanks to Will for running the site. Really hope you keep it going for next season. Would be great to have a place where we can have chilled out discussions on pre season options!
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Cheers Sam, I plan to keep it going, but you never know with these things.
A question to everyone – are you able to make comments on here using your phones? I can’t on mine but not sure if its because of my phone, because of the theme or a wordpress issue?
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I can on an iPhone if you can see this 🙂
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Cheers Ian, iphone here as well. Although not updated my ios for a while, so that might be it
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What are you doing about the captain swap? Are you changing to payet or going to take the risk of sturridge?
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Still haven’t decided. Leaning towards risking Sturridge. Payet will probably play out wide again and Man U have a LOT to play for now, so I can’t see a big score from Payet.
Sturridge should be motivated against his old club, Chelsea’s defence is also not as good as ManU’s. My only worry is Klopp benching him, but I’m 90% sure he will start?
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He’s also playing for a place in the europa final, it’s very likely klopp’ll play firmino up front on his own in that game. klopp said he’ll play a full strength team against chelsea too. I have gomes to fall back on if sturridge doesnt start
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Sticking with Sturridge if he starts. Transfer swap for Hazard, possibly, if he doesn’t. Although likely to keep that for Aguero or Sanchez on Sunday.
However, I expect Klopp to go for it against Chelsea then play the under-17s at the Hawthorns.
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Sounds good Ian. Don’t forget you’ll have an extra cap swap from Thursday
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But no transfer if I use it tomorrow.
Is (x2) Hazard or Hazard/ANOther likely to outscore a non-playing Sturridge and Sanchez/Agueru?
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I fancy Sturridge to start, but if he doesn’t I think you have to make the transfer to Haz
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Fairly straight-forward then:
Sturridge starts 🙂
Costa out 😦
Transfer for Sunday will be Costa to Aguero/Sanchez(c)
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At least that makes your decision easy. Fingers crossed Sturridge can do something tonight… I fear I should have gone with Payet, but you never know!
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