This week I’ve used my free transfers and two additional, sitting on a -8 points to start the game week. Not how I really wanted to start out or was that end last week. Both hits were done and dusted before the conclusion of the Merseyside Derby. Knee jerk? Oh yeah! No other way to describe it, but Virgil van Dijk, who was “pickforded” is lost for months, while Richarlison was awarded a red card for dangerous play and will miss the next three games. Both players needed to be sorted out ahead of GW6 and I wasted no time resolving the problems. That was before the rumored injury to James Rodriguez, which may have been to deflect the negative attention from his teammate. Maybe this week they have taught Pickford how to slide tackle better.
This will be the first week I am doubled up on the Aston Villa defense. Now this wasn’t necessary a route I wanted to take, but feel this is a good opportunity to jump on the best defense in the league, which feels a lot like Sheffield United from last season, a defense that finished with 13 clean sheets. Emiliano Martinez gets his third start, since bringing him in on wild card and has been one of the best performers for this team since GW3. He will be joined by Konsa Ngoyo (4.6), as I did not have the budget to move to Tyyrone Mings, but honestly it doesn’t matter, as both defenders are top in the league when measured by VAPM. They host Leeds United and I like Villa to keep it clean this week as Leeds had a very short week and couldn’t hit the target at home last week.
Playing a 3-5-2, Konsa is joined by Andrew Robertson, the best Liverpool defender to start the season, as the Reds face a bad Sheffield United team at Anfield. This has the making to be a lot to nothing and I back the defender to pick up returns at both ends of the pitch. Nelson Semedo got off to a good start, as Wolves kept it clean in GW5. Not sure what to expect this week as Newcastle visits Molineux, but the Portuguese side it looking to keep their third CS in a row. The Rodriguez news had the Columbian on the bench in favor of Tyrick Mitchell, but I’ve included decided to move him to the second bench spot behind Charlie Taylor, as Burnley host Spurs.
The inclusion of Rodriguez is curious after some 350k managers moved him this week on midweek news he was not going to play. However, it now appears Carlo Ancelotti was talking out both sides of his mouth and he could start at Southampton. If he doesn’t play, this will hurt Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s chance up front, especially with no Richarlison playing. This was also the week I had planned to move back to Jack Grealish, but already on a -8 point hit, I couldn’t justify bringing in the Villa midfielder and will continue to roll with Phil Foden for one more week. I also feel we will see Kevin de Bruyne get the start at West Ham because someone needs to create for Sergio Aguero, who should return to the starting XI. The word from Fat Frank is that Hakim Ziyech still isn’t fit, so Jorginho remains my fifth midfielder, nailed on penalties and has two assists. No surprised that #AlwaysCaptainSalah continues in my squad and facing a very lucrative fixture against the Blades. Good enough fixture that there could be triple captain implications.
Up top, the move from Richarlison to DCL was easy to make and saved me a bit of budget. There was a more substantial savings when the knee jerk move this week was to drop Raul Jimenez and add Harry Kane, who was owned by 79% of the top 1k managers last week. That’s the second highest ownership behind Salah. I do like Spurs match up against a banged up Burnley side that drew 0-0 on Monday against WBA.
Big expectations this week for this team, in fact bigger than what I anticipate from my 5-man defensive team. Hoping for no less than 70-80 points from this team and looking to improve on a 61.6 PPW average and jump up in a few mini leagues by the end of the week. Good luck