The Fantasy Stuff Legends Are Made Of
For brevity's sake, I'm going to skip the game previews and discuss Studs and Duds as well as a predicted Gameweek 20 Best Eleven... It's that "in between" period in the holiday season, and we all have family / extracurricular / etc. obligations so let's go brief for these midweek fixtures... Hope you enjoyed the Christmas Benayoun tip and apologies in advance for the truncated midweek preview...
STUDS and DUDS:
This gameweek sees four teams playing twice - Arsenal, Bolton, Fulham, and Stoke. Arsenal are not only the best team but also have the easiest fixtures - taking on 18th placed Bolton and 20th placed Portsmouth this week. Armand Traore (4M) is a very cheap stud as are all the usual attacking suspects.
If you are short on cash - look at Ramsey (4.8M) and Diaby (5.6M) as potential additions to your squad... They could feature in at least 1 of the 2 Arsenal games and are both studs for their prices...
Studs Bolton are home to Hull but then at Arsenal, so it's really just 1.5 games for then this week. Hold and play all your Bolton players if you have them, but if you are looking to invest, Arsenal's "cheaper" studs mentioned above look juicier...
Studs Fulham have two difficult away games (Chelsea and Stoke) - though they are in excellent defensive form. Again, play your Fulham players as studs - but investing at this point doesn't seem to make too much sense - especially with their best defender Brede Hangeland doubtful with a knee problem. They are close to the stud / dud fence but all of their attacking players (Dempsey, Duff, Zamora, Murphy, etc.) should be started...
Lastly, I'm not quite sure what to make of Stoke this double gameweek. They have a great schedule - two home games (Birmingham and Fulham) but are out of form, and despite the "Aura" around Sorensen and their defense, they have actually only kept 3 clean sheets out of 8 home games this season... Shawcross is a major doubt for the Birmingham game, and while I can see one clean sheet out of two perhaps, I can't see two clean sheets in this one. Again, play your Stoke players but you are better off investing in Arsenal's cheap studs than buying into Stoke at this point...
Buying players from those 4 teams will insure that you have studs this week, but make sure to look to the long term as well as the short term...
Other studs this week include MANCHESTER CITY and EVERTON players. I feel they put together nice performances on Boxing Day and that momentum could carry over into the week...
Duds this week, to no major surprise, include Burnley players, Wolves players, and West Ham players. The likes of Alexander and Bikey (frequently owned Burnley players), Craddock (Wolves), and Robert Green and Upson (West Ham) are all cheap and owned by thousands of managers, but face off against formidable attacks...
Lastly, the major dud this week is Christmas rest and rotation, or, more accurately: all 20 Premier League managers. The managers have promised to make a bunch of changes due to rest and injury and the tight fixture list and that could see the likes of high priced players like Rooney and Berbatov (rested for Owen?) or Torres (rested for N'Gog?) perhaps given only limited run-outs. Maybe it's just talk, but the little niggles and cold weather will surely change the complexion of many starting elevens across the country this week. Make sure you have a strong bench or be prepared for some surprises...
Gameweek 20 Best Eleven:
GK: Sorensen
D: Gary Cahill - Gallas - Evra
M: Arshavin - Chung Yong Lee - Pienaar - Tuncay - Lampard
F: Rooney - Tevez
Subs: Kuszczack - Zamora - A. Traore - Faye Ab
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